Hey everyone, it is the Queen, which is great, and you are listening to Eyes up here with Grampy on the iHeartRadio Network or wherever you get your podcasts.
As always, my good, great good friends, the chat star is with me. That's how you say it.
I don't know it is.
Yes, how are you today?
I'm doing great to my great good friend, the Queen of Extreme.
My great good friend. I don't know why that popped into my head.
That was awesome.
I didn't get my dover friends over it was I'm not listening. I'll give him a cheap plug. Go on over and search to Get My Go.
Oh my god, I should turn the music all the way down.
They're a fun little uh little YouTube channel that you can go and just have a laugh with. And I did need my dirband this two weeks ago, and he did tell me that my return is eminent. So I will be returning for a second appearance on Get My Go. And I need to wear my shirt that Mike was so graciously nice, generous to give me.
So yeah, So I'll be back on there. But check it out if you have it.
Cheap plugs to be the best plugs to.
Have anything cheap is all right with me. So what's going on?
You don't know. It's been a it's been a crazy week. You know. I can save it for later if we have time. But you know, I had a insane incident happened at the house. I told you all about it. Yeah, it was crazy. It was quick, but crazy, as is everything that goes on in the chatsters.
I heard you're quick and crazy.
Listen, jeez. Well, in many ways, we're gonna be getting hot and heavy here in just a moment. I got off hot. Sometimes on this shows he's ready to jump on right.
Well. Yeah, so a little backstory.
Last week we had the great Vince Russo one, which is always a pleasure because he's wonderful and there seems to be a little bit of tension. So now we're gonna hear his side of the story, because there's two sides to every story, and the truth.
Vince says he always speaks the truth. So I don't know. I mean, I'll listen to him, but we'll see. We'll see who's telling the truth.
I suppose, oh absolutely. I mean I can only say that out of all the people who report wrestling, this is the guy who I could put at the top of the list of the most credible people to give the news interesting of anybody, the man himself, Sean Ross Sap joining eyes up here.
How are you today?
I'm doing good, doing good, Sean.
I'm still waiting for you to interview me.
You know what, I maybe like.
Twenty years ago and I'm saying to myself, this guy's stuck in me.
What if I was so hopeful that we could at Squared Circle Expo, but you.
Had a line. You were busy.
I was a little busy. That's a good thing, though, right.
It is a good thing.
So that's the thing about conventions, like, I'm always really fortunate that these conventions will let me come there and interview talent, because the main reason you guys are there is to make money. And I'm not going to be like, hey, can you hold up your line while I interview you about something?
I felt so bad because I so wanted to sit down and talk to you.
But that was like, you know, we had the line, and then we were I think we were doing Cold Cabana's stage show and I'm also Sanman's handler. Okay, a little how do I say on the gummies that day? And was flying high, so I was trying to corral the troops and get everyone where they needed to go. So if we are ever in the same place, I am more than happy if.
It's all right.
Novia didn't have a line all weekend, so I interviewed him.
Well, oh wait till I text him later and tell him you said that.
He's great. I love him, He's.
One of my dearest friends. But he's so over and I'm just going to tell him what you said.
Yeah, we discovered that we live like forty five minutes apart too, like we had to you. Yeah, I'm in Kentucky. I'm in Lexington, he's in Louisville.
I was. I was like, oh, hell, I got to have him in studio sometime.
You can hang out with him all the time, now.
You'll yeah, I'll do that before we.
Get into the subject at hand, because you know why we contacted you.
Sure, hell did you? And I'm saying all your wrestling stuff, so I definitely want to talk about that too, because that's interesting to me.
How did you become a journalist in this wacky world of professional wrestling?
The wonderful Bill Apter is how I became.
I love that guy, so I have family that were in media, just local radio things like that, and I always wanted to do something like that, Like I thought I'd be very good at it. So along the way, I trained kickboxing, wrestling, MMA, all that stuff so I can have a better understanding of like what it is I was covering and went to college, did that for a while and I was looking. I'll never forget it was.
It was for January fourth, twenty ten, which was the night that TNA went head to head with WWE on Monday, and Brett Hart was coming back to WWE. I had pitched a feature to multiple websites and I was going to do this feature because I was falling more in love with MMA. I was training at full time, and I was doing a feature that was like from the eyes of someone who grew up a huge wrestling fan that was falling in love with MMA and trying to see if I could I could sort of hang on
to wrestling. And Bill Apter loved the idea and he's like, yeah, let's let's get you on and let's let's have you doing stuff. And I got accepted by a couple other places, but like it's Bill Apter, that's who I grew up reading, so I was I was like, Okay, this is the guy who was in all the magazines I read when I was young and wasn't allowed to watch wrestling. This is this is the guy that kept me up to date.
That's who I wanted to work with. So uh, that's that was the first person that ever took me on, took a chance on me, and I was so fortunate that that Bill was willing to do that and eventually effectively got me the job I have now because he got he got a phone call as a as a reference for somebody looking to hire me, and he's like, yeah, Sean Roth, snapsure guy. So I owe everything to Bill after. He's wonderful.
He is one of the greatest men that has ever graced the business. And I am in love of wonderful Willie and we'll love huntil the day I die. So totally agree with that. Something I didn't know is your past with wrestling and MMA. So you've you've trained in both sports.
Yeah, I trained in MMA at first, and then that school became basically a catches catch can wrestling school. So my coach is trained under Billy Robinson. Josh Barnett so a lot of the same lineage that Shane A. Basler has and the like out of Maysville, Kentucky. So went through the little.
Wrestling school and all that.
Never really had an intention to fight, train, grapple.
Full time or wrestle full time.
But I felt like, well, if I'm writing about this, I should train that way, I have a comprehension and understanding that way, if I'm interviewing somebody, I can at least have some understanding or inquisition about, like why this happens, or how this happens or something else.
It's what a concept it is because nine out of ten sheet writers will comment on our work and never take a bump in their life. So I'm impressed with you for doing so. Even if you don't want to be a wrestler per se, you're at least getting a feel for it, and you're writing means more to me now than some of the other guys who have never done anything in their career.
But can just I appreciate that, And I mean I've figured very early on because even in cat wrestling, they would have you taking what they call breakfalls. It's a backfall, it's a back bump, and I was like, yeah, this would not be for me full time, and not only that with me traveling, because the funniest thing was one of the main attractions of doing this job for me is like I can do it at home, I can spend time with my family, I can take my grandmother who needed it at the time, and now I travel
way more than I ever did before. And I'm like, h hell with that.
I guess well, you know, sometimes you have to adapt to certain situations. You So, twenty ten, you start training. Are you do you ever from then to now? Are you doing any indie shows? Are you working at all on the independent scene?
Yeah?
So I did some very very low level stuff here. Well, not in Kentucky because Kentucky is a commission and took giant pain in the ass. So the worst it'd be Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, usually river towns things like that that would have little shows, and up until Fightful started in twenty sixteen, it was maybe like once a month, but it was very low level, like you'd get anywhere between fifty to two hundred people. But I did a lot of regional
MMA stuff as well, like grappling tournaments. I would do commentary on anything, basically any work somebody would give me within MMA and pro wrestling at that time, because I was back in college part time as well, I would take because again I wanted to have as much of an understanding as many different facets of wrestling and MMA as I could possibly have, because at that point MMA was also white hot, so I was like, Okay, I've
got to put my eggs in that basket too. Since then, I've kind of leaned out of that because I there's wrestling is just so much more fun to write about than MMA, so and I.
Would think perform yes, MMA would.
Die yeah, which, funny enough, the wrestling training was much more physically demanding than MMA training, and weight classes have a lot to do with that, but I mean also in pro wrestling, even though it's more physically demanding, I didn't feel like I would get injured nearly as much because somebody's working with you, not against you. And if you go to a grappling tournament and somebody puts you in a toe hold, your ankle might snap.
Like they don't care.
They're there to get their little metal and they don't care if you got to go to work on Monday in wrestling. They do care if you got to go to work on Monday, because if they're booked to face you again the next weekend and they're comfortable with you, well then it's a lot different.
Yeah, So getting in the ring is a totally different experience than.
Writing about it. Did you get the bug?
As we say, I mean, are you one of the guys that it's like, Oh, it's in my veins?
Now? You know, I can't get rid of it. I'm going to do this for life and blah blah blah.
I thought that I had like a competitive urge for a very long time. That's what MMA was doing for me and grappling, and is as I found out. The first time I did a pro wrestling match, I was like, oh no, I have an urge to perform, Like that's what I have, and that completely satisfies a competitive urge. Now, if I'm like playing sports with my friends, I still have that, but I don't have like some big desire
to compete. I did have a big desire to perform, and that was pretty well satisfied when I was doing that then, because when I got offered the job that I have now, I was like, this is what I've been working for for years and years and years. Then that kind of satisfied it for me. Then when things got a lot better for us at Fightful, I was like, Okay, I'm in a better place financially. Now, how can I do this to help some other people? How can I
do that? So now if I do anything like that, I do it for a charitable cause, because I feel like that's a better approach than me being like, Hey, I'm gonna go out on the indies and somebody who's actually worked very, very hard for this spot is just gonna not have it. If I'm gonna do something like that, I'm gonna do it and raise some money for a good cause.
That's good to hear. I like that.
Yeah, I just saw you training online like on Twitter or x or whatever it's called now, and I said to myself, Oh, this is because I didn't know your background. So now I'm more impressed. But I'm like, oh, look at him grappling. This is this is cool, you know what I mean? But now that I know you've been doing it for years that.
I had stopped for years, I only recently started back up.
Because why did you recently start again?
Because I got offered a match at Black Label Pro this past weekend against Shaza Mackenzie. We've had a little, uh little online joke feud for a while. Wonderful woman.
She come on, I know, we already did it.
We already did a full podcast pulling back the curtain because one of our viewers was like, oh, you revealed dirt on everybody else, why don't you and yourself?
And I was like, happily, I'll do that.
So we raised a little bit more money for the National Alliance and Mental Illness. But I got I got offered a match against Shaz. It was right here, and I sort of gave them my conditions and I was like, hey, if you won't let me raise money for the National Alliance and Mental Illnes, I'll do it. And they were like, hell, yeah, let let's let's do that. So we ended up raising sixty five hundred dollars and that's great.
I was so happy about that.
Oh I love that.
Yeah, it was awesome, Very proud of how that went. Like she used a boomerang in the match, even because she's Australian and that was that was a cool moment to see, you know, how crafty she is.
As a saleswoman.
She's like, no, we're gonna sign this and we're going to sell it and donate that too, brilliant.
Stuff like I was.
So I was like, okay, I'll do that. And I've had a couple of people asked me to do some matches or something like that over the past couple of years, but this one, I was like, okay, this. I know that she's got a big social following. I've got a big social following, and we can raise some money doing that.
I love that. That's awesome. Well, good for you. And this looks like it was a fun match, to be honest with you, she's adorable.
This spot.
This spot wasn't fun. That was in the back of the head.
You didn't like the keen spot.
Oh So I had sent her to Canes to bring to the show because she drove up and I flew up. There was another show at this venue the night before, so she left the canes there. They were gone the next morning.
One Sandman might have came and took them.
There you go next.
Weekend at the show.
I'm very impressed with all this, and and the best part about it is you're raising money for charity.
So I absolutely love that's all.
I'll never I'll never wrestle, do commentary, or perform, or do really do anything outside of fight ful for money that doesn't go to like something like NAMI or the Trevor Project or some charitable cause. I'm in a very nice place now to where i can do that, and I wasn't in that place a couple of years ago. So I'd like to help people, or at least help somebody, help somebody along the way, because I think that that's beneficial.
That's beautiful. I love that about you. Wonderful.
See, let me just jump into that. See, I don't think that there's a lot of guys in your position that would be that smart to kind of think outside the box to one train to get to know the business that they're reporting on, but also put that much thought into Hey, I'm going to go into a match that I'm going to a donate money to charity, sure, and work with somebody that I know that we can trust each other. They would just jump at the opportunity
to get into the ring. They wouldn't care where the money's going, and they would never train ahead of time to know that they're actually going to have to take bumps and be safe. And that's why when you came on, I said, you're somebody that I respect in the business of reporting because you do your homework. I appreciate that.
And you know, I've long liked the stuff that you do as well, dating back to when I was at wrestling inc even like, yeah, no, you always.
Supported anything that I've done, So I've always given you a lot of credit for that. But I wanted.
I knew there'd be criticism because wrestling is so polarizing and listen, people will say stuff to me online and I'll say stuff back because who says that I have to take that? But I was like, you know what, they could say something about it being an intergender man, that's fine. They can say, oh, there weren't that many people in the building, that's fine. They ain't gonna be able to say I wasn't doing the moves right. They weren't gonna be able to say I didn't bump right.
They weren't gonna be able to say I didn't train anything like that. So they can dislike me all they want, but they the actual work I put in the work. But there are some people like Connor Casey Ricaccino. I know Brian Alvarez wrestled for years. Sam Laturna, I mean she's more of an on screen performer anyway now, but I mean she did a lot of that. There's a woman named Demon Diva who's done a little bit of training as well. I love that it's becoming more common.
I love that it's like people are doing that more because I feel like it's really really important to do, is to train a little bit. It's not required or anything, but I think it helps a ton.
I think it's you know, in thirty years that I've been in this business, I said it before, like we didn't have social media. You know, when we were hot R at ECW, we didn't have all these websites and you know social media X and Instagram and all this stuff. All we had were sheets, right, And if you didn't subscribe to the sheets, you didn't know what was being said about and you. So everybody always had one of the sheets, and you know, certain sheet writers would constantly bury me.
Everything I did was wrong Me. No, I don't even think it was one.
But it's refreshing because I've always said, like you can be a fan and you can critique as a fan. But if you've never taken the move or have never sold something, you have no right to judge anybody hardcore the way that some of these sheet writers just go
after people. And that's why I, you know, after learning this about you, I respect you because now you can see somebody take a move and if you've taken the move, well I've taken that move, and blah blah blah, you have the legit opinion about it, where others I feel like they just talked out their ass and they don't even know what they're talking about, but everybody praises them like there's some godlike figure, and it just it has
always gotten under my skin. So people who take the time to actually learn our craft, I like that, and I.
Applaud you for that.
So I appreciate that.
Yeah, that that impressed me so much because there there are so many people who have no idea what they're even reporting on, and it just, oh my god, it gets under my skin.
So this is refreshing to hear switching gears. Uh. And and you know, you say as much or as little as you want, it's fine. We just had Vince through so on.
I'll tell it here and nowhere else because I don't talk about him on my.
Own chain the breaking news.
There you go, but I don't want to interrupt.
Okay, So you know I had Vince on and and one of my questions to him was he, to me, he's like.
A polarizing figure.
People are drawn to him and people like to argue with him a lot, right. And I had mentioned the tweet that was going back and forth with him and Babba. I had mentioned to you know, he had just mentioned something about Triple H. I said, you're picking a fight with Triple H. I said, Sean ross Sap, you're picking fights with Sean. I've seen you guys going back at it back and forth. I know what he said about you, and it pretty.
Much stems to you texting.
Him out of the blue at eleven party at night, calling him a piece of shit for no reason whatsoever.
That that isn't true at all.
That's what he told us. No does the start and together as friends.
Oh, I don't want to do any business with us. I don't want to do any business together Sean. I just I can you know, I can I can hold you know. No ILL will towards him. But we worked together at Wrestling Ink in twenty sixteen, and I was not getting paid enough money to say no to anything, but I was put on a podcast with him, and the exact quote I gave to Raj Geary was, I don't want to compromise my integrity from someone who compromised
theres a long time ago. For the things that he said, I had to transcribe his audio because he wouldn't do it himself obviously it's not something he does. But the show, we had very good chemistry, we talked well, we had very entertaining shows. We're very good on screen together. And then I got hired for Wrestling Ink and around that or I got hired for Fightful around that same time, Vince leaves Wrestling Ink and I'm like, huh, I wonder why.
Well then I had the follow up call with Fightful and they go, yeah, we're putting you on a show with Vince, and.
I was like, ah, set of a fitch.
I thought that I was breaking free, but you know what, I was like, you know what different situation.
I'm calling the shots here. We can work with this, do this.
And it became abundantly clear, like within three or four weeks, like this guy despite being paid a salary to be there, because we were trying to launch the site and you know, get eyes on it.
And Vince is a name that.
At least, whether good, bad, or indifferent, at that time in twenty sixteen, people were like, Oh, okay, let's see what's going on. But within like three or four weeks it became a running joke how unmotivated he was at Fightful, and he gave me like one of the laziest written reviews of all, Like he was paid to write a written review of Raw every week and it was just
one of the laziest things. And I was like, I went to my business partner and I was like, listen, he's got to go, like, we can't have this, Like he's actively disrespecting and making rude comments about our audience. And when I called him about it, his solution was for he and I to manufacture arguments on screen, like pretend we were mad like work the audience, and he would say things like these people think it's real. They think wrestling is real, and I'm like, listen, man, nobody
watching our show thinks it's real. They're watching it for backstage analysis and information and a breakdown. These are adults that are watching our shows. They're not of some belief it's not real. And he said a lot of things that were very disrespectful to our audience, and I was like, okay, went to the business partner.
I was like, can't work with him.
Unfortunately, there was some personal things that happened with his family, like immediately after, and I don't think he was planning on coming back after that anyway. So fortunately or unfortunately that happened, and there was a parting of the ways he was gonna get fired. I don't know exactly how my business partner handled that, but occasionally, like once every year or so, we'd have him on to film some
stuff and things were fine. However, at some point after that, Vince realized he could make more money by being terrible to me than being civil to me.
There you can go.
Online and find dozens and dozens of episodes of him just making fun of how I look, how my co hosts look, any any number of things, like I don't care if they break down, like the commentary or anything like that. Do not care, not a single bit. But there are dozens of videos of him making fun of how people look, how they sound, any number of things, and it all comes back to him saying, Oh, well, they think they're in the business. No, I'm in I'm
in the news and rumor business. I write wrestling gossip. That's what I do. I'm very aware of what business I'm in. But I can't remember what necessarily led to.
The DM late.
At night, but I know he had said something like, particularly just rude about me, just really really rude about me. Oh, I know what it was, the dramatic watersip I do. Yeah, So last year I got into a bit of an altercation with a guy who was every type of bigot possible, Billy Body.
We talked about that. Yes, Billy by.
Every type of bigot possible. He hates women, he hates gay people, he hates transgender people. He claimed he was going to punch a woman that was a friend of mine in the head. He said that he was going to punch me in the back of the head on site if he ever saw me.
So, gentlemen, do you work with it exactly? Talked about it when it happened because it was circulated around when wrestl Khan was sarcast a star cast excuse me and Bill so Billy Body is a claim to be reporter. Uh, he runs a betting site and again betting site, and he's a former Big Brother contestant in the UK. He is the worst. He is a complete joke and oh yeah, yeah, oh that. You can't say enough about Billy. That's just he's a joke.
He's a horrible person. He's a truly horrible person. Okay, And like, if this were about like my opinions on wrestling, like I'm not gonna I don't care, Like I don't care if somebody says something about that. But he said he was going to punch me in the back of the head on site, et cetera. So I see him at this thing. I wait for him to walk by me. It was not on site. He did not hit me, but I'm not gonna let him get in the position to do that. So I got into his face and
I said, what's the deal here? So Vince, to his audience, pedals this notion that I was mad at some wrestling opinion of Billy's, and I'm like, no, I was mad that he said he was going to punch a woman. I was mad that he let me interject one more thing. He was also working semi closely with Vince well, so there.
Was at closer association with Billy and Vince, and Billy also working with K one hundred, which he has since been fired from because he was making up stories. So of of.
Whom have asked me to come on K one hundred numerous times. I can confirm that too, because Disco and I used to be somewhat cool. We were in the same fantasy football league or something. And the way that somebody told way that somebody in WDB told me about Disco, they said, he's the reason people call you and try to sell you an extended car warranty. He's the guy
that buys it. And I said, okay, I'll try to not pay too much mind to him, but wow, Vince tried to portray the Billy thing as like me being aggressive and trying to fight a guy over wrestling opinions, which would never happen, absolutely not. But if you tell me or say publicly I'm going to punch a woman, well then get the hell out of this convention that I'm at. You're not gonna be welcome there. And I don't care who you are, what you look like, or
anything like that. And if not me, somebody else is gonna boot you the hell out of there, and Shocker Killer Cross did the same thing.
The next day.
Killer Cross got into the dude's face, made him apologize to Scarlet for the horrible things he said about her.
Wow.
Yeah, he got kicked out of Rick Flair's last match three different times.
Wow yeah, So Vince is on, Yeah.
Vince's online saying, you know, he said horribly racist things about black members of our team. About funny enough, he was like in my face, saying, I'm brown, how can I be racist? Well, I don't know read your twitter, buddy, But anyway, Vince perpetuated that it was because of wrestling, even though dozens of people said, it's not about wrestling.
This is what it's about.
And he kind of dug into his heels and then he's like, well, why did you call Disco Inferno a little bitch on one of your tweets?
And I said, because he was being a little bit about it.
Almost like he gave this platform to a guy who said he was gonna hit a woman, Like what, I'm sorry. If anybody on my team said they were gonna hit a woman, you're fired immediately, You're gone.
That's it.
Not to mention racist stuff, not to mention homophobic and transphobic stuff ain't gonna happen.
So to me, that's where I was like, Okay.
Unfortunately, Vince appears to be what everybody else said. He was not the person that I experienced. Because I can deal with him turning in lazy writing or something. I don't think he's a bad person because of that, or not being motivated at work. Plenty of people aren't motivated at work and it doesn't make me think they're a bad person. That's what made me go, hm, okay, you're knowingly lying about this guy. There's no way you haven't
seen his Twitter conduct and all that. So Vince did a bunch of shows.
On me after that.
That's when he had decided, well, I can make more money being terrible to Sean, and not only that, terrible to my co host Denise, who is a Hispanic woman who has had to overcome an awful lot of hurdles to get where she is in wrestling, like, had to had to work her ass off, does everything she can. Picked on her quite a bit as well, but you know she's a big girl. She can she can handle it.
But what he would do. He would like.
Bury her and then try to get her on the show repeatedly, and it would you know, that's not comfortable, that's not nice, that's not like, Hey, I'm gonna bury you and then we're gonna have you on the show to defend yourself, Like that's to that audience. So I think Vince had tweeted something about me, and I'm not gonna name names right now, but one of his friends who is very successful, because I replied, I was like, Vince,
what are you doing? And this person said, Vince doesn't think about you as much as you think he does. And I said to him, I bet you one thousand dollars I can get Vince to do sixty minutes of audio on me within a week. And that guy goes, there's no way, there's no way. She's He even said he's got too much to do. And I posted the screenshots of this after it happened, and uh, he is like, man, he doesn't he doesn't care that much. He's like it's a bit for him. And I was like, I guarantee
you he does. So I mentioned our message Vince and I sent him the link to the show, and I said, Vince, I just want to say this to you directly. You're a coward and a joke. And I could tell Vince was getting riled up, because when Vince.
Doesn't have something to say.
That's when he's riled up. If he's saying something, he's in his comfort zone. But if he doesn't have something to say back after all the shots he took personally, professionally, physically make fun of how people look and all that stuff, that's when I know. So when Vince is like lol, haha, that's when Vince is bothered. That's when Vince has riled up. And this person, this friend of his, when we came to the Funny Enough, it was for NAMI as well.
We did this for the National Alliance on Mental Illness as well. I was like, listen, I don't need the money, but if you donated it, that'd be great. Well, a couple of days went by and Vince didn't do a show, so I was like, all right, I'm gonna make him do a show. So I tweeted that I'm gonna do a show about the interaction with Vince, and then Vince immediately was like doing a live show right now, and
he got on the air. He got on the air and listen, Vince can't be mad that somebody's trolling him. He cannot be mad about that. That's what he does for a living. And about forty five minutes into the show, his friend messaged me and said, he's starting to wrap up, buddy, he's got to go the full hour. So I hopped in the line chat and I felt like I was keeping him on the line like those old movies like to track his location. I was just trying to get there. He did another forty five.
Chat.
Yes.
To his friend's credit, his friend not only at the hour mark, sent one thousand dollars Tonami at the one and a half hour mark sent another five hundred dollars, and I was like, okay, that was worth it to me now, I mean, Vince has never let it go. Vince stopped talking about me for a little bit after I posted the screenshots with his friend's name redacted, saying hey, listen, because I was I was in his DMS and I was like, you should call me, Vince. You should call me right now, call me Vince.
I was.
Yeah, while he was live and before that too, because I mean, listen, I've I've worked with Vince, and I know what agitates Vince, and Vince doesn't like to admit when he gets got. Vince, really he doesn't like it. So during the show, I was actually I was sending him all the horrible comments in the chat. I was sending them to his DMS, of which he blocked me afterwards.
But Vince got got. That's what it was.
Vince said terrible things about me. He said terrible things about my co host. He brought up people that I don't bring up online for specific reasons, and he knows why. He did that to try to get a rise out of me. And then Vince got got and now now he sticks with it, and now he's very, very upset.
But I've learned so much tonight. I've learned them listen. I've learned that Sean is a worker. I've learned that Sean is also a massive ball breaker. Yes, I've learned, and doesn't give two shits about anything.
I don't stand to benefit from having Vince Russo on a show ever ever, never. But I just for years I just kept quiet about ben So. I was like whatever, Like I don't have any issue with him. He was nice to me. But when you sit there and you cape for a person who is every type of bigot on the planet, that tells me a lot about your character. Because it wasn't a uh you know what I should disassociate with him because he said he was going to
punch a woman. It was him pretending that that stuff didn't exist, and then he turned it into well why are you why are you bothered by Disco? Well, because Disco did the same thing, and it's.
Not like a.
Like a lol, you're a snowflake thing. This guy said he.
Was going to hit a woman.
Yeah, A little bit different than were you.
A fan of wrestling growing up?
Oh? Yeah, big fan.
Were you a fan of Vincerouso's writing? I mean, don't even think about you being working. You were not a fan of the nineties Vincerouzel.
I mean no, no.
The most I can say that I enjoyed of his work is that I enjoyed that everybody had something to do other than that, Like I was, I was very much not a fan of the type of thing that Vince did.
Okay, because you know how they always say, never meet your your heroes, right, and so sometimes like I'm a fan of somebody's work and then I meet them at a convention and they're totally note and I'm.
Just like, I want to like this person so badly, but there's such a jerk. And sure, you know what I.
Mean you You will find hundreds, if not thousands of people calling me a jerk online. And what I'll ask is, Okay, go go show me what you did to cause that, because that's that's my thing. I will not go at somebody unless they're they're rude or terrible or something like that. I brought I blocked liberally online. If somebody's terrible, I'm just gonna block them. I don't owe them my social
media experience. If they want me to unblock them, they can message our fightful account, and the fellaw who's run that for six or seven years can message me and say, this guy wants you to unblock him, and I'll be like, yeah, okay, so what energy exactly like? And if people say terrible things to me and they're very stupid, I'm going to quote tweet it and be like that's a stupid like that's that's it.
And if you can't, I'll tell you.
The weirdest thing when an adult male online calls somebody soft for blocking them. I'm like, you're upset that somebody blocked you on on the.
World Wide Web. Jbl blocked me ten years ago. I ain't sad about it. Guy had a reason. I don't know, you know, I don't I don't know.
You know.
Baron Corbin unblocked me on the air one time.
Why did he block you? Initially?
Something about the Bengals and the chiefs.
Oh, I'm I'm a Bengals fan.
Oh my god. Really yeah.
But we had a great talk and he's like, you know what, I'm going to unblock you on Twitter.
Now you changed him? You turned well.
I honestly like, I love interisso he's I only worked with him one time.
In Tnay You. He was lovely to me and the segment was good. I have to amit.
The segment that he produced was very good. But I got to know him a little bit just from the online stuff. But I see, I see how you know the interactions that he has. And that's why I brought up you Sure and Trips and Bubba and all this, because I just wanted to hear what he was thinking. And now you've been you.
You were lovely to me, and I told Vince, I said, well, he was lovely when I.
Met him the one time. Yeah, you know, I forget Vince's answer. I don't what did he say, something like, I don't know him very well.
Yeah he doesn't. He doesn't.
He doesn't know me very well, but he knew me well enough to bring up my personal life on camp.
He said, I don't know you very well. That's why you're lovely.
Okay.
I just nice to me when I met him at the convention, and that's what I looked for people.
If you treat me while I treat you well. So yeah, I think both of you are great.
And we just wanted to get your response because we always like to give everybody opportunity to say their piece, and I don't want to blindside anyone.
And you know, I was.
Just well, yeah, I mean sad.
Vince has entire shows dedicated to being terrible to people.
Wow.
And then then and he'll say, oh, it's just us criticizing the news and podcasts. No, it's it's going at people their physical appearance and how they sound and all that stuff too. Like that's the entire point of the show is to cultivate an audience of being terrible to other people, and then specifically when his audience acts like that online, he gets surprised when people are like, this is kind of toxic. But Vince, until Vince said something
about me, I didn't say anything about him. And Vince is probably still a little bothered that he got GOT. And I don't know if his friend told him that he made a fifteen hundred dollars donation because Vince was dumb enough to do that show. But I'm glad Vince was dumb enough to do that show because the people who watch that show ain't subscribing to me anyway. They're not plopping down five dollars a month to subscribe to my dirt sheet, So don't I didn't lose anything from that.
And so you gained for the charity, which is great.
Yes, that's we earned fifteen hundred dollars more for a charity than I ever would have made.
You earned it by jumping in that shot.
And let me ask you this. Yeah, when you were I got this is just back to to the hound, Billy body, the autograph hound who waits outside.
I still Sam when I go do media, I go do media, so WW will send us the Talent hotels to do wrestling interviews, and that son of a bitch drags his little kid with him.
Yeah, Francine, So what he does is he does the classic remember we reported and the guys that wait at the airports with the Funko pop boxes in the eight x ten and Sean, you know, I run a memorabilia company, so we have to go through the channels to go through the engins and go through the guys the right way. So he's a hound. We refer to them as the hounds. Right,
he drags his kid, Francy, and then uses that as debait. Okay, when you were face to face with him, how much fear was in his disheveled eyes, with his long stringy hair when he was doing this thing to you, like he was defensive body language wise, So.
I can I can tell you exactly how that went because he has editorialized how it went. And fortunately Brian Zane was a couple tables up and Brian Zane didn't like him, and he sees this and he immediately is like.
And starts filming it.
I'm not a physically imposing guy or anything like that, and I hadn't trained in a long time, but like, he's not gonna hit me harder than any UFC fighter hit me that I trained with, So what is there to be scared of?
Not not him?
So I was like, do you have a problem, And he was like, do you have a problem? And I'm like, yeah, that's literally why I turned you around, because I have a problem. And I can't remember what led to it, but I was like, you said you were gonna punch me in the back of the head.
Here's your chance. You said it was on site.
He's like, oh, you want me to get deported and I was like, ideally, yeah, I don't care if you get deported. What do I give a shit? Doesn't bother me from the US, he's from the UK. Although I literally walked by his tavern that his family owns. I was a mile away from his house doing media. I was in London twice this year doing stuff. Didn't hear from him then, didn't hear from him at all then, but.
He had.
He tries to say that he was asking to go outside. The direction he was even pointing was further into the convention hall than outside. We were right, we were like fifty feet from the doors. He did not want to go outside. He did not want to fight. He was making excuses the entire time, and like, I don't want to fight anybody at a wrestling convention either, Like that's
that's stupid, it's stupid. But if I feel like a woman is in danger of being attacked by a guy, well then I'm going to do what I can to get the hell the guy the hell out of there. And afterwards, Conrad immediately heard what happened, and Conrad was like, you go me to get him the hell out of there. And I was like, you know what, if he doesn't bother anybody, don't kick him out because his kid's with him, and I didn't know his kid was with him, Yeah,
because that was his excuse. He said that his kid was with him the entire time. His kid was nowhere nearby. I only found out his kid was there because when I was interviewing Matt Cardona, he kept walking his kid by us while I was on camera to make it seen. So I was like, yeah, don't do that. But he ended up getting kicked out anyway because he kept trying to sneak backstage.
Yes, he was his own.
He did a podcast about it afterwards. And his kid was even like, no, Dad, I wasn't anywhere near that. He's like, I didn't know.
That until after shut up, shut up.
It was so hilarious because the guy whose podcasts he did was like, Oh, tell me what happened. And there's the most hilarious jump cut because instead of talking about me, he goes on this like homophobic rant and he just cut it, just cuts right in the middle, and the guy goes, So, what you're trying.
To say is.
I was like, okay, but yeah, he a guy did not did not want to fight anybody, and if listen, if he acted that way towards me, I can't imagine what it was like a day later when Killer Cross saw him. And Killer Cross is the nicest guy. Yeah, he's so wonderful. Scarlet's wonderful, but a lot of people don't realize Killer Cross in addition to being a big dude, he could have been a pro MMA fight he decided to be a pro wrestler. He stopped MMA training because
he wanted to be a pro wrestler. That was his passion. So I'm sure that went well.
So he just said derogatory comments about Scarlet.
Just he made up a rumor about Scarlet and some of the boys.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah, well yeah, I mean that happens a lot in this business to the women.
But who's this guy to make up nobody?
But he does that all the time. I mean, that's that's his mom is. He makes up outlander stuff. But then he comes up with things like the Rock and Roman reigns are gonna main event WrestleMania. So if something like that happens, he goes told you told you, Yeah, well he's gonna happen. You know, nobody listen to me.
And that was the thing that was one of the issues I had with Disco. I was like, Disco, you're having him on for exclusive news. He's making this up, and what he doesn't make up he is very publicly reading verbatim from my website, like he got.
Caught content from you guys.
Yeah, And I mean, like we're doing well, I don't care that much. But and Disco was like, oh, well, why don't.
You come on?
Then I was like, Disco, you've let this guy bury me for a year and a half on your show.
Why would I do like you need me? I don't need you.
Like it's that's where we're at, Like there's a reason I'm not asking you to be on our show. Uh yeah, Like I don't need that. I don't like And that's what I said about Vince. I don't need Vince on my show. Me and Vince are very good on camera together, but I'm good on camera with a whole lot of people.
So not that not that big of a deal.
You put yourself over let these people.
I do know, so I feel too. It's funny.
Well, look, I learned so much about you, about life, about things, so I'm happy.
This happened me too.
This wasn't scheduled. Everyone I see.
I I didn't know that you remembered who I was. All based on square circus, I don't know.
I don't know, but you were so wonderful to me.
You're so nice, and we tried to make it work, and even like even when I left, you were like, hey, I've got a little time, and I was like, damn, I'm on the road now.
And he kind of like blew me off when I was.
Like as if, as if so funny enough. One of the things Vince buried this week was me wrestling that match, because he said it was in front of twenty five people, and I'm like, listen, I radyed sixty six hundred dollars for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Like, Vince, when's the last time you donated anything to anybody?
Like that?
Was?
That was my thing?
And a lot of people gave him crap over it because he goes, yeah, he wrestled a woman. I was like, Vince, you booked Medusa versus ed Ferrara on one of your shows.
Come on, what are we doing here?
You can't pretend to be bothered by that.
Anything that has to do with a reputable charity. I am one hundred percent on board with it. Doesn't matter how silly or not saying you were silly, but I'm just saying.
Oh, it was silly.
Any but any idea that's silly or doesn't make sense or what if it's.
Raising money for a charity?
Who cares? Knowres how many people are in the building. Who The point is you raised a ton of money for a wonderful cause, and that should be applauded. That shouldn't be frowned upon at all.
It certainly was silly, though I did an atomic drop, and because she's got such a big ass I sold my knee.
So I've done spots where I can like look back and say, oh my god, ridiculous.
But it got a pop and it was fun and it got over.
So who cares our social media?
Our social media guy.
Told me we have as of today, one point four million views on clips of that.
That's how silly that is.
So I just want to say, uh, I can tell you the number of times T and A drew one point four million under Vince Russo spitting facts.
I'm saying that's awesome.
Where can people find you and you know, look at your content online?
I am currently uh moving, I'm now renting out space in Vince Russo's head.
People can find me there.
I'm gonna have a permanent residence there after this show, so people can find me Russo's brand dot com because he needs the subscriptions a whole lot.
Wow.
Okay, So I'm gonna plug Fight Fault with you to fight full and read some of Sean stuff. Look up that video of him wrestling one point for mel We can get it.
Or don't or don't at all.
I want I'm gonna look at off as un as this is over. I want to see it in bull You were delightful. I appreciate you coming on, and hopefully I get to sit down with.
You sometime in the future. I hope discuss life in my ridiculous you know what I'm gonna Oh no, I can wait over this, you can.
I got this Blu Ray.
Look at that.
I did a rewatch of This is a it's a bootlet Blu Ray, but it's the original presentations of all the e c W and TNN.
Was not our best, our latest YouTube video.
I loved it because that's what I had. I didn't get to watch hardcore TV. I had ec W and TNN, so that was like my introduction to it.
And I was like, you.
Missed out on the lot because the syndicated show was fire compared to that.
Oh I went back and watched it, fortunately, But but I I did a rewatch of that recently and oh god, I loved it. I'm I'm a sucker for it.
I appreciate that because that's that's that's me.
That's so thank you all so much for having me on.
It means so much.
On and hopefully next year I'm booked a lot. I'm excited about it. I'll run into you somewhere.
I'm sure.
Oh we we will.
For sure.
Don't blow me off this time, okay, could I would never collab.
We'll do something, Yes, we will. You've seen her swing that cane on that DVD. It's not it's not pretty. So I don't need any more that.
You were great. Thanks for coming on. We appreciate it.
Good luck with everything, Thank you all. So yeah, yeah, you know, it kind of made me sad that we had such strife between our recording day.
Ill about Vince, Like those things I never thought would come out of Vince's mouth.
So it's like again he said, he said, I wasn't there.
What's the deal? Who's telling the truth, who's lying? You know, it's it's a tough one. I have respect for both guys though, because I feel like they both have a lot to the wrestling community and the wrestling business. So let me go on record with that.
I remember when all that was going down. I watched the videos, you know, I remember it, all the fighting that they were doing. You know, obviously you can't be on the inside. That's only between the two people, but we heard both sides. If you listen to both of these podcasts, so you know, your your opinion now is your opinion. But you know again, just like you said, Shawn's nothing but good to me. Since I've been podcasting and reported on stuff and shared stuff and been great.
Vince helped me very much in podcasting house. This show for a little bit, took care of us with the Triple Threat podcast. I have nothing but love for Vince Russo as well. So people. Not everybody loves each other, so unfortunately the way the cookie crumbles.
Yeah, yeah, unfortunate. Then, like you said, not everybody gets along. We all have our foes and nemesis in this world, and you know, some choose to confront in and others choose to just ignore. And I don't know, it's just sad to I just want everyone to get along.
All just get along.
I'm to say, who said it? Can't we all just get along?
I don't remember, but I remember that that phrase.
But you know, I like the charity aspect and I like that he's a reporter who actually took a bump.
That impressed me because not many of them do.
And you know they will be the first to tell you you are the drizzling shits when they have no idea what the bump entails, you know how to sell, how to psychology everything. They know nothing about it, yet they can critique and comment till their heart's desire.
I can't remember if it was Bully with us, Bubba, excuse me, I don't mean to call him Bully in your presence. I can't remember if it was Bubba or if it was somebody else off our airwaves that said that only people who have not been in the business use the phrase work rate.
Oh true, Probably if Bubba said it.
I think I feel like it was Bubba. Maybe it wasn't on our show, but I feel like I heard somebody say that recently. That is of the Bubba stature. And you know, a guy who reports on it that took a bump, that did it, is going to tell you something a little bit more accurate than say, you know, I don't want to use the stereotypical. Yeah, you know thought of what a wrestling journalist is, but you get
the you get the picture in your head. He's not it, but you know, to make say something work greater, this guy is the great worker. When you don't essentially know what a worker is.
It it's okay to be a fan and it's okay to have an opinion, but when people look at you like you're a god and you're you're spewing hate and you have no idea what you're talking about.
That irritates me.
When you've never taken a bump in your life or never worked a show, you know you you have insider information because one of the guys is a stooge and he tells you stuff that doesn't make you a good journalist, that doesn't make you an expert on how to work or take a bump or you know, practice psychology in your match. And that's what gets under my skin. When all these fans and I could use the term mark if I want it to, but we're all marks. I
say that all the time. But when they look at these certain journalists as godlike, yeah, makes me sick to my stomach. They know what the stooge tells them and they report it big deal.
That irritates me. And now I'm irritating that's a lot.
It's the I mean, yeah, it's just it's it's Studi's you're getting paid to stooge most of the time.
More.
I mean, look in the eighties and in the nineties, when there wasn't a lot of wrestling reporting, and there weren't outlets like the Internet to put this news out like that. We had to live off of those little outlets that were out there because you wanted to know what was going on on the inside, right, But the people that gave the news to those guys got buried, you know, they were vehemently despised. I never wanted to
be a wrestler. That was literally never ever. And when last week's episode with Vincey talked about people's dreams, all the wrestlers today, my dream was to be the champion. My dream was this. I never wanted to be a wrestler. I just wanted to be around owned the business. So I was able to do that, and guess what, I didn't love it. So I do this as my outlet. He took the bumps he had a match this weekend. Good for him. I give him all the credit in
the world. I'm sure he feels it in his back this morning, you know, or in the back of his head with the cane shots that he took. So I can't say any of the other journalists are doing that.
You know, there's a way too to be a civilized.
Human being and report things with kuth and with you know, a sense of compassion and not be so hateful towards other people, especially towards women. There's a way to go about things, and some of these journalists just don't get it.
They didn't get it in.
The nineties and they still are reporting today and they don't get it today. So that's why I've never had any respect for them. Number one for the way that they write, because they're just hateful human beings. But number two, because they have not trained, and they have not taken a bump, and they have not, you know, experience what
we have. And it's okay to say you're not a fan or you don't like somebody's work, but when you take it fifty steps above that and just insult them every chance you get and just berate them as a human being, that is so far beyond the sport of wrestling, and it's not necessary. And there are reporters who are like that, and I just find that they should not be in this business, let alone be paid forty five to fifty dollars for their autograph at wrestling makes me sick to my stomach.
You know, I just I should have thought about this when Sean was on. You know, back to Vince Russo. You know, if we're giving Seawan credit for you know, taking the bumps and learning the business from that side, right, Vince gets panned, yes, for what he did as being a writer, but also then being a performer. Now, Vince learned to train all the way back. Guess where in
Gleason's gym mm hmm with Johnny Rods. You know Johnny Rods trained Big Veto and I mean he might have did he also train Taz I believe so Johnny Rod Yeah, Johnny Rods. So, I mean that's a pedigree like not many people have. So, but Vince Russo gets panned for what he did in w CW all we put himself over all, we put the belt on himself. He did this and that. But Vince took the licks, yeah, learn how to do the move or that took the bumps in the business.
So he was one of the boys. He wasn't entertainer. He wasn't just a writer, you know what. He wasn't on air talent. And you could say the same for Paul Haman. Yeah, all run the company, but he was also an on air talent. Before ECW came around. So anybody who's worked and who's been in front of that live crowd and who's taken a bump, I had the utmost respect.
For an appreciation.
I just don't like these sheet writers who just go off on tander and insult and be great and you know, make people cry because I've cried.
I there's there's no room for it.
It's it's not necessary unless you have like a legit beef with somebody and you want to go ahead to head like these guys are. I never even met these sheep wriiters. You know, this is back thirty years ago. I never even met them face to face. So to make a little girl cry, I think that that's like just the coward move, and an easy one at that. And to have all these disciples just follow you wherever you go and tell you how great you are just makes.
Me sick to my stomach.
So amenswer today.
Anyway, great episode, wonderful week here.
Yeah, hey my water tank burst. A guy wanted to charge me twelve hundred bucks. The part was the part was forty and my guy charged me sixty. End of story. That was my thing from earlier.
That's terrible.
I'm glad you didn't pay all that money. Yeah, hideous.
You can't work a worker, That's all I have to say. Where can people find you if they need to? And we have to plug? We got a YouTube live coming up.
Yeah, at Chad E and B on Twitter, at IB exclusives on Instagram. Go to ibexclusives dot com for anything going on in my world and I'll let you plug all the YouTube greatness.
So I believe this drops on Tuesday.
Oh I don't know. I feel like this should be rushed.
It's the nineteenth. Well, no, because we have to wait because we have last week.
This is gonna be a this is crazy.
Just let you know.
We've taped two episodes in one day, and you know we have to put them up in the order that they were recorded.
But I believe this might drop on the nineteenth.
So the twenty first, which is a Thursday, we are having a Christmas live stream on YouTube.
Are I date? It's correct?
Let me let me confirm this here or maybe no? Maybe oh you are the this is dropping on the nineteenth. We are having a YouTube twenty first.
That's what I said. Okay, okay, I haven't written down right, here.
You are correct, Queen Live.
Are we doing seven pm?
Um?
Yeah, seven pm.
More seven pm Eastern Span your time. Come on over for the festivities. We do it once a year. We're gonna have a good time and we would love if you could join us. If you are not a subscriber, go on over to our YouTube page and subscribe.
It is free.
All you have to do is tap the subscribe button hit the little bell so you will be notified when.
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And if you want and are in the giving aspect of the holiday, you can become a channel member for five ninety nine and get all the exclusive content that regular members cannot get. So ECW Dva Francine with an exclamation point, and if you want to follow me on social media, you can find me at e c W David Francine.
I hope you were staying safe. I hope you were saying healthy and mist of all, I hope you were saying
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