And they're asking me. This is like an hour and a half meeting, and they're asking me all kinds of questions. How would you compete? How would you do this? Do you want to compete? Do you just want to exist? Do you want to be the highest rated show? Do you want to be the second? Like all? And they were like, please be honest, like we want you to be real with this. So I'm answering all their questions. Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready? S's about to hit
the fan? Welcome to sanction Thursday's horestling. What's Freddy? What's up? Everybody? Welcome to unsanctioned Thursday. As we talk about whatever we want to talk about. First things first, Before the show, producer Alex and I were talking about Star Wars and Star Trek, and I'm gonna be honest with you guys. I'm making confident. I know everybody thinks I'm this like Star Wars guy, because I did a voice in a cartoon once. I prefer Star Trek. I'll be real with you.
Star Trek was way cooler when I was young. It was insinuated that everybody on Star Trek was having sex and getting down sexy time and partying that never happened in Star Wars. I was like twelve thirteen years old. You know how interested I was in those things. There was no way as Star Wars was getting any play in my house. It was all Next Generation. Then I got exposed to the original Star Trek after that, and you know, Captain Kirk was getting down with aliens all
over the galaxy. On Next Generation they were just on the ship having relationships deep Space nine. Don't even get me started the movies. It's way cooler. I just I prefer Star Trek. And I'll say it right here on the podcast. I don't care whose feelings get hurt. It's better live, long and prosper everybody. All right, As promised, I will give an update on the Federation, So bad news, good news right as doors closed, others open. And I've talked about this before. So I went out to I
was it four or five places. I can even tell you some of the places now. We went to Warner Discovery, which was like the worst meeting that I had out of all of them. They basically just wanted me to do a reality show. By the end of the pitch, and knew nothing about wrestling. And didn't seem to care for wrestling at all, So it was not I told you I'd be more descriptive. So it was not a good meeting. I must have failed at some point in the pitch because they were not interested in what I
was saying. I gave the same pitch to everyone else. It was the only place that didn't work. Also pitched too. What was it was? It called Vice? Yeah, Vice TV, and they wanted the show bad, but they were going under some business restructuring, trying to basically stay on the air, and they couldn't afford the show at the end of the day. That was a place I really wanted to go because they have dark side of the ring and I thought we could be a cool pairing with with them.
So I was disappointed there. There were a couple other places I'm trying to remember the names, but where the meetings went well. But I feel like I wasn't pitching to people high enough up on the totem pole to get the idea heard by the top dogs. And that was the wall that I felt I was running into on the majority of the pitches. And then there was a weird meeting at this streaming place and I won't say the name of it yet, but I'll tell you
guys as soon as I can. And they asked my wife in a meeting, hey, is your husband still interested in wrestling, because we want to be in the wrestling business, and my wife said, yeah, he's out with a show right now, and they said, well, we want to sit and meet with him. So now let me back up the original pitch to help get this show made. I can share this now was a documentary about trying to pull this off for the first six episodes, and then episodes seven and eight would be a two hour special
on what we actually accomplished the actual promotion. So see, I'm giving you guys more information than I've ever given anybody. So it was six episodes of the process of me trying to recruit wrestlers, finding the space, trying to sell out the theater or the arena, whatever it was we were going to do. I knew we wouldn't be able to do like, you know, ten thousand or anything like that, so I was going to do something around, try to do something around like twenty five hundred in a theater,
because I think it's art. I think wrestling is art and could be presented in a theater. I wouldn't be the first guy to have done this, so it was going to be that whole process. And that's why I was saying the Warner Warner Discovery was more interested in that than doing anything else, and they only focused on that, and I kept trying to redirect the conversation and they just weren't having it. All the other places were down
and opened everything. So I sit and I talked to this this new company that wants to talk to me about wrestling, and they're not interested in the documentary at all. They want a professional wrestling promotion. And they're asking me. This is like an hour and a half meeting, and they're asking me all kinds of questions. How would you compete? How would you do this? Do you want to compete? Do you just want to exist? Do you want to be the highest rated show? Do you want to be
the second high? Like all? And they were like, please be honest, like we want you to be real with it. So I'm answering all their questions and they're real upfront on their finances where they're at, what they can afford, what they can pull off, and how they would pull it off. And it was unorthodox to me, but not to them, because it was the first time I had ever heard of financing shows this way and doing things
the way they were wanting to do it. But I try to stay open minded, right, I want to have
a promotion, So I'm listening. I'm listening. Then I start asking them questions for about thirty minutes, and they start explaining their philosophies, their business philosophies, more and more clearly, and we continue to talk and have conversations, and eventually we come to the I come to the realization that to start something new in the sort of corporate owned Hollywood, right, Like, there's only one independent studio really in Hollywood anymore, that's
A twenty four. They're the only ones that don't have a corporation that owns them and finances them, that's publicly traded, that's held hostage by the opinions of their stockholders. If they tweet enough bad stuff, then the company loses stock like that kind of shit. A twenty four doesn't care. They make the movies they want to make, and that's why their movies are usually pretty cool. They take big swings.
Sometimes they miss, sometimes they hit home runs. But they don't answer to anyone but the people, which I think, or to themselves, and then their art speaks to the people. So to create something new in the corporate world without an IP attached and intellectual property, meaning without it already
being a brand and having something is borderline impossible. Marketing departments make a lot of choices over presidents at a lot of these at a lot of these places now, and if they don't feel they can market you, you're not making that show work, let alone even getting on
a list. It's very much like you have to be a made man, or your show has to be a made show, like a really popular comic or a show from England or a movie from Japan or something like that, and then they go, yeah, we can sell that because they've already seen it. They lack the creativity of the marketing people that existed generations before them, who couldn't depend on that studios used to build stars. Who is this actor? I don't know. We're going to tell the people who
that actor is. We're going to tell the people who she is. We're going to make them fall in love. We're going to show them who these people are and showcase their skills that happened in the music industry too. We're going to build these stars not anymore. If you don't have a million followers on social media, a lot of these record labels won't even meet with you. You have to provide everything. It is the least amount of work possible for the maximum amount of profit. So that's the
world we live in. Existing in that world, I come to the cold realization that I can't start it from scratch, and it's a humbling moment, and it's a sad moment. And then the dude that I'm talking to calls me up and he says, hey, what if we grabbed someone else and brought them in as a partner. I said, what do you mean? He says, what if you work within an existing brand? And he says, here's some independent
promotions that are looking for TV deals. They want to offer me the opportunity to tell my story and to present my promotion within the existence of another one, sort of like how Ring of Honor exists with AW. So I start sitting down, I'm thinking about that, and I start looking at the rosters of the of the places that they that they they brought me, and the infrastructure that each one already has or does not have, and
I start weighing the pros and cons. I talk to my guys that are a part of my team and say, hey, you know, these are the ones that I'm interested in, But what do you think my main guy, my right hand happen to like the exact same one that I liked for all the same reasons that I liked it. I call back dude, I say, hey, man, we like one of them. Do you think they would meet with us? He was like, trust me, they're going to meet. Let me set it up. They don't know that it's you.
I'm going to introduce you in the call. You're going to make your pitch to them, and if they say yes, we'll let the lawyers get into it. So I sit down with these with these two gentlemen on a zoom call with my guys and them, and I make my pitch and I'll be real with you, guys, I'm just grateful for the opportunity to earn their respect. You can't earn respect the first time you meet, but you can
get the opportunity to you can earn that. And so I'm sitting there like, I just I respect what these men have accomplished and what they've done with their brand, and now I'm coming in not to change it. I don't want to change it because what they established I happen to love. So I start changing my idea and my pitch and start thinking of the best way to help get their talent over. I can't say too much without giving it away, so forgive me for the pauses.
Alex won't edit them out. It'll just be these dramatic pauses for you guys to deal with. As I deal with the anxiety, you can too. So I make my pitch and we discuss it in a sort of ring of honor sort of way, where it's a brand within the brand right and help finding talent that either need a fresh code of paint, need a fresh start, are young and need work, veterans that may not have a story that I could provide a story for, and all around the board we discuss all of it, and I'm
super nervous during it. These guys are probably going to hear this podcast and realize how nervous I was and be like, oh so sweet. So anyway, I finished my pitch and the first thing the dude says, man, I can really feel your passion, which is good and bad. That could go either way. It's yeah, I'm feeling you, or that's the only nice thing I could think of to say, because I hate all your ideas. So he says that, I'm like, Okay, I wonder which one that is. I hope it's the I hope it's the good one.
We say our goodbyes. I called my wife. I say, okay, I had the meeting. How to go. I have no idea. They played their cards close to the best, so I'm not quite sure. And then this pro wrestler that I know texts me and goes, yo, man, so and so just texted me to like check you out. I was like, oh my god, I hope he's said nice things. He's like, don't worry, man, I got your back. You are you're a good guy. Man. I told him, you're one of
the good dudes. Then my guy from the streaming company called me and he said, hey, man, we had a really good meeting, and I think I think things are going to move forward. So these are baby steps in the process. Still, I think things are going to move forward is obviously a good thing. It's better than I don't think things are going to move forward. That's the opposite of good. That's really bad. But that doesn't mean it's a done deal. Lawyers are going to get involved,
you know. People still have certain things to think about. People have are going to want to protect their brand as much as possible. They'll find that. I'm very agreeable with that. Look at me. I'm like negotiating on my own podcast. But yeah, it's still a long road and I have a lot to do and there's a lot of work that I don't even get to be involved in, which drives me crazy because it's like lawyers in negotiating and stuff like that. I am doing my damnedest to
make this work. I am doing my damnedest to make my dreams come true. I have not accepted a closed door, as much as they hurt. I keep finding other ones that or they find me one way or the other. But you have to be ready when opportunity comes. My godfather used to say people are gonna call like me lucky, but I'm just ready when opportunities come my way and they're not. And he was a real hardcore Guy's name
was Bob Wall. You guys should google him. He's a tough son of a bitch, and I didn't agree with everything he said in life, but I do believe him being as prepared as possible. You tend to be a lot luckier when you're prepared. So I encourage all of you to follow your dreams and chase him whether they
whether they fall apart or not. And we're in a world where a lot more people talk about their dreams like me, people on social media, people on YouTube, things like that, and so there's a lot more room to be embarrassed and to be shamed. But if you just go in and I want to say this the right way, I want to say it clearly so everybody understands, don't do it for anyone but yourself. When it comes to art, don't make art for the people. Make art for you.
If they can, that's a beautiful thing. If they don't, then they didn't. But it'll still be honest and pure and organic, and it'll come from you. It comes from a place of honesty, and that's you have to hold onto that during the tough times. And trust me, during this process, I went to five or six places I got told five or six nos, No, Freddy, your dream's not good. Enough for our company. That's basically what they're telling you. It's easy to give up. It's easy to
give up. It's hard to keep pushing that boulder up the hill when you feel like it's just going to fall all the way back down again. That's like sisyphis. You can look that up too, Bob Wall and sisyphis. Those are your Google words for the day. But if you keep pressing, this is not Greek mythology. This is real life. If you keep pressing and you tell your brain to shut up, because your brain's gonna lie to you. Your emotions are going to lie to you. They're going
to tell you you're not good enough. They're going to tell you it's not worth it. You have to shut those voices off and remember that initial voice that told you the initial idea and the initial dream. I had thoughts creep in my head of f it man, just be an actor multiple times, and I squashed those thoughts, those negative thoughts, and stayed focused on what the dream is. And I'm closer now. I haven't been told yes, it could all fall apart tomorrow and I'll be super bummed again.
But that doesn't mean it's over. It just means that door's closed and you either have to build another opening, kick through another door, use a key and unlock it, or just keep knocking until someone answers. And that's that kind of is it perseverance, that kind of discipline, that kind of dedication is how everyone accomplishes their dreams. Anybody that tells you it's easier than that, I don't feel there being honest with you or themselves. It's hard damn work.
If it gets easy, i'll let you know, but but it hasn't so far. So that's the update. I thought you were going to get a short one, but I guess I gave you guys the long winded version today, so a little closer. Not there yet. Told you guys about the documentary aspect of the show that's gone, and now it gets to be exactly what the dream was and is, which is the wrestling promotion. So that's where I'm at. Keep your fingers crossed. I love sharing this
stuff with you, guys. I share as much as I can without you know, I don't want to say so much that I screw deals up or that I make promises. I can't keep shit like that. I want to be completely honest and as open as I can. I just can't say everything. But when the deal's done or when the deal dies, and let's say, I have to like go okay, I'll try again next year. Then I can break down everything for y'all. So anyway, that's where we're at.
I want to thank you guys for listening, thanks for tuning in, thanks for being a part of this process with me on this journey. I wish Jeff would have been here. He's not going to know any of this stuff, so you guys can rub that in his face on social media. Make sure you tune in every single Wednesday to Wrestling with Freddy, Wrestling with Friends every single Thursday, to unsanctioned Thursdays, or listen whenever the heck you want. I'm Freddy Prince Junior on behalf of Jeff I Peace.
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