Life in WWE Creative: Michael Leonardi on Vince, Writers & Politics | Powerbombshells

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[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I'll double G here.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to special show for you on this Monday morning.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Sam Shipman of the Power Bomb shells did an exclusive interview with former WWE writer and producer, Michael Leonardo.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They discuss insights of working for WWE stories from his time there, including the infamous Mohammedasan storyline and working for Vince McMahon in comparison to working for triple H. Now Sam has been doing a few interviews of late and if she wants to put them in this audio feed, we will do that.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, her power bombshells podcast with Mel Gray is exclusively

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[SPEAKER_00]: So here is Sam's interview with former WWE writer and producer Michael Leonardo.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, everybody.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to a special interview on Power Bombshell.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Today, I am joined by former WWE writer and producer, Michael Lee and Arty.

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[SPEAKER_01]: We have a lot to talk about today.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So we are going to dive right on into it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So talk to, obviously, everybody who is here are wrestling fan.

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[SPEAKER_01]: How did you get into wrestling and how did you decide that that's

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[SPEAKER_01]: you know that you want to try your hand at writing and producing in the wrestling industry.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for sure.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So, from a really, really young age, I knew that I wanted to tell stories through filming television.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And that happened for me when I was, I remember it very distinctly, I was 40 years old.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I was living in California at the time.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And at home, I watched, started watching Star Wars that I told the brothers, Star Wars, Empire Strikes back stuff like that.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I actually went and saw a return of the Jedi in the movie theater in 1983, and just remember walking out of there being like, you know, A, asked my dad or whatever it was like, what do you call the person that makes the movies or whatever he's like, oh, you know, it's the, you know, George Lucas, this is the director, you know, obviously there's more to it, but I'm like, that's what that's what I want to do when I grow up.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And from that point literally on, I knew that I wanted to be in film and television.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And so,

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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, shortly thereafter, obviously, Hulchomania came into the global vision, you know, and so naturally so I was, you know, probably when I started watching wrestling was 80, 485, 85 probably got the, you know, got the L.J.N.

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[SPEAKER_02]: character, the rubber dolls, and...

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[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_02]: all the stuff.

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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I was hooked like every other kid my age at that time.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah quickly thereafter, you know, pro wrestling became a huge love of mine.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And like a lot of other people as well, when we got into like the early 90s, started to drop off a little bit.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I was also going through my teenage years, a lot of other things going on at that time that drew my interest.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So

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[SPEAKER_02]: But I always loved telling, you know, doing film and TV stuff, I would make movies with my friends when I was younger in high school, I took television production and we ran a local cable show, you know, so I was, I was throughout my childhood and into my teen years,

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[SPEAKER_02]: you know, I was always still focused on being in film and television.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Through college, I got a degree in film and television from the Eurasian Maryland Independent Studies.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Did internships, things of that nature, and actually it was in college when I got back into wrestling, and this was the attitude era, right?

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[SPEAKER_02]: So the attitude era drew so many of us back into wrestling

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[SPEAKER_02]: It was so hot back then.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And so I really, really, really ramped up.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And as I started getting near the end of my college career, you know, looking at where I wanted to work and what I wanted to do, I lived in New York City at the time my parents lived there.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So I came back home.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, even remember, I put when it was like really exciting, right, when, you know, WWE buy it out at WCW, that was in the spring of 2001.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the cool things is, you know, the invasion poster came out.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Not too long thereafter.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I put that poster on my screen save on my computer and Cajum like my goal was to be working for the company by the time invasion hit, which was I think was in July of 2001.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So I was very held-bent on trying to work for a WWE, and another reason too is I can film and television, obviously the majority, not the majority, but the majority of the more entertainment based.

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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the film studios and things that nature are on the west coast.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And I certainly had thought about that, and at one point, I actually, my father, my family, like my father's side is all a tiny native, like they all still live in Italy except for my father.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I spent a...

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[SPEAKER_02]: year abroad, there are semester abroad, and there's a big studio in Rome.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I even thought about staying in this country with Chinachita.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So I was very much like, hey, I want to do this, but I also had lutes in New York.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So I didn't, I was trying to find something in New York, you know, I'd done some internships with CBS sports and CBS news with Dan Rather, but TV in that sense, like news was not

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I want to work for you know, I wanted to do something in entertainment.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So so long story short, I actually got a job out of college in attempt to permanent position with mirror max films in New York City because mirror max had offices in New York City.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So, I was really super lucky for that, and it's interesting enough, and I'm sure we'll talk a bit about this, but about workplace culture.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And certainly the culture in WWE.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Funny enough, my first job was at Miramax films when it was being run by, oh gosh, what's his name now?

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[SPEAKER_02]: The head of Merimax who came under fire for all the the section the me two movement and son Harvey Weinstein Harvey Weinstein right so my first boss first boss was Harvey Weinstein Wow and I I bought in you know I didn't interact with him but I was funny as a as a 21 year old kid who was just pumped to be and doing what he loved and it filmed

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[SPEAKER_02]: Man, you could, you could really truly cut the tension with a nice adapter.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I could pick up on that for as a poost as I was as that age as a young kid.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I, it was so bad that you could, you could feel it.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Like it was, it was a pretty toxic workplace.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And how is like, wow, this place is not great.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And so,

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[SPEAKER_02]: Interestingly enough, I played basketball my whole life, grew up playing basketball in high school and stuff like that.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And after college, I played pickup basketball in the city.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And there was a there was a run that I used to have with a bunch of guys that were in like ad agency positions.

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[SPEAKER_02]: They were film and television guys.

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[SPEAKER_02]: They were DPs or directors or whatever that is.

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[SPEAKER_02]: One of the guys

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[SPEAKER_02]: would occasionally do some contract work for WWE.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And he got my sent my resume in.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I got an interview, and got the job.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So I started, and I got the job.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So I started, and I got the job, and I got the job.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I started the day after King of the Ring.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Well, Booker T came in, he debuted, and threw us in through a table.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So it's just the end of June.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And again, being a fan, obviously, and also getting into that vocation of film and television, it was absolutely a dream job.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So, and then, and I was incredibly, incredibly lucky that my boss, so I got hired as a production assistant in the, what was called the honor promotions department within, at the studio at the television studio and my, my boss was this guy Dave Sahadi.

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[SPEAKER_02]: who has bounced around since WWE, worked for a long time for TNA, I think he did some stuff with him, LW, and stuff like that.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And he was one of the best bosses I've ever had in my entire life.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Like he absolutely shielded us from some of the culture you saw, you know, obviously with Vince and Vince and then Kevin Don and then Dave was there.

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[SPEAKER_02]: But as a fan, I mean, that's how I got started.

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[SPEAKER_02]: It was like every other kid in the 80s, you know, totally blew us away, you know, and to this day, obviously still love pro wrestling.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so like you've talked a little bit about your path, like obviously into WWE, so like once you got your foot in the door kind of walk us through like, you know, how that was and like how you moved up and things like that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And then talk to them about the, you know, the workplace culture that you had to deal with.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for sure.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Started at, um, was at 120 Hamilton, which was the TV studio.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So everybody kind of thinks about the towers, which is no short and no longer occupied.

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[SPEAKER_02]: But the television studio was a separate building, um, you know, about a mile or two away from the tower.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So I worked there, like I said, I worked in the honor of promotions department under Dave Sahadi, a couple of other guys who were very influential for me.

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[SPEAKER_02]: It's guy Kevin Sullivan who went on to do a lot of work with AEW and Barry Ross is another guy's incredibly talented guy.

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[SPEAKER_02]: This Douglas Bow was there as well, Douglas Bow's also done a ton of work.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of kind of OG guys that I've done a lot in the studio and for TV.

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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and it was a lot of it on the job learning too, you know, it was, you know, one thing that's very interesting, just people don't know, like in New York.

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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, obviously New York is heavily unionized.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And so you couldn't edit, like if you wanted to go and jump on an editing machine, at that time we had linear and non-linear editing machine still, non-linear was just coming into play.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_02]: You couldn't actually physically edit.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And I wanted to be able to edit and create stuff as well.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So you're going to get comfortable.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So one of the things that I loved about working in Stanford was I could go in and edit my own stuff, too.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So it was a lot of really learning, conceptualizing, writing scripts, coming up with ideas, getting them approved, then going in there and finding the footage and editing, and then going to post production, going to graphics and stuff like that.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway,

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[SPEAKER_02]: I worked as a production assistant, did kind of boring mundane works of course, but it was it was all really exciting and then, you know, on the on our promotions department.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I was really lucky because we got to do really fun projects.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So the honor of promotions department was really responsible for a bunch of different things.

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[SPEAKER_02]: One thing was, any time there was like an upcoming paper view, we would produce the promotional video for that paper view night back in the day.

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[SPEAKER_02]: When it was all paperview, you would have to give them a video like months and months out, like you're talking maybe three months, wow, you know, away from the actual date.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And so we don't know, you know, there's no storylines yet.

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[SPEAKER_02]: You can't give away anything.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, you have to come up with some more, um,

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[SPEAKER_02]: general theme things.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And this is where we got a lot of like really fun videos.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So I need to look like old summer slam barbecue videos.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_02]: You have Brock Lesnar fiving a shark in the beach.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_02]: There was a great one for survivors here that I was just thinking about when John Cena was really, really young.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I got to hang out with him in Mount Vernon, New York.

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[SPEAKER_02]: We did this thing around football because it was like a football motif.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So we got to do these really fun projects where it was, you know, we bring in talent, we do some really kind of.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And Dave Sahadi was kind of known for doing fun, different like comedic things.

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[SPEAKER_02]: He was one that did the one at the, at the tower's where, you know, it's like a, they're like walking through the office and someone gets thrown through the past.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Like those types of videos.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So from there, we would do that.

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[SPEAKER_02]: We also were responsible for vignettes.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And that's where a lot of them, kind of the Mohammed Hassan stuff comes from.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Because our department was responsible.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Anyone that was coming in, that was new, either not been coming or somebody coming in from WCW or whatever that was, whenever we had to do whether it was mysterious vignettes, or, you know,

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[SPEAKER_02]: We were also responsible for those as well.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So we would do like promotional paper view video, we would do character vignettes.

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[SPEAKER_02]: We would also do like the cold opens for the paper views.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Not for the shows themselves, but for the paper views.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So honor promotions.

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[SPEAKER_02]: did actually and had its hand in a lot of different projects at the end of the day.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So I did that for a few years.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I was lucky enough that I got promoted pretty quickly.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Once Dave saw how he left and we had John Gaborik who's better known as big, he was the original guy that was part of the tough enough of series.

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[SPEAKER_02]: He ended up coming in and

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[SPEAKER_02]: managing that department and I was promoted to associate producer and kind of my roles and responsibilities continue to increase where I spend more time on some of these projects, either spearheading them or assisting in some way and that was the role that I served up until 2005 when I left the company.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, yes, you did like a lot you did a lot and so what was it like kind of you said you wanted to be there like by the time invasion started.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So what was that like to be able to be like to to meet that like you basically manifested that goal and so what like to have that come to fruition so quickly.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was a big surreal, you know, it's yeah, what what you know it's like.

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[SPEAKER_02]: When you're hell bent on trying to do something, you know, look, you, you, you, you network, you make calls, you do whatever you can to get it in and yeah, you know, I just was very lucky.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I had the, I had the wreck was it resume, I, you know, I went to school for that.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I had, I had, I had done a lot of really great internships and stuff.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So I was just lucky enough, right place, right time, but to be able to, um, as a fan, um,

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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it was, it was surreal.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And really funny sites are as you just kind of note this.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And this is like the whole conversation about, I've heard people talk about this in the past about like having like marks in the business.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So my, like all the wrestlers are marks.

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[SPEAKER_02]: They were like, yeah, right.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Fans, you know, I think I remember a big show.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I think famously said at one point about like, you know, the trouble about having marks in the business.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And it's funny, like,

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[SPEAKER_02]: most of the rest of his big show is obviously a very unique talent because he part of part of what brought him into the in the wrestling was because of this sheer size.

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[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't necessarily he wasn't necessarily a fan growing up, but you know, well, you better be a fan obviously because you need to know the product.

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[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I, yeah, right, exactly.

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[SPEAKER_01]: That's that you walk people because if you have, I mean, sure there's people from the outside who can add entertainment value, but if you don't know the product and you don't have the background, then you're not gonna be able to, I think you're not gonna be able to connect with fans in an authentic way.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Correct.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I agree a thousand percent.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So, but the side story was when I first came in, we had this,

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[SPEAKER_02]: room in the studio called the Tape Room, which was really quite literally all where the like, if we're doing any kind of satellite stuff, if we're kind of sending stuff off to UPN or ingesting things, it's where everything got brought in archive-wise video-wise stuff like that.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And there's a guy in there, I remember, Zayn was Steve, and he's to call me Mark.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, my name's Mike, you know, and it's like, I've been calling me, Mark, and I didn't pick up on it for like a month that he was obviously ripping me, just calling Mark all the time, I'm like,

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[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought we got them like, oh, I see, like, because in the point was, like, you know, I did my job, it was never inappropriate, but like, of course, yeah, you love what you do.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yeah.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, you're doing your job and getting to like, be in wrestling.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Getting to getting to interact and work with like, every wrestler, you know, that you can imagine, was amazing.

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[SPEAKER_02]: It was surreal.

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[SPEAKER_02]: It was a dream job.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And what were I think some of the things that we kind of hear like with these jobs and things like that are the hours.

18:35.904 --> 18:42.931
[SPEAKER_01]: So what were the hours like we're Especially when you're getting ready for a paper view and things like that were you working like in like 12 and 14 hour a day.

18:43.492 --> 18:54.523
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, for sure.

18:54.503 --> 19:03.552
[SPEAKER_02]: I would sleep there a lot because especially so one of my jobs was

19:04.966 --> 19:08.593
[SPEAKER_02]: One of my jobs was logging the shows as a production assistant.

19:08.753 --> 19:18.310
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things you would do is you would log the shows real time for sound bites or for shots that you thought were just like an awesome shot, right?

19:18.350 --> 19:25.383
[SPEAKER_02]: So I literally had to be there with a pen and pad for, you know, two, three hours and just write the time code and write the shot.

19:25.884 --> 19:27.126
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

19:27.106 --> 19:35.936
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and so I would oftentimes when it was, you know, the show ended at 11, I lived in New York City at the time.

19:35.996 --> 19:41.483
[SPEAKER_02]: So like, commuting back and then, you know, parking, getting to bed and then just getting back up and getting back to work.

19:41.843 --> 19:42.965
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, I'm just going to sleep here.

19:43.025 --> 19:49.232
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, there was a little known it was a, uh, uh, there was a not a secret, but

19:49.212 --> 20:01.171
[SPEAKER_02]: In the studio, they had like a, they had a place for makeup, like when people came in, because we had a studio where people would come in and so there was a makeup artist there, all who, who wonderful woman.

20:01.952 --> 20:11.347
[SPEAKER_02]: And it just so happened, there was like a little room off of the makeup room that had a bed, a TV, and a bathroom with a shower.

20:12.108 --> 20:12.629
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

20:13.030 --> 20:13.110
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

20:13.090 --> 20:19.379
[SPEAKER_02]: We knew there's certain days we knew when like Chris Lawler, who's an amazing, amazing producer.

20:19.479 --> 20:20.560
[SPEAKER_02]: He was the head of SmackDown.

20:20.580 --> 20:21.562
[SPEAKER_02]: It was the SmackDown producer.

20:21.602 --> 20:26.969
[SPEAKER_02]: He would sleep there because when the tapes came back on Tuesdays, you know, he'd work all night, right?

20:27.029 --> 20:27.249
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

20:27.290 --> 20:32.136
[SPEAKER_02]: He would, we knew like there's certain days you don't take the room because, you know, Chris needed it or somebody else.

20:32.156 --> 20:32.356
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

20:32.657 --> 20:33.478
[SPEAKER_02]: But, right.

20:33.458 --> 20:42.829
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, when I could, I would sleep there, I'd sleep at Monday night and then, you know, bring my stuff shower and then just I'd be ready for work in the morning.

20:42.910 --> 20:44.331
[SPEAKER_02]: So, but yeah, we work.

20:44.712 --> 20:53.643
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd say we average probably 60, you know, like 60 hours more or less just about 12 hours days for them apart, but yeah.

20:53.663 --> 20:54.183
[SPEAKER_02]: It was fun.

20:54.263 --> 20:56.646
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, like, for most of us, it was enjoyable stuff.

20:56.666 --> 20:59.530
[SPEAKER_02]: So, if you put what you do, you know, it's not that bad.

20:59.550 --> 20:59.770
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you

20:59.750 --> 21:01.533
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's good.

21:01.613 --> 21:04.798
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have a favorite story that you worked on?

21:04.818 --> 21:08.083
[SPEAKER_01]: Our favorite vignette or any package or anything like that?

21:08.384 --> 21:08.784
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, man.

21:09.926 --> 21:12.530
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I want to say first of all, there's so many people.

21:13.171 --> 21:19.622
[SPEAKER_02]: There's so many talented people that don't get like acknowledged in my opinion in the studio.

21:19.682 --> 21:23.648
[SPEAKER_02]: Like there were so many amazing people.

21:23.881 --> 21:37.757
[SPEAKER_02]: What, and the reason why I say this is one of the things I'll tell you that I didn't work on this one, but I'll share a couple of that I did work on, but like Adam Penucci, who is he was the head producer for Roy, he's still there.

21:37.797 --> 21:39.339
[SPEAKER_02]: Adam is an amazing person.

21:39.920 --> 21:42.543
[SPEAKER_02]: Chris Waller as I mentioned before, it's so talented.

21:42.583 --> 21:48.049
[SPEAKER_02]: Heather Mitchell did a lot of the home videos, Robson, Guina.

21:48.029 --> 21:57.297
[SPEAKER_02]: Chris Hargento was the audio engineer who had done any video you've seen that you love like he put his hands on it.

21:57.968 --> 22:02.393
[SPEAKER_02]: Just so many, so many talented individuals that did such great work.

22:02.433 --> 22:12.265
[SPEAKER_02]: One of my favorite videos still to this day was the package that Adam did, which is the rock Austin, WrestleMania 17 video.

22:12.726 --> 22:14.027
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

22:14.108 --> 22:16.811
[SPEAKER_02]: Limbiscuit my white, still one of the favorite packages.

22:16.891 --> 22:18.032
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's not one.

22:19.053 --> 22:26.102
[SPEAKER_02]: But in terms of my favorite stuff that I worked on, I would say that

22:26.082 --> 22:30.708
[SPEAKER_02]: my favorite project was WrestleMania 21 vignettes.

22:30.728 --> 22:32.951
[SPEAKER_02]: So this was when WrestleMania goes Hollywood.

22:32.971 --> 22:39.400
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is what we recreated all these famous kind of Hollywood scenes.

22:39.861 --> 22:48.051
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I worked on, I was given the opportunity to fly down, we flew down to Tampa, and we filmed over the course of a couple of days.

22:48.112 --> 22:53.659
[SPEAKER_02]: We filmed two of those in the same studio.

22:53.639 --> 23:13.177
[SPEAKER_02]: The basic instinct one with Stacy Keybler, Chris Jericho, Christian, Chris Benoit, and the other one which was probably my favorite was the pulp fiction one with Eddie Guerrero and Booker T, which was my absolute favorite.

23:13.317 --> 23:16.500
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, got to spend a lot of time with all those guys.

23:16.980 --> 23:23.646
[SPEAKER_02]: Got, I remember at the time getting to meet Eddie's family, his wife at the time Vicki, obviously,

23:23.626 --> 23:35.827
[SPEAKER_02]: it was just fun, it was you know it was a new project and I edited those, I ended up editing those myself and it was a really fun project.

23:36.188 --> 23:47.828
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah and I think that's a project that a lot of people still remember too like it was such a cool thing that you know yeah like you said because the go probably wanted to just taking that the movies and adding and wrestling which obviously

23:47.808 --> 23:51.073
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, we're seeing a lot more of that, uh, even continue to do.

23:51.253 --> 23:57.403
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that kind of, like, is that so I think that kind of, I think that's why it's probably so memorable because it was one of the first.

23:57.884 --> 24:00.488
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were so much fun and they were really well done.

24:00.908 --> 24:04.654
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, very, very boss was the main producer on all those.

24:04.774 --> 24:13.107
[SPEAKER_02]: And I guess that was lucky enough that he let me tag along for, uh, getting out of Stanford, like I didn't, I didn't, um,

24:13.087 --> 24:21.017
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't fly very often to the shows at the time, so being able to get out and go do something different was super fun.

24:21.037 --> 24:21.838
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, I bet.

24:21.858 --> 24:30.589
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, especially in the getting to work like one on one with a talent like that, you know, that thing like it would be, especially as a wrestling fan, you know, that's a really cool thing to do.

24:30.609 --> 24:34.133
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for obviously,

24:34.619 --> 24:59.260
[SPEAKER_01]: a lot of people are probably familiar with you the Rolling Stone article that came out we're talking about, you know, the talk to various writers for WWE and a lot of obviously a lot of topics that came up and you know, I think most people who they're who did read it, they know about the Muhammad Hassan storyline and then there was also, I believe you were also involved in the story line with, uh,

24:59.240 --> 25:07.009
[SPEAKER_01]: Pack who was at the time was level about some things that he had to say so other people who may not remember that.

25:07.049 --> 25:09.132
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you kind of touch on that a little bit?

25:09.152 --> 25:09.452
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah sure.

25:09.572 --> 25:09.812
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

25:10.033 --> 25:12.535
[SPEAKER_02]: So two very different roles again at the time, right?

25:12.556 --> 25:14.818
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'll I'll address Mohammed Hassan first.

25:14.838 --> 25:20.725
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, kind of as I mentioned, obviously our department was responsible for the vignettes.

25:20.705 --> 25:38.899
[SPEAKER_02]: So at the time Barry Brost is again, who was my, what I would say my mentor and my kind of more media boss, he was tasked with producing the, how many, how many of us on vignettes and they, I forget how many we did eventually maybe like four or five or something like that.

25:38.879 --> 25:48.530
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I was part of those vignettes, I was there as an assistant, you know, associate producer, whatever, and helped out.

25:49.071 --> 25:50.873
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't remember if I edited any of it or not.

25:50.893 --> 25:51.653
[SPEAKER_02]: I was actually in it.

25:51.674 --> 25:54.937
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm the TSA agent in front of the class.

25:55.037 --> 25:58.862
[SPEAKER_02]: If you go back and you see the bald guy that's like patting him down, that's me.

25:59.482 --> 26:00.724
[SPEAKER_02]: A little easter egg.

26:00.844 --> 26:03.587
[SPEAKER_02]: But so, you know,

26:03.567 --> 26:14.950
[SPEAKER_02]: It was, you know, and I think obviously the dark side of the ring, I was asked to be on that and kind of to kind of tell that story a little bit more in depth and be, you know, be a small part of it.

26:15.651 --> 26:18.657
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought it was a very accurate.

26:19.008 --> 26:21.572
[SPEAKER_02]: um, depiction of kind of what happened.

26:21.592 --> 26:24.236
[SPEAKER_02]: Like in the beginning, the character was great.

26:24.416 --> 26:33.911
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought the character, you know, again, I mean Vince was always the one to try and have this kind of foreign heel type thing, and we've seen that throughout the decades, right?

26:33.931 --> 26:35.914
[SPEAKER_02]: This was like a different twist on that.

26:35.975 --> 26:36.455
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I mean?

26:36.495 --> 26:45.910
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, okay, it's, but he's an American, you know, and he was obviously, you know, preaching about the, you know, how, you know,

26:45.890 --> 26:48.595
[SPEAKER_02]: anti-Islamic or anti-air.

26:48.876 --> 26:53.124
[SPEAKER_02]: The culture was at the time because of obviously what was going on or receives and everything.

26:53.144 --> 26:57.372
[SPEAKER_02]: So I thought the actual concept was great in the beginning.

26:57.392 --> 26:58.434
[SPEAKER_02]: I think everyone did.

26:58.454 --> 27:04.506
[SPEAKER_02]: I think everyone felt like this was a cool, you know, way to, you know, really grab some heat and clearly like,

27:04.486 --> 27:06.590
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, he got to work with legends.

27:07.191 --> 27:08.693
[SPEAKER_02]: And it really did.

27:08.714 --> 27:16.287
[SPEAKER_02]: It got to a point where as you know, as people know this, you know, the character started to get more and more extreme.

27:16.708 --> 27:18.651
[SPEAKER_02]: It started to get more and more stereotypical.

27:18.811 --> 27:19.072
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

27:19.092 --> 27:26.445
[SPEAKER_02]: They brought in a broad in the henchmen and started in that that whole episode with the tip with taker and everything else like that.

27:27.347 --> 27:28.148
[SPEAKER_02]: So

27:28.702 --> 27:39.814
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the backlash, like what I said, honestly, was that in the moment, so it was happening in real time and there was just so much uncertainty with everything.

27:39.874 --> 27:47.523
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, in some ways, the one thing I do want to say is that, you know, the show was taped on a Tuesday, it's edited, right?

27:47.563 --> 27:53.089
[SPEAKER_02]: So the way that it works is the show gets taped on a Tuesday, the tapes fly back.

27:53.069 --> 28:16.461
[SPEAKER_02]: Tuesday night into Wednesday morning sometimes they come back on the jet or most likely whatever depending but usually they can hitch a ride back on the jet they come back you know that night or whatever that next morning they get the tapes Chris Lawler and the team they get the tapes and they get to work and you know past came in and whatever you have to do audio pickup like right it literally they will work

28:17.048 --> 28:26.062
[SPEAKER_02]: from Wednesday morning or whatever it is, all the way through to usually Thursday morning throughout their noon and they'll work through the night.

28:27.003 --> 28:31.450
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they've got to send the tips off to UPN to air on Thursday night.

28:31.490 --> 28:35.716
[SPEAKER_02]: So the turnaround is really, really quick.

28:35.736 --> 28:36.437
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

28:36.798 --> 28:41.064
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, when all of that happened, I think there was just a lot of uncertainty, they weren't sure what to do.

28:41.124 --> 28:43.528
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know,

28:44.082 --> 28:58.320
[SPEAKER_02]: But if it was a really major tragic thing in the sense that not that not saying it wasn't tragic, but if it was so big, they would have figured out something in my opinion, and maybe they would have cut it out and done something else, but they made the call and it was what it was, right, it was a tough call to make.

28:59.241 --> 29:08.552
[SPEAKER_02]: But what I think bothered me was their after, like the week after that, it really, you could see it kind of blew up.

29:08.572 --> 29:12.317
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, there was a lot of pressure to be like,

29:13.681 --> 29:29.800
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think you can't say he couldn't be on screen or whatever that was and it just it just felt very much like we were like real human lives were lost like this was a really big deal and we're kind of leaning into it more.

29:29.780 --> 29:39.861
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I was given the, yeah, I was given the, so again, as part of our department, we would do the commercials for the paperview.

29:39.881 --> 29:43.508
[SPEAKER_02]: So like I mentioned before, when we were three months out, we didn't know what the storylines were.

29:43.568 --> 29:45.713
[SPEAKER_02]: That'd be the generic thing.

29:46.114 --> 29:46.374
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.

29:46.394 --> 29:50.202
[SPEAKER_02]: When we did know the storylines, we would then produce.

29:50.182 --> 29:55.952
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, a 30 second spot or 60 second spot, highlighting one of the matches.

29:56.072 --> 30:06.810
[SPEAKER_02]: So for that event, you know, usually you do, there's probably about three packed three commercials will make, three matches that we want to highlight more or less, right?

30:07.050 --> 30:07.611
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

30:07.631 --> 30:11.497
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I was assigned the undertaker, Muhammad Hassan one.

30:11.918 --> 30:16.746
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was just like, man, I don't want to be associated with this.

30:16.726 --> 30:37.755
[SPEAKER_02]: This is wrong, you know, this is bullshit, this is whatever, where I think we're taking it too far, and I said, look, I'm, I kind of, just was like, I'm not going to do it, I'm sorry, like give me, give me another package, I'll do something else, I just right don't want to do this one, right, and they did, they gave me Eddie Ray.

30:37.735 --> 30:40.279
[SPEAKER_02]: Which was awesome, which Dominic was in it.

30:40.299 --> 30:44.907
[SPEAKER_02]: This is when they would kind of go in around whether Dominic was Eddie's kid or not, you know, like, yeah.

30:44.927 --> 30:46.149
[SPEAKER_02]: It's still cool now, right?

30:46.209 --> 30:50.456
[SPEAKER_02]: Because, you know, how great that Dominic is doing.

30:50.877 --> 30:51.538
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

30:51.778 --> 30:52.620
[SPEAKER_02]: But they gave me that.

30:52.640 --> 30:54.222
[SPEAKER_02]: So I ended up producing that one.

30:55.404 --> 30:57.027
[SPEAKER_02]: But then I was demoted.

30:57.226 --> 31:13.513
[SPEAKER_02]: and I was, you know, I was not, I'll tell you this too, when John Gabor came in, it was a pretty big adjustment for all of us, I think, you know, and so I think, you know,

31:14.050 --> 31:20.959
[SPEAKER_02]: I got along with big, but I didn't love his management style and I was young too to be honest, and it's a good guy.

31:21.000 --> 31:28.670
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I was probably a little also already, like a little fed up with some of the stuff that was going on and there was a lot of other things I'm not gonna get into.

31:29.131 --> 31:29.331
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

31:29.351 --> 31:36.981
[SPEAKER_02]: So part of that also was like not only was I fed up but I was like, I was just like, I'm not doing this, I'm sorry, give me something else.

31:37.001 --> 31:37.642
[SPEAKER_02]: I got demoted.

31:38.303 --> 31:41.087
[SPEAKER_02]: And to me at that point, I felt like,

31:41.692 --> 31:44.838
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, this wasn't anything that came down from Vince.

31:44.878 --> 31:46.762
[SPEAKER_02]: Vince had no idea in that sense, right?

31:47.363 --> 31:48.305
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even think Katie did.

31:48.325 --> 31:49.888
[SPEAKER_02]: This was probably within our department.

31:49.948 --> 31:54.637
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, you know what, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not good with this, whatever.

31:54.677 --> 31:56.941
[SPEAKER_02]: And then eventually once that happened, I got demoted.

31:57.863 --> 32:01.911
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, once UPN came down

32:02.195 --> 32:08.201
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, basically put all this pressure and they killed the story and then I was reinstated.

32:08.221 --> 32:10.404
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, you know, what fuck you guys, right?

32:10.444 --> 32:12.025
[SPEAKER_02]: Not how you just, not how you treat people.

32:12.045 --> 32:12.246
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

32:12.266 --> 32:13.167
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yes.

32:13.187 --> 32:14.088
[SPEAKER_02]: Not leadership.

32:14.128 --> 32:15.369
[SPEAKER_02]: This is not like whatever.

32:15.389 --> 32:23.497
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, well, it's okay now that they set it, you know, when I, when I brought it up, it's like, I got, so I got, right, officially, they're like, yeah, it's in subordination.

32:23.557 --> 32:24.679
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, really?

32:24.839 --> 32:25.159
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

32:25.179 --> 32:28.102
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I, I said, I do something else, you know, and.

32:28.122 --> 32:28.843
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

32:28.823 --> 32:53.160
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, I was just at the time as much as I loved, it was one of the most painful things on us because I loved the business so much right love the company so much you know I was I was not like anti WWE in any way I was just you know I just thought they made really some poor choices and I didn't want to be a part of it, but I love the company I loved the people I worked with I loved everything so I just felt like

32:53.866 --> 32:56.089
[SPEAKER_02]: working under big.

32:56.210 --> 33:01.398
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think he was going to go anywhere for a long time and kind of seeing the way things were being handled.

33:01.418 --> 33:05.123
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to work for that type of person or in that environment.

33:05.163 --> 33:10.812
[SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't see any other, I didn't see any other way out.

33:10.792 --> 33:18.844
[SPEAKER_02]: One thing though, that's interesting, I wanted to bring up is that I was actually during that time, I'd interviewed for a writer's job as well.

33:20.406 --> 33:39.094
[SPEAKER_02]: I had, it was right in, early, I think it was beginning of the O3, I interviewed, I interviewed Stephanie, I then got another interview with, I interviewed all the way to the end, I went through multiple interviews, interviewed with the writing team, and I ended up losing

33:39.074 --> 33:42.598
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going on and having a really long career then.

33:42.778 --> 33:43.039
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

33:43.179 --> 33:45.842
[SPEAKER_02]: Dave and I are friends, but it was pretty cool.

33:45.862 --> 33:50.768
[SPEAKER_02]: So at that point, I really knew I wanted to continue doing that.

33:50.788 --> 33:51.729
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted it right.

33:51.869 --> 33:52.670
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted it right.

33:52.790 --> 33:57.616
[SPEAKER_02]: And so when I left, I didn't feel like I was done with WWE.

33:57.676 --> 34:07.528
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was like, I didn't, but like at some point time, I wanted to try and interview for something or come back in some other capacity later in life.

34:08.015 --> 34:08.295
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

34:08.816 --> 34:18.513
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what was that like so in that time frame, like when you left, so did you kind of try to remember what was the gap between you leaving and when you returned?

34:18.673 --> 34:19.474
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was about 10 years.

34:19.614 --> 34:32.436
[SPEAKER_02]: So I actually interestingly enough, what gave me the courage to actually leave was I had a conversation with Dave Sahadi who was no longer

34:32.585 --> 34:36.899
[SPEAKER_02]: He was no longer there, but he was somebody I really trusted and I love so much.

34:36.919 --> 34:42.055
[SPEAKER_02]: He's just a great mentor and human and, you know, he kind of gave me the

34:42.710 --> 34:49.021
[SPEAKER_02]: piece of mind to pull the trigger on that and I actually went off and became an entrepreneur.

34:49.041 --> 34:52.967
[SPEAKER_02]: So I kind of started my second career kind of what I do now, get into that a little bit later.

34:53.007 --> 35:02.103
[SPEAKER_02]: But I was still, I actually had worked for TNA, so I went over to TNA and I had done on contract basis.

35:02.143 --> 35:06.270
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't an employee, but they brought me in for a few projects.

35:06.250 --> 35:18.081
[SPEAKER_02]: So I went down to Orlando and I also did actually, I think AJ Styles first DVD, like I edited his whole DVD.

35:18.161 --> 35:19.482
[SPEAKER_02]: I did his whole DVD.

35:19.862 --> 35:20.183
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

35:20.203 --> 35:36.257
[SPEAKER_02]: So I got to do and experience a rising promotion at the time in TNA was super fun and did a bunch of events with them as well.

35:36.237 --> 35:43.828
[SPEAKER_02]: I had at one point partnered with Barry Bross as well and we were doing videos as well.

35:43.868 --> 36:01.114
[SPEAKER_02]: So we were kind of like almost like a production company and so I I'd done some random projects and you know like try to keep my you know like try to keep like the the weapons kind of sharp and right you know

36:01.094 --> 36:22.123
[SPEAKER_02]: took on editing jobs here and there or some small production jobs did some other DVDs and some of the other industries but you know I was during that time I was building businesses basically and I worked primarily in health, fitness, mixed martial arts, so I did a lot of stuff in in that.

36:22.745 --> 36:23.045
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

36:24.067 --> 36:28.594
[SPEAKER_01]: So how did you, how did you end up back in WWE and what was that?

36:28.614 --> 36:32.180
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I thought you said you can always kind of figure like that you've lined up there again.

36:32.220 --> 36:40.674
[SPEAKER_01]: So what was that like, what made you finally decide to, you know, to try again and the hat, what was the price was like coming back into after being gone for a decade.

36:41.034 --> 36:41.335
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

36:42.156 --> 36:44.500
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I always, I

36:44.581 --> 36:53.541
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, always loved WWE and pro wrestling and, you know, continue to watch, I didn't, I don't think I watched as much.

36:53.581 --> 37:01.298
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't in it as much as I was obviously when I was working there and other things, just because I got, you know, super busy with business.

37:02.099 --> 37:02.340
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

37:02.701 --> 37:03.282
[SPEAKER_02]: But.

37:03.970 --> 37:11.718
[SPEAKER_02]: Interestingly enough, I was starting to get a little burnt out, and my, as an entrepreneur being an entrepreneur is like, it was working 90 hours.

37:11.818 --> 37:13.920
[SPEAKER_02]: I was, it was intense, right?

37:14.240 --> 37:17.463
[SPEAKER_02]: And I got into a place where I was getting a little burnt out.

37:17.844 --> 37:23.569
[SPEAKER_02]: My, my, my real passion was always film and television and, you know, WWE as well.

37:24.030 --> 37:27.693
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember very clearly I've been thinking about it.

37:27.853 --> 37:31.497
[SPEAKER_02]: And to me, I always, the, for me, the dream job was being a writer.

37:31.477 --> 37:31.978
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

37:32.058 --> 37:34.722
[SPEAKER_02]: I always wanted that was like the pinnacle for me.

37:35.403 --> 37:37.806
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's so funny.

37:37.866 --> 37:53.468
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was thinking about it, thinking about it, and obviously you get a little burnt out, and I kid you not, when the force awakens trailer came out, and December, I think it was like December of 2014.

37:54.157 --> 38:01.448
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if something was just like for me I was like so I'm like this is what I want to do Like this is what I want to do with my life.

38:01.528 --> 38:02.670
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to get back into it.

38:02.690 --> 38:10.401
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what I always said I wanted to do and That prompting me to reach out to some friends.

38:10.722 --> 38:22.780
[SPEAKER_02]: I keep in touch with a lot of people Because we're friends like we were with friends obviously, but you know Facebook and everything so I reach out to a friend of mine Who was a production assistant

38:22.760 --> 38:34.064
[SPEAKER_02]: at the time, under me, who now had a much bigger role in the organization, and he sent my resume in, and interviewed.

38:34.606 --> 38:36.229
[SPEAKER_02]: So I

38:36.682 --> 38:49.528
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember I went to the Royal Rumble, the 2015 Royal Rumble in Philly, that year two, when Roman got booted out of the building and the rock thread, and come in, and you got booted out of the building, which I remember that so clearly.

38:49.548 --> 38:52.935
[SPEAKER_02]: And at that point, I was kind of talking to them.

38:53.995 --> 38:58.099
[SPEAKER_02]: And interviewed with, so I had a right a treatment, you know, I basically had it.

38:58.119 --> 39:02.162
[SPEAKER_02]: Basically what they had me do was they wanted me to write what I would do with the storylines.

39:02.202 --> 39:09.309
[SPEAKER_02]: What would the finishes be and what would be the, what would be the storylines for the next three months post-Muslimania 31?

39:10.310 --> 39:14.253
[SPEAKER_02]: So I remember writing that, I still have that.

39:14.694 --> 39:24.002
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I interviewed Dave Kapoor and Ed Koski, and obviously also interviewed with HR and stuff like that.

39:23.982 --> 39:30.295
[SPEAKER_02]: They had found somebody else, you know, for the job, but they wanted to stay in touch.

39:31.177 --> 39:36.267
[SPEAKER_02]: And then like two weeks later, they're like, we want to hire you.

39:36.708 --> 39:42.700
[SPEAKER_02]: And what had happened is one of the guys, so the guy that they gave the job to was Jim Jacobs.

39:42.680 --> 39:46.145
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, Chris Govel, who's one of my favorite people in the world.

39:46.205 --> 39:47.828
[SPEAKER_02]: He's awesome individual.

39:48.409 --> 39:52.034
[SPEAKER_02]: So Chris got the job he came in like right after WrestleMania.

39:52.055 --> 40:00.888
[SPEAKER_02]: And then this other guy, Kerry, who was one of the writers and backstage producers ended up, I guess, resigning.

40:01.489 --> 40:05.295
[SPEAKER_02]: And so another position came up very, very, right there after.

40:05.275 --> 40:06.681
[SPEAKER_02]: and then they hired me.

40:06.722 --> 40:13.834
[SPEAKER_02]: So I started in April of after WrestleMania 31, like April of 2016.

40:14.135 --> 40:17.279
[SPEAKER_01]: And you were there for how long after the at, well, that's it.

40:17.299 --> 40:21.323
[SPEAKER_02]: I was there from April to like end of January of 2016.

40:21.383 --> 40:24.627
[SPEAKER_02]: So nine, nine, 10 months, basically.

40:25.147 --> 40:30.353
[SPEAKER_01]: OK. And so what kind of like what other stories can you share from from your time in WWE?

40:30.373 --> 40:35.239
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, and can you shed a light on like what it was like working with Vince McMahon?

40:35.259 --> 40:39.163
[SPEAKER_01]: And we did kind of talk about work, place culture back in the beginning, but like can you touch on?

40:39.183 --> 40:39.443
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

40:39.644 --> 40:40.885
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, some of that as well.

40:41.050 --> 40:42.151
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.

40:43.072 --> 40:59.092
[SPEAKER_02]: So the writers room, I don't know how much people know we're don't know, and obviously things have changed over the years, so warm hats and everything are different, but I give you an overview of what a typical week like stuff like that.

40:59.152 --> 41:02.856
[SPEAKER_02]: So at the time,

41:02.920 --> 41:04.301
[SPEAKER_02]: And all of this has changed.

41:04.381 --> 41:10.047
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure at the time, they had two kind of two crews.

41:10.087 --> 41:18.396
[SPEAKER_02]: They had the home crew and they had the road crew and so the home crew were a group of writers that never lost the writer's room.

41:18.416 --> 41:24.061
[SPEAKER_02]: They stayed in Stanford, they worked on stories and other things and they never traveled.

41:24.582 --> 41:30.868
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you had another section of writers that would

41:30.848 --> 41:39.084
[SPEAKER_02]: as well, to the locations, and they would write and produce the shows, right?

41:39.124 --> 41:44.034
[SPEAKER_02]: And I say produce, I mean, produce either, basically there's two kind of things.

41:44.054 --> 41:52.110
[SPEAKER_02]: It was either in-ring segments, and so they're writing and producing and working producers there, and then there's everything backstage.

41:52.591 --> 41:52.992
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

41:52.972 --> 41:58.443
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, so, you know, interviews, locker room, just hallway, you know, like anything like that.

41:58.543 --> 41:58.764
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

41:59.405 --> 42:03.353
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, so the way that it work is, let me think about it.

42:03.393 --> 42:06.900
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and obviously at the time, there was no split rosters.

42:07.601 --> 42:08.002
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

42:08.022 --> 42:09.465
[SPEAKER_02]: It was really A, B show.

42:09.666 --> 42:13.854
[SPEAKER_02]: Raw was absolutely the A show, and then SmackDown was the B show at the time.

42:13.874 --> 42:14.355
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

42:14.335 --> 42:23.929
[SPEAKER_02]: And so what would happen is let's say once SmackDown was over people flew back, you know, Wednesday they'd be already prepping for the next week.

42:23.949 --> 42:36.968
[SPEAKER_02]: So Wednesday they'd be in the in the writers room they'd be coming up with, you know, some of the stories and ideas and they'd start to usually usually one of the things we do is it's start to put together all the segments.

42:36.948 --> 42:41.160
[SPEAKER_02]: So that you don't always have up on the board, SEG-1 through SEG-16, right?

42:41.220 --> 42:41.420
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

42:41.982 --> 42:44.870
[SPEAKER_02]: The 10 polls were only SEG-1, 6, 11, and 16.

42:44.910 --> 42:47.256
[SPEAKER_02]: Those were the top of the hour segments that.

42:47.276 --> 42:47.878
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

42:48.119 --> 42:51.087
[SPEAKER_02]: So that would always start kind of starting to formulate on the board.

42:51.528 --> 42:52.290
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

42:53.097 --> 43:04.258
[SPEAKER_02]: Wednesdays the road crew would not be there because we were flying back home at that point in time by the time we got home wherever it is there's no way you're getting into the into the into the office.

43:04.920 --> 43:10.971
[SPEAKER_02]: Thursdays everybody was there and Thursdays we're going through

43:10.951 --> 43:22.249
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, the upcoming show, if there's a paper view as well, you know, where we're talking about stories, we're talking about matchups, we're talking about, you know, a lot of things.

43:22.790 --> 43:32.224
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of ideas, you know, it's interesting to people who don't know, like the amount of stuff that actually gets discussed that never makes it and sees the light.

43:32.244 --> 43:33.246
[SPEAKER_02]: I can imagine.

43:33.226 --> 43:58.631
[SPEAKER_02]: 99 percent, 98 percent of what is actually discussed in the writer's room, really awesome ideas, fun stuff, you know, they caught the musical of mental masturbation, because you just like talk about all these things, you know, and somewhere great ideas, and then you have to realize it's got to get through like 10 different filters before actually makes it, you know, to the screen.

43:58.711 --> 43:59.031
[SPEAKER_02]: But,

43:59.011 --> 44:12.801
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we'd be a lot of that time talking about it, but we really start to hone in on you have coming raw, that thong week, and then typically what would happen on those Thursdays was

44:13.169 --> 44:15.051
[SPEAKER_02]: very, very, very late at night.

44:15.291 --> 44:24.980
[SPEAKER_02]: A group of guys, usually as Ed Koski, Dave Kapoor, and then they usually bring with them a couple of writers that go meet with Vince and Vince's office.

44:25.700 --> 44:29.864
[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes that meeting wouldn't start to midnight.

44:30.585 --> 44:33.707
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes it just depended on when Vince was available.

44:33.747 --> 44:36.350
[SPEAKER_02]: But like literally you just be sitting around waiting.

44:36.390 --> 44:39.853
[SPEAKER_02]: Not everybody would at some point in time.

44:39.913 --> 44:42.315
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you knew who was gonna be there for that meeting.

44:42.295 --> 44:43.597
[SPEAKER_02]: and then everyone else will go home.

44:43.777 --> 44:53.068
[SPEAKER_02]: But that meeting, they would talk about the upcoming show that so they'd pitch vents like the first version of the show, so to speak, get feedback.

44:53.088 --> 44:55.752
[SPEAKER_02]: But then they'd also talk long-term projects.

44:56.533 --> 44:58.815
[SPEAKER_02]: And those always a question, I think people have to understand.

44:58.855 --> 45:01.339
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, where do we go from here?

45:01.399 --> 45:03.301
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, so if this is what we're going to do, where is it going to go?

45:03.341 --> 45:04.643
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, where are we going to go, right?

45:04.683 --> 45:06.565
[SPEAKER_02]: And so you had to think about that.

45:06.545 --> 45:31.219
[SPEAKER_02]: for as much as people wonder like you know they they wouldn't attempt some form of long-term story time but it's really hard because people get injured things happen like so it's a moving evolving process or yeah so so a lot of that stuff would be discussed too um up there so that was Thursday um and now keep in mind like you think about like

45:31.925 --> 45:47.878
[SPEAKER_02]: Not only us coming up with stuff, but then obviously there's talent that are having conversations with friends or with whoever else, but make those ideas would make their way to, let's say, Ed Koski, you know, somebody so that we start planning and things.

45:47.898 --> 46:01.830
[SPEAKER_02]: So, it wasn't just everything we were coming up with, obviously some of the more influential talent who had, you know, had to say in what they wanted, those ideas would make their way

46:01.810 --> 46:11.482
[SPEAKER_02]: And then Friday, Friday we worked from home, typically at least the road people did, and we would just have to wait to get our assignment.

46:11.623 --> 46:23.498
[SPEAKER_02]: So what will happen is, then once Thursday happened, then they'd start writing the show like Friday morning, and everybody would get a sign for the most part, a segment.

46:23.613 --> 46:33.988
[SPEAKER_02]: So we'd write an initial draft of that segment script on Friday and then we'd have to get those, we'd have to get that in by the end of the evening.

46:34.028 --> 46:36.371
[SPEAKER_02]: So literally I would be with my family.

46:36.391 --> 46:40.337
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a Friday, we'd want to go out to dinner and I'd have to be on call.

46:40.377 --> 46:42.239
[SPEAKER_02]: I had my phone, I had my thing.

46:42.660 --> 46:47.707
[SPEAKER_02]: And if I got the email, like here's your assignment, I had to be like, we gotta go.

46:47.867 --> 46:53.215
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I gotta go home and just start out because that's just what it was, which is fine.

46:53.785 --> 47:01.839
[SPEAKER_02]: So you'd write the show, we'd write the scripts, we'd get it in on Friday, and then they clean it up some more, the head writer would usually work on and clean it up.

47:01.859 --> 47:06.427
[SPEAKER_02]: And usually there was two headwriters, one from the home team, one that was kind of on the road.

47:06.727 --> 47:07.429
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

47:08.270 --> 47:14.341
[SPEAKER_02]: That writer would go through edits and edits and edits and edits, and then a version would come out usually Sunday.

47:14.401 --> 47:17.987
[SPEAKER_02]: And then Monday, when we hit,

47:17.967 --> 47:26.638
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we'd have our production meeting, we'd go through it, it would get a ton of edits, and then more edits, and then more edits, and then we'd go into production, right?

47:26.739 --> 47:32.827
[SPEAKER_02]: We'd go in and start shooting stuff, pre-taste things of that nature, raw ends, we'd jump in a car.

47:33.287 --> 47:40.617
[SPEAKER_02]: If it was more than like three hours, if it was like three hours or so, drive to the next city, we would

47:41.103 --> 48:06.807
[SPEAKER_02]: we would we would rent cars and we just drive, you know, if it was more it was like four or five hours they'd get us a bus because it's just basically you're driving through the through the night, you know, right, yeah, so they get us a bus we go to SmackDown, you know, sometimes Vince wasn't there first SmackDown, he would fly home and it's like tells you what he kind of thought of it sometimes I guess like he just that he'd also probably were giving you know this is when

48:06.787 --> 48:14.345
[SPEAKER_02]: Triple H started, you know, taking the reins on those shows Brian James would be the person you kind of led those meetings sometimes.

48:15.127 --> 48:16.631
[SPEAKER_02]: And the dynamic was so different.

48:16.671 --> 48:18.917
[SPEAKER_02]: The culture and I can talk about that a bit.

48:19.017 --> 48:21.262
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, you know, same thing with SmackDown.

48:21.302 --> 48:23.648
[SPEAKER_02]: We take the show.

48:23.965 --> 48:34.555
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, usually that time we had a little bit of time we grab a bite to eat after the show somewhere, um, and then jump on a plane the next morning Wednesday morning and go back home.

48:34.575 --> 48:37.182
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was that was a that was a week essentially.

48:37.202 --> 48:37.363
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.

48:37.924 --> 48:38.225
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

48:38.245 --> 48:38.987
[SPEAKER_01]: What happened.

48:38.967 --> 48:42.212
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of hurry up and waiting.

48:42.753 --> 48:43.654
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a type of thing.

48:44.535 --> 48:44.916
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.

48:45.036 --> 48:45.918
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for sure.

48:45.978 --> 48:47.099
[SPEAKER_02]: They're definitely was, yeah.

48:47.119 --> 48:55.031
[SPEAKER_01]: And so did you have any, and I, you know, there's always been talk about how I don't know if this was something that you had to do with directly if this was more for like the head rotors where you'd like a show would be written.

48:55.452 --> 49:03.104
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Vince would come in like last minute, like hours before the show started and start over or take things out with that something that you ever had to do with that.

49:03.665 --> 49:04.446
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.

49:04.566 --> 49:07.270
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no, no, no, because usually by that point,

49:07.250 --> 49:14.318
[SPEAKER_02]: you're at the show, so I dealt with that because I went on the road very quickly.

49:15.119 --> 49:18.764
[SPEAKER_02]: And so most of my, I was on the road team.

49:18.944 --> 49:22.628
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I spent a week or two on the home team just getting situated.

49:23.890 --> 49:26.753
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I was on the road team.

49:27.534 --> 49:35.383
[SPEAKER_02]: So the role of the writers on the road is a

49:35.465 --> 49:37.388
[SPEAKER_02]: We would go into the production meeting.

49:37.929 --> 49:42.115
[SPEAKER_02]: Usually, that meeting was around noon or so on that Monday.

49:42.435 --> 49:44.178
[SPEAKER_02]: We'd go through the whole script.

49:44.218 --> 49:53.812
[SPEAKER_02]: So at the front would be like Ed Koski, Kevin Don, Vince McMahon, and then when Triple H was there, Triple H would be there as well.

49:54.653 --> 50:03.767
[SPEAKER_02]: And Vince, I'm sorry, Ed would like runs through the whole thing, and sometimes we'd stop and we'd discuss it, be the writers, and it would be the agents.

50:03.747 --> 50:08.932
[SPEAKER_02]: at the time, you know, the, they call them producers or agents to call them agents.

50:08.952 --> 50:09.552
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

50:10.493 --> 50:15.538
[SPEAKER_02]: So people would be able to chime in and share thoughts and ideas and we kind of brainstorm.

50:16.579 --> 50:26.447
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was, it was often times then after that, things would, would not always, but sometimes like things would just get totally torn out.

50:26.467 --> 50:28.830
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like almost starting over from scratch.

50:28.930 --> 50:33.754
[SPEAKER_02]: Like

50:33.734 --> 50:34.430
[SPEAKER_02]: Um...

50:35.962 --> 50:43.449
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, from one o'clock, you know, at one PM, you're writing a brand new show and that requires, you know, think about everything that requires.

50:43.629 --> 50:44.851
[SPEAKER_02]: No, don't get me wrong.

50:45.531 --> 51:05.631
[SPEAKER_02]: Packages that were being produced back at the studio, those weren't necessarily changing so much, but there would be things where it was, you know, when you talk about pressure and timing, like you had to, you had to go produce a new thing or whatever, and you do not have a lot of time to do it, which is what kind of happened

51:05.611 --> 51:09.277
[SPEAKER_02]: with an okay thing as well, right?

51:09.337 --> 51:15.686
[SPEAKER_02]: That, and sometimes some of these segments would get rewritten multiple multiple multiple times.

51:16.047 --> 51:28.466
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's exactly what happened around the pre-taped that I got fired for, that was, I think the version that I got at that point was probably the third of fourth.

51:28.486 --> 51:29.728
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, script.

51:29.708 --> 51:34.581
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so can you for our viewers who may not be super familiar with that?

51:34.601 --> 51:36.587
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you talk a little bit about that?

51:36.607 --> 51:37.008
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.

51:37.028 --> 51:37.911
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for sure.

51:38.613 --> 51:42.403
[SPEAKER_02]: So basically, so again, go back to our roles real quick.

51:42.423 --> 51:43.887
[SPEAKER_02]: So the writers would

51:44.930 --> 51:51.768
[SPEAKER_02]: We would write, and so the day of as well, when we were on the road, we would also write, but we were also producing and directing.

51:52.069 --> 51:56.060
[SPEAKER_02]: So you served multiple, we weren't just writers, we actually were producers.

51:56.421 --> 51:56.642
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

51:56.702 --> 52:00.171
[SPEAKER_02]: So for me, I worked in, and I,

52:00.151 --> 52:11.592
[SPEAKER_02]: handled the backstage segments with and so did a couple of the guys, but the two main guys were myself and the sky-darencey of peda and some of the other writers did too because there was a lot of segments.

52:11.632 --> 52:12.694
[SPEAKER_02]: We couldn't do them all.

52:14.016 --> 52:17.923
[SPEAKER_02]: But I was mainly backstage and it's interesting like

52:17.903 --> 52:23.050
[SPEAKER_02]: what you would see is like usually there were the guys, the writers that handled the SEG-1 in-ring promos.

52:23.070 --> 52:40.215
[SPEAKER_02]: They usually, you know, they were there the longest, they were the most trusted, actually, there's guys that are still there today that did that like, and you'd find that certain guys in certain town would like to work with certain writers as they built a trucker relationship like,

52:40.195 --> 52:45.792
[SPEAKER_02]: John Cena would work with this guy Ray Ray Ryan Ward, who's still there to the state amazing talented guy.

52:46.855 --> 52:54.357
[SPEAKER_02]: This guy Mike Kirchenbaum does did a lot of the Seg one stuff worked a lot with like Steph when he was coming in stuff like that.

52:55.282 --> 52:57.927
[SPEAKER_02]: So I would do a lot of the backstage stuff.

52:58.529 --> 53:05.523
[SPEAKER_02]: And so basically the story is that it was January of 2016.

53:05.743 --> 53:07.367
[SPEAKER_02]: It was Martin Luther King day.

53:07.387 --> 53:12.497
[SPEAKER_02]: We would always do a special tribute and stuff that Martin Luther King.

53:12.848 --> 53:30.132
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, this was one of those days where a lot of stuff got ripped up and for me, you know, basically we know who the talent was, we knew where we were shooting, but we also, there was only so many camera crews as well because we are shooting multiple.

53:30.112 --> 53:37.685
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there's multiple things that need to be shot backstage and there's only so many audio and camera guys and stuff around.

53:37.705 --> 53:43.956
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, we told one thing is done so we can grab them and come over here and shoot this one and things of that nature.

53:44.196 --> 53:44.356
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

53:44.837 --> 53:45.618
[SPEAKER_02]: Very, very hectic.

53:46.740 --> 53:52.390
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had gotten the script by the time I got in the new script.

53:53.450 --> 53:55.413
[SPEAKER_02]: we were already basically out of time.

53:55.934 --> 53:59.780
[SPEAKER_02]: This thing had to be shot like very, very fast.

54:00.080 --> 54:00.861
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

54:00.881 --> 54:07.512
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, and so I got the script and the script called for, it was a eight-man tag.

54:08.153 --> 54:12.039
[SPEAKER_02]: It was Neville or Pock on the very well called, but it was Neville.

54:12.680 --> 54:17.567
[SPEAKER_02]: It was Polynesonial, Mark Henry, and Truth.

54:17.547 --> 54:18.990
[SPEAKER_02]: word was the tag team.

54:20.011 --> 54:28.287
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, the script said very clearly, call for, for never to be like, well, I've got a dream too.

54:28.988 --> 54:32.274
[SPEAKER_02]: And my dream is to win the Royal Wumble, whatever that was.

54:32.975 --> 54:33.276
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

54:33.957 --> 54:34.037
[UNKNOWN]: And,

54:34.237 --> 54:38.803
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, again, I saw that I'm like, oh, yeah, it's a little hand-off.

54:39.364 --> 54:45.492
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, never came up to me like, like, private is like, Mike, he's like, man, I can't say it astute.

54:45.573 --> 54:49.999
[SPEAKER_02]: Like this is, you know, this is not, it's not gonna come off very well.

54:50.419 --> 54:52.482
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, and certainly,

54:52.462 --> 55:00.934
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, Titus and Mark Henry and I think like it's funny like because it was shot in like a locker room but it was also used as a locker room for some of the guys.

55:00.974 --> 55:10.448
[SPEAKER_02]: So I remember some other guys were there, like Dustin Rhodes was there, you know, at the time he was, you know, stole gold dust, right?

55:11.049 --> 55:16.697
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's like, yes, you know, this is what everyone's like, like, this is terrible.

55:16.677 --> 55:23.706
[SPEAKER_02]: And we did not, we did not have time to go back to get updates and read it to that point.

55:23.726 --> 55:26.109
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was just like, yeah, we got to figure this out real quick.

55:26.890 --> 55:34.921
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, like we just brainstormed on what to do.

55:35.001 --> 55:36.643
[SPEAKER_02]: And like here's the thing too, like,

55:37.366 --> 55:43.617
[SPEAKER_02]: the way that I said it is like, look, if you want, if you want to never be a heal, that's perfect.

55:43.697 --> 55:44.839
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, that's what you say.

55:45.521 --> 55:45.861
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

55:46.102 --> 55:46.583
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

55:47.845 --> 55:48.626
[SPEAKER_02]: But he's not a heal.

55:48.646 --> 55:49.568
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a face.

55:49.608 --> 55:51.391
[SPEAKER_02]: He's supposed to be a good guy and he's supposed to be right.

55:51.892 --> 55:54.857
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, that's a great line to use for a heal.

55:54.938 --> 55:57.222
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I would be like, that would be like, beautiful.

55:57.262 --> 55:58.564
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, we got

55:58.544 --> 56:01.227
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's white, broad, novel guy saying this stuff.

56:01.247 --> 56:02.689
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, this is British guy.

56:02.709 --> 56:03.750
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, this is not good.

56:03.770 --> 56:06.293
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, you know, I think it was truth.

56:06.313 --> 56:08.295
[SPEAKER_02]: That was like, basically like, what if I say it?

56:08.816 --> 56:18.227
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, what if we make this this kind of fun, you know, and truth is an absolute legend, such a professional, so good with comedic timing and presentation.

56:18.347 --> 56:19.528
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.

56:19.548 --> 56:20.630
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like, what if I say it?

56:21.330 --> 56:27.117
[SPEAKER_02]: And everyone's like, I think that works, you know, like, that's it.

56:27.518 --> 56:28.360
[SPEAKER_02]: We shot it that way.

56:28.680 --> 56:32.428
[SPEAKER_02]: My boss was there, Dave Kapoor, who he, he was my direct report.

56:32.448 --> 56:34.974
[SPEAKER_02]: Like Dave, Dave Kapoor was the showrunner.

56:35.956 --> 56:36.817
[SPEAKER_02]: I reported today.

56:36.878 --> 56:37.519
[SPEAKER_02]: Dave was there.

56:37.579 --> 56:41.587
[SPEAKER_02]: Dave didn't seem to have any problems with it at all.

56:42.970 --> 56:47.620
[SPEAKER_02]: But after we were done shooting it, he was like, hey, you know,

56:48.005 --> 56:54.334
[SPEAKER_02]: To be fair, I think you should go down, tell Vince what we did, give him a heads up that we had to adjust the script or whatever that is.

56:55.075 --> 56:58.760
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, because you should, I'm like, totally get it, absolutely.

56:59.782 --> 57:03.026
[SPEAKER_02]: So I went down to Vince to share, you know, with them.

57:03.066 --> 57:05.430
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've told the story before, but he's in Gorilla.

57:05.770 --> 57:06.632
[SPEAKER_02]: He's got headphones on.

57:06.672 --> 57:10.537
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Mike Hey, Vince, you know, I just wanted to share with you this thing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

57:10.557 --> 57:16.105
[SPEAKER_02]: Takes off his headphones, turns to me and says, so you didn't give me what I wanted.

57:16.186 --> 57:20.453
[SPEAKER_02]: And I, you know, I was like, yes, so I'm so sorry.

57:20.493 --> 57:21.475
[SPEAKER_02]: I took responsibility.

57:21.495 --> 57:23.398
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, you know, we thought this was much better.

57:23.418 --> 57:24.340
[SPEAKER_02]: But blah, blah, blah, whatever.

57:24.720 --> 57:26.403
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he just laid it into me.

57:27.024 --> 57:28.667
[SPEAKER_02]: And just kept, you know, yelling at me.

57:28.707 --> 57:29.789
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm saying, yes, sir.

57:29.829 --> 57:31.632
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, sir, and I'm trying to be respectful.

57:31.652 --> 57:32.333
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, yes, right.

57:32.393 --> 57:33.495
[SPEAKER_02]: Listening, I'm learning.

57:33.515 --> 57:37.081
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, sir, like, and that pissed him off even more.

57:37.121 --> 57:38.143
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like,

57:38.765 --> 57:39.707
[SPEAKER_02]: You're not listening.

57:39.747 --> 57:41.549
[SPEAKER_02]: You just, you just want to get out of here.

57:41.590 --> 57:42.992
[SPEAKER_02]: You're just staying as you get out of here.

57:43.032 --> 57:44.775
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, I don't, what do you want me to say?

57:45.135 --> 57:45.456
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

57:46.217 --> 57:46.317
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

57:46.337 --> 57:52.848
[SPEAKER_02]: So interestingly enough, he won't remember this, but road dog was right behind me in gorilla waiting to talk to Vince.

57:53.348 --> 57:54.951
[SPEAKER_02]: And after he's done just.

57:54.931 --> 58:24.938
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just

58:24.918 --> 58:36.978
[SPEAKER_02]: He gave me a assignment and I got a direct note that said, you do not send this in until every single word on this piece of paper is spoken exactly as it needs to be spoken.

58:37.278 --> 58:37.579
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

58:37.859 --> 58:40.804
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was with Pitis and somebody else that we had who.

58:41.345 --> 58:44.470
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it took us a couple of hours.

58:45.031 --> 58:47.415
[SPEAKER_02]: Because like this is the thing.

58:47.395 --> 58:47.675
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

58:47.695 --> 58:49.057
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to follow the script, obviously.

58:49.077 --> 58:56.228
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not, this is, you know, I am not talking about the benefit, you know, I'm saying that we should be diverging from this free line, right?

58:56.308 --> 58:56.568
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.

58:56.889 --> 59:02.597
[SPEAKER_02]: But like guys always often will paraphrase, right?

59:02.617 --> 59:08.526
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not going to say, yeah, every single, like, writing it, you know, whatever, like, yeah.

59:08.506 --> 59:13.973
[SPEAKER_02]: But that was my punishment at the time, you know, they basically was like, but I was probably already fired at that point.

59:14.013 --> 59:20.761
[SPEAKER_02]: I just didn't know it, you know, because Dave spoke with Vince at some point and I'm sure it was, it was done at that point.

59:20.781 --> 59:25.587
[SPEAKER_02]: So they made me do that project, remember we are no higher.

59:25.627 --> 59:29.392
[SPEAKER_02]: I think like Toledo or something, something like that.

59:29.673 --> 59:38.023
[SPEAKER_02]: And when home Wednesday came into the office on Thursday and I was like, go on Thursday.

59:38.172 --> 59:44.396
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, um, you know, it's a really tough thing to, I can only imagine to have to deal with that.

59:44.537 --> 59:46.123
[SPEAKER_01]: And then so is this.

59:46.272 --> 59:58.764
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you have that a lot with obviously not that things specifically but like with talent who like you come to them with these scripts and they're like, well, we want to do this like is that something that you had to navigate on?

59:59.785 --> 01:00:16.060
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes and no, it was normal practice and it was and it was encouraged because it was collaborative and and you know, like and I think honestly and I can't say this for for sure, but the more experience.

01:00:16.040 --> 01:00:27.923
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the the the more time a talent was there the more say they had in their stuff right sure when we did get our scripts like after the first version whatever after that you know.

01:00:28.190 --> 01:00:32.696
[SPEAKER_02]: After our meeting, we go back, we make edits, and we have like our first real draft.

01:00:33.136 --> 01:00:33.316
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

01:00:33.336 --> 01:00:39.684
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to work as you then, then I'd get a sign, whatever segments I got assigned, I'd get this script.

01:00:39.704 --> 01:00:45.331
[SPEAKER_02]: So like, I didn't write, I almost never wrote the scripts that I ended up producing that day.

01:00:45.351 --> 01:00:48.275
[SPEAKER_02]: I would have just been given sometimes I did, but not always.

01:00:48.315 --> 01:00:52.761
[SPEAKER_02]: So like, right, you made write a segment, but you're not necessarily producing that.

01:00:52.961 --> 01:00:53.542
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, okay.

01:00:54.202 --> 01:00:57.066
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so it wasn't like, you didn't always

01:00:57.350 --> 01:00:59.354
[SPEAKER_02]: like produce the segments you wrote.

01:00:59.534 --> 01:01:01.097
[SPEAKER_02]: It just wasn't worked that way.

01:01:01.918 --> 01:01:14.241
[SPEAKER_02]: But you would, after the first draft came out after our meetings, you wouldn't go to, you know, like we had a pretty so I had to go to the talent, you know, share them the script, talk to them about, make sure they were cool.

01:01:14.301 --> 01:01:21.214
[SPEAKER_02]: If they weren't, then, you know, they'd have some thoughts or feedback depending on how important it was or whatever.

01:01:21.194 --> 01:01:30.287
[SPEAKER_02]: You would then, you know, go back and then get approvals from bins or whatever that is and get feedback and get, you know, then the, the scripts would get tweaked a little bit.

01:01:31.148 --> 01:01:40.301
[SPEAKER_02]: What, you know, we weren't messing with major beats or, you know, things in the story, but you know, little nuanced lines and things of that nature.

01:01:40.381 --> 01:01:45.649
[SPEAKER_02]: So they did have say in those things, you know, certainly in the beginning.

01:01:45.781 --> 01:01:56.215
[SPEAKER_02]: with new talent and they didn't speak up as much because they just, you know, they wanted to be a good, you know, kind of soldier and a good employee or whatever and doing so.

01:01:56.576 --> 01:02:02.504
[SPEAKER_02]: And I had a lot of that, like obviously for me, for anyone else, like that's just the way that it was.

01:02:02.584 --> 01:02:04.887
[SPEAKER_02]: You would, you would come in.

01:02:04.867 --> 01:02:11.274
[SPEAKER_02]: And you'd be given the lower card talent type of stuff.

01:02:11.294 --> 01:02:14.799
[SPEAKER_02]: Or interesting for me, I came in at a very interesting time.

01:02:14.819 --> 01:02:19.904
[SPEAKER_02]: It was when you had Sami Zain, debut.

01:02:19.924 --> 01:02:21.426
[SPEAKER_02]: You had Kevin Owens, debut.

01:02:21.967 --> 01:02:28.174
[SPEAKER_02]: I was there when Becky Lynch and Charlotte.

01:02:28.407 --> 01:02:31.670
[SPEAKER_02]: what's your name came in the same day to Sasha Banks.

01:02:32.251 --> 01:02:36.415
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I worked a lot with them, I worked a lot with the females.

01:02:37.316 --> 01:02:47.126
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, yeah, I would get the kind of newer talent or some of the segments that were not the tent pole segments at the time.

01:02:47.166 --> 01:02:53.993
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, obviously, over time you prove yourself, you get better assignments or you work with more people,

01:02:53.973 --> 01:02:54.213
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

01:02:54.233 --> 01:02:57.056
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was probably the one thing I tell you about Vince.

01:02:57.617 --> 01:03:07.948
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think one of the things that one of the other reasons why I got fired is we knew this and they would talk about it.

01:03:07.988 --> 01:03:13.413
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like there was a period of time from like you'd start kind of under the radar.

01:03:13.874 --> 01:03:14.314
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

01:03:14.334 --> 01:03:19.380
[SPEAKER_02]: And the more you did and the more Simon's to get you'd work with Vince Moore.

01:03:19.540 --> 01:03:21.542
[SPEAKER_02]: You'd have to go in and work with Vince Moore.

01:03:21.582 --> 01:03:22.122
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

01:03:22.603 --> 01:03:22.663
[UNKNOWN]: So,

01:03:23.133 --> 01:03:42.373
[SPEAKER_02]: But there was this kind of like danger zone where like you were either like, okay, you were kind of too low in the totem pole or out of vences, you know, vision, so to speak, right to where he got comfortable enough with you, that felt like you were a good fit for his system and like that middle ground was like.

01:03:42.353 --> 01:03:46.181
[SPEAKER_02]: Tetris, treacherous ground because he didn't know you yet.

01:03:46.241 --> 01:03:48.927
[SPEAKER_02]: He didn't necessarily trust or have that connection with you.

01:03:48.947 --> 01:03:56.964
[SPEAKER_02]: You had to prove to him that you could fit within his system and do things the way he wanted things done, right?

01:03:57.044 --> 01:03:57.244
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

01:03:57.405 --> 01:03:59.890
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you got there and if you trusted you,

01:03:59.870 --> 01:04:00.230
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

01:04:00.271 --> 01:04:06.079
[SPEAKER_02]: And you had a good relationship then like you could get shoot out and still keep your job, right?

01:04:06.099 --> 01:04:10.224
[SPEAKER_02]: Because there was like a certain level there, but I never got in there.

01:04:10.264 --> 01:04:11.166
[SPEAKER_02]: I was still new.

01:04:11.406 --> 01:04:14.670
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I was, I was just really starting to work with him a little bit more.

01:04:14.730 --> 01:04:21.880
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think he just probably felt like, you know, especially with what I did that, like, I wasn't a fit for his system.

01:04:21.920 --> 01:04:28.189
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I didn't follow the rules the way that it was supposed to be.

01:04:28.692 --> 01:04:34.297
[SPEAKER_01]: And you mentioned that some of these meetings that it would be Triple H, that would be there instead of Vince.

01:04:34.377 --> 01:04:45.187
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you talk about kind of like their styles and how that worked and how that did it make it harder having to switch back and forth the kind of between what they expected?

01:04:45.247 --> 01:04:50.812
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I know, you know, at that time is great question because I think about this a lot.

01:04:50.912 --> 01:04:52.434
[SPEAKER_02]: Something that was very clear.

01:04:52.454 --> 01:04:54.115
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember a couple of things.

01:04:54.295 --> 01:04:56.117
[SPEAKER_02]: One is when

01:04:56.637 --> 01:05:01.324
[SPEAKER_02]: I would probably agree with Vince's ideas or things he said maybe like four out of ten times.

01:05:03.347 --> 01:05:10.518
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, he's been there forever, the guy knows so much, like I say multiple things can be true.

01:05:10.618 --> 01:05:23.978
[SPEAKER_02]: Like he can be a terrible person in many, many ways and things that he's done, but he also has done amazing things, new to business, understood things psychologically from such a great depth, right?

01:05:24.667 --> 01:05:29.016
[SPEAKER_02]: But I would say that I probably agree when he would talk about something or have an idea or something like that.

01:05:29.637 --> 01:05:33.585
[SPEAKER_02]: I would internally agree with him like four out of ten times, right?

01:05:33.605 --> 01:05:38.394
[SPEAKER_02]: Like whatever it was, when Hunter would bring something up, I'd probably agree like nine out of ten times.

01:05:38.494 --> 01:05:42.422
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I gravitated more towards his

01:05:42.959 --> 01:05:46.227
[SPEAKER_02]: perception on how the product should be put out there.

01:05:46.748 --> 01:05:57.955
[SPEAKER_02]: And the thing that I would say is the best way to categorize the two of them is if you think of the term sports entertainment, it's kind of equal, well, not equal parts, but part sports, part entertainment.

01:05:58.236 --> 01:05:58.757
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

01:05:58.737 --> 01:06:14.704
[SPEAKER_02]: Hunter was 1,000 percent in my opinion, leaning more towards the sports side of things, the way presenting it, like we always made a joke, like he loved the HBO sports presentations on these like the road to this match or whatever that is, like the price for seven stuff, right?

01:06:14.844 --> 01:06:21.735
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is what you probably see now more than before, where Vince was more on the entertainment side.

01:06:22.056 --> 01:06:23.378
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's not to say that,

01:06:24.269 --> 01:06:28.096
[SPEAKER_02]: They didn't, you know, both agree on like presentation.

01:06:28.176 --> 01:06:45.746
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not to say that Hunter was only all, like kind of more sports, like pro sports, kind of oriented, but there was definitely, in my opinion, this, like Hunter was more on the sports side of sports entertainment, Vince was like more entertainment side of the entertainment.

01:06:46.527 --> 01:06:49.973
[SPEAKER_02]: But to get back to your question about the culture,

01:06:49.953 --> 01:06:59.997
[SPEAKER_02]: It was, man, it was like terrifying to try and speak up in those Monday meetings, sometimes events, because it was just, um, you know, he had created this just,

01:07:00.702 --> 01:07:21.293
[SPEAKER_02]: culture of like fear and yeah, and it's not to say one thing I think is really important and I think you know what the Rolling Stone article and everything else like that is I don't I think it was in some ways it's not misrepresentative, but I think people need to remember like it wasn't always like that all the time like

01:07:22.555 --> 01:07:34.118
[SPEAKER_02]: There was so much fun, so much laughter from Vince too, like it wasn't always like this just terribly negative, right, you know, fearful place.

01:07:34.780 --> 01:07:38.146
[SPEAKER_02]: It just, that was definitely a bigger theme in anything.

01:07:38.347 --> 01:07:42.876
[SPEAKER_02]: And the way that that permeated throughout the organization,

01:07:43.042 --> 01:08:11.985
[SPEAKER_02]: what certainly like as an example in those meetings like people would be uh not everyone and people that were there for a while would would speak up but people were we're afraid to speak up I was afraid to speak up I think it took me it took me like probably a couple months before I even felt comfortable starting to share thoughts and idea during those meetings because you're just freaking it was just scary you know like yes but so here's my point on Tuesdays

01:08:12.590 --> 01:08:19.239
[SPEAKER_02]: when it was like road dog who was running the meetings, man, the energy was like so much higher.

01:08:19.780 --> 01:08:23.204
[SPEAKER_02]: Ideas were flowing, everyone's like, little loose.

01:08:23.505 --> 01:08:32.297
[SPEAKER_02]: You could just tell how that culture like really restricted the bandwidth of creativity in the organization.

01:08:32.337 --> 01:08:33.939
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it was a very, very clear thing.

01:08:33.979 --> 01:08:41.449
[SPEAKER_02]: The bandwidth was just when vents was there and like certain things, the bandwidth shrunk.

01:08:41.429 --> 01:08:55.493
[SPEAKER_02]: Hunter or, you know, certainly wrote that, because Rod Dog is very, like, he was really awesome guy, very fun, very, like, easy to talk to, so people just felt more relaxed, you know, and, and the conversations opened up.

01:08:55.513 --> 01:09:01.062
[SPEAKER_02]: And so there's a very clear difference from my perspective, just in those meetings.

01:09:01.503 --> 01:09:07.673
[SPEAKER_02]: And then like that would permeate, you know, like in the writers room, there was, I remember when I first came in,

01:09:08.345 --> 01:09:14.013
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of the guys were assholes, like some of the other writers who were there were were not very nice.

01:09:14.253 --> 01:09:17.558
[SPEAKER_02]: And to be honest, I think they're nice guys.

01:09:18.119 --> 01:09:30.015
[SPEAKER_02]: I just think they were so like it was just that's just the feeling in the room was very much this kind of not always on edge, but like there was this protective layer of

01:09:31.244 --> 01:09:36.513
[SPEAKER_02]: fear anxiety, I don't know, whatever you want to call it, that I think impacted people.

01:09:36.573 --> 01:09:49.655
[SPEAKER_02]: And then even in the studio, when I was back in the day, yes, all that, like KD certainly had the same similar mentality as Vince, yeah, so that came into the studio as well.

01:09:49.816 --> 01:09:54.163
[SPEAKER_02]: But then the further away you got from that in terms of management levels, hmm.

01:09:55.223 --> 01:09:59.154
[SPEAKER_02]: The, the, the easier was that it kind of would dissipate a little bit.

01:09:59.174 --> 01:10:08.760
[SPEAKER_02]: But as you got closer like it got closer to events, you could really feel just the that layer that that kind of layer of.

01:10:09.162 --> 01:10:12.667
[SPEAKER_02]: whatever you want to call it, you know, pension and fear anxiety stuff.

01:10:12.687 --> 01:10:12.827
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

01:10:13.128 --> 01:10:21.279
[SPEAKER_01]: And would you, I mean, would you say it was like comparable to what that feeling that you had working at Miramax was a kind of that same, like it just, you got the opportunity.

01:10:21.379 --> 01:10:22.000
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.

01:10:22.381 --> 01:10:26.226
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, yeah, my time in Miramax was very limited, but the time out is there.

01:10:26.246 --> 01:10:27.988
[SPEAKER_02]: It was very, it was the same thing.

01:10:28.048 --> 01:10:31.754
[SPEAKER_02]: People were just like uptight, you know, people were like this in some ways.

01:10:32.074 --> 01:10:36.300
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, it wasn't all the time, but certainly I've been,

01:10:36.280 --> 01:10:37.822
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm 46 years old now.

01:10:37.942 --> 01:10:45.310
[SPEAKER_02]: I've worked in many different environments and corporations and things and you just can tell there was a difference for sure.

01:10:45.671 --> 01:11:04.212
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and do you think like some, I mean, I guess it is kind of getting the closer to Vince, but also it seems like you wanted the people that you're talking about were like triple H and and

01:11:05.592 --> 01:11:06.494
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a great question.

01:11:06.794 --> 01:11:08.417
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.

01:11:08.437 --> 01:11:13.445
[SPEAKER_02]: I think for one thing, you know, this is a guess.

01:11:13.465 --> 01:11:14.647
[SPEAKER_02]: This is just speculation, though.

01:11:14.687 --> 01:11:22.420
[SPEAKER_02]: There's somebody like Road Dog, you know, and Hunter, like, you know, although I think Road Dog at one point was like, oh, but,

01:11:23.041 --> 01:11:26.947
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think they felt safer because they knew Vincent a better relationship with sure.

01:11:26.967 --> 01:11:33.177
[SPEAKER_02]: So they're kind of probably knew that like their job was in that risk for saying the wrong thing or doing wrong thing, right?

01:11:33.337 --> 01:11:40.628
[SPEAKER_02]: So I can only assume that contributed to the nature of how they spoke and and did things at the time.

01:11:40.675 --> 01:11:41.036
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

01:11:41.596 --> 01:11:52.312
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've seen, obviously, with the Netflix show, the WWE Unreal and how that's premiered and, you know, it does kind of take you backstage with the writers and things that are talked about.

01:11:52.332 --> 01:11:55.076
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, what's your perspective on Unreal?

01:11:55.116 --> 01:12:04.489
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that something that you think that they should kind of pull the curtain back on or, you know, is it true to, like, your experience or what do your thoughts on that show?

01:12:04.638 --> 01:12:09.004
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I think the show was obviously very accurate.

01:12:09.504 --> 01:12:12.048
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very much the way that it's done.

01:12:13.229 --> 01:12:16.393
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, they have to kind of tell a little bit of a narrative there.

01:12:16.453 --> 01:12:21.981
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a lot of editing going on, but... Sure.

01:12:23.222 --> 01:12:33.936
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, I mean, like the writers there and the way that it was presented, I think, is...

01:12:34.591 --> 01:12:38.523
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, do you think that they should kind of pull back the curtain?

01:12:38.563 --> 01:12:39.587
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the kind of thing.

01:12:40.911 --> 01:12:43.980
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and so this is like my own kind of person.

01:12:44.000 --> 01:12:44.301
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

01:12:44.542 --> 01:12:46.187
[SPEAKER_02]: Thought on it.

01:12:47.180 --> 01:13:05.188
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that stuff and I think for some people, they probably do, I think there's an argument about, you know, K-Fade and keeping a little bit for, you know, like keeping a little bit of that backstage stuff away so that people can, you know.

01:13:05.810 --> 01:13:07.293
[SPEAKER_02]: still, you know, whatever.

01:13:07.353 --> 01:13:11.221
[SPEAKER_02]: So I personally really like it.

01:13:11.261 --> 01:13:18.375
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I think we're past this point of like people realizing, obviously, that this is a work.

01:13:19.037 --> 01:13:23.686
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, I mean, with the age of social media and what's going on, like clear people know that.

01:13:23.726 --> 01:13:26.772
[SPEAKER_02]: So I love it because I also think

01:13:27.494 --> 01:13:44.153
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, not, you know, see as many people, but I think it really does bring some attention towards the, the, the team overall, like, everyone in the backstage that, again, like I said, it really is, I think the premier, you know, television production team in the world and what they have to do.

01:13:44.133 --> 01:14:01.056
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the writers and the producers and the agents and then the guys in the truck and the guys back in the in the girls back in the studio and what they do So I think they deserve to be, you know, even if it's a little bit to get that spotlight on them a little bit But I love it.

01:14:01.076 --> 01:14:13.093
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's great and like it was really cool to see There's a lot of guys that are still there from when I was there that yeah are really talented Really talented guys like Ed Koski's been there since

01:14:13.630 --> 01:14:24.450
[SPEAKER_02]: I think Ed's been there for about 25 years now, which is to be able to sit that close to Vincent still be working there will tell you a lot about Ed in terms of his talents.

01:14:25.493 --> 01:14:26.895
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I mentioned my Persian bomb.

01:14:26.915 --> 01:14:28.137
[SPEAKER_02]: He's still there as well.

01:14:28.217 --> 01:14:37.292
[SPEAKER_02]: I saw Ryan Ward, who was John Cena, worked a lot with John Cena, John Spokada, was a writer's assistant when I was there.

01:14:38.434 --> 01:14:42.260
[SPEAKER_02]: John, backstrum, started as a writer's assistant.

01:14:42.280 --> 01:14:43.662
[SPEAKER_02]: I was there, he's still there too.

01:14:43.682 --> 01:14:49.932
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of these guys are still there and really are doing a lot of great work.

01:14:49.912 --> 01:14:58.251
[SPEAKER_02]: And how they get shit on everybody, you know, the writers do get shit on and I get it like that's a whole other conversation about, you know.

01:14:58.788 --> 01:15:01.051
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's a lot that people don't know.

01:15:01.111 --> 01:15:05.338
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's important to understand what the process really looks like.

01:15:05.358 --> 01:15:09.383
[SPEAKER_02]: And would you ultimately put blame on for these things?

01:15:09.604 --> 01:15:16.995
[SPEAKER_02]: Ultimately, there's a term that Jimmy Jacobs used to say all the time when he was like, he would preface what he's about to say.

01:15:17.015 --> 01:15:21.080
[SPEAKER_02]: And he would say, well, if it was my show, this is what I would do, right?

01:15:21.241 --> 01:15:21.541
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

01:15:21.802 --> 01:15:22.963
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, well, if it was my show.

01:15:23.224 --> 01:15:23.845
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

01:15:24.586 --> 01:15:24.806
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

01:15:24.866 --> 01:15:25.447
[SPEAKER_01]: Not your show.

01:15:25.527 --> 01:15:26.448
[SPEAKER_02]: It was Vince's show.

01:15:26.568 --> 01:15:26.989
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

01:15:27.009 --> 01:15:27.630
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

01:15:28.032 --> 01:15:33.850
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we were at the, you know, we were at the whim of what Vince really wanted the product at the end of the day.

01:15:33.951 --> 01:15:40.692
[SPEAKER_02]: So, so much like so many cool ideas, so many great ideas that would have worked.

01:15:40.823 --> 01:15:44.949
[SPEAKER_02]: just never ever would see the light of day for a married of reasons.

01:15:45.109 --> 01:15:45.449
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

01:15:45.490 --> 01:15:47.352
[SPEAKER_02]: That's disappointing, but that's just the way that it is.

01:15:47.693 --> 01:15:47.973
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

01:15:48.534 --> 01:15:58.488
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, one of the things I wanted to talk about and I had already thought I had this question before and then obviously Friday, um, March five years since the passing of Brody Levi.

01:15:58.528 --> 01:16:06.679
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously he, he was Luke Harper first and then he went to a W and he developed a

01:16:06.659 --> 01:16:13.699
[SPEAKER_01]: some people had, you know, thought had similar similarities to Vince with the, no things were like, you can't sneeze in front of him.

01:16:13.739 --> 01:16:15.364
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't sit down before he does.

01:16:15.424 --> 01:16:16.146
[SPEAKER_01]: And these things like that.

01:16:16.167 --> 01:16:21.883
[SPEAKER_01]: So what was kind of like your reaction to seeing that kind of play out and kind of just,

01:16:21.863 --> 01:16:24.105
[SPEAKER_01]: maybe kind of a little bit of a rib at then.

01:16:24.165 --> 01:16:24.465
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

01:16:25.286 --> 01:16:25.386
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

01:16:25.406 --> 01:16:28.909
[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, another, another talent that I got to work with and I loved him.

01:16:28.969 --> 01:16:30.311
[SPEAKER_02]: He was such a smart guy.

01:16:30.331 --> 01:16:35.655
[SPEAKER_02]: Like for this big guy was so, so smart and so nice.

01:16:35.756 --> 01:16:41.681
[SPEAKER_02]: Like he was, he, that was a, there's a couple of pastings that really affected me for sure.

01:16:41.721 --> 01:16:45.724
[SPEAKER_02]: His was one of them, but you know, it's true.

01:16:46.365 --> 01:16:51.870
[SPEAKER_02]: Like most of that stuff is true.

01:16:51.850 --> 01:16:56.279
[SPEAKER_02]: Tom Costielo is one of the other writers.

01:16:57.382 --> 01:17:00.789
[SPEAKER_02]: Tom did a lot of work with all the women.

01:17:00.949 --> 01:17:11.952
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, we talk about like writers and they'd work with Tom Costielo was a writer who worked with a lot of the women.

01:17:11.932 --> 01:17:23.682
[SPEAKER_02]: And one time, he came into the meeting where, you know, lawsuit, we all wore suits at the time, and he wore a pink tie.

01:17:24.203 --> 01:17:26.264
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like a black suit with a pink tie.

01:17:26.385 --> 01:17:31.209
[SPEAKER_02]: And he got, like, I don't say it wasn't like in serious trouble, but he got in trouble for it.

01:17:31.229 --> 01:17:34.271
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, it's going to go into business for himself, huh?

01:17:34.552 --> 01:17:41.938
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, like he wants to draw attention to himself, because he was a pink tie.

01:17:41.918 --> 01:17:44.862
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll tell you another story.

01:17:47.066 --> 01:17:53.676
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually ended up going on the road faster than I was supposed to, because this writer is in his Ryan Callahan.

01:17:54.237 --> 01:18:02.749
[SPEAKER_02]: He went into events that he knocked on Vince's door, like usually, you know, Vince had his own place, right?

01:18:03.270 --> 01:18:07.116
[SPEAKER_02]: He knocked on his door and went in, and that's usually what you did.

01:18:07.450 --> 01:18:16.582
[SPEAKER_02]: But for this time, for whatever reason, Vince flipped out, kicked him off the road, almost fired him, because he didn't wait for Vince to say, come in.

01:18:18.024 --> 01:18:21.428
[SPEAKER_02]: So he knocked on the door and came in, like, give him a heads up.

01:18:21.688 --> 01:18:24.933
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, people would come in and out of, you know, they did that all the time.

01:18:24.953 --> 01:18:27.636
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, people, but for whatever reason, at that moment,

01:18:28.662 --> 01:18:33.148
[SPEAKER_02]: Vince was pissed off and almost fired him.

01:18:33.629 --> 01:18:38.956
[SPEAKER_02]: And I ended up going on and being like the headwriter and all these other things that he was, he was kicked off the road.

01:18:39.497 --> 01:18:39.918
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

01:18:39.958 --> 01:18:41.360
[SPEAKER_02]: He got on and was kicked off the road.

01:18:42.061 --> 01:18:43.743
[SPEAKER_02]: And I took his place on the road.

01:18:43.783 --> 01:18:46.867
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he was relegated to the home team.

01:18:47.428 --> 01:18:55.139
[SPEAKER_02]: But all because he knocked and didn't wait for Vince's then say, come in, right?

01:18:55.319 --> 01:18:56.020
[SPEAKER_02]: As an example.

01:18:56.040 --> 01:18:58.163
[SPEAKER_02]: So so.

01:18:58.548 --> 01:19:09.178
[SPEAKER_02]: And like I give you another example, like there's, but it's all pretty much true, like maybe some things are embellished, you know, right things get out sometimes they get moved.

01:19:09.198 --> 01:19:10.381
[SPEAKER_02]: But first of all, that stuff was real.

01:19:10.401 --> 01:19:11.123
[SPEAKER_02]: Like,

01:19:11.812 --> 01:19:12.974
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll give you a couple of examples.

01:19:13.314 --> 01:19:21.527
[SPEAKER_02]: The first time I actually got called the gorilla from vents doing a pre-tap was, and this isn't as bad, this I get.

01:19:21.987 --> 01:19:33.365
[SPEAKER_02]: When you do like a shot of like multiple people, and just the camera effect, if you're a little bit closer to the camera, you're gonna appear bigger and taller, right?

01:19:33.445 --> 01:19:34.967
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you're a clerk of the camera.

01:19:34.947 --> 01:19:56.567
[SPEAKER_02]: right usually when you have like a group of four people in the shot you know maybe they're being interviewed and there's a couple people there you know sometimes there's a little bit of a natural curvature at the end to people kind of rounded up so um I did a I did a segment with Randy Orton and Randy was on the end and I guess Randy also knows this

01:19:56.547 --> 01:20:03.654
[SPEAKER_02]: And so Randy purposely shifted himself a little bit forward so he could just look bigger and taller at the time.

01:20:03.674 --> 01:20:04.855
[SPEAKER_02]: And then called me down.

01:20:04.895 --> 01:20:16.086
[SPEAKER_02]: He didn't yell at me, but he was one of those things where he's like, I teach him on his like, you got to look out for Randy or anyone like, they're going to stand, you know, sometimes they want to like look bigger.

01:20:16.146 --> 01:20:18.508
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going to stand a little bit closer to the camera.

01:20:18.528 --> 01:20:24.934
[SPEAKER_02]: So, um,

01:20:25.943 --> 01:20:38.565
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember hearing the head of SmackDown, the headwriter for SmackDown, one time was a coming back as Vince Chewton out and he said, he goes, if I say the sky is green, the sky is green.

01:20:38.625 --> 01:20:43.294
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was like, if I say, this is the way the physics of the Earth is in already.

01:20:43.354 --> 01:20:43.814
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the way.

01:20:43.935 --> 01:20:46.399
[SPEAKER_02]: But then the problem is,

01:20:46.379 --> 01:20:55.432
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes the sky would be purple and sometimes like meaning he would say this is what it is and then at some point that those rules would change.

01:20:55.553 --> 01:21:00.199
[SPEAKER_02]: And like nobody knew there was no book for us despite what you know.

01:21:00.340 --> 01:21:08.712
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I saw once in terms of like the announcers had some rules on that we forgot any like rules on like what you did and what you didn't do.

01:21:09.453 --> 01:21:15.542
[SPEAKER_02]: But you learned pretty

01:21:15.522 --> 01:21:15.922
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

01:21:15.942 --> 01:21:18.706
[SPEAKER_02]: The call of belt belts are what people wear around their waist.

01:21:19.006 --> 01:21:20.808
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like the whole their pants stop, right?

01:21:21.088 --> 01:21:21.288
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

01:21:21.348 --> 01:21:31.360
[SPEAKER_02]: You call it a faction or, you know, like 1,000% and the majority of the stuff you probably hear about that stuff with Vince is true.

01:21:31.640 --> 01:21:31.840
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

01:21:32.120 --> 01:21:32.221
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

01:21:32.241 --> 01:21:32.861
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.

01:21:33.182 --> 01:21:33.442
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

01:21:33.462 --> 01:21:33.922
[SPEAKER_01]: Definitely.

01:21:33.942 --> 01:21:35.204
[SPEAKER_01]: I can see that.

01:21:35.284 --> 01:21:40.430
[SPEAKER_01]: So how have working for WWE affected your wrestling fandom isn't something that you still watch?

01:21:40.450 --> 01:21:44.194
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you watch WWE or other companies or, you know, how does that?

01:21:44.214 --> 01:21:44.314
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

01:21:44.952 --> 01:21:48.096
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, no, I still watch.

01:21:48.236 --> 01:21:50.739
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll tell you this though, obviously, I don't.

01:21:51.800 --> 01:22:14.706
[SPEAKER_02]: I will watch the, the big four typically, like, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

01:22:14.686 --> 01:22:29.485
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't watch right now like I don't watch the shows through if something if I know something big's happening or like, you know, obviously, you know, like the night after Gunther beat Cena, right?

01:22:29.565 --> 01:22:29.945
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

01:22:30.045 --> 01:22:34.711
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to see how they, you know, how they carry that forward, right?

01:22:34.751 --> 01:22:35.192
[SPEAKER_02]: So, right.

01:22:35.172 --> 01:22:37.775
[SPEAKER_02]: There's certain times we're all tuning in.

01:22:38.176 --> 01:22:42.281
[SPEAKER_02]: When I know something that's kind of worth watching, it's going to be worth it.

01:22:42.401 --> 01:22:43.662
[SPEAKER_02]: I just don't watch.

01:22:44.243 --> 01:22:50.310
[SPEAKER_02]: As much and probably that has to just do with my personal schedule as well, in terms of, you know, busyness and stuff like that.

01:22:50.330 --> 01:22:50.871
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah.

01:22:50.891 --> 01:22:52.653
[SPEAKER_02]: But I still love the product more than any.

01:22:52.673 --> 01:23:01.804
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I don't think you get, you know, I guess for me, there's things about just storytelling, and I think it's still,

01:23:03.033 --> 01:23:09.511
[SPEAKER_02]: form of storytelling out there's the most unique thing out there that I've ever seen.

01:23:09.571 --> 01:23:13.482
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things that I love the most, I still love to this day.

01:23:14.221 --> 01:23:15.062
[SPEAKER_02]: is the pop.

01:23:15.322 --> 01:23:30.257
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I, like being in the, like pines, like if we knew someone was coming out or whatever, as I remember one time when, when, you know, Brock came back after WrestleMania 31, you know, you lost any any was gone for a few months and usually he came back.

01:23:30.718 --> 01:23:33.060
[SPEAKER_02]: And I knew Brock was coming back or somebody was coming back.

01:23:33.541 --> 01:23:37.024
[SPEAKER_02]: I would kind of sneak out into the arena just to like hear the reaction.

01:23:37.165 --> 01:23:37.465
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

01:23:37.525 --> 01:23:39.587
[SPEAKER_02]: That is because it's like, it's like,

01:23:39.567 --> 01:23:57.998
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a dick thing like the energy of like 20,000 people popping it's like you don't get you don't get tired of that, you know, yeah, right, it's definitely do you have I mean just for wrestling promotions and general do you have like any advice when it comes to storytelling or what you would personally like to see like more of

01:23:58.231 --> 01:24:00.997
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, it's funny.

01:24:01.418 --> 01:24:10.317
[SPEAKER_02]: At the time I was, I remember I even pitched to do, you know, I almost pitched this idea at one point to do a little bit more cinematic stuff when we could.

01:24:10.377 --> 01:24:12.982
[SPEAKER_02]: Storytelling wise that would make me even bridge.

01:24:13.303 --> 01:24:16.430
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I was, I was a, I'm a big nerd, big pop culture nerd.

01:24:16.450 --> 01:24:17.472
[SPEAKER_02]: I watch.

01:24:17.452 --> 01:24:21.356
[SPEAKER_02]: all the, you know, I've been a fan of all the Marvel stuff and Star Wars and all that.

01:24:21.636 --> 01:24:21.797
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.

01:24:21.817 --> 01:24:36.272
[SPEAKER_02]: And so like even like the idea of like end credit scenes, you know, like once this shows ending, like we wanted to tease something for next week, like, you notice I did have doing a little bit more professional storytelling, maybe getting a little bit more of a cinematic camera and like shooting things.

01:24:36.512 --> 01:24:41.097
[SPEAKER_02]: When you could do those things, yeah, you know stuff like

01:24:41.971 --> 01:25:06.365
[SPEAKER_02]: In terms of storytelling, I think you have an argument that a lot of people make is, when you're producing that much content on a weekly basis, it's not just the shows and you have the sub-shows at the time we were doing, at the time we had three or four other of these smaller shows, there's a format you have to follow.

01:25:06.685 --> 01:25:08.788
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the reason why movies have three arcs.

01:25:08.768 --> 01:25:13.512
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there's a reason for there has to be some consistent structure.

01:25:13.532 --> 01:25:15.554
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have to try and fit within those things.

01:25:15.634 --> 01:25:21.059
[SPEAKER_02]: But like also, we would love the idea of unpredictability, like things.

01:25:21.199 --> 01:25:30.547
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd love obviously when things, you know, mystery things or a little bit longer form storytelling, obviously building towards something was always exciting.

01:25:30.667 --> 01:25:38.674
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, I always want to do that when we could, but I also understood that if things got too

01:25:38.654 --> 01:25:42.559
[SPEAKER_02]: Hectoric and too much, then it loses some of its value, right?

01:25:42.639 --> 01:25:51.389
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the right way, sometimes when you had a top guy or like Brock where he was really a main event attraction, you didn't have him every day because over time it would lose its luster.

01:25:51.529 --> 01:26:00.140
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's definitely, there's definitely has to be the sweet spot of the formula and using the formula to tell these stories.

01:26:00.360 --> 01:26:08.610
[SPEAKER_02]: And then finding the times when you can make things and throw out some twists or swirl or surprise

01:26:08.590 --> 01:26:14.139
[SPEAKER_02]: I've always loved factions as a way to also elevate talent.

01:26:14.159 --> 01:26:16.843
[SPEAKER_02]: I was always a fan of that in the attitude era.

01:26:16.863 --> 01:26:18.545
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a lot of factions.

01:26:18.866 --> 01:26:19.166
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

01:26:19.647 --> 01:26:25.076
[SPEAKER_02]: And I always lean more that because it gave younger talent more screen time.

01:26:25.596 --> 01:26:31.265
[SPEAKER_02]: It allowed them to get the rob a bit more to in terms of being around these other talents.

01:26:31.706 --> 01:26:32.948
[SPEAKER_02]: And it just made it more fun.

01:26:33.529 --> 01:26:34.410
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it that always.

01:26:34.690 --> 01:26:36.994
[SPEAKER_02]: So like I always kind of lean towards

01:26:37.463 --> 01:26:41.167
[SPEAKER_02]: some of these more faction wars and things as ways to tell these fun stories.

01:26:41.348 --> 01:26:49.958
[SPEAKER_02]: And also, like, elevate talent, like bring it out and you've seen how well that's played off with, you know, and I think they've gone back to that.

01:26:49.978 --> 01:27:02.613
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of factions now in the past couple of years, you know, and it's like, look at the bloodline story, like how many of us that think that Roman said, like, part of this is their family, the elevate, J.U.S.O.

01:27:02.673 --> 01:27:06.998
[SPEAKER_02]: and Jimmy, and solo and like all these other guys,

01:27:06.978 --> 01:27:12.093
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so I've always kind of been a fan of having the groups and the factions as well.

01:27:12.514 --> 01:27:19.776
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so if there's anybody who's watching this and they want to, they're, you know, aspiring writers or they want to get the wrestling business.

01:27:19.796 --> 01:27:21.882
[SPEAKER_01]: What kind of advice do you have for them?

01:27:23.279 --> 01:27:42.165
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I mean, certainly getting a writer's position probably is the best route you can go is I mean obviously experience is incredibly you have to know the product so obviously you've got to know the product really really well and you have to my dog my barcara pocket.

01:27:42.500 --> 01:27:43.361
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there she goes.

01:27:43.862 --> 01:27:48.729
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to put like experience, you know, so you say, well, how do I get experience as a writer?

01:27:48.769 --> 01:27:50.892
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, like, not everyone just gets a writer's job.

01:27:50.952 --> 01:27:51.233
[SPEAKER_02]: So.

01:27:51.333 --> 01:27:52.234
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.

01:27:52.374 --> 01:27:59.665
[SPEAKER_02]: Or an assistant, you know, usually the assistant writing position is one where they usually are going to hire somebody who's pretty darn young.

01:27:59.645 --> 01:28:07.400
[SPEAKER_02]: Not too far out of school that has some internships or some experience, usually still comes back to television production.

01:28:08.402 --> 01:28:16.978
[SPEAKER_02]: Because even the writer's position is like you're producing, you're still need to understand, you know.

01:28:16.958 --> 01:28:22.504
[SPEAKER_02]: camera angles and lighting and just all the other elements that are tied to story.

01:28:22.524 --> 01:28:27.910
[SPEAKER_02]: So I would always say just like, you know, get a degree in TV production or go get some certifications.

01:28:28.531 --> 01:28:38.042
[SPEAKER_02]: Intern will you can like try to get whatever what you can in developing some kind of, you know, like working in media and like on-right video in media.

01:28:38.302 --> 01:28:41.886
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, honestly, too, like I hate to say it,

01:28:41.866 --> 01:28:44.729
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a lot of it is like networking.

01:28:44.949 --> 01:28:54.159
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that was that no matter what industry it is, like networking as much as you can, is like really critical too, as best as you can.

01:28:54.259 --> 01:28:55.200
[SPEAKER_02]: And let's talk.

01:28:55.220 --> 01:29:00.365
[SPEAKER_02]: But as you know that are out there that are, you know, putting their own work out, obviously now YouTube and things of that nature.

01:29:00.385 --> 01:29:02.487
[SPEAKER_02]: In terms of, but you gotta do the work.

01:29:02.527 --> 01:29:04.990
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you gotta do the right, you gotta find the experience, you gotta network.

01:29:05.030 --> 01:29:07.873
[SPEAKER_02]: I think those are three things I would think of at the top of my head.

01:29:07.853 --> 01:29:08.434
[SPEAKER_01]: definitely.

01:29:09.115 --> 01:29:20.014
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you mentioned that during your time away from wrestling that you were kind of doing the entrepreneurial stuff, so what is it that you're doing now?

01:29:20.415 --> 01:29:28.229
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I've spent a lot of time in, like I said, an healthcare and health and fitness sports performance sports medicine.

01:29:28.329 --> 01:29:32.376
[SPEAKER_02]: I spent a lot of

01:29:32.356 --> 01:29:38.812
[SPEAKER_02]: And basically education and devices around sports performance and sports medicine.

01:29:38.852 --> 01:29:45.788
[SPEAKER_02]: So we worked with, you know, US Olympic team and pro sports teams and all the major leagues.

01:29:45.929 --> 01:29:50.179
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I did a lot of stuff around that in terms of,

01:29:50.159 --> 01:29:56.291
[SPEAKER_02]: equipment and education that we would train physical therapists and strength coaches in as well.

01:29:56.312 --> 01:30:02.484
[SPEAKER_02]: I have eventually got a background in certification and strength training and online health coaching and stuff like that.

01:30:03.767 --> 01:30:08.877
[SPEAKER_02]: But the thing that I do now, the venture I've been enough for the past,

01:30:09.599 --> 01:30:18.020
[SPEAKER_02]: about eight or nine years, is so I started training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and actually it's funny.

01:30:18.461 --> 01:30:20.747
[SPEAKER_02]: I got into it because of Brock Lesnar originally.

01:30:20.787 --> 01:30:21.188
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh wow.

01:30:21.770 --> 01:30:24.737
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and what I mean by that is not like he did anything specifically.

01:30:24.757 --> 01:30:26.241
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

01:30:26.677 --> 01:30:48.364
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, when he went to the UFC, you know, I was a big, and then I, I'd done some projects with Brock and stuff, but obviously the guys are a freak of a human in terms of athletic ability, and he fought Frank Mir at UFC 81, and that was I think in 2008, and on the card was a guy by the name of Ricardo Almeda.

01:30:48.344 --> 01:30:55.835
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a fighter, it was a Brazilian Jitsu practitioner, and he fought, like he, I'm watching it.

01:30:55.855 --> 01:30:59.160
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, oh, he's from Hamilton, New Jersey, which is a talent next to me.

01:30:59.621 --> 01:31:03.246
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, man, you know, it was like, yeah, I think it got out a little bit.

01:31:03.266 --> 01:31:10.417
[SPEAKER_02]: So I, I, from watching that, I saw that and decided to get into Brazilian Jitsu.

01:31:11.118 --> 01:31:13.221
[SPEAKER_02]: And so,

01:31:13.201 --> 01:31:20.951
[SPEAKER_02]: Years and years later, I decided to start opening Pizonjjitsu Academy's MMA gym.

01:31:21.071 --> 01:31:27.720
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I own a portfolio of Pizonjjitsu Academies.

01:31:27.740 --> 01:31:31.986
[SPEAKER_02]: We do like kickboxing wrestling to some MMA stuff.

01:31:31.966 --> 01:31:40.697
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we have a non-profit as well that we work with inner city kids who try to bring Brazilian jiu-jitsu to inner city kids.

01:31:40.717 --> 01:31:43.541
[SPEAKER_02]: We do, I think, the bullying things, and we do like that.

01:31:44.081 --> 01:31:54.735
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I also do, I have a clientele, and I consult and coach for other jiu-jitsu academies as well.

01:31:54.755 --> 01:31:56.978
[SPEAKER_02]: So I help out on the business side a bit.

01:31:57.218 --> 01:32:01.163
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I do that as well.

01:32:01.750 --> 01:32:08.520
[SPEAKER_02]: Business and small businesses like mine is so much of our marketing now is it's all content.

01:32:08.760 --> 01:32:12.846
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have to produce videos and things that I need to address.

01:32:12.887 --> 01:32:16.752
[SPEAKER_02]: So that kind of itches that that scratches that itch a little bit.

01:32:16.872 --> 01:32:17.173
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

01:32:17.233 --> 01:32:18.174
[SPEAKER_02]: In terms of that so.

01:32:18.595 --> 01:32:24.944
[SPEAKER_02]: But so yeah, so I'm involved in basically mixed martial arts and business consulting at this point in time.

01:32:25.005 --> 01:32:25.345
[SPEAKER_02]: So.

01:32:26.168 --> 01:32:31.118
[SPEAKER_01]: And so before we wrap up, is there anything that we obviously discussed a range of topics?

01:32:31.138 --> 01:32:35.205
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there anything that we didn't discuss that you want to talk about or bring up permission?

01:32:36.668 --> 01:32:40.195
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean overall, like I think, you know,

01:32:41.069 --> 01:32:55.701
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to say, Vince was such a polarizing character, and I think, I guess they'd gone back to some of the stuff that I was involved in with the wrong stones thing and everything else is like, how do you reconcile this, right?

01:32:56.262 --> 01:32:58.707
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was something for me that was,

01:32:58.687 --> 01:33:05.096
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I spent a lot of time and understanding, like, yeah, multiple truths can be present.

01:33:05.136 --> 01:33:18.274
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, Vince, Vince, you know, to me is like the Godfather of modern wrestling, you know, he's done so much, he's created so much, he has a wealth of knowledge, but he was also a terrible leader, honestly.

01:33:18.414 --> 01:33:24.002
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, great businessmen, smart businessmen cut throughout, you can say me, a lot of people have a lot of things to say about him.

01:33:23.982 --> 01:33:36.876
[SPEAKER_02]: But he was, you know, like, so like multiple truths can be present and like the writers room and the culture there, like I said, there were guys, there were some guys that were assholes in there.

01:33:37.337 --> 01:33:52.453
[SPEAKER_02]: But like you got to know them a little bit better, you found, you know, we, you know, we would, you know, go to the bar sometimes and like you get to know these people and they're all human and they're just doing what they're trying to survive and do their things as well.

01:33:52.433 --> 01:33:55.798
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of really talented people behind the scenes.

01:33:55.858 --> 01:33:59.943
[SPEAKER_02]: And I know like from a fan perspective, I think that's something for me.

01:34:00.684 --> 01:34:07.714
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I have a unique viewpoint on is that I've been a fan and I've been personally being like, what the hell are they doing?

01:34:07.734 --> 01:34:16.266
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I've been in, you know, I've been in rooms and meetings that, you know, a small handful of people on the planet are in.

01:34:16.506 --> 01:34:16.766
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

01:34:17.307 --> 01:34:18.829
[SPEAKER_02]: When you see,

01:34:19.113 --> 01:34:39.214
[SPEAKER_02]: The depth of knowledge and the conversations and understand all the other variables that go into making decisions as to the direction of the of the creative and things of that nature and and the different filters and and everything else I think you start to have a little bit of better understanding of like.

01:34:39.751 --> 01:34:41.353
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just not that simple.

01:34:41.533 --> 01:34:47.140
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's complicated, you know, there's a lot of a lot of personalities, a lot of things.

01:34:47.160 --> 01:34:54.569
[SPEAKER_02]: And ultimately, you know, it's like the more you just try to sit back and enjoy the product as much as you can.

01:34:54.629 --> 01:34:58.453
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, fans can say and do what they want.

01:34:58.633 --> 01:35:00.295
[SPEAKER_02]: That's part of the business.

01:35:00.335 --> 01:35:03.059
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the trainer of the booth or reason we get to do that.

01:35:03.079 --> 01:35:04.000
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really important.

01:35:04.500 --> 01:35:04.721
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

01:35:04.801 --> 01:35:08.425
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think that the people behind the scenes,

01:35:08.405 --> 01:35:31.324
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, they get shit on a lot and I think that it's when you do actually see what happens and who they are and their intelligence levels and their knowledge of the product and Right, like you you'd be you'd change your tune a little bit you'd be like yeah people they know what they're talking about there are other forces at play right it's out of their control, you know, yeah

01:35:31.304 --> 01:35:51.591
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, it's like enjoy the product, you know, it's like enjoy as best as you can, and that's what I try to do is say like look at this point it's, you know, it's there that help us kind of escape for a little bit from our life and be entertained and and enjoy it as best as you can.

01:35:51.571 --> 01:35:52.592
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, definitely.

01:35:53.093 --> 01:36:04.967
[SPEAKER_01]: And if there's any if they if any of our viewers want to find you as there any social media or websites or anything that they or if they want to reach out to you about maybe getting subriding advice or anything like that, how can they react to you?

01:36:05.267 --> 01:36:07.169
[SPEAKER_02]: I have nothing to sell, so.

01:36:09.652 --> 01:36:16.701
[SPEAKER_02]: But if they if they want to find me on Instagram, my handle, I guess that's what you call the handle.

01:36:16.861 --> 01:36:17.081
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

01:36:17.241 --> 01:36:18.743
[SPEAKER_02]: It's it's Mike.

01:36:19.060 --> 01:36:23.226
[SPEAKER_02]: So Mike, so Mike, P-R-O-F, Mike, so Mike, Mike.

01:36:23.827 --> 01:36:24.648
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

01:36:25.289 --> 01:36:27.673
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, if they want to reach out, they can DM me.

01:36:27.693 --> 01:36:29.516
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm happy to chat or do whatever.

01:36:29.636 --> 01:36:30.678
[SPEAKER_02]: Just give them whatever.

01:36:30.838 --> 01:36:34.724
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, tips I can or they want to hear some other stories or whatever.

01:36:34.764 --> 01:36:35.805
[SPEAKER_02]: That's fine, too.

01:36:35.905 --> 01:36:43.236
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't, I, you know, I don't, I don't have any like kind of, aside from my businesses, which is something different.

01:36:43.337 --> 01:36:43.557
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.

01:36:43.617 --> 01:36:44.258
[SPEAKER_02]: But.

01:36:45.031 --> 01:36:45.311
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

01:36:45.672 --> 01:36:45.852
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

01:36:45.872 --> 01:37:06.434
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you so much for your time today and your stories and sharing your knowledge with our viewers and you are definitely welcome back anytime if you want to come share some more stories we would love to watch lots more stories by I'm sure they're on our and you're more than you're welcome any time to stop by and come share some stories I would love to talk to you some more.

01:37:06.474 --> 01:37:08.997
[SPEAKER_01]: I really enjoyed our time together again.

01:37:09.017 --> 01:37:09.798
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.

01:37:10.238 --> 01:37:10.639
[SPEAKER_02]: Same here.

01:37:10.699 --> 01:37:11.179
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Sam.

01:37:11.199 --> 01:37:12.000
[SPEAKER_02]: Appreciate it.