It's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast with Jack and carn S e O and JP sorrows He's a lapsed fan.
In all my years and wrestling, I've never seen anything like.
Rop kicking.
It's the laps Fan man number one in the ring begin about.
Osada, a real king of swing when the bell.
Goes hang and a kick like me throoming in the corner with its rash like stick.
Even Jerry King could say off the crown nodded in his head like Steve low Brown? Would you get low down?
We go even high up? Trip you on your head?
But you no cool drive speaking monology and dragon slits fire give you more shot than the edge, retire from dropping more.
Truth than the conn of sniper unless you would a coconut Roddy Piper out, Jack a JP, you a j y D drop.
A cupcakes and got the brain Bob Beans.
The best podcast from the start, the close file of Your Benefit fricking Polls.
We're kind of the occasional series here in the feed Boss t LF talks and this is uh, this is a unique one. You know, it always doesn't always make sense for a podcast formatted like ours to welcome guests from the contemporary scene, because we devote our lives trying
to understand yesterday. Like the winners, we are will exactly exactly it doesn't you know, that doesn't denote any psychological problems or anything which is great for us exactly, but this is this is we have access this time around, and we hope you out in the Solar system appreciate this. To a rare species, the the lifelong fan who got to work for WWE and then is on the other side of it now and looking back like what what was that? Necessarily what was that all about? His name
is Matt Camp. You should know him from The Bump, which of course was a ww digital show for years on there.
I heard that. I heard it was hard the Race's favorite show.
He's He's known to Bump, no question. Also, Matt spent years in the Busted Open radio show. He's back with those folks at Serious XM and a fan who got to work there, and Matt one, thank you so much for being on on the Laps Fans air waves.
First of all, you set me up beautifully because I get to tell us tell a story right away. First of all, thank you for having me on. All those things were correct and very nice, you said, Harley Race. Can you think of anybody else who's been around in WW forever who might make a similar joke?
Oh?
God, Well, he may.
He may be very involved with main events every single month. He might work behind the scenes. He may have video. No no, no, no, I'm talking about bump and the joke that you made the bump. Michael Hayes. Michael Hayes, Michael Hayes. I was once backstage at a raw h Oh my god, and I met him, and you know, it was you knew how to sell ribs or not sell them or whatever, and he was like, Matt Ben, Matt Ben. I was sorry, okay, I'm from the Bump.
I know what the bump is. I said, all right, uh, And I think I was with Kayla was like, would you ever like to come on the Bump. I've done a bump or two the show is And I was like, well, nice to meet you, Mike. I thought that's fine. Yeah, And then I think he actually was on once like about his clothing and him and Kayla went shopping. He was very appreciative, but that was my like first interaction. He looked me up and down and I had a suit that was similar to his color, which if you
ever seen him dress, so it was very loud. He's like, that's not my color.
I prefer not to watch him when he's dressed.
Oh that sounds that yeah, okay, in his state of dress.
I prefer to see his you know, yeah, his attire as miss him.
Well.
You know, there's also a long heritage of having a bump or two on the table when you get back to the locker room as well. Let's be very clear about that double entendre potential as well. Not to say that that's not the business anymore though, Matt.
By the way, John Cena said the same thing to me when I got to I interviewed him. He was it was the Fast nine trailer premiere at the Super Bowl in twenty twenty, and he had heard about the show, and you know, he was there. All he cared about was South Paul. I will tell you guys that, Oh yeah, producer I was with. He's like, are we doing it? And it's like he's like, that's wagging it up in the morning. And we talked about the bum and he made the joke during the interview He's like, oh, bump
huh what about the wrestling part? Like, what are you guys like? Ah, he goes, oh morning show, you guys need that stuff. I was like, whoa Jesus John? All right, but yes, and I one really random fact that show was nearly called ding ding ding.
Are you serious? Yes, that's like Jim Hurds show.
I was gonna say it would be ding Dong ding Dong.
They just wanted it to be the bell that was gonna be. I was like, and what are we supposed to do with it? And they settled on the bump, which is also tough to explain to people too.
Wow.
So all right, the double entendres run thick, and the appreciation for wordplay is you know, it reaches Titan towers. So before we forget to mention it because I shudder at the thought, Matt's doing kind of self starting Thing's got a great YouTube channel, the Wrestling mattshow dot com. You can subscribe and get access to some of his insights. So he's in our world now, welcome to Welcome to the basement dwellers. You know us all well, Matt is your studio in the basement per chance, of.
Course it is absolutely yeah, right there was a playroom we redid for my daughter, which then became like my corner where if anybody's watched my sneaker collections behind me, And all of a sudden, there's lights up, and how do we light this thing? And all the nice lights we had put in are actually too bright, so we have to turn those off and we have to get these random lamps from the target. So I get it.
And I did this beforehand, and right before I got hired the computer I'm using right now, I bought all this stuff to do to do twitch and all that, and I was like, I don't need that anymore. And here I am, guys, I'm right back to doing it. So yeah, that's I was ready for it. And then all that stuff happened. And during the pandemic, they sent me a bunch of stuff and we're like, hey, can you do an extra interurant poor from your house? Sure? All right, I have this big giant screen behind me,
can you send me a grab? And that's what it was, and hanging a camera off the wall so people could know that Kyle Rally had a bad neck from Tuesday night. You know. That's that's what we did. And now I'm back to I got a team, and they're they're very good and helpful. But yeah, it's it's me in front of a camera in my basement at least five days a week.
It's great. It's great. So let's start where in a lot of ways JP and I started. You know, the origin story. We've told it one hundred times on the show. I see no mercy in his n sixty four in the college dorm room. I look at him. I go, you a fan? And here we are, all these years later. So when did you become a fan? What's your true north? As far as like the heart and the essence of the wrestling of your childhood? Take us through that first.
So I had a wonderful I don't even know what you'd call your grandmother's sister, but my great grandaunt or whatever, who had well black boxes because her husband worked for a cable television repair thing.
So always good to have one of those friends in the circle hall.
Can you imagine like telling people that now, like I've tried to explain that story, I'm like, so there used to be a thing where you get like, I guess it's like finding a stream of a show, which you should never do. By the way, you should always pay for everything. But anyway, back in the day the cable box black box, you can get the pay per view channels. So she would like randomly tape shows for me, and
the first one she ever taped me was Wrestling A seven. Right, yes, like what A ran like real good and there's some real bad and seven year old Matt Camp or six or whatever. I was had no idea that they didn't sell enough tickets to run the coliseum, or as Bruce said, there was the threat of bombing because of the Saudi War and all that. But anyway, I watched that was over by that point, yeah, or the what do they call the Persian Golf for the whatever it was, yeah, right, yes,
So that was my first full on show. I'm sure I had watched you know, Superstars or Wrestling Challenge or whatever. I had watched that stuff, but that was my first full on show. So you know, rockers are on that show, and obviously Warrior in Savage and I didn't get what no selling was at the time. And now I look back at he kicked out of five of those frigging elbows. Well that's horrible. But then the main event, I don't even think I like that match, even though I had just started.
What is this?
Like this is really slow? This hooken. Isn't this guy cheating like he's the good guy? Like you know all I got that the Hogan experience of USA and all that, and so that was seven is what ninety one? Yeah? Okay, So I also remember, and I know my timeline was I remember watching Hogan Warrior like it's the only thing I saw from six, and I was a Warrior guy, not a Hogan guy. And now I look back and go, like, man, you would have been wrong either way. But that's okay.
You were six, So that's how it works. A year later, my dad took me to a house show at MSG. It was February ninth two. Flair had just won the Rumble and become world champ. And the cool thing was is they did matches obviously leading up to a battle
oil at the end. So it was like Bulldog and Taker, Repoman and Roddy was a seven minute house show match and Repo Man comes out and this woman who's clearly a plant in the front row, like he steals her watch and she doesn't know it, because that's what Repo men do you just steal people's stuff, You don't just take it? And then Piper comes out and goes to the lady and he hugs her and they have a very quick match. I don't think any bumps were taken.
And Piper gets the White Watch back. And then at the end of the night, everybody in the Battle Royal who had already faced off finds themselves. They're all fighting, and the end of the battle Flair gets eliminated in the middle, like they just get him out of it, and it comes down to Hogan and Sid and Hogan wins. Hogan must pose and all that, and he uses like a nonfolding chair and throws it in the ring after Sid,
and that's the end of the show. And I remember, like my dad bought me an Ultimate Sparrior sweatshirt that day. I also know I went as Hogan for Halloween, so a lot of this stuff got all mixed together, and who knows where my brain was at. But that was it those first couple of years. That was the beginning for me. And you know, after that, I was locked in and I've never stopped watching. I had no like I met girls in high school or like I just kept watching Monday nights.
So it was like those two things are connected, by the way.
Yeah, I just kept going, Like I remember being in college, like when I was a freshman, and like, we're watching we have two TVs. We're watching one in a football and I'm watching raw and I got enough people involved to watch. And that's two thousand and three, so it's whatever it is at that time. And then we would go out because nobody had class Tuesday morning. But I kept watching and I always kept up on it and I never stopped. And here I'm talking to you guys all these years later.
It's great. That's great. So very similar paths. I mean, boss, we've talked about Wrestling eighty seven is formative one hundred times.
I mean we're talking about that. I mean, that's that's like my prime era right there. I mean, I you know, I watched the I stumbled upon build up to Wrestling you seven, and then I went to a house show February of ninety two at the Boston Garden. You know, I feel that no Battle Royal, I'm bummed about that. I'm gonna love the Battle Royal. But I did see I did see Hogan and Piper versus Flair and Sid the main event, which is pretty great.
I'll tell you what it was cool is. I don't know if you guys know John Carlow, who works for Awn, did a lot of great stuff with Janella videographer John Carlotamo and him and I worked it up to be at the same time, and he's like, have you ever liked He goes, do you want to look for something? And I was like, what are you talking about? We can pull up anything. And I was like, what do you what do you mean? And he's like, pick something and I was like, oh, we watched because you've ever
seen this before? And he pull up vignette and stuff and I go, he can you do me a fan ever? Because then I realized I was like, I was an M s G ninety two. They used to tape that stuff for the MSG network and it will be Lord Alfred or a Cornett or a Gorilla or whatever. They had some kind of I said, can you look up? And I found the date and he found it and they had I got to watch the first show I went, which was unbelievab. I was like, oh my god, it's
and it's never been released. I mean, I'm sure it was on MSG or maybe Classics or something like that when you used to put it up back in the day. But it existed, and I was like, please find that piper match right now, and there was. And I was like, he's gonna steal the Oh my god. I was at and so that was kind of cool that I could go find it was digital. It was you know, this was this was on a server somewhere and he just pulled it up on one of the edit machines and there it was.
The vault.
Vault.
Got asked about that, and yes, that one that's like far away somewhere does exist. I never went to it, the one in where is it Albany or somewhere in Connecticut somewhere. I know they have that building. Uh, but like the server room because I saw I'm a big Todd guy. Todd is my ultimate Like interesting, okay, okay, there's I know you guys can't see it. I have a Todd actions figure right behind me. And I've spoken
to the man multiple times. Yes, and uh, he actually did one of those watch alongs and he did that. I was I had always said, like, who's your A month into my tenure, I was on a Watch Along for that awful fiend seth Hell in a cell match and I'm on the show with a bunch of people and someone's like, what's your what's your dream bumpcast? I said Todd, Pet and Gill and everyone laughed at me and Natally goes, oh, I remember Todd. He was so nice and I was like, thank you, Naddy, you're you're
one hundred percent correct. And a couple of months later, I get a call like, hey, we're in Houston for Watch Along. We think we can get Todd. He lives in Austin, And I was like, wait, are you real Todd get Todd like yeah, we get him, and we got him, and me and Gargano were on the Watch Along and no one need else needed to be there that it needed to be cameras on. We were just like. I was like, Todd, how many free gifts did you give out? Because that's all I talk about when I said,
did you get your free gift? That's like the UPC codes and did you just save your pay per view bill? And all of course was to just get your address so they could send you more stuff. And I asked him. He goes, oh, Diesel gloves and macho sunglass or bread he goes. There was a whole room of that, and I don't even know if it all got set. And
he was so cool and nice. And when they brought him, when they did in your House, we got him to come on the bump, and then because he was on the bump, people were like, hey, he slows his fastball. And that's why Todd worked those in your houses the next two years.
Yeah, he suddenly popped up again.
Well he was so cool and uh yeah, so Todd is my wrestling godfather. But the server room where they did Mania and Live Wire and all that stuff, I wanted to shoot a pre tape there at Gargano and they were like, it's too loud in here, and it's not the same room, but you could see the bones of like that tape room. Wow, all there, and they're not in that building anymore. Everything got moved out. But I worked there to do you know, raw Talk and s back down low down. But I was like, can
we go look? And I pulled it up and some of the people I worked with that were on the board for Raw Talk and SmackDown Load were working there back then. They're like, and I was like, you know, this is all on YouTube, like for real. And I showed them and I was like, can you show me where this is? And they walked me ten feet away. They're like, it's here, but it's too loud and we can't shoot anything in here because it's all got you know,
fans and everything to keep the server room cool. But that building up until a few months ago was still in use and you could absolutely see where they shot those shows.
That's wonderful, all right. So we talked about the volume. We're pretty obsessed with it, right, boss, I know the.
We've been talking about the Vault since they came out with the Shawn Michaels DVD from the Vault back in like two thousand and two or two thousand and three, Like we were when they when they had that title.
And they never did it again.
They never released another DVD set from the Vault, and I was just like I from that moment on to this day, we're obsessed with the Vault.
It's not something that matters as much because everything is so you know, digitized and everything, and you know with Peacock and you know, getting everything up with the network and whatever they had to do for that and then get everything over the peacock, and I'm sure they're dealing
with that stuff now for Netflix. It's not as big, but there's a lot of stuff that exists and if you can't get it, like we had Jeff Jared on before Summerslim a couple of years ago when he did the ref stuff and I always like to dig deeper. I'm like, come on, we gotta find and we found he had done that hair versus hair match with X Pocket SummerSlam ninety eight. Yep, they did another one, or they did some like a ladder match or something at a house show in December, and I was like, hey,
I looked it up on Cage Match. This exists, can we And they found like crappy footage. We were able to show it and he was like, you have this, and we had him and Waltman on and they both talked about it and they were both like, oh, and they knew spots from the match, and so they don't
utilize it as much now. And I know they have that new YouTube page called the Vault and they're just kind of throwing random stuff on it and it's already become too recent, but all of that stuff still exists, and I do, and I think a lot of people don't know how you guys feel. I'm worried we're never going to see that stuff ever again.
That's it. You know.
One of the one of the things that really really bummed us out was that the Hidden Gem section of the old network didn't you guys, didn't transfer to Peacock.
And it's like, that's what we want.
We want all that stuff, you know, like we had a whole you know, we had a whole series, actually a whole Patreon exclusive series which was just going through all that old stuff, you know, video by video and you know, chronologically, and it's like it's gone.
It's like, you know, I tried.
It's all because I was like, can I you guys like hired me to be the wrestling nerd. That's basically what I mean. And I'm sure we'll get into that. Oh can we can? We can we bring that back? Like can I curate this? I I think you guys trust me enough. And the closest thing I got was at the end of last year, early into this year, before I got let go, I just pitched like, hey, and you guys done this. Everybody's done this, Like Can
we just watch old stuff? I'm friends with chef. Can I just watch stuff and we just shoot the shit about it? And they're like yeah, because they had like a ver in the Twitch deals very much doesn't mean much Sam, and they only have one thing on it now, but they had started it up and they made like a Twitch room because they didn't understand that Twitch is not actually in somebody's bedroom all the time, but let's let's make it seem like somebody's room something so that
it was in someone's office. The guy who hired me three years later, his office became the Twitch room, so that's where I wantow. So me and I've known Chef Reactions for a year and a half. He's coming to my wedding in a couple of months, and I was like, hey, dude, I don't think they're gonna pay you, but do you want to do twitch with me for like an hour on Tuesdays? And he's like absolutely. And I had gotten him in with Corbett and all the stuff they did
a couple of years ago. So all I was told was you have to watch stuff that's on the ww YouTube channel. We can't put up anything new. We can't you know, give you stuff. It's got to be there or else. Twitch It's so I was just going. I talked to someone around the YouTube team. I was like, can I have the master lists?
He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and Carneo and Jpisoro. He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast.
Master list is that's look? The master list is worth three hundred thousand dollars. Do you hear me?
It's not as good as you would think either. I was very disappointed. I was like, is this on here? No? And we Well, that's the thing.
It's so important to manage those expectations because we're sitting here thinking is everything there? And if we know what is and isn't there, then we can proceed with sanity. But until we know the difference, we're in a very dangerous place.
Matt.
I think we need it to watch full matches. I don't want to watch like here's three highlight ninety.
No no no, no no no.
And then like also I was told like, well, if it's got the f you can't watch it, and someone's like, oh screw it, you could watch it. Not that many people are watching you anyway, And I was like that's true. That's that's one hundred percent fair. Just let me watch stuff. So we watched, like I think the first thing we watched was Hogan and Giant with the monster trucks and then he comes back and they wrestle. Later on we
watched we watched that from WCW. We watched you know, Stinging Brett and Sting has got tomato face, so you know that. And we would just like, give me random funny stuff to watch, like I don't I'm not going to make fun of current stuff. We just want to laugh at it. We watched WCW stuff, and we watched WWF stuff, and you know, we watched more recent stuff and it was it was going well and then then
I was done. But I was like, there's a whole bunch of people that want to watch this, and this is not going to cost you that much to give them.
That's that's the key. It's not how many, it's the margin that you can make. Come on, folks, like wake the fuck up, Like people will pay one hundred dollars a month to see this stuff, Like what is wrong with you?
Guys's just had this conversation on my show and I was like, you know the aw maybe getting the dal with Max. It's going to allow hopefully so many more people to see their full library and it's five years worth of stuff. But you know, when the network came out and I was like, that's it. Ten bucks, I get the pay per views, I get everything.
Yep.
And I still have a picture on my phone of that first screenshot, like when it was live. I was sitting there and I was like, this is unreal. What are people like bitching about the number? And I was like, you don't realize how And they added way more and they finally got the network to a good spot and then I got moved to Peacock and now we have you know, remember that season back in nineteen when WrestleMania happened.
It's like, no, nobody and everybody knows it's bad. Believe me, guys, they know that's a they know and they do what they can. And Peacock was not necessarily ready for that, and it took time, and you know, that's that is what it is, but you know it was it was a gold mine. And now it's on Peacock and it's five bucks or ten bucks and you get to watch the Office and stuff on top of it too, but like to have all that stuff and I don't know
what's gonna make the next transition. I am legit worried about that, and I don't know if they care.
Now that's kind of thing like, is there is there somebody there who like, is there what's the reason why so much stuff like for for example, like the fact that all of primetime wrestling is not up there.
Not all the prime time wrestling up there, because you have a choice.
It's a choice. It's also manpower. You know, we got a four manute, you know, and it's upscaling or.
You don't know, you don't know, you don't no, Nope, listen, put point a fucking cell phone camera at the monitor. Let's get this going.
I'm not I'm not.
I'll volunteer. I'll volunteer.
We're talking a volunteer thousands of people that will do this for them for free.
All right, But that's that is what it is. It's it's there's efforts to have to put that stuff up and they go, you know, we're gonna do this. You know Tom Green who does w CW Deep Cuts, who I love, and it has all that stuff, and I'm like I'm glad he has it, because they're not going to put up those Saturday nights. They're not going to
put up those thunders or what like. And and I know there's an audience for it, but there's I guess the question is is there enough that it's going to move the needle for them monetarily or is there enough stuff up there? They go, well, don't worry, you can watch just look at a different met trick.
Instead of total revenue, just look at how much you have to spend to make the money in charge, one hundred dollars a month. And it'll be just like please, like.
There's yes, tell me here, you have access to this.
Gets your account, get your accounting, all gimmicks on it, and you know, make it sound like it makes sense. But do the right fucking thing, because if you're gonna buy everything and then hoard it, that's some bullshit.
And now, and I know there were people there who may still be there, that cared and that wanted that to be the thing, and they had gotten the network to a good spot. I had I had a project I was working on right before the pandemic of I basically wanted to take you know, the podcast format of what Conrad and Bruce did and they ran that into the ground, but do it for more, Like, hey, here's the mizz for these couple of years, no one's ever done that with him. Let's talk about these years I did.
I did an entire hour and forty minute pilot with Kofe from his debut on ACW to like the stuff with Randy, like that whole run, and we had clips to show him throughout and he's telling me stories about how Big show caved his chest in and that's why it looks like it did. And you know, I pulled up. We got his dark match with Steve Carino on a SmackDown and he loved it, he said, and he was he was the bump pilot. I wasn't even there when they did that. Kofe is the best. Kofe is a
wonderful person. He should be as grizzled as anybody for as long as he's worked there, and he's always been the same guy. And I did that show with him and he's like, man, this is so great. I haven't talked about so much of this stuff. And I had Hayman. I had a thing where I wanted to do raise just ECW and w CW stuff stuff with show I at all, and they're like, well, you know that's that's gonna be a lot to get that stuff. And you know Steve does something like that, right, And I'm like,
I'm not trying to do broken skull sessions. I'm trying to talk about ms Versusino with his chick Madden shirt. Yeah, they're like a whole different world.
They're like, way, but that doesn't remind me of a real television show that if I produced a simile of it, I would feel like a big boy. Okay, that doesn't remind me of something I've seen before that I feel like would make me feel like someone who doesn't work in a carnival.
I had to fight with something like is it going to be more than an hour? And I was like, yeah, like that's a lot. I was like why why exactly? I was like, shut the fuck up, car, sh It's over. And then I get back in the car and I resume my podcast like like anything.
Because the people who will watch it for four hours are worth money. The people who have to have it in forty five minutes are going to move on to the next thing, and they're not money. That long term period, Hard stop podcasting.
Proved it basically they suck.
They do and then got to the point where it's like, oh well, it's kind of you know, a podcast like a video show and bubba. I'm like, yes, I know, I've been trying to tell you guys this and you know that's the kind of stuff that I was like, it's right here. I work here. I work here on Mondays and Wednesdays and Friday.
I already work here, guys, and I'm putting my hand.
Up like let's can we do this? Like it's I and I was doing all the research. I was like here, I would watch every friggin' Raw that Seamus was on from me, like I had an episode with him. Here's Seamus and ecw all the way to whatever. I think the few with triple.
H me get me situated. Part of my ignorance. This this this idea you're talking about, Matt, you shot with kofee and Seamus. Did they see the light of day? Because I haven't seen.
Him, Just goffe, no, it didn't. I just did with Seameless is going to be the next one. It's just right before the pace you.
Actually did it, and that they just like, come on, guys.
I know, I'll tell you a thing. I think something that happened and it's very unlucky Koffee had bed internet. Oh yeah, but I heard it. I heard it, and I sent it to people outside of the company, like, oh my god, this is great and I had ten ideas. And as you may now know, there is no podcast for ww even though they're trying to keep that alive. But like, but to a podcast.
But I guess here's the thing, Like, so you created this whole thing, you had all the stuff, and how much money did it cost them?
Very little? I mean the podcast team, it's the same guys that did you know the New Day pod or Cory's pot and it was and it wasn't pulling every clip and it wasn't you know, that was just a job memory if it was something special cool. We knew for some of the older wrestlers, if they needed their memory job for various reasons, hey, we could show them
this clip. And if it was just the podcast, fine, and the audio is enough, you know, if we played the audio or something, everybody does that that's enough to do. We just want to get the stories out of them.
So it costs.
It costs very little, and they have it, and they're not going to just say, here's a couple hours, let's just put it up there and see what happens.
Correct And it got it went through multiple receives.
Whatever, house standards or whatever.
Yeah, like I I was there already. They knew. I knew it. I knew I was good as a host of doing it. I knew it wasn't handing someone random who didn't know wrestling as script and be like host this podcast.
Well, it's someone they hired to be a broadcaster.
You know.
It's like, yeah, you know, yes, yes, and do you know do.
You know entertainment? Though you know wrestling, but entertainment, that's the key.
They never even got to that side of the world because digit old TB for a while. We're separate. It did like I had to fight through well, you know, I listened. It was good. I don't know if we have the manpower to do this. I got that a lot. You know, we're doing so many other things. It's like, oh, okay, yeah, sure, I.
Just I just did it, So what do you mean man power?
I did it.
Like your podcast team is not busy, you're running reruns at the New Day Pod for a year and a half to pretend like you have a podcast now, Well, my.
Man, Yeah, it's laziness. It's laziness and a lack of imagination and that's it. Not that mu much more complicated.
Of course we say that all they're making money hand over fist right now, So what do I.
Know, Well, yeah, of course, I mean that that's part of the reason that they can afford to sort of, you know, mask over things that could that could catch you know, because here's the here's the risk, Matt. They put out Kofe's entire thing and people really like it, and no one cares about the ideal quality, and what does that mean for half of the production budget? Right, all of a sudden, everyone was, all of a sudden okay with zoom quality during COVID, Right.
We got it.
We got over that real quick.
It was edited, they cleaned it up, it was fine. Any of the is it was fine. On top of it that so too long to shoot, but we still cut it down and they had a good rough cut of it. And I was like, you know, if we try this for six it'll be fine. Like I know, it'll do well, And I was like, no, we're not gonna okay. I was like, I'll go. I'll go to TV. You need me to go to Raw or smack Down or Flying or I'll go to the because I didn't
go that often. I was like, but I'll go. You we need to do this on zoom with people who can handle that. We could do it.
No, h JP is it's it's gotta be worse that we're sitting here thinking why don't they and and actually it's way worse. They have a guy who said I will, and they still were like that's boring, Like let's call Bunna Murray again.
I mean, that's the whole thing. It's like they're they there's not even a a you know, we can't or we you know. It's like basically we don't want to.
I feel like it. That's what it comes across as And that's.
Fucking annoying as hell, because you can have so much more interesting ship out.
There and promoting you tell me then, now and forever, and you show those clips and it's like it's the same thing. Like the reason A and E has those shows is because they overproduced for Peacock. Yeah, and that actually I don't know if that's totally out there. That was a big part of the regime change a couple years ago when they moved on from people in digital is like you could only have so many Keith Lee twenty four to sevens when the guys had three matches, like and I understand that.
Well, remember Peacock was going to do the Yokazuna one and then that didn't happen, and then all of a sudden, sir, you only knew, I'm slapping my knees right now and take it.
Yeah.
So they had produced a ton of content, obviously and almost too much. Like I understood the like, hey, we don't need a documentary on this guy who's been on the roster two weeks, Like we don't need a twenty four to seven or a three sixty. I got that. And at some point they looked and said, well, we've given Peacock all we need to give them, so now let's sell this stuff to A and E because they want to pay for it. By the way, they still are a good business plan. I get that. So we
got what we get. We got the Yoko one icons that actually saw the light of day, the Beth Phoenix once saw the light of day. The one that had stopped on was Lex.
Oh I'm sorry, I was thinking of the Intrepid. Yeah, it was Lex that didn't make it.
Yeah.
So I had done a show for Taker's Last Ride documentary called post Mortem, and basically we took whoever was like the central figure or someone that could talk about that episode, and me and Ryan Popolo, who was on the bump, we would interview that person. So we had Shane on, we had Michelle McCool on, and we had aj on, and we had Sean Michaels on and it was cool to kind of get you know. It was very much like talking dead or you know, the breaking
bad talking, you know, just after the fact. Hey, here's everything we saw. Now let's talk about it with the important people. So that was the idea for icons. We called it Icons Revisited. So we did it for Yoko and we had Rakishi on and he was amazing.
Like he was.
He got us crying, he was crying, and we talked to a couple a couple of people about Yoko. We talked to Brett about Yoko. He loved him. And that's what it was. It was like, Okay, I know some of these people were interviewed for these shows, but some people weren't. Or now that it's out there, you know that Yoka one was so well done. It was dark. It was sad because of how his life ended and where he was going and how many people worried about his weight. But we were able to go a little deeper.
And then for Beth, you know, we talked to Mickey James, and we talked to Mally Holly, and then for Lex, I was excited. I was like, Okay, here we go. And I kept here and like, yeah, there's not really a good way to end this one because how his wrestling life kind of ended, like there's no like, yeah, whether it be the stuff it Liz or you know, obviously Lex ending up a wheelchair. And I was like,
all right, so we shot. I interviewed Bishoff, Flair and Brett for the lex Icons revisited and they never saw the light of day. And you know what, RVD had also made air. I remember we actually got RVD after the fact, but that is that was the pivot. That was Okay, everything's getting shelved, and I think Lex got Redone and a couple other ones that they were going to do got redone and they got turned into biographies or whatever. But yeah, there's some of those that didn't
make air. One of my favorite things is you remember the Brett WrestleMania arcade, the cabinet commercial where Brett goes in with lunch and he's showing him how to do this stuff. So there's that image where he is either putting a Russian leg sweep or setting up the backbreaker on the cabinet. If you ever seen that image, it was in extual. So RJ City and I used to argue about this all the time. What move was he doing?
And I was like, well, his hands across. If it's hands across, he's trying to do the backbreaker, and he's like, no, it's the Russian leg sweep he wouldn't do. And we argued about this, and I was like, all right, if I ever talked to Brett, we'll ask him. So for that icons revisited we had Brett and I go, we had him. He was done. I go, Brett, I got
to ask you something. And I walk up to the camera and I put it up in it and I was like, this picture right here, are you doing a back break or a Russian leg sweep, and in the most Brett way possible, he breaks down the science of it and he goes, yeah, you know, but it was probably just a mix of both. And I was like, oh fuck, and I was like, thank you, Brett. He goes, you really couldn't do either move because it was a it was an arcade game. And I was like, okay, bro, thank you for your time.
And I was like, that's the one thing.
It's both.
See, that's the one thing you had you guys didn't consider before approaching Brett. It's an arcade game, so it couldn't be the move.
It was.
But he was like, I just kind of did both. And I was like, Brett, that's not a move of joom, that's a mix, like what was going on here? And I had to tell Arday. I was like, it's a mix and he just goes, that's bullshit. I know, I know. Those are my favorite, like those of those moments and I'm like, no one would you guys would get this. We could never put that on the air. Nobody would
get it. And it was just me getting up or behind a desk and holding my phone up as close as I can and I see Brett like and if you ever seen Bretty does the same interview spot in his like kitchen and his dynet set in front of him, but you know, the snow is behind him and he's always like, honest, you know, that's it, and I have to hold it all the way up to show him.
And yeah, so it reminds me of a vault thing too. I mean, forever there's been this, this idea that that in the WWF magazine photo archives is a photoshoot of Hulk and Brett with tug of war go ahead.
I don't know the answer to this. I believe it, like I've seen it. I believe it. I believe that whole story of that it was supposed to happen, and that graphic, that actual match graphic that was made. All of it makes sense, and of course makes sense because the hogan that it didn't happen.
Yeah, I mean, the magic makes it. But Brett going in a such detail about the photo shoot and the fact that these photos themselves have never surfaced, really there was I.
Mean, you know there was again, you know there there there were photos in an issue of the WAD magazine with you know, it was that.
That dream match thing. No, No, it is the dream wat the dream match thing where they would.
They have these ideas like what if these people faced off and there was one with Brett and Hogan.
Well yeah, but those I'm looking at it right now. Those are just individual studio shots that that wasn't That doesn't appear to be on the same set, and they're not facing each other as if they can see each other. But then they did one with bretton Diesel in ninety five. This time there will be a winner and they're holding the belt between each other, and I feel like that's the exact prototype.
For what sure Bruce is like, hey, let's do that Holgan bread Shoot.
Yeah, probably exactly right. They get these archetypes in their minds, but we've never seen the original. Well so you you progress, Matt, and you are a lifelong fan and you stick with it even when others are falling off. We talk a lot in the lap fan, as you may know, about the shame and pain of being a wrestling fan. You know, I'm in broadcasting. What do you broadcast? It's like a mixture between sports and what is it? It's it's wrestling. Oh my god, do you think that stuff's real? I
mean that will never go away. I don't care how much money they make.
It jumps right to that, It jumps right to how because you have a job at this company.
Oh you think that sh it's real?
Wait till they ask you now post ww life.
When you go Now I've thought about that, I'm like, what do I say? So, how do you handle that before? Because like I did a New Japan podcast for p W Insider, which is actually supposed to be an official New Japan podcast, and then they changed all the regime and people were gone and New Japan, you know, didn't want to spend money on America and that's what happened.
But I got hired that year, and it's easier to go, like I work at w B and people like, oh I know that, like that absolutely that's fine, And I was there where you know, pandemic is different. But like after that, once Triple Ahs took over, it did get better.
And it's like, obviously has gotten better, and we can argue all we want and be mad that it doesn't see the light of day, like the Vault stuff like that, But I do believe Nick Khan has taken them to greater heights and there is more money to be made and endeavor and all this stuff. Now, you know that's it is more. He's made it more acceptable, you know that. Look at the people that they're bringing in, the level of celebrity, like all of that stuff. I can't deny that.
I never would and I had always said, like, you know, anybody who makes through the merger, which I still think is an ongoing thing, you're working for a freaking powerhouse. I mean, that's what it is. That's and look what they're doing now. I happen to think the show's a little too glossy for me. I watched MANI and I'm like, these are blowoffs the feuds or are we just watching exhibitions here? Because everything looks too nice? Nobody's that pissed at each other.
And asked, so, how have you handled the you know it's fake right question in your lifetime?
He's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and se mjpro Lapsed fan Wrestling Podcast.
I go, yeah, so are the every TV show you watch? Isn't that the standard answer?
I think?
Yeah?
Good, Okay, So I don't know, boss, what did what did we tell people make meth?
Like?
I don't you know like I always just say, like, it's a male soap proper. Now it's obviously gender mix up and all that, and that's good, Like that's what it should be. But that was the easy way. My mom even called it that. She's like, oh, that's like me watching you know, General hospital stories exactly. Yeah, And my dad took me. And my dad has been a sports official for years at the highest level, and he liked going, Like I took him to a house. He
took me that first house show. He loved the spectacle of it. He took I took him to a TNA show when I was friends with people there at uh MCU Park where where they play baseball whatever the cyclones. He loved it. He went to RAW a couple of years ago with his wife. She's like, she's a big broad with she loved it. I think people get it more now, right, But that's that makes sense.
She's like, enough generations have turned over to where there's enough kids who watched it in childhood as a national product, not as.
It's not being protected anymore in that way. Yeah, a part of it too. Everybody's appearing on things or and I think the fact that people have become movie stars John Cena or that helps Rock or even Batista or people or you know, it's like, yeah, they were acting on Mondays and now they act in movies. It's the same thing.
Well we switched it up, JP and I you talk about, what else do you say besides you know it's it's like the movies are fake. We decided after the UFC took off that what we would say to people is actually they changed it. As a result of the rise of UFC, they felt the pressure to go real and now WW is completely real if you watch it now, and we straight face we would not because it's a stranger that comes at you with that attitude almost always right, like a party in a party or something.
I would always have because I was doing fantasy football stuff and wrestling at the same time, so I would tweet about both and most of the people who follow me were just looking for fantasy football advice. But I got you're not it's fake, right, Oh God, why are you talking about that?
You know?
I wish you. I wish you create another Twitter account. Okay.
I was like, Oh, what is it about? Why do you think people are like that?
Because they have a voice. Now everybody has a voice and they said it. That's it. That's all. They have a voice, and they have an anonymous voice, and nothing's going to happen unless, you know, they go say something really terrible and their their account gets supported and they created a new one. That's all it is.
I've been I've been saying that for years.
Is that that's the one of the biggest problems with the Internet and social media is that everybody has a voice now, and most people don't deserve to have one.
They don't there no one's checking it. We can create you guys can create the last fan. I could do my thing. I'm so happy that that is a thing and that people who have been able to go, you know what. I have this phone and I could do some great things. That's awesome. I'm glad people are making money. I talked about being friends of chef reactions. He quit his job. He takes care of his grandmother because he looks at a food and go that's dumb or that's great, that's awesome.
I love his videos.
Yeah, he's the best, but he also is well aware. He's like, I can't believe I do this for a living, you know, Like I think every like that is the kind of person I want to see. It's the and especially in wrestling. You guys, notice, my God, has it gotten worse than ever?
Well, it's almost like, you know, I think it's part of that denial of the fact that you fell in love with something that's complete pantomime and foolishness, and like you have to somehow account for that because in polite society you can't defend it. Like I don't care if
you make millions of dollars. If you're in this business, family friends, neighbors, acquaintances judge you and whisper behind your back when you leave the room about how how developmentally delayed you must be to folow professional Wrestling, And I think a way to cocon I way to cope with that is to get this serious and hardcore about the minutia of ratings, because that feels real, That feels like something you can Unlike the football world, where you can't
count on the results to argue over and you can't go to the matt debating who the better player was on the field Sunday, that's what we have in wrestling. We have, like you know, arguing matters of taste and arguing good or we do have that though.
That's the thing, like, that's why First Take exists and all that and the greatest you know Lebron loses, Well he sucks, now, no he doesn't. That's what it's become like that to me, that's wrestling forums and that's Twitter, and that's that's message boards. That's what that's become on television. The guy who created that, Jamie Horrowitz, who has his own sword, passed like he was part of the new regime.
They wanted to do that for with me, and like Helwanie and Sam Roberts and like Tyler Breese, they wanted that to be a thing.
And when you say that to be a thing, please give me more.
The Debate show he created the Debate or First Take.
Or he's he's the pivot to video guy, right, yeah, smashing success.
Yes, so Nail did it Fox. And when he came in, I'm like, oh jeez. And I had heard things like oh he tries the pit talent against each other. He did the opposite. He just disappeared like he did nothing, He did no work. He was a nick on higher and then it was like he just kind of got let go and everybody's like, oh.
No one even talks about that.
Nothing. Nothing.
So the idea there is that we want our hosts to scream at each other about how someone sucks and how they're great, like they would, but do so.
While you work for the company, right, So figure out how that works. It's like when they did backstage and like, there's page going I don't think this person should be a heel and I was like, and that promotes the SmackDown. How well we worked there? That's the gray.
It's always the tough part of like I thought all these I thought WW was above that chatter. I thought this talent didn't even notice that chatter, and here they are trying to mimic it.
It was eleven o'clock on Tuesday nights that had no lead in. They were trying you know, Punk debuted on that show at eleven fifty nine Eastern on a Tuesday night and the lead in was Big ten Basketball.
Wow.
Well, so that you're bringing me to something out, You're bringing me something I really want to ask about. And I've thought about this for years. I thought about this when the network first came out and some of their sub numbers were disappointing. In terms of what the Wall Street expected, and it's like, what can they do to make, you know, to create the new attitude or like a step change in how they present wrestling to where people would give it a look and be like, whoa, really
they're doing that now, that's crazy. And I was thinking, what if you put and tell me why this is an awful idea? Because I've tried to workshop this with anyone I've ever met who works in the business. Why don't you put the creative meetings online?
Well you'd have to have well I don't think it's a sway anymore, but you'd have to just basically have a camera running for six hours while I have pretty waits for Vince to show up. That was a thing. Yeah, that was that was like, that's what I am and I and I had heard stories of like you know, people on the team vincentings it now and it's one o'clock in the morning, and okay, like that's and you know those shows get written on Thursday, and you know when I had Raw Talk and Smack Down Low Down.
So I would sit in the green room at the TV studio and watch the shows, but I would get the full script of raw and SmackDown every Oh yeah yeah, Draft one and Draft two and Draft three and at seven forty five, Draft six, and a lot of stuff would change. So unless they had a good editor to put all that, you know that what's the closest they've come that that that in house uh State media documentary they put out about WrestleMania.
Like that's where I'm going.
And even then they could they're gonna they want to make it look like no one was gonna make Rock look bad even though his idea was stupid. And then he took, you know, credit for changing the idea even though everybody knew it was Cody's year and had nothing to do with the Rock. And somehow they put a negative connotation on Rock versus Roman because they did it took how many extra weeks for that documentary to come out? And they have a hell of a doc team. I mean,
I loved working with those people. I did some historical consulting with them. That team is fantastic. Oh yeah, but they get put in some tough spots sometimes, and you know, can you show that It would be cool if they had cameras rolling and they they show it ten years later, isn't that Bruce's podcast.
Yeah, well that that's my point. It's like everyone's doing it anyway. Whant to capture the action, you.
Know, I I I think there's something to going. Like and here was the creative meeting ten years ago, like why can't you do retrospectives about that time?
Do it?
Yeah? That was like when I first had that brainstorm, I was like, no, this is okay. Actually, what I mean is put them on after it's over.
Like, I don't mean there was a five year rule for some time about talking about stuff, especially with that creative Yeah. Yeah, like like, hey, don't ask Seth about this. But you know, and I had when I was doing that podcast pilot, I was like, Okay, I don't want to do anything current. I want to I want to talk about stuff that. You know. Okay, we've seen the Monday Night Wars enough times. We don't need to see him again. Can we talk about something. I've seen the
limbo get broken. I've seen it. I've seen Rea get thrown it to the side of their failer a lot of times. I've seen Kevin Nashsey adverb you know, an adjective. Whatever, I've seen it. Can we talk about something else. We have a lot of active talent here that was here ten or fifteen years ago, and nothing they're doing right now will pertain to that. We have Paul Hayman. Can we talk about ECW with Paul Hayman and not be
doing Rise and Fall? Can we get into others like and you know, I absolutely think there's something to that. And you know what they could charge Exit for that. They could have a premium YouTube channel and people would pay for that, and you know what, Endeavor would be happy to take their money.
That's what I'm saying, Like, because the way these guys talk, it's it's about how much they made relative how much they spend. It's not about the total pool of money. No one's going to present this as a three hundred million dollar idea, but it's how little you have to spend to make you know. Look, whatever it was that they would rather do than your idea with koffee, No one wants to watch after a week what you wanted to do with koffee, And we stand is proof positive
they're going to listen to that for thirty years. Yeah, if they have until of interest in this guy or any kind of curiosity about how he came up in the business. That's evergreen stuff, and you can monetize the shit out of that.
I mean, I always was a big believer also, and when I did the bump, you know, it was that gray area of I'm being a wrestling journalist and we're on the same team. I was an actor. I researched my role and made sure, you know, I presented myself well, but I was part of the team. I'm not going to knock anything. Yeah, but anytime I had somebody come on, I always tried to find some real life stuff that wasn't going to change or mess with storylines or be able to tell a story or hey, ten years ago
you were in NXT. Let's watch that stuff. And they, by the way, talent loves that because some of them love to talk about themselves. We know that. But also it's like, hey, that was fun. I don't remember that. I'm so used to talking about being in store. My whole thing was if you're walking in that studio or we're interviewing you on Skype or video call, whatever, I want people to finish that interview and go. I want to see him on Monday. I want to see her
on Tuesday. I want to watch them on Friday. Oh you know what, I didn't know about them. I like them that much more now. My job was just to get everybody, and stuff like that is gonna get people over more if you could these biographies. People like mis more now than they did because they got to see a story a little bit. The punk one when he got hot, it was like, oh wow, look at all the stuff he did beforehand. So now you tell a deeper story and people are more invested.
Yeah, we'll get it. You're going to see a side of the person that's actually operating behind the gimmick, and you're like, okay, I can get behind that guy's situation. I remember Brian Pillman Junior, for God's sakes, got a job off being on dark side. It was like, okay, this is like or he got a push off being off dark side.
Cody Cody got hired because of his speech and his dad's Hall of Fame thing. I mean, like there is a great example. There's little stories like that of Hey, that person she didn't go anywhere, but like we had Lacy Evans on and I think she was a heel at the time, and her daughter was there with her and we played into it and we told her whole story and she was crying about things and her upbringing
was and I was like, whoa. She turned babyface after that because they knew they had something and sometimes that stuff. It's just dig a little bit deeper and you'll find real stories that are better than the ones you're trying to tell.
That people will want to hear later and not just in the moment. I mean, you know, someone speaking in characters is gonna only have such a shelf life in terms of like, you know, it's the shooting interview that really rewards over time. So let me ask you. You mentioned the Rock Triple H thing. First of all, JP, did you see that documentary but the two going back and forth?
No, I didn't see it.
Okay, So the whole thing is Matt kind of laid out and I never take anything for granted without our listenership because a lot of them actually our laps and don't follow her. That is was just saying, they are like, I do you know you have you have this thing like if we're gonna do Rock Roman at WrestleMania, how
did it end up becoming Cody Roman? And what were the machinations and where were the calls made along the way to lean in the direction of what the fans were telling them to do, and Rock recasting himself in that And it took months, and people were like, why does it take months to put this thing out when you promoted it premiering the Monday after WrestleMania during WrestleMania And it's probably a lot of tinkering around how everyone
comes off. But what the big takeaway for me is and telling me if I'm wrong here, Matt, is that what we have right now with WWE is a battle for control of perception between Paul and Twain.
I felt that it was gonna happen. The Rock's not around now. As far as I know now, he had I will tell you in terms of control, he had control of everything that related to him. We did a show. Here's a wild example. We did a show for years called The Ultimate Show where somehow we were allowed to
do this. We fantasy book shows based on that month's pay per view, right, and we were basically other than you know, like a Benoir or someone who had just gone to aw We could kind of bring up who we wanted and we did that show for years and when Rock came back into the picture. I want to say, like later, let let he had some kind of say you know, maybe it was when he got his name
or whatever the hell it was. We were told that if we bring up the Rock, or we bring up the Bloodline like in that way, we had to use Peter MYAVI as well, like that was a Rock, like he cared about that show that aired once a month.
Wow, So what you're saying is you had to bring up Peter every time he brought him up.
If we said the Bloodline is a group, we had to include Peter, like if we talked about it historically, and you know, wow, the here's my only personal story because I didn't really work with him. He wasn't around that much. He sent in a twenty fifth anniversary message for Triple H when it was his anniversary and he came on the bump, but Rock did a pre tape
to that for that excuse me. And the beginning of the year, it was day one he showed up and did that thing with gender and at the end, you know, after he rips down gender, he says the head of the table line. Now everybody in the world knew Cody was gonna get Roman at Mania this year. But that happened, and I'm like, oh, maybe Roman's wrestling twice. That makes sense. Have have Roman beat Rock on Night one? Okay, he's
the head of the table. He's the head and then he loses to Cody night too, and good for Cody gets his win and Roman gets his win over Rock and Cody. You know Rock, Roman's got an out. Will I wrestled the night before? Okay? Sure? Whatever? So he says the line and I gotta do raw talk that night, and I'm going, hey, like before I say anything, and I usually didn't get a lot of direction. I just used logic, don't speculate. He just said it like everybody. He said it.
What do I do?
So we opened the show and Rock came out and I opened it and I was like, well, he's he wants to be head of the table. I guess we'll see what that means. And I sound like an idiot because everybody knows what he's getting at. And the other part was and it's on Kathy Kelly's Instagram, so I'm not like he shot an interview with her, and Rie is in the interview and he's holding the Women's World title and it never saw the light of day, but it's there, like it exists, and I don't know why
more people had like didn't figure that out. The next day, I was supposed to do my Twitch show with Jeff Reactions and we were gonna watch No Way Rumble two thousand because we were watching rumbles all the way up to the Rumble and Rock wins, and I was told, don't watch it, don't bring attention to it. And I'm like, he was just on raw, Like what what do you want? And they were.
And then what they mean is don't bring attention to that potentially ad libbed head of the table line.
But it wasn't. That's so weird what he was doing. And I think that's where, like, I do believe that Rock in his head was like, oh, we can wait for Cody. It's me, that's right, and wow, absolutely, like that's very confusing for all of us. And then Cody wins the Rumble and he points right at Roman and then they go back on it and they make Cody look dumb, and then Brian Gerwitz goes on on busted Open multiple times and kind of throws Cody under the bus.
Oh yeah, I was like I couldn't lay my ears.
I'm like, what are we doing here? This is it didn't happen. That's your guy, that's the guy you've built up. You're going with this, I'm.
Not misinterpreting this match. So the day after he says the head of the table line on that first rob of the year, you're told the next day to not bring up Rock.
I was told that night to not speculate about Rock Roman.
And so that means to me that Rock intends on facing Roman at WrestleMania, but Triple H and Cody are aligned to control fan attitudes in the opposite direction.
So I guess the best way I would explain it is when I would do those shows. For the most part, I know what the layout was and whatever, and if I had a question and I didn't want to point out a plot hole to make Creative look, I would always ask my producer and my producer would you know, check with Creative and I get feedback and sometimes I would And on that day I was told don't speculate about Rock Roman, and then I was told, you know,
don't do that Twitch show the next day. And on Wednesday, when you're on the bump, don't speculate about rock Roman. Then why did he say it?
Right?
And then you plastered all over YouTube? So what am I supposed to do with that? Look, I work for the team. I'll do whatever I gotta do. I'm not an actual journalist in the company I I I'm State Media. But it was very like I didn't want to look like an idiot. Anytime I had a question and I didn't get an answer, I just listened to Michael Cole's commentary, Y's the move to do, and I would get messages,
you know, from like his person administrative assistant. Don't bring up anybody's number of their days and their title reign because that's just the Roman thing right now, as guomther is going on to massive numbers as Bianca. Nope, that's just a Roman thing for now.
Only one person gets to count days.
Yes, makes till that kind of stuff happened, And when Vince was gone, like stuff went away and I knew I could say wrestling, and then there was like Kevin Dunn's like, ah, we're still doing sports entertainment, okay. And then I remember when it seemed like Vince was back and he was like that January of last year, like all of a sudden, reading the Row scripts and it's like everybody's got a nickname and there's all of these descriptors and the mangy mutt Pete does whatever. I was like,
oh he's back. When when when Brock almost got teased, I went, Okay, he's back.
Yeah, Brock Remember Brock Omas in l A Boss.
Four and a half.
I try not to, but yes, we knew that was you could tell right there.
That's such men's matchmaking.
Oh yeah, we we were big guys. You know we're talking about you know, money money in the big men.
Clearly as he's getting ready.
Money money and the men, that's what we're talking about.
To go live with Ari the next morning on CNBC and you know what was it? He looks like forget it.
So Howard Hughes looks like Howard Hughes emerging.
He's Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast with Jack and and j Pisarro, The Lapsed Fan Wrestling Podcast.
So Matt, I guess this is all coming back around, because what I want to ask you is, you know when people grow up loving WDB and they love talking about ww the've talking about wrestling, they say, man and people in their circle. See, well you want to work for them? Like, what wouldn't that be great? When did't you love working for them? I've heard some of the things you've said about kind of how it all ended. Would you counsel people that are passionate about wrestling to
go work for WWE. I mean, I'm sure you're grateful for your time there. You have to be, But I mean, honestly, like it sounds like a it sounds like I'm.
Treated as a business. I said all that stuff because a lot of this stuff was like frustrating. But here's the bottom line. I got paid very well to talk about wrestling for five years exactly like like I it was not in the plans. It became part of the play. I've actually just started telling a story on my show, like I just eat literally on the show I recorded
earlier today. Here was the process of like how I found out about it and who helped me out, and I took everybody up until the moment I got hired. And you know, I didn't expect it to be a reality. Even that time. I was like, oh, this would be a bonus shop and it is my fantasy football stuff.
And then it became real thing, and then it was Hey, on Wednesdays at one o'clock, you're gonna sit there with three other people and just talk about wrestling, and we're gonna pay you, and you know, in a couple of years, we're gonna pay you more and you're gonna be an employee and you're gonna have health insurance because you're talking about wrestling. Even the worst creative, which is the toughest part of the job. And by tough, I mean not that hard. It just wasn't as hard easy as the
days when creative was good. I'm still talking about wrestling. I mean I I've everybody has latched onto that thing where I'm like, uh, you know, he said it was a family and I know it's not. Or like people like, why did you think it was a family? I'm like, I did it. I'm just saying that's what they said,
and it was dumb. When Rock showed up earlier this year, I happened to be my birthday and we waited for him for two hours because he was late, and it's like, oh, it's good to be back with my family and good to have all you family, and you know, this is why you're still here. And it's like and everybody like they take the picture with Rock and Hunter and Nick, and everybody's trying to get in the background, and it's like, no, you've watched your family get fired over the last couple
of months. And that's guess what. That's a business. I always understood that stuff. I'm very happy for my time there. I'm happy I had it. It was a great job. I met my fiance there. I paid a lot of bills. I lived a very comfortable life because I worked there. I nothing was bad, Like I could be frustrated that I didn't get a pilot off the ground, But guess what, you still saw me on Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays. I worked as much, if not more than any broadcaster there.
My face is still on peacock, I'm still on all those best ofs like and that will I'll always have that and that's and I made friends there, and I learned about the business a different way that I can talk about it now, and whatever happens in the future happens. Listen.
I also would say this, if you can dedicate your life and if you want to go on the road, I say this, any in broadcasting just say yes and go figure it out later, and especially if you're not tied to a region or a partner or anything like that, and you can go do it. Yeah, I don't know how it's gonna be in the next couple of years under that new regime. I think people are gonna make
a good amount of money there. I think it's a far better business in terms of what they can do in the reach they have than it was a few years ago. But I don't think anybody's gonna be there forever. And if you know that, that's okay. It's like those creative people that lasted a year and like I can't do this anymore, that's right.
Yeah, that those are the people.
I think it's managing expectations. I think that's that's what it is. It's I love that I got to work there. I'm happy I got to work there. I regret nothing about working there. I was really lucky that I got to work there and work with the people I did, and got the opportunities I did and make the money I did. To talk of, it wasn't a job. I happen to have an office space there, like a little cubicle, and it just had a bunch of wrestling stuff on
it anybody time, anybody can to my desk. We just talked wrestling.
Yep, yep.
That's a good job to me. So that's yea how it ends snucked. But but you know, I still loved working there and I still love talking about it, and I'm not ever not going to be a fan.
Well, I guess in closing, as you you know, embarking a new chapter, just just watching again, how has working there changed how you can watch WWE And do you miss being able to watch w B the way you used to before working there?
I don't. I still. I think somebody asked me this on a redditt Ama recently, like how did your fandom change? And I said, when I was there, I think the stuff I really liked jumped out more because every week I had to watch all of Raw and all of SmackDown, and that was my job, and I knew how to watch it, like in the background or hey, we're not going to talk about that, or I know what the talking points are. But I think like the stuff I really liked, or that stuff that was really well done
jumped out more. You know, I loved watching Gunther's run. I loved I loved Otis, you know, five years ago, and I like them now. I think that kind of stuff jumps out. I watch it and I used to talk to people differently, like live domin Rhea does nothing for me, but I know what it clicks. It clicks well on YouTube and all those love stories Mandy and Notice did that too, and hell go back to Macho
and Flare and Savage. That's a whole. That's the basis for a story at WrestleMania that also happened to have the ww Championship WA Championship still involved. I thank god I can still say that like that. I tried to listen to different people and why they liked it, and you know, oh, I don't think aj Styles is that
good because he kind of just does matches. But man, I love whoever because they can talk or that was funny or Rhea Ripley is a great example of when they came back from the pandemic, the reaction she was getting to people by surprise, and then the social and digital team saw the numbers she was doing and then presented that to Katie and Vince and guess what, she got a push because of that. Now I think she touches a lot of different fan bases. But I look
at that like, oh, that's actually doing quite well. All this match I loved, you know what. Not many people cared about it. So I try to look at it that way where it's not just about me, And that comes from wrestling and being on the Indies and spending time with friends at TNA and being a play by play announcer in the Indies and doing Busted Open. It's you know, what's working and why is it working, and it doesn't have to be for me. So I also try to talk about it that way as well.
Quite a quite a business it is where we find ourselves watching everything and diagnosing what is and isn't working instead of just watching it because we enjoy it. There might be something there I don't know, but fascinating. Well, you're you're We're a grateful to you, Matt for taking the time and getting us acquainted with what it's like to go through that that car wash over there in Stanford. That's quite a mean.
I would also before we go too, I just I would. I would. I have to say exactly how we got to.
This point where we're interviewing him, because otherwise, it just I feel people will people will be taken for granted. So it's been people have seen now on my Instagram and stuff that I was a movie directed by Clark Duke. I'll tell that story another time. Tayla Becker former Braxton, also in the movie, and she and I got to talking and I regretfully had to tell her that I was the co host of a wrestling podcast, which you know.
And she actually didn't try to lose your acquaintance at that point, right, right.
Right, But you know, at the same time, it's kind of like, you know, also, here's here's a woman who's been in the business professionally, and I'm also I'm now a fan with a podcast like every other fucking, you know clown in this world.
But we started talking some more, and you.
Know, she got to know that it was a little more of a legitimate affair, and then she mentioned Matt and I said, yeah, like, please introduce us, and she did, and here we are today.
I was so like, I got the I told you this guy's beforehand. I was in Disney and I got the text. But I before that, I had, you know, I have alerts on for like figure whatever, accounts that followed me out. I was like, oh, that's nice they
followed me. I guess, you know, one of my clips or whatever, and maybe we could do And then she texted me and I couldn't answer, and I was like, holy shit, really that's so because she had just left and I had I had talked to her right before she left, and she actually had met my fiance for the first time and at the MSG show, and then I get this text and I was like oh. And then I reached out. I was like, oh my god, and she like hit me up before I She's like, hey,
do you want to do stuff with them? I was like, oh yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry, definitely, let's let's But I got it. I was so happy that that happened, and I'm happy for you, and I'm happy for both of you that you got it a bit. But I got to tell you something that I think you guys
would appreciate. Please. So when we did the Bump and we would do you know, people that were historical, there was a time where it's like, hey, let's get hardcore holy on, Like okay, sure, and we would have these you know historical I would be like, well, we could do a whole, you know, career retrospective interview. So I would write ninety five percent of the questions for the show and then we would like, you know, divvy them
up would make sense. And I had this thing and I'm like, you have to make Kayla ask about stuff that she has nothing that has no clue because Kayla didn't know wrestling before she started, so she'd be like so in ninety five when Nitro was first starting and hearing her say those words like when you're wrestling, when you're wrestling Vader at Summer Slam ninety six, and I'm
going like, oh god, this is so good. And that just became a running bit where if we had anybody that was historical on, Kayla would have to like, do this his story. And it started because she was doing research for an interview with Baron Corbin and she's like, yeah, I wrote this question about him being voted the most hated villain. And I was like, are you a Meltzer subscriber, Like are you like what did and what publication? She's like, uh,
pwy voted. I go, oh my god, you have afterbags at home and I was like oh oh, and it clicked right there and then so every time after that she would get at least one historical question that reference and she would naw it. She would read it as was and sometimes she goes like what is this? And I remember when In Your House got brought back and we had Todd on and we had Adam cole on and she's like, yeah, I watched it. I was like, wella you watched In your House one and she's like yeah.
I was like, what did you think of Hakushi? And she's like that was the I was like yeah and so. And I always had this idea. I always wanted to do a show with her where we watched old stuff just to get her perspective. Oh stuff that and maybe there's an opportunity for this all to happen between all of us.
I think I know a landing pad for said. As long as you guys are comfortable never having a friend in the business again where you need to hang out, you hang your hat.
But I'm glad we connected through her and I always loved educating her out and she's like what is this about? And there were people that tried to fake it that I work with, Like someone was like, uh, xbox coming on and will also have the one two three kid, and that happened on live televisions. The first one I'm not going to mention, but that would have been yeah, well the other and if we talked about again, I once caught Hogan on a lie and a lie live on a bump.
I don't believe that. Oh, I don't believe that.
The clip because we were talking about it was the day of the Rumble. The guest this was Brian Danielson, Goldberg and Hogan all in the same episode. And I just did like Hogan's entire Rumble history and like he said something, He's like, oh yeah, when I wanted three, Like he said a blatant lie, and I like the next question was like, well, Hulk actually and he's like, well, you caught me there, brother, And he was. He was definitely bumped up. Let me just tell you that on that that interview.
Dude, there was a point I don't remember when it was. It must have been one of those old Bubba clips that we listened to when we were doing our journey through total NonStop Hogan as we called it, his his his run in t NA, and there's like a big long thing where we went through every single thing Hogan did in TNA, and there's a certain clip I.
Was I'm still I'm sorry.
I'm still suffering from post traumatic stress about that whole journey we did.
Yeah, that was definitely more than we bargained for as we went, but we found all these gems and one of there's an interview where he's he's he's carrying on with his you know, flowery descriptions and taking poetic license with everything, and and someone like pulls up the match right away and he's like, brother, Like, He's like, you just pulled that up like that fast, you can find any match. It was almost like the walls are starting to close in, like he can't.
I feel like that that's the only place I can think over there they pulled something up that fast, And then he.
Was look horrified that, like he could be fact checked in real time.
Brother, don't look up that Metallica discography.
I'm screwed, all right.
I gotta got going, dude, Well we gotta get going too. But Matt, I think seeds have been planted, all right.
And anytime I'd love to come back. I'd love to have you guys on on my show because I have some ideas that I think you should be perfectly for. So let's try to make that out. And if we could get Cale involved behind, we could definitely have some fun.
Oh yeah, every single thing she's ever done could be a pod.
You know.
Just take us through this moment, Caylet tell us how much you love.
Just get her screaming about. That's all you need there. She had to scream, and she loves horror and she does the worst scream ever because Roman likes something on top of him and she's like, ah, and it's so bad. And we played it NonStop for a good couple of weeks after that because she was so embarrassed because she wants to be in horror movies. Well that's not on your.
Well, this is on ours, thank you, Matt, And I think, uh yeah, I think boss, it's safe to say that Matt camp TLF approved the Solar system can consume his content with a clear conscience. He's kissed the ring.
Absolutely, He's more than welcome.
God, thank you, guys. I really appreciating. Let's talk again soon.
It sounds great. Thanks everybody, Thank you. Matt Peters.
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