Are Babyfaces and Heels a Thing Anymore?

right way. I hear the Vegas in your voice. Yeah, I hear. I hear the whiskey working its way out of your system. Congratulations. I wish I could have partied with you too, buddy. We missed you. Um. I gotta see your friend from Josh Wolf though, and I had to see a lot of your friends, so it's good. We talked a lot of Freddie talk this week. I saw you guys on the airplane together. For those you don't know, our dear friend Josh Wall, stand up comedian. I used to have a podcast with him back in

the day called Friends in the Wolf. Jeff was stuck in Las Vegas. So we're actually shooting this episode on Tuesday. You guys are hearing it today on Wednesday and are awesome. Producer Alex is going to cut this whole thing together in about thirty eight seconds to make it all work for you guys. So we'll even talk a little bit about last night's Monday and Night Raw, which was one of the worst three hours of television that I've ever seen in my life. Something weird happened to me last week.

Then every once in a while, like once a decade, really pisces me off, and I just want to talk about it because it's something that's always been important to me. In the seventies, my dad, for those you don't know, was Freddie Prince. He was on a show called Chico and the Man, and he was half Puerto Rican, half German, and when he booked that show, people actually protested outside NBC studios because they didn't like Puerto Rican, let alone what a lot of people called a half breed portraying

a Latino until levision, which was beyond defensive. And it was the seventies and y'all do your thing, But my father opened a lot of doors and inspired a lot of Latinos to get into the entertainment industry and see somebody that looked like them and spoke like them be successful in what is a very very white business. Jeff, You're incredibly amazing for being patient with me through all this,

So thank you. Know this is good philam In. Every once in a while I've been hit with that kind of hate as well, because I'm only as my cousins would call me a quarto Rican. Now they say it would love. But every once in a while, there's some people in this industry, and it's not from the public. The public gives me a lot of love. I appreciate

you guys. Oddly enough, it's people in my own industry, the entertainment industry, that feel they're better suited to uh, to represent the Latino community, and really resent when I book certain roles. I have a movie coming out at the end of this month called Christmas with You, which is an all Latino cast and crew, director, producer, act, I mean, every bar steadicam operator. I mean, we we

went deep on this. And I've always been so grateful and respectful and appreciative any time I've gotten a real opportunity like that, because it doesn't happen often. This person knows this. I'm not going to bury them because I want them to have opportunities to work. But there was a director in this business who didn't feel I deserved that role, and uh I found out about it on

an email that was forwarded to me. And I just want to let anybody out there who is listening that is in this industry just know I have two ask cheeks you can kiss. I don't care which one it is. But I have always treated my culture and my heritage with the utmost respect. I have always made a very very direct effort to not only portray positive Latinos in this business, but to show that Latinos don't just have to play Latino roles. You can play any kind of rule you want. I love what I do. I love

inspiring young people. I don't care if you're Puerto Rican, Mexican, Dominicano. I don't care if you're from Panama, Guatemala, South America. I don't care if you're from Spain and have blonde hair and blue eyes. I have always tried to be a positive influence in this community. I will continue to. I spoke with this cat last night. I don't think

he's gonna say anything else. And again, I don't want to bury him because he's gonna direct movies and hopefully give Latinos the same types of opportunities that I have for twenty plus years and uh in this industry. But he ain't done ship compared to me. So you know who you are, brother, Hopefully you have a bit more respect and always be careful who you email and what because sometimes they're gonna afford it to the person you're talking shit about. That said, all my Latino fans out there,

I respect you, I got love for you. I appreciate you guys, letting me know when I inspire you. I appreciate you guys, letting me know when when you want following in the footsteps of people that that you relate to and connect with, whether it's me or or anybody. So I just wanted to start the show with that because I know we got a big Latino community on here and I got nothing but love for you guys. I hope you go see my movie at the end of this month. It's on Netflix. You don't even have

to go to the theaters. And there's some working here that I'm more proud of than any work I've ever done in my twenty five years plus now in this in this business. So I love you guys, even that douchebag that talks some smack um. I got love for you too, even though you got no love um for me. And now we're gonna start the show with some awesome wrestling. Jeff, I love you too, bro, So thank you. I love you, buddy. Speaking of Latino dominique Masterio, don't ever call yourself Eddie

Guerrero of this generation. That is that's some Latino on Latino crime. And I don't like it. That's right, neither today j Style. Yeah, I don't like it. So we're gonna jump right into it. What we can talk about both Monday Night raws, last night's month or this Halloween's Monday Night Raw was not good. It was a strange episode. I'm hoping it was just because everybody's getting ready to go to Saudi Arabia and uh didn't have time to

do the show. But outside of seth Rollins and Austin Theory, which was freaking awesome, and they let they should just let them wrestle for a sixty minute like iron Man match or something if they were just going to phone in the rest of the show like that. But outside of that, this was the worst Monday Night Raw that I've seen since Vince McMahon stepped down as as the chairman of the board. Everything felt phoned in and we

were trying to give love to Mustapha Ali. Yeah, I would put him over big last week, and then the next week they put him in a backstage segment with the Miss where they had him checked the Mrs testicles twice and comment on them twice and wrote the worst backstage segment that I've seen, and I don't know how many months, made him look like crap, made MS sella jaw in order for Mustafa Ali to get the win, and made Miss get attacked by Dexter Loomis again in

order for Mustafa Alile to get the wind. Hey, I don't know how the dude says, yeah, okay, I'll do this segment. I just don't. I don't get it, and I don't want to focus too much time on the bad stuff because I don't like doing that. But man, I was really wanting to like this guy. And then that segment came out on Halloween and I was just like, maybe it's because the Halloween Show and they're putting pumpkins

on Otis's head and all this other dumb crap. You want to do that in the first hour when kids are still awake right on, but in like the second and third hour, when you can do more adult stuff. It just kept getting goofier and goofier. It was not good. And that's all I have to say about Monday and Ira. What about you, brother, Yeah, there was a lot of stuff that was confusing. It felt like I think you nailed it by saying it's because they're going to Saudi, right,

but next week that gives them. But it felt like they were mailing it in. So I don't want to spend too much time on Monday Night Row because again I don't like talking about the bad stuff. I like talking about the good stuff. So if you don't mind, I would like to start with a E W Dynamite. Let's I always want to start with who I think is the best pure I don't even know if you can call him a heel or a baby face now, just the best pro wrestler in the business, which is MJF.

But I watched FTR and Swerving our glory and I'm not the biggest tag team dude, but this was a fun match, man like. I loved the way everyone bounced off Keith Lee. I loved the work in this. I miss Swerve in w W E. I wish he was with hit Row. I think hit Row would be killing it if he was still there. Swerve is no joke. He is awesome on the mic, he is awesome in the ring. I was not familiar with his career before he went to n X T w W E and now A e W. I'm all in on this guy, man.

I think Swerve is awesome. He's quickly becoming one of my favorites in that whole division. If they break him in Keith Lee up, I would watch him have a solo career every single week, whether he was a heel or a baby face. I just love this dude. Did you see this match? I liked it. I didn't think anything big or or bad about it. I feel like you're you're putting it over pretty big. I thought it was you know, it was fine, it was good. We'll move on. Didn't impact you. We're gonna get to Maxwell.

Jacob Friedman and Renee Paquette got to interview him, and I loved her attitude. First of all, I love Renepo Catt. I think she's great. She hosted some she was a panelist before she went to a W on the w W rival show. That will be like the last episodes that come out after the holidays. M JF talks so much trash about her husband and you just see the look of disgust on her face that she even has to be there. Instead of being the professional journalist, she

allows some actual personality to come out. So this dude walks out on stage takes the mic from her at one point, And this is kind of what I want to focus on today, and I want your opinion on it. I don't think baby faces and heels are necessary anymore. I just don't. I don't think unless you're unless you're unable to communicate a character and you have to be a signed Hey, you are a bad guy, you are

a good guy. I don't think the people care anymore in the modern kind of hyper cynical world where everybody's an insider, everybody thinks they know everything, everybody wants to spoil everything, like this guy is neither hell nor face, and every like dirt sheet or or other podcast out there keeps talking about you can't turn him, baby face, You can't turn he's been a baby face the last two years, like and if you don't like him, then he's been a hell and you're both right, like, he's

literally gone beyond you being able to categorize him in any way, shape or form every single week that he goes out there, and it doesn't matter. If he wants you to boo and you're cheering, he will flip it up on you in a New York minute and absolutely cut your throat and make you feel like crap about

your your self. And if he wants you to feel sorry for him and have empathy for him, he will own you in two seconds and tell you a real life story about how you know he made the high school football team and they started throwing quarters at him and saying pick it up, jew boy, pick it up, and you're literally like, holy ship, like this, this guy's breaking my heart, man, And then two seconds later he'll kick you right in the balls for feeling sorry for him.

And I don't think you know, outside of like the Kevin Owens and guys like that, nobody, nobody can touch him, and I just I know, I blow smoke at this guy all the time, but I think he's completely obliterated the heel baby face thing, and I don't think that term should apply to him anymore. He's just something different. He's something completely different and unique. I hate the term unicorn because he's so much cooler than a unicorn. Man. I agree with you one percent, and I've actually said

it for a long time. I think that as wrestling fans, we love our little wrestling argan. We we love we love that we know what a heal in a baby faces and other people might not, or we love saying it's a work or putting someone over or pop. I think that there isn't really a healer baby face storylines anymore, really at all. I agree with you one thousand percent. Guys will be jerks and we love them. And you know what I blame for it, Freddie who. I blame

the industry, not you, buddy, I blame the industry. I blame comic books. Stop making these villains so cool. I want to root for Darth Vader. I shouldn't want to root for Darth Vader. I don't like these these stories and the things they make the bad guys so awesome, are so funny. If we were really being um, you know, if we were, if we were being good to the world, we'd make bad guys not likable and we'd make the

hero likable. Instead, they make it the like Luke Coworker seems like a little nerd, and then Darth Vader comes in. He's all big black robot with the red light. You I'm rooting for that guy. Your parents are like, I don't know that's the bad guy, but I think wrestling does it all the time. Heels are so fun. Now you have this young generation of wrestlers that have come up only seeing these hybrid characters exactly seeing every character is Han Solo in the movie now. Now Han Solo

is no longer the supporting character. Son Solo is the lead of the movie, of every of every movie now, whether his names Mike, John, Lisa, Brianna, or Han Solo. So there is no more line. And I think we're seeing that first generation of or at least a generation that are capable enough to execute at that level, sort of saying I don't I don't care about any of

these standards anymore. I'm doing my thing and if you love me cool and if you don't cool, and maybe a lot of that of social media too, because they just have to deal with so much more criticism all the time, twenty four hours a day, that they've just developed these calluses that I don't think are ever gonna go away. Well, I think wrestling fans, you know, it's

very inside baseball wresting fans. And guy saw a video of like Jericho going MGF is eventually going to be like Stone Cold of the Rock where he's not a healer baby face, and I was even listening to that thinking like, no, but they're not. Almost everybody isn't a healer baby face. If you like to wrestling fans, the respons might think they're they are, but like, that's all

inside baseball stuff. I like matches on a w I watched Brian Danielson and Sammy Gavara wrestle, and Brian Danielson did what he needed to do based on what's happened to his character. I feel like most bands I would agree with this that Brian Danielson has been under serviced as far as character development and story goes. I feel like he has been in under serviced in his matches. I feel like he's lost more matches than he's needed to lose. I feel like his motivation for wrestling hasn't

been written as well as it could be written. And he's had a couple of backstage moments now where he's sort of arguing with the Blackpool Combat Club, which is made up of him, Wheeler, Utah Moxley, the Werewolf, and my favorite Mr William Regal. They've taken that story, and I don't think this was intentional. I think it was like, hey,

we've under serviced him, let's use it. And now it's become a part of his backstage interviews where there is a little bit of people questioning his his motivation and not his toughness, so to speak, but just his reasoning and rationale. And this son of a bitch has had enough. He got in a match with Sammy Guavara and beat Sammy's ass, and Danielson wins and isn't having it, and him and Wheeler fighting backstage, and and I like that

kind of conflict. I don't think it's gonna break that group up, but that group needs to fight within itself. It needs to have that kind of conflict because all three dudes are super tough guys. Man like, you've just been looking good since they put him in there with with him JF. He had that Philly thing where he's like, yo, that you're in Philadelphia, we'll kick your ass after the show too, and then jumped on m JF and knocked him over a couch even though he lost the match.

They've been making you to look good and violent. Did you like this match? Do you like what they're what they're doing with this or is this another cruise control? I loved it. Yeah, I thought it was awesome. I feel like these aren't the big giants that I like, but I like what I like what they're doing with it. Fair Enough? Am I am? I falling in love with Jamie Hayter? I mean, who Isn't I think I am? Dude? I really think I am. This girl. She's an English wrestler.

She's she's built, thick, she's pretty, she wrestles tough, her moves look hard, her clothes lines look super mean and and rough. And she wrestled this this Japanese girl they call Jo, who I'm not that familiar with. This girl is small, she's a high flyer. The only way she can really do damage is by taking big risks, kind of like the old school Jeff Hardy philosophy, Like I can't knock you out, but if I jump off the top top turn buckle and do ten flips, I'll have

enough momentum to jack you up. But I'm starting to love this girl. We have not mentioned Jade Carr Gill since you and I probably did our first episode because they have no storyline for her whatsoever. It's just kill this girl, kill that girl, kill this girl. The storyline they're doing now with the stolen belt, I don't care about. I love Jade, but they're not They're not taking care

of her storyline wise. I think Jamie Hayter needs to be the one that actually can challenge Jade Carr Gill, but established Jamie and make her be the first one to give Jade her first loss in in a aw I'm legit starting to fall for this girl. Her promos are they're not bad. She's not, you know, the best on the mic, but she's communicating an effective message when she gets pissed at her friends like she did Britt Baker.

I'm buying it. I'm not gonna say I'm all in on Jamie Hayter yet because I don't know if the company is, but I am falling in love with this girl, and I think she's doing great stuff and I really hope she's on the way to win in a championship. Man, what about you. Here's the thing, Either do something with Jade Cargill or or don't. I feel like everything they're doing with her is I feel like they're just wasting

her away because she's awesome. She's she's got a great look, she's great wrestling, she's you know, she's five ten, but like she seems like a seven footer in there with all these other girls. I love Jade Cargill, but if you're not gonna she looks so superior to everyone in the demos, and that's why they should use her. They should make her, like, like really kill it with the storylines with her, and I feel like everything falls flat.

And I don't know if that's writing or if that's her her not being able to pull off what they're writing for her. I don't know what it is, but either use Jade or or you know, or bring in some young blood like Jamie Hayter another Jade Cargo thing. I love how mad wrestling fans get at this girl listen on social media. Jade Cargill is living her gimmick and she got in this like beef with bow Wow right because I guess bow Wow thinks she's hot and had a crush on her. The rapper producer producer, I

don't know. I haven't bought his music. In a world where every wrestler breaks gimmick on social media and it's like, thank you so much for liking my match, this girl is living her I'm that bitch. I don't care what you say. I'm better than everyone. Look at me and look at you. I'm hotter than you. I'm in better shape than you. That's good. You should. You should applaud wrestlers that are willing to live their gimmick. My final tweet I I quit Twitter, by the way, I blew

it up. Um. My final tweet was applaud wrestlers that are willing to live their gimmick. There's only like three of them left on the and the world celebrate that. You guys, don't get in your feelings when your expectation as a fan is not met by a wrestler doing

their job. Could you imagine if ten year old Freddie Prince Jr. Ten year old Jeff Dy decided to pop out there you know, time machine cell phones, and we saw ted d Bazi tweeting about about his chy t. He's gone on, I just found a great chy t on my drive to Connecticut. I'd be like, what the million dollar man is is posting photos of him and his girlfriend? Like I would be furious, like handing out soup at a local soup kitchen, Like what, you're the

million dollar man, dude, Yeah, I would. It's so it's so silly. I'm interested in original thought. And I know we live in a world now where we celebrate copying, right, Like that's what TikTok is. You're taking dialogue from other movies and lip syncing over the work of very creative people, very effective artists, or your lip syncing to music and lyrics that were written by talented musicians and writers and

things like that, and we celebrate and reward that. But when we reward this is like everyone gets a trophy, right when we reward mediocrity, when everyone wants to be famous, then no one's famous. It's just all mediocre and I'm not. You gotta remember guys. I'm forty six. We crucified Millie Vanilli. We crucified them. We literally ran them out of the music business for not being original and lip sincing other talented singers voices. We ran them out of the business,

ridiculed them, made fun of them, humiliated them. I think one of them might have killed himself, Like I don't even remember, Like it was rough. Now you get a movie if you do it, you know what I mean, Like you'll book a movie, You'll get to be a host on a show, like you will legit, win a prize for just copying. So that's never something that I'm ever gonna be able to to get behind just because I'm an old fuddy duddy. Man, I was just from a different generation. I encourage my kids all the time,

like be original. If my son is like, oh, these YouTubers are super funny, I'm like, jackass did it first, Like I let him know what time it is, man, Like it's not it's not original, buddy, Like these guys did it way better. And look at their personalities and look at how different everyone is. And it's not just everybody going ah, screaming and yelling like they were trying new stuff. I'm not saying those guys are the most talented artists ever, but that's what a lot of YouTube

is these days. We're gonna get to Friday Night SmackDown. I don't think I've ever had anything critical to say about a break a storyline, even if I didn't flick with it, because even when they did stuff that was way out of the box, the level of commitment was at such a high level that I respected it for that, Like the cinematic match he did a couple of years ago in The Pandemic with John Cena. That was not my kind of match. However, the level of commitment was

at such a level that I respected the effort. Right, It's not easy to pull that off in the times they were in with that kind of character um to get John Cena to agree to do that and kinda and kind of crap on himself and some of that stuff at the same time, like there were a lot of challenges in there. However, they have introduced a new character named Uncle Howdy, and I did not like anything

about this, Jeff, I don't get it. I thought the production didn't look that high quality, the sound was bad. Can't understand the guy behind the man, and we all know it's Taylor or bow Dallas. I mean, you can kind of tell. And maybe I'm wrong, but it looks like bow Dallas to me pretty sure. Even had the same crucifix earring in his ear and one of them when he turned his head a little bit. But I don't I don't get it. I don't know how they're gonna save it. I don't know how they're gonna make

me like it. Maybe it's not meant for me. Maybe I'm you know, I'm not in the key demographic anymore. Maybe maybe other people do, but I did not get this moment. I like what Bray's doing. There's another example of not face or heal. People are getting mad at Brace and he's not getting any heat. I don't think he's a hell. I don't think he's a baby face.

I think he is Bray Wyatt, and he is something unique to the wrestling universe, and he should be allowed to cut any kind of promo he wants, and he should be able to wrestle anybody he wants and let the crowd decide who they want to cheer for. More. But this was very weird to me. I'm telling you, I did not enjoy a single moment of Uncle Howdy. I love the brave part of it. The Bray half is great. It's not wearing me out. I know some people are like always crying too much. I don't think

so at all. I think he's really feeding off the crowd, and I think he's trying to give the crowd back that same energy to kind of have this new chapter in his career. But this Uncle Howdy thing came off super corny to me. Jeff, tell me I'm wrong. I actually will tell you you're wrong. I like it. I do think this. So here's the thing. It's playing on a lot of things. I like because you know, the who is it is very fun. I do agree with you.

I think it's Bow Dallas and I think this is him trying to like, you know, bring his brother into the industry at the at the level that he's at, Like he's doing like a nice thing for like, you know, kind of trying to create this undertaker to Cain Is Bray Wyatt Tebow kind of thing, like bringing the fam kind of thing. I don't even think about that. But then they also like, I'm a do you is it

the face that's bothering you of of Uncle Howney? Is that what it is is that the mask, all of it, the mask doesn't look because you're a big You're a big mask guy. People can't see this podcast. People can't see the podcast. But even behind you, you have a lot of masks back there. You love masks, you know the paparazzi has caught you wearing masks in public when during COVID you're a big mask. It is a it's a weird looking mask. This guy's wearing. Uncle Howdy's wearing

a weird mask. Um, would it change it for you if he looked better? Because it is a weird look. I mean it makes it look like kind of cap. The production of it does not look like high quality to me. It looks like a very cheap, cheaply made thrown on. It doesn't look like flesh if that's what they're trying to do, like a like a leather face is kind of buffalo bill vibe. It doesn't give me those It looks like a cheap eighties w W E

crappy mask that he can't talk it. He can't talk in it, yea, and you can't say nothing moves, like when we're just looking at this weird mask and then it sounds like a voiceover almost he can't see his mouth or anything, and you can tell it's impeding his speech, like because it's it doesn't fit his face right, like, so it's affecting his ability to communicate an effective message. To me, I didn't think about the inside part of it, which you said, which was kind of like the Taker

to Caine Bray to Bow type thing. And we both agree it's bow Dallas. Even if we're wrong, I think we're both on the same page there, and it would make sense give it to that because he could be kind of like this altar brain. But it's like we maybe people don't know that bray Wyatt, the everyday fan maybe doesn't know I guess they would. Maybe he's bow Dalla has been a wrestling for a long time, right, I mean like I just don't know what they do though,

Like so they're gonna wrestle each other, Okay. I think the character as it's also bray Wyatt, Like that's bray Wyatt wrestling himself and he's always become these two things. But it's really just Bo Dallas pretending to be Bray Wyatt. That's what I think wrestling this week for w W E for me anyway outside Like I said at the top of the show, Seth and Austin Theory killed that match. But other than that, like this week, WW just missed me hard. Do you even have a best of the week?

Do you have the worst of the week. My best of the week is a tip of the hat to a very old school wrestling thing. Uh, when you've got a big giant backstage and you go, how do we make him look even more scary and good while giving him a little bit of work? Put him in there with three jobbers that nobody has heard of, almost had a fight with three guys that nobody knew the name of,

didn't have entrance music. It was it was amazing. You are the most old school, young at heart wrestling thing in that way, and it said, dude, I love you so much. My best of the week I already discussed. Um, you can pick that the MJF promo. You can pick Rollins in Theory because they gave him multiple breaks. My worst of the week was the mustapha Alist segment backstage with miss I would love to look. I like the way this kid works. I've never really watched him that much.

I'm not a big n X T guy. I think his matches look good. I think his works really clean. I just thought that was the absolute worst way to attempt to get somebody over that I've seen, and I don't know how long. I don't know how you get over as a tough guy wrestler that's gonna win when you have a whole segment and the note is you have to look at this guy's balls the whole time. Just don't. How am I gonna be like, Yeah, that's my guy right there. I just don't. So that was

my word. That was my worst of the week. We're hoping that Crown Jewel everyone gets out of their healthy, happy and act to make some awesome wrestling for us so that we can have some positive stuff to talk about this week. It's not often that I think a E W outperforms w w E, but I certainly thought they did this week. Jeff, are you recovering from Vegas or are you gonna be working this weekend? I'm working this weekend. I'll be at the Irvine Improv in Orange

County all weekend. I've been to that club as a big club, and it's in the mom It's in like a big main room. Yeah, and uh they always have top shelf comics in there, and now they got another one named Jeff Dot check my man out there. I am officially hiring a realtor to find me a studio, and I'm moving out of my attic so there are no more trash cans, trash trucks, beeping trucks, crappy internet connections. I'm gonna have a professional office that I'm gonna work in. Dude,

we will do together, are you kidding? Its great together? Yes? Please, I'm sick of these things because you know, it reminds me of when I lost my mind during COVID. It reminds me of that. I much rather come be with you, buddy, zoom Sucks. Will have an awesome table with microphones on opposite sides. We'll be able to high five each other. We'll be able to eat hot dogs and and look at each other's testicles, just like Mustafa. Yeah, I can make bad jokes and then smile snicker at Alex Gon

like is he laughing? Is he laughing at my bed? Well? Listen to you, guys. We love you. We appreciate you guys listening. Um, we'll see you guys next week or you'll hear us next week, and I look forward to hearing from you guys, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening to Wrestling with Freddie now Wrestling with Friends. We're Out. Follow us on Instagram, Wrestling with Freddie, Twitter as w w Freddie Pod. Follow us on all the socials so

you can submit your questions for the Federation. This has been a production of I Heearts Michael podcast Network. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visiting iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to you a favorite show