Everybody. That's the American Nightmare Cody Rosen and you are listening to the baby Faces on iHeartRadio. Hey guys, this is ww Superstar timpty Stroun and you're listening to the baby Faces on iHeartRadio. What's going on, y'all? Is WWE Superstar Kobe Kinston. You're listening to the Babyfaces on iHeart Radio. Babyaby, that's right, you hear that music that means we are back. But
it's just only me piloting the episode today. This is the baby Faces Podcast, only on iHeartRadio and your free Iheartradiot powered by ninety seven to five WAMZ, Kentuckyana's number one four country. I'm your host Austin on air, we're missing our guy Billy the Kid today. He's really busy during the week, so we are able to get a special guest on this week. And Billy's a little hard to get ahold of, especially and he's doing all the music
creating and he's taking care of like thirty different stations right now. Plus he is also a high school football coach too, so as we're creeping up on that season, Billy's a little bit hard to get hold of here. On the weekday. But I hit him up earlier this morning and he said, Austin, you can do this. You could do this yourself. You've done this before, buddy, And he's left me back in the saddle, and we're back with another special guest, one that I've been looking for for a
long time. This is former WWE superstar in the first ever Tough Enough Winner. That's right, Mavin Huffman, Welcome to the show, my man. How you doing, Austin? I have all the faith in the world in you, and I think Billy, I don't think Billy would have left you in the driver's seat if you weren't able to pilot this ship. Sure, so, I believe in you, and I'll be perfectly honest with you.
I'm glad he's not here. I'm glad I'm here with the wrestling fan now, Billy, when I meet you at a later date, I'll say the exact opposite. I'll be like, of course, I didn't think Austin would ever leave, but I'm happy that it's just me and you, my friend. I'm great. How are you today, dude. I'm hanging out here Louisville, Kentucky. You've been here a couple of times. We're in the
douldrons of summer. Right now, it is probably somewhere near ninety degrees outside with like thirty percent humidity, and it's just you just step you look outside and your shirt starts to get all moist and sweaty. It's the humidity right now is pretty bad. One of the best things I'm looking forward to getting off when I get off of work here is not the brand new college football game that just came out, because I will be on that, but the
pool in the backyard. Ever since owning a pool, it's been the light at the end of my tunnel on these summer days. Dude, above ground or in ground, it's an above ground. It's like one of like a little wayfair Walmart one that we got probably about fifteen thirty feet. It's got like the little PVC pipes that holds it up, and you know, I take care of that shit. It's all mine, and I love the girlfriends. I look forward to the day when something breaks it and the water goes
everywhere and you get a video of that. I love those videos. All right. I gotta ask you before we get get going talking, right, ask me anything so whenever, because I'm Southern myself. Okay, well, I noticed you say Louisville Louisville. I'm sure plenty of people come in Louisville. What is it? Obviously you think it's Louisville. What's the correct way to pronounce your city. We always have every hardcore Louisvillion, Louisvillion seven little
Villa say it like there's peanut butter in your mouth. Louisville, Louisville. That's Louisville right there. It's you know, when I used to live in Arizona all my life, and it's just kind of like one of those things once you get around people that talk about it all the time, and then you kind of just start to talk like them. It was Louisville when I lived on the West coast, and ever since I've been indoctrinated back here in
the last ten years, it's now the right way Louisville. And we had a we had Jade Cargill on a WWE Superstar not too long ago, and she was calling it Louisville, and that got a lot of people hot. But who am I to stop Jade Cargill from saying what she can and can't say. People do get mad. And I went back to Virginia for my goddaughter's graduation. And I've been, you know, in the New York area
for shoot, since twenty thirteen. And when I got when I first got here, everybody just thought, I because I sound, I don't look the way I should sound. I get that, and but it's it's just the way it is. But when I came back from being back in Virginia for a week, evidently my accent kicked kick back in, and I it comes right back. I sounded more Southern than I do right now. So is that where you're from. You're from Virginia originally from Tennessee. Okay, gotcha.
Oh that's south right there. Yeah, but that was just like the beginning of my life. My I grew up in Virginia in the Waynebergh Charlottesville Harrisonburg area. Yeah, And oh my gosh, I didn't move. I didn't. I don't think. I never saw New York till I was twenty one. I literally was. I saw by about five states my entire life
growing up. Dude, I'm like the Jack the same way. I didn't go to New York until about twenty twenty twenty two was the first time I ever been to New York and still probably one of my favorite cities too. And this is just New York City, like Manhattan, and yeah, probably one of the favorite places that ever visit. I don't know why, just something magical about it. Now someone like you that's just kind of been around it the whole time. Everyone always kind of seems fed up with it,
but me, uh, the small city boy. And I feel like Louisville tries, not tries so much, but like it wants to be not it sort of wants to be Chicago. And Chicago's sort of like Many or New York, and it's they're just trying to have that metropolitan area to kind of make it get big city feels. But once you get to a huge city, it baffles me. Dude, the skyscrapers all that. And I'm just
a tourist. Anyways, my girlfriend's already been there a few times. I want to go check out the nine to eleven thing, the Statue of Looking thing, and she's like, no, let's get away from the touristy stuff. Yeah, dude, that's Time Square. I see that on SNL, like miss on this movie. I'm just booming. Yeah, New Yorkers.
New Yorkers avoid Times Square like it's the central hub, like it's ground like gives ground zero for COVID literally and it's seriously And if you mentioned the nine to eleven Memorial my office, I like, that's literally where my office is. I'm a nine iron away from there. That's why my office is. But the thing that sucks about this area is everything cost everything. Yeah, you mentioned football. I have a buddy who I watch a lot of football
with who lives as a crow flies. He lives twelve miles from me, and then it cost thirty five dollars to go to his house. Sheesh, thirty five bucks. That's just in tolls, that's right. And everything parking, the parking cost, everything is just And that's what just sucks about being around here, Like you're stay inside, huh. Like later on tonight, I'm gonna go to the gym, like after probably about an hour or so after we get done with this, and it might take me fifteen minutes,
it might take me an hour. Just I just you just don't know. And that's what's tough about this area. Yeah, yeah, and it's it's all it's a little bit different from them when you're actually staying at the Hilton somewhere outside of Manhattan and all you're just doing is taking just a couple of subways or whatnot. Hey, even that's a cathartic experience. Getting on a subway can be kind of sketchy but also kind of thrilling in the same time.
It's just it's weird. It's not weird, but like it's one of those things where I think I'm in a simulation. I'm like, how are all the everybody in here is different? So you're telling me, I see a guy with three what would you call them Dolly's full of groceries that they just got inside the city and they're taken back home and who knows how many subs subways that they have to take, And it's wild how people live their
life like this. I used to work for the Brooklyn Nets a couple of years back before I got into into finance, and on my my daily commute to the city was about an hour and forty five minutes. That's if everything went well. Yeah, we had a snowstorm and I was leaving Brooklyn coming back home and one of the train lines was down and it took me four hours to get home. Think about that and again as a crow, as a crow flies, I was about eight miles from my Yeah, it's just
it's just tough. It's everything's as tough. And if you would have, if you, if you would have asked me twenty years ago, I would have rather lived in an Afghanistan have lived here in New York that night. That just goes to show never never say what you won't do in life. So of course life led me here, and I'm probably better for it because I was forced to get out of my own comfort zone. Yeah, and just learn something different. Absolutely well, life's led you here on the baby
Faces Podcast, the official for Wrestling podcast, Down in Louisville. It's downhill from here this podcast. Now it's down here. Might as well just be saying you're goodbyes at this point, So just let everybody know where else they can find you while they can. It was fun, guys. Thank you from the w WE and the Undertaker all the way down to Austin on four
Street and Louisville. What the hell happened to you? Dude? You know what that's gonna be something I'm gonna be trying to unpack for the rest of the day. Well, like I said, dude, I certainly appreciate you coming on. You've been always, always been a huge fan of wrestling growing up, and everyone kind of watching you pop up on the on the wrestling scene. Of course, tough enough and it's crazy to think that tough enough just my goodness, twenty more than twenty years ago is when this happened.
You were a part of the first one, and then you went on to go make your make a name for yourself. I can't. I know they've done a couple of tough enoughs afterwards, but I don't think any of them have even really and I like, you know, you like to humble yourself and a lot of people say you kind of knew your position on the card
and where you stood. But I don't think anyone from tough enough. And that's just new in the wrestling business over in the last than the last couple of years, like the Pat McAfee's or the Logan Poles have really made like an impact or had had a name that that you have when you got into the business. So that's that's still got to be something cool. Well, I mean, I will humbly disagree with you. I tell I laughed with
my my my partner, my YouTube partner, Zach all the time. I tell them I'm not even my I'm not even my favorite tough enough contestant or winner. Wow, like I'm not like I love like Johnny Nitro, He's my favorite. But I almost forgot that Johnny Nitro was on Here's what here's what I can say. I was the first. And there's nobody that's ever going to be able to take that away from me. No one's ever gonna be able to say they were the first. And that's something that I do.
I do hold in high regard. And I'm I'm you know, at the end of at the end of all this this, it's that's still pretty cool. It's still pretty cool to think that I did something like that. And I mean, I'm the kid that chased a dream. I'm the kid that that saw something and said, man, how the hell do you do this? And you know, had enough belief in myself to say, I'm going to take a chance. If the answers no, I can live with
that. I can live I I I try to tell people all the time, be able to live with rejection, because I've made more mistakes in my life not not knowing how to handle success. Not no handling rejection. That's the easy part. You figure out how or handling failure. You figure out what you did to make you fail and you do something different. Learning how to handle success, that's the hard part in life, and that's usually where
I've made my mistakes. But I'm very happy that you know, there's a little bit of wrestling history that that I'm gonna I'm gonna be able to have in my back pocket for the rest of my life. Sure, and some of it is just even talking about and exposing on your your YouTube and on social media. You've really made a big groundbreaking statement ever since kind of switching and making your name onto YouTube over the last year. How's how's that been?
I know you mentioned your partner, Zach. It's a guy that you know, I got in touch with and helped took me up with you a little bit. So like, what's what's this whole YouTube thing been like for you? I know you on a few videos you you've said you notice how you kind of started off and you've made mistakes, edits here and there, and now you're like I would think that you're a YouTube pro. You know, you and Zach seem to work everything. Everything looks really good from thumbnails
to like subject matter and everything like that. So what's this experience, what's this this ride like in almost getting like a second life in wrestling. Over the last year it has been a second life and then almost has been like a resurrection of my wrestling career. And it's funny. Al Snow actually texted me probably a month ago just that he was proud of me, and he said, enjoy the second run, and then he said, like, don't f it up like you did the first one. That's all for it.
It's it's constantly it's just constantly being open, open into learning, and there's times we'll do stuff that's something that won't work, and just being able to evolve, being able to do something you know, different the next time, and just always being able to just learn. I had no clue a year ago, because it's what's the day the sixteenth, we're four days away from
our one year anniverse? Look at that. Yeah, And a year ago, if you would have asked me what my goals were with the channel, I would have told you very simply, I want to have hopefully in a year, I'd love to have one hundred thousand subscribers love and I would love to be making a couple thousand dollars a month. And like we've we've blow blow blue, We've blue past that, so it's constantly Now it's okay,
now we've got this. How do we make it better? How can we constantly grow, constantly evolve, because if you're not if you're not moving forward, then you're standing still. And if it's still someone's passing. Yeah, yeah, that's what we're trying to do. Well, congratulations on that day.
It's been awesome. I want to say I was definitely part of like your first five hundred subscribers, you are it's I totally that one thousand percent was okay somehow you know it's it's I even remember texting one of our fans on the show, a huge hardcore fan of Marcus. We we talkin text about wrestling all the time. I remember sending them a thing saying you remember mavn bro, And he's like, you don't remember maving. I'm like,
dude, you got to check out some of his content. It's like pretty cool because I would always watch it while I'm like shoving down some Panda Express or doing some work here, and I'm beautiful head and plug on like a thirteen minute video and just learn a couple of things. So it's it's it's been pretty spectacular. And that's another reason why I think we have found success. Podcasts are tough, Like like the people out there, like the Kevin
Nashes who puts an hour out and the Conrads and all those people. Yeah, that's that's tough to do an hour and to do it consistently. Yeah, you know, that's another reason why what we give we give you know, anywhere from around eight to twenty five minutes of bite size, yeah, morsels of knowledge that hopefully people didn't have going into it. I always, I always like to think that I make people, you know, few wrestling
a little bit different. You know, they might they might watch the show a little bit different after they learned, after they learned something from our channel. And again, like I said, hold you my biggest the best comment I can get is when we either a bring a former fan who doesn't watch the product when we bring them back to wrestling, yeah, or or when we have someone who I get all the time. I don't know who you are. I've never watched wrestling, but I love what you do. That's
like the that's that's the holy Grail comment for me. Yeah, because they don't they have no clue who I am. But we're entertaining enough that they still stay and watch. Yeah, you bring them in and make them listening. It's in radio call the time spent listening right when you just have Hey, dude, I've been listening to this for like an hour straight now. I went through four different episodes. Yeah, you know exactly exactly. I
talked about your subject matter on your shows. I think it's really really cool because I'm not singling any other podcasters out. You know, you have your Kevin Ashes, you have your conrades, and anybody that's also other workers like yourself that's been in the business. And I'm sure you can already every wrestling fan knows a lot of egos and a lot of personalities in the wrestling the
world. So like, I think, who would have ever thought, right, Well, when we come to your content, everything just seems to be a little bit more positive. Everything. There's really kind of no sway, there's really kind of no bias, kind of tell it how it is, whether if you've ever been done dirty by somebody, or even if you have, it's just like, you know, I'm wishing them the best. I hope that they're doing all right. Usually you don't kind of get that with
everybody else. And like I mentioned, there is some bias. There is some I'm not going to talk on that, but and in some of these old schoolers, it seems like the last thing that they actually want to talk about is wrestling because they see it already done, fed up with the business. But you kind of make wrestling seems like I think I kind of want to go do that now. Yeah, well, I look at it as
the and I try to live my life with a few philosophies. One of the philosophies actually, oh man, I know they where I put my phone a here we go. Here's one of my philosophies. Here's one of my philosophies, never let someone waste your time twice for visual audience right there. That's one. That's one of my philosophies right there. And another one is how someone feels about me, whether they like me or dislike me. Orf someone's saying something bad about me by you know, it's none of my business.
I'm not gonna be able to change their mind. Let them think whatever whatever they want. They're not gonna move my needle either up or down. And I just don't care. When we started, I told I told Zach, I was like, there's a couple of things I want to adhere to. I'm not gonna be the guy that's that's burying everybody. That's just not my personality. I view everything I was able to do in wrestling as a luxury. It's just I was. I was fortunate to be there. There
was no privilege. I didn't like that. It's not like I once I won tough enough, they guaranteed me a shot and someoney held me back. Now, if anybody held anybody back, it's me holding myself back. So I'm not gonna get on the channel and bury anybody being in that industry. And I told this the Taker when I was sitting with him. And there's not many things you could probably tell Taker and have him be like I didn't.
I've never looked at it that way, but I said this. I said at the time I was there, there was probably And tell me if you agree with these numbers, I said, there was probably about sixty sixty men that had this job of being a traveling wrestler with the WWE and WWF. That's pretty cool. Sixty people in the entire world have this job, and I was fortunate enough to be one of them. Yeah, how am I gonna be bitter about that? Sure? Like, that's that's to me.
That's just that's cool. Odds And another thing I did, I'm not gonna along with not burying other people, I'm not gonna tell other people's stories. I'm not gonna get on there and be like yo, all right, so the booker, T and Batista fight backstage. Here's what happened, right, It's not my story to tell, right, you know. And if I can bring people on, like we brought Devon on, and Devon talked about the mass transitence incident, well, that's his story to tell. That's
why we brought him on. Tell your story, get your side of it. We brought obviously got Undertaker on, which and you know Undertaker everybody thought. You know, we talk about the the Hell and the Cale with Mick, He's done that a million times. So we talked about the one with Sean. That's again that's his story, his story to tell. So that's again where we're just trying to be a little bit different with what we do. Yeah, I'm not saying hey, and I'm not saying that I disagree
with the way others do their chamber. I'm a huge Kevin Nash fan. I'm a huge Conrad fan. I'm a huge Stevie Richardson Renee Depri fan. Oh. Yeah, there's enough room on this platform for all of us to succeed. We're not fighting for a time slot. We're not fighting for the Thursday night at eight o'clock timeslot. Yeah, there's we can all succeed, and we can all you know, in the in the end make money exactly.
You mentioned Stevie Richards too. I listened to him a lot, and Stevie richards is just from I've never met the guy, but from all accounts, seems like a really, really, really good dude. I love his mind for the business, I love how he talks kind of you know, I was listening to him obviously kind of a long before you did. He's on Vince Russo Show. If you're a I'm sure you're familiar with Vince Ruso. I'm a huge Vince Russo fan. I mean, I like, I
like, I like them all. I like everybody's I like everyone's different, everyone's different view and let me adding more to the pot makes them more fun. Let me ask you, because yeah, I'm a Russo fan too, How did how did you like? I? I kind of felt bad for him with the whole w c W. Yeah, I felt bad for him. I feel bad for Goldberg. I don't me personally like everything in life
has a life cycle. And the one thing I do know about life is we we leave with nothing and there's nothing that on this earth that lasts forever. Right. I think WCW just had its life cycle. I don't think it was I don't think it was Kevin Nash or Scott Hall or mis taking money that killed it. Don't again, Bill, I don't think it was Bill Goldberg. Goldberg was what they created, and the same with I don't think it was Vince Russo. I think they just it ran its course and
it's had its life cycle. Yeah, I agree, what do you think? I agree? I watched that. You know, the Vice usually does a really good job at doing stuff like that, and I know that they even had a book not too long ago with the death of w c W and Vince Russo's face was just kind of plucked up on it, and for whatever reason, he's been a a whooping stick over like ever since he's been
done with wrestling. Of something bad happens, and let's just blame Russo or you with the benefit of hindsight now and we just go see something like a clip of old wrestling that was silly. Oh that's Russo. And you know, you have people like Jim Cornett. I'd like hearing some of Jim Cornett's stories. That's really fun. But you know when I hear him talking about pissing on people's graves, and and it just at the end of the day, it's wrestling, it's it's a it's a television show. It's it's it's
supposed to invulk reactions. And these are humans that are from everyone involved, from the talent working, from the producers, from the people on the behind, from the writers. So you just have a swede opinion of this guy because he didn't write your favorite wrestler to win this match or and then and they they he's really easy to pick at, and he's just I I love the New York Action. I love the bros. I think it's I think it's fantastic stuff and shout out to him. We follow each other on a
Twitter. I've reached out to him a couple of times and I said, Hey, Vince, I just want you to know that I don't think that you had part in you know, any of this. Of course do the whole w c duf it. It could have been a collaboration of everybody. There was just you know, it was it's like one person just like stab that everyone had the well, Vince was sent by McMahon to go kill that
company and no these it. Like you said, everything has a life course and I think that was just kind of done with it at the while. I don't. I don't know if w c W would still be going strong today if those guys were never there. Everything was going to have a life span. And at the end of the day, w w E with their record numbers now and how they just keep going up. I don't think it still would have held up. I don't either. And Russo just was a
He's an easy bull tie. She's an easy, easy person for for you, for fans or for whoever to to target and say there, there's the reason. Yeah, that's the reason that it failed. And again, I uh, I encourage anybody out there, the only person and I love Cornette stuff too, sure, but when Cornett goes off on a rant and and and tirade on other people, all he's doing is up upsetting himself. Yeah, I doubt, I doubt. I doubt these people care. They I
wouldn't care. They just like the sound bites because he's quippy and he learned. He throws these metaphors out that I never heard of before. That he's the funniest, one of the funniest human beings I've ever been like. He He's got more one liners than the next ten people that I know. He's He's very, extremely, extremely quick with it. But I just, I mean, I don't I'm a forty seven year old man that has bills and
responsibilities. I don't care what other grown men think of me. That don't help me pay those bills, right, don't help me meet the needs of those responsibilities. Other than I don't give a shit. Pay for what you want. If you like what we do, great love to have you. If you don't like what we do, but you're still watching hell you're still helping our algorithm. That's right. It's all it's all about. It's all about getting the eyes on you and hey, if they had different opinions,
and that's fine. You know, I'm not one of those people, especially when we're in a such a binary this side or this side, Like I mean, who cares. I'm still going to live my life. I still want to treat you as a regular human being. If we had this disagreements and that's fine, We'll go do that. We'll still go out and hang out and have a good time and just try not to talk about it and
make a stressful situation come out of it. Absolutely, and life's all about having disagreements, disagreements, disagreements and seeing being able to see things from two different sides is how you get to a good result in the sure, I don't want I don't want to have someone that agrees one hundred percent with everything
I say. The good thing about my partner and I, the reason we do work is because we don't see the best route sometimes to get in to a video, and it takes us pitching ideas back and pleading our case for why we think it should be this way, and then we come come with a solution in the end. That's that's literally I think how the best product comes out. Yeah, No, you're absolutely right, Mayben. I also wanted to well, well, we'll just kind of go and bring it back
to uh. I mentioned h I mentioned your your YouTube partner Zach kind of reaching out and kind of helped facilitate this. But it really all started for my guy friend of the show, Al Snow, also a friend of a friend, a mentor of you throughout your wrestling career. I just kind of wanted to talk about that. I mean, obviously you guys have a good
relationship. Is it always has did that relationship as have you guys always been in talks and connections over the last couple of years since your exit from the WWE Have you always been checking on each other or has it just been kind of like re established here recently. He's the one guy. There's a few guys that I never lost touch with. Devon Dudley I never lost touch with,
Yeah, and Al Snow is another one. Like like the guys that I've recently got back in touch with is like Mark Jendrack, like Jen Drack and I a great great friends. And then we probably lost touch for the better parts of fifteen years. And recently he and I saw each other at the convention a few years back, and now we're back, you know, texting each other every day. Cool. And Al's the one guy that I
just never lost touch with. That's awesome. Al is He's truly one of the just best human beings, you know, not just people in this business, but just human beings. If I if I told out I need you today, he find a way to be here. Absolutely. There's not many people you can say that about. And vice versa. If Al told me. If Al called me up and said, hey, I need you in ov W to do a sign, and yeah, when you need me there, my answer wouldn't be let me see it would be when do you need
me there? Yeah? Same with Devon. You know, whatever you need, I'm there. So and that there's not many people that you run into life, you know. You know that that you could probably say that about Al. Yeah. And Al, I mean you talk to anybody. I mean you even see him around. He's like a local celebrity now. Everyone everyone respects him. Everyone just kind of everyone just loves to talk to him.
And even I'm sure you watched Wrestlers and it's funny love. He just kind of comes off very very, would you say, begrudgingly kind of older guy. You know. I think Mick Foley said he makes squid word seem pleasant in that whole series, but couldn't be one of the more more nicer dudes. And don't get I I don't know how he does it. I'm not going to even try to speculate his age, but my god, the dude's still built like a tank. I don't know how he does it good
clean living that I mean. I see he's got these big clubs, hundreds of pounds and he's doing that thing that gimmick with it. It's like, my gosh, dude, I see his post where he's he's like, you know, twisting the bam bam. Yeah things to Alice is also one of the guys who he doesn't miss it. He doesn't miss a workout. He's going to be in the gym till the day he's no more. It's just
a part of something that's ingrained in his psyche. Like I've gotten now that the like I figure like I've I had my run, you know, kids trying to be big and now I've may mainly focus on stretching. So one thing I wish I wish I would have focused on back in the day. And I stretch now every day for an hour. I mean two weeks ago.
Two weeks ago, I had two needles this long stuck in my shoulder and in my lower back, like my days of my days of being you know, in the gym, benching on everything I can, They're just gone, They're just done. Right If I if I can get my flexibility raised, I'll be happy. You'll be ready to go by Mania Vegas next year. Bro, Hey, listen, I ain't saying I wouldn't. Somebody gave me a call and said, we're gonna start putting this amount of money in
your bank account. I try anything, I pray and manifest that into the universe that we get you back to this someday, because I'm waiting on it and I think I think it get I think, dude, don't underestimate yourself. I think you get a huge pop. Well maybe, but here's what I do underestimate is my ability to keep up with today's wrestling. Sure, like, and I've said it on podcasts and stuff like, I think like I'm a rickish ricky. She does stuff I wouldn't do in a swimming pool,
Like I just like I can't even do in a swimming pool. Yeah, like I can't imagine that type of athleticism. And I just think, can I watch the guys work now? And I'm like, Okay, the business has officially left off your list. It's but you. But you never know. There's more in the wrestling business than just wrestling. Sure, if if someone I apologize my work, my work, if you hear that my work computers on, I turned off my notifications off. How unprofessional. I
have no idea how to do that. I literally how to do it. Right now, I turned I just turned the whole computer off. That's how I get them off. But if people, and the funny thing is is people are always like you know, if would you go back? If the w W asked you, I would listen to anybody. Sure, I would listen to If AW contacted me, I'd listen to them. I would listen to any any business opportunity. Because I didn't say no. This kid reached
out to me on LinkedIn about doing a YouTube channel. That's right, and look how that's changed my life. Yeah, exactly, And you're not letting any He didn't waste your time. He's certainly not gonna do it twice, right, No, No, And I very easily because I get I probably get more and and I hate it that I can't do everything that people want, but I get more requests now than I obviously have in years. But it would have been very easy to see this kid's request and just be like,
uh, that that's enough. But look look at what I would have missed out on. Sure, exactly, Well, I'm glad that I'm glad that I'm glad the shoot or shoot right? You know you missed ninety nine percent of the shot you don't take That's what Wayne, I think. Or Mike was not one of the two? Now, how not y nine? How not one hundred that I'm listen, I'm not good with math. I
don't know. I didn't I didn't make this thing up. I just I'm just one of those people that searched motivational posters and I just go with that, all right. I'm not questioning your math skills. I'm definitely not questioning your math skills. Well two plus two equals I don't know. I don't have I that's what I got my fingers for. Once they started throwing the alphabet into math, that's when I checked out. Bro I said, no, yeah, yeah and parentheses. Yeah, please excuse my dear aunt Sally.
Not for me. I kind of want to get back a little on I guess sort of tie into OVW Al Snow in a little way. Obviously, Al Snow one of the most notorious trainers of just wrestling history. And we had the American Nightmare WWA undisputed champion Cody Rhodes on about a month ago and he says he's always going to bang the drum for Al Snow being the one that trained him forty four hundred Shepherdsville Road. You got Al Snow back
when they were doing they were launching the reality show Tough Enough. And what was kind of like that journey for you when you got in, Like, were you really I know you were a fan, but were you did you really kind of understand what you were getting into and the sort of backstages like that. I mean, you're you're meeting guys like a You're meeting guys like Build DeMont, You're meeting guys like Al Snow, these larger life characters.
Did you understand like kind of what you're getting into and what was your mindset like do you think that kind of separated you from the other competitors during that first season. Well, I no, I didn't know what I was getting into, but I knew I was all in at the time. I had a sixth grade I was a sixth grade school teacher. I had a career,
I had a profession. I had responsibilities back then as well, and I my option if I didn't win, if wrestling didn't become my vocation, my option was to move back in to my mom's place and just start life over again, which I was okay with. I was good, I was willing to do. I was at an age I was twenty four, so it's not like, you know, I couldn't start over, and but going into it with the mindset of I got to put everything in on this.
I got to do one hundred percent. And I don't think others went into it with that min mindset. You know, some of them went into it with with significant others, with girlfriends, and they weren't they weren't ready to leave that. Some of them just didn't. I don't think under understand what the you know, what the life of a professional wrestler on the road is like. Yeah, once they heard Hunter talk about what it was like, because everything he said was accurate, you know, then it then it did
it hit home. But I was honest with us, if nothing else, from day one, honest with us to a fault. And I didn't know if I had what it took, what it would take to you know, to make it in the wrestling career as a career full time. But I knew I was going to give it my all. And I've been in enough sports locker rooms to know I can wheel through a locker room. I can find my way around a locker room, right And and I wasn't going to
you know, be playing there, talking behind people's backs or whatever. You know, I'll make my home in a locker room. I know that much about my personal But I just didn't know do I have it physically and do I have it psychologically? Yeah, because the in wrestling, the moves aren't the hard part. The psychology of it's the hard part knowing when and at
what time to do the move. That's what's Al's the best at right, the best the best and Al will he One of the earliest ways he taught us that was he made us do a headlock match, literally a five minute match with you just put a headlock on and there's a way to put that one move on and still tell a story. And that like showed me that
there's more than one ways to skin a cat in this business. Yeah, there's nobody better than Als teaching that, like and like like Cody, I'm honored to be able to say that he was my key, was my teacher, and I learned from him. Yeah, and he's he's still doing it now. You know at ov W and that that that goes through its ups and downs, and it's got and revitalized over the last year with the introductions of Wrestlers on Netflix. You mentioned that you watch what did you necessarily think
that everything seem on par with Yup, that's Al Snow for you. And just when we're talking about like an indie wrestling show and obviously OBW doesn't have the ties that once had to the WWE, they're still trying to stay afloat and they have been and it's all been some of the genius of Al Snow keeping the wrestling traditions going you see a whole cast of characters on there, HollyHood, Haley, Jay, Cal Hero, We even had certified Luke Curtis
on and you even got the visit come back, Like you said we were talking about right before the show, you got to come back and talk with that and go through OVW You think you could talk about that a little bit. What got you to come back and what Al snow necessarily wants you to do. Did you get to talk to any superstars that you like or Yeah, So Al's wife actually reached out to me. They were getting ready to do a roast of Ol and she wanted me to come and just be one
of the people that roasted him. And obviously, again I was more than happy to be, Like, Wendy need me there, and they were able to keep me hidden, so Al did not know I was coming, and I think I shocked a lot of not only Al, but I saw you mentioned Haley j Yeah, I was. You know, I was outside the hotel and she gets out of a car and walks by and didn't know I was gonna be there. She went, Hi, didn't realize it was me,
and then walked about ten steps and went, oh my god. Then turned around she was and came running back and she was like, I didn't even I didn't know you were gonna be here. But I was able to spend a few days at OVW and watch their set up the way Al came across in wrestlers obviously, you know, anytime a television show is being put
forward, they haven't it. They have to have an agenda, and you know, they made Al out to be more I think of the you know, just like he was fighting to keep a business afloat, which he probably is. But I didn't think they tarred it enough on OL's just how amazing of a wrestling brain he has. But again, they have a show to put on. Yeah it was. They did a good enough job though that. I think the show was one of Netflix's, you know, most highly
rated shows at that time, so that I'm happy about. But I did I got to spend a couple of days with the with a lot of the guys there, and and and man cash Flow, I got to speak with him. Yeah, you know, the who was the rocking the rocker guy was that? Uh oh, I know here talking about Man, it should get It's in my phone, it should come. It should the top of my head. But yes, they were giving out ear they give out they give out ear plugs at the show for merch for them to such a good
given. But I got to I got to spend a little bit of time with with a lot of them there, and just you know, a I hope if nothing else, I was encouragement for him, you know, showing them because I was older than most of them. But I'm where not only where you hopefully could get to, but man, you could blow by the career I had, and there was no better place that you that that you're
you could possibly be in. You know, there's there's three schools that I think of whenever anybody asked me, you know, hey, I want to get into wrestling. You know how do I do it? There's three schools that come to my mind. And I would send anybody to O v W obviously, and I don't mean the developmental territories. Obviously. If you get to the developmental down in Florida, you're hired, You're you're hired, You're where you're wing. But the schools is ov W. Then I think of
Bookers R O W and yes, and what Booker's doing. And then I think of in this area. Uh, create a pro with Brian Myers, I mean creative Pro. You know, he's the one that you that trained m j F And yeah, you know, He's just those three schools do it the right way. They run amazing schools. And I'm not saying that there's not other schools out there that do it. I just I'm not familiar
with them. But those are the three schools I'm familiar with that. If pro wrestling is something that you truly want to get into, I would find a way to get into any of those schools because you're gonna be You're gonna be trained by three guys that's been to the top of the mountain that knows what it takes to create a television star. And that's what that that's the
same link that Booker and that Al have. I'm teaching people how to be television stars because wrestling on the indies and wrestling in front of a television audience, man, that's too. That's two different horns on the same goat exactly. It's just it's there's it's not it's just a different animal. And you have to learn from someone who's been there on how to do that and those
guys are I mean, they're just your classic workers. I mean, I think pro wrestling in the air the age of twenty twenty four, I think, And it's completely fine if you're into it, if you take the wrestling part way too literal. Sometimes people get caught up in the whole five star stuff, and some people get caught up and well, there's three hours of wrestling on and really only twenty one minutes and thirty six seconds. We're actual wrestling, and they just kind of take it's supposed to be a show a
television it's a television show, and we've seen our work before. It's it's how you sell facial expressions, it's how you sell moves. How once you do a move to get up and look at this camera, look at that camera, because you're trying to get an audience at home, and that's what you're captivating more or less, rather than the scripted simulated fights. I hate to, you know, use that word, but like that, that's not
it is, And that's what I'm always arguing with people about. And you know, I mean, Al Snow, those guys, Brian Meyers and Booker t they're the best net They're classic workers. There's you could be a good wrestler but not a great worker. Would you agree with that a thousand gazillion percent? Absolutely? And Brian Myers, Brian's one of the best workers that I've ever been around. And obviously Booker is probably one of the funniest human
beings I've ever been around. And throw on top of that that he was a hell of a worker, sure and he and then on top of that with what all three of those guys had is they can entertain. They could take their wrestling knowledge, they could put a five star match out and be entertaining. And if you're if you're wanting to get into this business, that's
what you want to be around. That's the people that you want to learn from, because I don't want to learn how to I don't want to learn how to do something from someone who is hasn't been where I want to go, you know, like that's it's just because for wrestling, schools aren't cheap, not free, and you just want to get the most bang for your buck and the most for your time that you're going to be there. I remember when I was on one of the craziest things I had to learn.
We were out at the ring, you know, before we're all and one of the cameraman came up to me and he had to teach me how to find the camera to sell to wow, because you just mentioned it. He was like, stop watching it because and it's just all guys watch the monitor. They watched the flight and trun It's just it's second nature. You can't help it. It's like when you watch a running back that's that broken eighty yard run and look, yeah, you see him looking up watching themselves.
It's the same in wrestling. But he taught me to you know, if they have a handheld and you see the red light on, you know how to sell and sell with your face up, you know, and how to if you don't see a light camera, then that means the hard cameras got the shot shot, So sell them back around to where you're facing the hard camera. And that kind of stuff takes time to learn. Yeah, that's always been so fascinated with me and me being in radio and production, the
production of wrestling and especially WWE, to be exact, is amazing. And when I go to a live show, I am also just as fascinated in with how they do these this production stuff and you know, like they a lot of people. I don't mean to go off on a side street. Here. We were at WrestleMania. It's teld by my hat in Philadelphia. One of the greatest times I've ever been to. We got credentialed media,
we got to go sit in the press box. But at the end, when they were doing the Undertaker spot, everyone on the internet can swear to you that that's the Undertaker waited under the ring for three hours a whole show. No, they kind of rushed him out through the crowd, but they do so much at distracting you from when they actually pull somebody out that you don't even know what you're like. I was sitting there looking at that, yeah, and I would have never guessed it. It's a magic It's a
magic show. Literally is look over here, here, look at here, what's in this hand? And the tricks taking place down in this van. And I know it wasn't because I know Undertaker's partner Matt Lida, who told me Undertaker was up in the box for the whole show. And then at one point we had to be like, all right, I gotta go down. Got the call and Taker's wife, Michelle didn't even know he was gonna do it. Wow, only a handful of people knew, so they thought
Taker was going to the bathroom or whatever. But then next thing you know, he shows up at you on Mania and he definitely wasn't under the ring for the three. No, that's what, that's what, and it's and Cody even came one said that dude was in and out like that. You would have never guessed the Undertaker being as I won't even want to say, as old as he is, but in his older age. He said, he rolled into the wing ring quicker than I'd ever seen anyone do it.
So, I man, I was with him, you know, a month and month and a half, two months ago, and I was at his property. He's in phenomenal shape, O man like, phenomenal shape. Like we filmed. We filmed for two hours and then I spent five hours there on his property. And he looks like obviously he just had his hips done and I think he had both his knees done, you know, so his body's probably hurting him. Yeah, he looks like he could run. He looks like he could get out there and go right now. Like want to
meet him in a dark alley Man. He's the nicest guy on earth. It's funny. We were there and we got done, and you know, I was he's got two kids there, and you know, I'm playing his foot. His daughter is a hell of a football player. She's a quarterback. And I was like, I was like, throw me a few and I was thinking she was gonna, you know, throw like a girl or what. Oh no, She's wearing back and whipping it to me. And I was like, damn you. And after a few hours we were you
know, we were there. He took me around his whole property on his side by side and then we're still outside and we're just you know, talking, and his daughter and his son says, Navin, you want to see my bedroom. And I'm like, I doubt your dad wants me, you know, trying through the house and take He was like, no, it's fine showing your bedroom. And I was just like thinking the us. I was like, man, I'm in taker's house. Nuts. This is nuts.
And then his daughter and then his daughter said, you need to see my dad's steam shower. And I was like, I'm the one hundred percent sure your dad doesn't want me tracing through his bedroom and he's like, guy, just take his shoes off, you can look at it. Wow. And then the five minutes later I got Taker. I'm in his steam shower and he's explaining to me what his thoughts were when they were building the house. Wow. He was like yeah, He's like, and I'm just and
in my mind, I'm just like, what is what is happening? Like like a year ago. A year ago people just didn't even remember I used to wrestle, and now I'm in Undertakers Undertaker and it's amazing. And you're on a show, the six Feet Under podcasts, and obviously you have history with the Undertaker, one of the more infamous. I don't know, how is it infamous famous? Which one's bad? I don't I don't. To
me, they're both the same. But you had this thing moment with the under Taker, that Royal Rumble where he kicked his ass right on out and it can't be explained too much. You guys can go back on the Maven
Huffman YouTube channel. He's got several videos where he talks about it, how was all conducted, and how you were basically hand chosen by him or Shane McMahon basically to do that, and now it's almost kind of full circle around with them on his podcast and especially when Undertakers always protected his character right, and it seems still seems surreal today that he's kind of breaking the fourth wall with podcasts when twenty years ago, like he only wore black when he is
outside or he wouldn't even like to expose that side of the business. But that had to be really really cool for you to be there and just kind of be boys with him, you know that seems especially they were doing a good job that year of making Taker just seem like an absolute unhinged dickhead, and good you did a good sell for him by taking that ass whoopan Well, I'll tell you what the world needs to see this side of Mark Callaway
because he is one of the you know, only most gracious people from this business, but he's just one of the most entertaining. We were out and we had dinner, but the night before we started everything and it was uh, you know, Taker, Midian godfather, me, Chris van vliet Zach my partner, and a few other people that work one Taker's side for his
channel. And after the restaurant cleared, Taker starts telling stories and it was like when you were in kindergarten and your teacher was holding up the book, you know, and reading the story and like everybody's getting on the carpet Indian style legs. Christ That's how great of a storyteller he was. And it would be it would be a sin if his partner Matt Laida did not talk him into, you know, showing this side because two things can be true.
You can still be a fan of the Undertaker and what he accomplished, and a pre she ate Mark Callaway for telling his version of his career. Yeah, because it's just like it's just unlimited information that he has to give. Like I apologize to my partner all the time, Zach. I'm like, man, like, there's like we have a we have a shelf life on the number of stories I can tell. But he he doesn't right,
Like he doesn't like it's unlimited. I've always wanted to just like and it always seems I remember him on the Stone Cold Steve Austin's podcast about a couple of years back, and they toasted with some whiskey and and just the Mark in me as like, my gosh, him and Steve, they just seem like two dudes that just kind of want to tell stories now that they're kind of out, and I would a person like me would love to hear that kind of stuff. So I hope one of these days I get to meet
and talk to Undertaker, because I will probably be his favorite. I would sit down, shut up, and let him talk for hours, dude, because I would just love to hear that side. The funny thing is is when I got to his studio to do his show, to do six Feet Under, he made me. You see me holding the whole time, I'm holding a blue like drink and and you know he he told me beforehand. He's like, he's like, I'm gonna make you a cocktail and what I'm gonna be like, No, I'm like okay, And it actually was good,
really yeah, it was damn good under cocktail, right. Yeah, But it's just like cocktail again and no. And it's funny because I know people are like, why is maybe you know, why is maybe in the Undertaker together. I know I wasn't on his level in the in the ring, like we never like we had our run in the beginning of my career and that was it. It's not like I was a main eventor or Hall of Famer or nothing. But it still just shows his graciousness that you know,
we can still be boys. Yeah, I'll argue Midian wasn't on his level either, But Midian's still a Medians, still a fan BSk member, They're still yeah, just because Midian wasn't a uh main event or are you doubting what he knows? Of course Midian was naked on TV before that. The Undertaker wasn't doing that, boys. Uh. Midian talked about what they put in that bucket that they poured on the slop oh little slop old Godwin days, right, yeah, God, you know, I might I might
have quit. I might have been like, nah, you're not pouring out of my head some of the stuff you know that just went into it back in the day. And once again, fascinating stuff what they did, he says, like bread and milk and oatmeal and stuff like that. I may be wrong on those, but I remember seeing I remember watching and seeing the cliff. Are you a big fan of like today's w W Do you find yourself like watching or SmackDown or kind of paying attention to any of the p
ls that go on or any of the stories. Don't watch it. Don't watch it. It's too tough. It's like, and I've said this also on the channel, It's like it's like watching the love of my life my ex girlfriend on a weekly basis, you know, take her new boyfriend to dinner and being invited. You know, I don't want to know. I don't want to sit and watch you at dinner and you know making out across
from that's great, right, glad you guys are happy. It's just too tough, Like because I still I still love and like, I still love wrestling, and i still look at it and obviously I'm still human, like the jealous part of it, Yeah, is gonna wish I was where these people are. So it's just easier just to not watch. And I got I get on my feed like I'm a huge Like I'm a huge MJF fan. I know he's not a w you know, but he will one day. Yeah, sure he'll be there one day. He'll get that tattoo covered
up eventually. I just I catch up on my feed and yeah, it's just sometimes it's easier to do that too. I've I've discovered, like the Hulu version when it comes out the next day. You can kind of skip through what you don't want to see. But I me personally and my love for wrestling has been reignited over the last couple of years just because. And
I'll go ahead and ad minute. You know, it was a little low and lackluster during the late twenty teens, and it got into twenty twenty and of course a pandemic and everything like that, But what turned into one of my favorite wrestlers. And I never thought it would be happening. But everything the Roman Reigns has been doing with the Blood Mine, it's been phenomenal.
I'm so glad I've got to be a part of so many shows to where he was featured and that whole story was played out, and hell, even seeing it, I guess one of the chapters closed with the WrestleMania forty at at with Cody getting the belt. So like it's it's been hot. It's been probably just as popular as it's ever been. I was just gonna ask you, Maven, if if you know whenever you do, because I have no doubt that one of these days a major promotion will go ahead and call
you. I think they'd be silly not to have you somewhere either either as a writer, booker or some sort of producer agent to a show because you had that sort of knowledge that most of these kids can use. And I say kids because they're all younger than me now, but do you think that you probably take that like that Al snow Roll And if you could have like any superstar going now, like who would you like to take under your wing and really kind of just show them this is how it's done. Honestly,
Oh my gosh, putting you on the spot. Yeah, probably an MJF just because and I don't think he's doing anything incorrectly or role. I just I really believe. I think he can be a generational type type. Like I think he's just different. But like I hope he doesn't get in his own way, and he will. I just I know that. It's just it's it's easy to start believing your hype when people are telling you how great
you are. Yeah, I truly believe he could be one of those guys in twenty years we're looking back as one of the best to ever do it, and probably one of the best heels ever do it. Because he's different, Like he's just different, like he gets he cuts a promo and people literally are like, man, was he being serious? Yeah, and that's an and that's an art and that's an art. Yeah, I think,
I think, like I love what Roman's doing. Hell I worked with his brother, I mean, you know, and you know I worked with his family and New Maga. Hell was one of my best friends. Yeah. I still I still remember, you know, being on the road with Echi, you know, and that whole family is just, you know, so super talented. So yeah, to see, you know, so to see what he's become, I mean to look at the guy. The guy looked. The guy literally looks like if Central Casting. He looks like if Central
Casting said we need a professional wrestler champion. He looks like who you picked, you know, he looks perfect for it. Absolutely. And you mentioned and I know you've you've mentioned your big, big friend of Aki and the amazing person when he was you know, he was still with us. But when you're kind of going around during the promotions and especially down there with Booker T, you got to meet his son, Zilla, right, Yeah. Yeah, and that kid's another one. Okay, there's the one I would
take under my wing. Oh awesome. Zilla shout out to Zilla. We hope to have him on the podcast soon because and trust me, all the talent in the world again saying, I hope he doesn't get in his own way, right, that's I just hope he doesn't get in his own way because he literally has the world being ready to be handed to him, like absolutely, and he's doing great stuff. Yeah, and super talented, just I mean just amazing talent and can work, can go like just like his
dad. He's got the Samoan spike now where he jumps up and does like a super spike now. And the guy he looks the part, he plays the part, he sounds like it, and to me, that's all it is. The wrestling can come afterwards if I can put you up or on on what's the old old Vincent man. Put him on a Marque pal It looks exactly like he that's where he belongs. So we're over for him.
I hope that everything's played out so far right now with what the WW is doing with the Samoan dynasty, the bloodline, where I can only imagine that he's going to get a piece of He's around the right guy too with Booker.
Yeah, oh yeah, there's no one better that he could be around Booker because Booker and you know, when I was there, Booker was telling me, He's like, man, I got to tell these kids, I'm not your friend, Like like, I'm like, I'm trying to get you prepared to be to get where you need to go, and sometimes that includes hearing some hard truths. Yeah, so I I Yeah, he's another one. It's it's crazy though. All those Samoans Rosie and Ecki were two of
the most athletic guys in the ring. Huh, and both of them were big men. Yeah, you know, and Zilla is the exact same as big as he is. He's just super athletic. Yeah, I'm excited to see where that takes him. And like you said, he's he's under uh, real professional worker, he's under real guidance. And hell, if we want to talk about the territories and in Houston and that's wrestling country down there, dude, you should be able to excel. Yeah, and he's right
in front of the right person. Absolutely well, Dude, I feel like we can just keep on talking for hours. We are just joking about how al Snow can rant for a little while. But trust me, my cost Billy always has to cut me off, and sometimes I think I scare off some of the WWE people because I just want to keep talking and I'm with it. But that means just exactly. And then listen, they know I'm
a mark, so they don't mind it. And and here in radio, I do a lot of country music stuff too, so I'm always hooking people up with tickets and meet and greets and stuff. I'm more willing to give out the experiences to people who I see actually care about it. So I
just it looks like that's kind of reciprocated with me. Well, may even since you had this this life changing platform of coming on the Baby podcast on iHeartRadio, is anyone that you'd like to shout out maybe tell people where they can go buy some merch wherever they else can they can check you out on social media? I'm My social media platform consists of my YouTube channel, which is my most important and my Instagram, which I have to drive people to.
The YouTube platforms. Right, both both of them are just under Maven K. Huffman. Yeah, check it out, man. We have a new video coming out every Friday, and we're we're about to actually start a membership side where we're gonna put some extra videos out. Zach and I are going to do a weekly just rec It's gonna be pretty cool because I'm gonna one of the things I don't get to do is answer questions, and I
want to have something where I can answer questions. And there's just some videos that I think only the hardcore fans want to see, and you know, a membership platform will be perfect for that, So expect that coming soon. Absolutely, you heard it from the man first. I'm excited to see what
other kind of content you have coming out. Like I said, I've been a fan since the start of the show, and I'm looking forward to seeing what goes along with and especially looking forward to you, uh possibly being back a part at w W E someday that this year. Don't don't start that rumor because people will be like, he's coming back. I said, I'll listen to whatever. I'll listen to any opportunity, absolutely, but but I'm
certainly not expecting right. Well, you know wherever life takes you, dude, I'm glad that it brought you here and I hope to see you. Uh. Your your your fun mind. You're a great person to talk to. And I'm I'm excited to see, uh where this where this whole uh Maven Revenge tour kind of like take it pretty cool? I am too. I've I've learned that life, uh you know, life can end something at a moment's notice. So I'm trying to ride this as long as I can.
That's right. Well, dude, hopefully we ever get to do it again. We'd love to have you on the show. Love to shoot some ship because dude, we can talk about so much much more and I would love the opportunity to do that again. Well definitely will brother, Thank you so much. And that was Maven Huffman And this is the Babyfaces Podcast. Make sure to follow us on all Instagram pages social media. Everything's Instagram, Twitter, x whatever you want to call it now, Instagram X, Facebook,
YouTube, TikTok. We're all on it. It's at Babyface Pod. You could see it on the screen right there. Go ahead and give us a follow, like, comment, retweet, whatever. And we appreciate all the feedback, everything all the fans have done for us and making this platform just grow a little bit more. And of course we appreciate Maven for taking time out of his busy data. Just come talk to us for a little bit, maybeon you have yourself. Good day, Bud, Thanks, thank you my friend, thank you. Care gus