Teaching Pro Wrestlers How to Act

be feeling good, I promise you. And then I'm gonna tell you a crazy story that I've teased that I like to call the ice Storm. This is gonna be a long one. We're probably gonna chop it into two. So if you want to wait an extra week and benjam, but if you can't wait, I promise there's some good stories. And that is what they call a much better tease than last week's tease. So let's start the show. Welcome to Wrestling with Freddy, now stuffing up for the mic.

The Hope of Wrestling with Freddie Freddie Prince June. Yeah, all right, you guys, So I kind of told you how the promo class started and it was a total fail. And uh. I was at work at Tightened Tower the next week and I went to talk to Jimmy and this was Vince's guy. You've heard me mentioned him before. I'm pretty sure he was in the army, real serious, just to the point, no nonsense, and you know he

has Vince's back no matter what. Like if Vince was like, yo, man, you gotta take that dude Freddie out, I would That would would have been a rap and we would not be making this podcast. So I talked to Jimmy. I said, hey, man, uh, they put me in a room closet and I don't know, I'll do it if that's like dudes, I have to pay. And he's like, no, they shouldn't have done that. He goes, I'll take care of it, and the dude did so.

The next Monday it was a raw. I show up and they have like the producers meeting is done and John Laura IDAs brings all the talent in and brings me in and he's standing in front of him and he's like six five and always wearing his suit and his hair is always like col him and he's like looks very corporate, right. He used to be a pro wrestler. For those of you don't know, I think the Dynamic Dude was his name. So he says, all right, everybody,

all right, quiet down, and everybody quiets down. And that's the whole roster in there. There's probably sixties maybe seventy deep then, I mean it was the room was full. And uh, he says, as you know, I always provide you guys the proper tools you need. And right away I step and I go, yo, man, don't don't call me a tool. And that kind of made the wrestlers pop a little and broke some of the why the hell is Freddy Friends Jr. Standing next to Johnny Ayson

and he's what is going on right now? And he says, uh, we brought Freddy in and he's gonna write for a lot of you, and he's gonna teach you guys a lot about your promos and your acting. Isn't that right, Freddy? And uh, it may not have been the best introduction that I've ever received, but it was an introduction. So, uh, I stood there in front of everybody. I wasn't prepared for this. They didn't tell me it was going to happen right then, and I just kind of explained what

promo class was going to be. And I said, when I moved back to Los Angeles, I started at this acting class called the Shop and it was these two, uh these two acting coaches that worked together named John Holma and Andrew mcgarrian, and our roster there was deep with talent. We had everyone from my wife to Kirsten Dunns, to Jennifer love Hewitt, Tina major Reno back in the day. I think Christina Ricci was in there like it was.

We had a deep, deep roster. And uh so I'm breaking down what we did in acting class, and I talked about scenes study, how we're gonna break scenes down over a four week period, helped them start to develop, you know, memorization skills so they can learn things a lot quicker, a lot easier because I know you guys worked last minute, I said. And we're also gonna do some techniques that are just gonna help sharpen your skills in there, especially in case you do forget your lines.

I want you to have an ability to improv and know where to go. And uh, I think, uh, when, oh when John said tool, and I said, don't call me in tool. I think Candice Michelle was her name. She goes, she goes, well, you know how I like to work my tools, and so I'm just like, oh lord, this is how we're starting this off in front of seventy people. She said that and they all laughed, right, so I have to like blush. Um. So anyway, I explain it, and uh, I say, we'll be starting every

day right after the production meeting. Eventually I got to uh make it a little earlier. I convinced him I needed more time, and that got me out of some production meetings, which, as I've let you know, those production meetings were hell. So that was the real hell in the cell was being a writer in those damn rooms, by the way. So anyway, uh, we start the first one and it's now this is the official one, right,

and it's pretty it's pretty deep. I'd say about maybe sixteen seventeen wrestlers showed up, all young gunners right like MS and Morrison, Uh Natty night heart. Um, I'll just a lot of the young bucks were there. I think Daniel Bryan was or Bryan Danielson was there, Shamus was there all like the people who you know now, but they were they were young gunners then, and uh I start talking to him, and I can see like the sus and rightfully so the suspicion in some of their

faces is to like, why I'm here, what my motives are? Like? What the hell are you gonna teach me about acting? Like all this kind of just toughness in their faces. And uh, I start off with I said, listen, I may not be I think. I said, I may not be Robert Downey Jr. But Robert Downey Jr. Didn't give

a shit about y'all, and I do. So I'm gonna teach you everything I know and everything I believe other actors use as their techniques because I've I've worked with some of the greats like Peter Falk and just people Brian Denny, he people who really have a strong technique as far as building a character behind the lines. And I asked a ton of questions until I annoyed these these sons of bitches, But I always would ask and they would always uh give me everything they could. So

that softened some people up, but not everyone. And I start talking to him about this acting exercise for my acting class called repetition, and repetition is basically it's a game with one rule. You're locked in to whatever the other person says. So if you and I are going to go back and forth, just a silly example, I'd say, you're listening to my podcast. You're locked into that. You can you can personalize it or not, but but you're

locked into that. So I would say you're listening to my podcast, and you'd respond, I'm listening to your podcast. And then i'd respond, you're listening to my podcast, and you'd fun, i'm listening to your podcast because this is getting old. So you have a low attitude on your voice, and then I smile, oh, yeah, you're listening to my podcast and that's making me feel good. And you're like, yo,

what is Freddy, I'm listening to your podcast. And it goes back and forth until someone can't take it anymore and they have to change the words of the sentence, and then you get a point. First to three points, you win, or in this case, we just did first one to change it loses. So I offer all this up and uh, I say, now I need a volunteer. But if no one volunteers, I'm gonna choose someone. But before I can say I'm gonna choose someone, MS just

stands up. And if you don't know who the miss is, if you, if you, if you're listening just to hear the crazy stories that I'm telling, and you're not a wrestling fan. You may have seen his show on USA called MS and Mrs or promos for it. Um you may remember him from the old school uh MTV like Reality Show Days, or you may have seen him on Dancing with the Stars as Mike the mss mssan in UM. So to understand them is and I don't mean to take us on a side quest, but I like video

games and side quests are fun. To understand them is you have to understand how this business views reality TV. And it's not fair. But it goes film, television, professional wrestling, and then reality TV is below that, like reality TV is nothing more than a cash grab. It's all show business and we all know which words bigger. But the reality shows the cheapest show to make. You don't have to pay the talent anything, and you can make a fortune off of it. But they don't respect wrestling, but

they respect reality shows even less. A good comparison would be the comedy version of THEO Van who everybody loves now. But when THEO Van who's selling out arena's nationwide, started out in comedy, he was a guy from real world road rules and every comedian hated him and no one would help him. People would steal his steal his time slot just so he wouldn't go on because they didn't want this guy who basically they look at it as like you got a lottery ticket, you didn't earn it.

Now they are a handful of comics, a very small handful who looked after THEO. One of them is I know this story because one of them is my best friend, Josh wolfe Um, who said, you know, hey, man, I'm happy to give you advice because he doesn't really care what other people think. Josh is just a different cat. So eventually THEO was so damn good that he earned

everyone's respect. And now the dudes on the Joe Rogan podcast and every other show and people love him, and TVs are trying to give him deals so he can make a show because his style is so unique. So MMS came up on the reality show circuit and said, as a grown man, I want to be a w w E superstar, and that was a take. Again, it's not wrestling is not as respected as I wish it was in this business. So he was made almost a

joke on that show. Now all of a sudden, he gets a chance to be a pro wrestler, and a lot of these wrestlers are looking at him the same way those comics looked at THEO, like, you're here because you got famous on a reality show. You're not here because you earned it. So the chip and I don't know this for a fact, This is just me applying my life experience to these situations. But the chip on on Mrs shoulder, which is no longer there, was as

big as a house. Okay, you couldn't you couldn't miss it. And he stood up before I could complete the sentence. And I respect the hell out of his but he did not like me when we were there, and he and I aren't like buddies now, we don't like even wish each other Merry Christmas or anything like that, but we respected each other very much. And so he gets up and I say, so you remember the you know the rules, and he goes, yeah, I got it. I

got it. It's just so like dismissive with me right, And I go all right, do you want me to start for you? And he goes no, no, no no, no, I'm ready, I'll start. I'm like, oh, and now I get my eyes go wide right. It's like a wolf seeing a rabbit with a limp, because this is in his world, no matter how good he can do. I've been humiliated in this exercise a million times in front of all my peers, and I know how that pressure builds by the time you have to repeat the same

sentence four times. And he hasn't felt this. But the dude is fearless and he does not care what obstacle you put in front of him, and what you say he can't do, he will do it and he will put it in your face. And I love this dude so much for this. So he goes no, no, no, I'll start, and I go all right, man, go ahead, and uh, excuse me. If you hear me, curse now. But if you don't want to hear me, curse, just you know, mute this part. But he says, what the

fuck are you gonna teach me about acting? And I again, my eyes just like the whitest they've ever been in my life. And I go, what the funk? Am I gonna teach you about acting? And he goes, what the And we go back and forth and eventually he breaks because he can't take it. It's he goes about six rounds deep with me, which is good. I mean that's the normal amount of pressure. And then he had to change the sentence and I pointed at him and I was like, oh I Everyone was like, oh, you lost,

you lost. And he sat down and then other people started. Uh. Other people started getting up after that and taking a shot without me being there. Now they kind of saw it happen, so they were starting to go on each other. And I had to tell them when it was just them, I said, now, listen, when we did this class when I was a young buck, you know, like one years old and uh doing this and it's you know, it's a bunch of pretty people in an acting class and

this exercise. And I'm telling them this as candidly as I'm telling you guys now, I said, you know this exercise inherently when it's a boy and a girl, they step closer and closer to one another and it gets sexier and sexier every time, especially if both people are single. It just happens. It's the nature of the beast. I've seen it a thousand times to to not know for a fact this is true. And I said, when it's two men, it gets closer and closer, but it almost

always turns into a fight. And I said, and when it's two women, y'all usually keep it civil and clean. I said, So here are the rules. Y'all ain't allowed to make out and you're not allowed to hit each other, I said, but everything else is a go. So they start doing their thing, and the repetition starts going well, and when we finish it's about an hour. I explained to them what I want them to do well. First, I explained to them what I feel the benefits of

the exercise are, and the first as two fold. The first being there's a million different ways to cut a line, honestly, so long as you commit to it and have a thought behind the line. The only long way to execute a line on camera is to not believe it, to not commit, and to be embarrassed or scared to fail, which leads us to the second benefit of the exercise,

a fearlessness to fail. If you're willing to fail in front of your peers, the people that you're working with and unfortunately competing with, because that's how this business does artists, then you're gonna be more willing to fail out on the big show because you've already done it. You got back up, your career wasn't over, and you're getting another opportunity.

Another promise that I made to every single wrestler that walked into that room was I would never film a single session, and that nobody in the like the brass, none of the agents, nobody would ever see anything they ever did because they were nervous if they did something and it wasn't good, that that would get them buried. And that was a very legitimate concern because I've seen people get buried at that company for far less. Um. They could just have a bad promo and FCW and

it's nothing to do with them. It was just written poorly, or they are a person who needs a writer. Um, But they were done and didn't get a shot for like another two or three years, you know what I mean. So so I understood that fear, and I made that promise and I kept it the whole time. I did

tell them any time I saw something special. I had promised Vince that I would report that directly to him if there was somebody that I thought, because I just wanted all cards on the table so everybody knew what time it was and uh, and everybody knew what what

what was going on. So as the promo classes began to kind of take shape, I had sort of my regular ten, and then there'd be about I don't know, eight to twelve, sometimes less, just depending on on travel and things like that and what time they were going to be able to get there. But we were doing this every single week, and a lot of people who weren't getting camera time, I felt deserved camera time. Eve Torres, who's now Eve Torres Gracie. She was a former Divas Champion.

She knew how to act. I could just tell, and so I gave her. I wanted everyone to do a monologue, which they call a promo, and it's just a paragraph or two where no one else is speaking. You're communicating a message to your either to the person you're speaking

to or to the audience. And I gave her this speech from Beautiful Girls that Rosie O'donald cut, which just talks total trash on beautiful girls and how their life is so much easier and they can fail more in all this and the classes over and Eve comes up to me and she says, Freddy, I I can't do this. And I said, what do you mean why not? She goes she's talking about me. I said, yeah, that's the perfect reason why this is gonna be. I want to see if you can handle this. I want to see

if you can do this. And so they got three weeks to kind of work on it, perform it. I would give notes things like that, and in the fourth week I expected them off book and uh and ready to kick ass. So on the fourth week she comes in and she cuts this promo and she straight like breaks down, like full on like tears, and it's everyone in there. She finishes, okay, and everyone in there we would always clap when someone was done. Do you want to build their egos up? I don't want to break

them down. That's the w w E philosophy that I do not agree with. Break them down to build them up in your image. That's a heavy fingerprint, and heavy fingerprints are usually dictated by ego, not by imagination. Light fingerprints or imagination. That's why Van Gogh's paintings look so awesome.

So anyway, she breaks down and no one claps, including me, and she's sitting there in tears, right, and in tears, and about three seconds go by, four seconds go by, and then like all the wrestlers, not all of them, but like four or five wrestlers get up and they all go to her and it's just, oh my god, that was and they're hugging her and like holding her up. That was amazing. Oh my god, that was so good.

Oh my god, yea great. And I'm sitting there like, yo, do the wrestler just moved me, like what just what just happened? And it was like one of the first like real moments that I saw with talent there that that just kind of like it just sort of messed with my head, right. So I talked to Vince about this, and I say, yo, man, Eve is like doing next level stuff up there where I'm wanting to tell her, you know, you need to get out this business in audition for like TV shows and movies. You could have

been wonder woman. So she should have been a great wonder woman. So he's like he just gives you that grunt, right, which means I'll think about it if I get around to it. And it sounds like this, that's it. It's not just that means like, I don't want to hear this crap anymore. But if you get the triple, he's like, yeah, whatever. So a few weeks go by and Uh, all of a sudden, I hear that he's gonna be the general manager of Monday and Iraw. And in this instance, the

storyline died. It came around I think a year and a half later, but they had this great idea on how she was going to become the general manager, and it was her just being in the right place at the right time, and the current general manager was making a fool of themselves and she comes in with a solution instead of a problem. And that's what Vince likes. He's solution oriented. Now, granted his philosophy as Reaganomics. He

fixed his problems with money. But Eve was coming in and fixing a problem with an idea, and it got all the way to TV and then uh, Pritchard said, there was a lot of talk in this episode and it got killed. Um, but it came around later and she did a great job with it. Anyway, that's the Monday night Raw. We go to SmackDown on Tuesday and Johnny makes the same speech, but this time doesn't call me a tool, which is great. And I start to work with the SmackDown group, and this is when I

meet Natalia Nightheart and Natty. To know her is to love her. You just you can't help it. There's nothing evil insider. She's too nice to her own detriment. She's too good for her own detriment. And her and I I've seen her. She had some tears. I was I was a shoulder that her, that her head was on. I mean, you gotta understand this woman. When she was like her most over was when the women's division was beyond afterthought. Okay it was. They received five minute matches,

and two minutes of it was their damn intro. So they get three minutes to tell a match, and her finisher is a damned submission that she only gets to apply for about twenty seconds, and you can't tell a story of how much pain the other her opponents in because then they'd only have like sixty seconds left in the match, So it limited anyone with a submission hold, which is why very few of them did it, and when they did, it wasn't traumatic because they got no time. Right.

So this is what all these women were going through when I was there, and my relationship with Natty lad a lot of the women on SmackDown to come to that class to the point where I began writing for a lot of them and helping them work on their skills to where Steph had me right, this whole crazy storyline. They were gonna bring awesome coong in and they gave me the story, and we had recently signed Gail Kim, and I had awesome cang like smashing her first like

three opponents, just killing them right, awesome content. If you don't know as Kia stevens Um and she's just like six too, maybe six one, just gigantic, right, and I met her, she's I can't wait to tell you this story. So so I write this whole storyline about her and she crushes the first three and the w W he had signed Gail Kim and her and Gail had some really really good matches at t NA, so Gayl was gonna give her a match and we were gonna get

seven minutes. This was that I was promised, right, it would have been three minutes, but I was promised seven minutes, seven whole minutes. Now they get two commercial breaks and they're doing twenty five minute matches in the last hour

of raw. They're so gangster now. But so we're writing this up and Hail hits her finisher, but Cong kicks out and Kong beats her, and then she meets Natalia and this is the first real real test, and Kong beats her, but then goes off after the bell, which brings out Beth Phoenix, which is what Vince wanted me to work WrestleMania too, And it was gonna be Beth Phoenix and Awesome Cong at WrestleMania, or this is what Stephanie wanted me to do, and so I put this

whole story together. They brought in Kong and then Uh I wanted to try out some of my ideas in the promo class. So we had already been working together now a few months, and I had a good rapport with them, and we were trying out new things. MS was doing stuff with Alex Riley in there in the promo class where they would just go off on each other and nobody got to see and I'll tell that

story another day. But Kia and Beth. I kind of gave Kia more information than Beth, and I said, hey, I want you two because you guys gonna be going together at WrestleMania. But I want the relationship to start in a very sort of Emperor Anakin Skywalker sort of way. I don't want you to try to bury her or break her, kill her. I want you to seduce her. I want you to bring her to the dark side, so to speak, and have the two of you destroy all the rest of these Barbie doll beauties and show

the world what women should be. And Kia's just look at emmy, and I swear to God. She goes, I got a baby, and so I sit down. And I've never worked with her before, okay, only Beth and the rest of the case. She was brand new and Beth standing there and Kia comes up to her and she goes,

don't be afraid. I don't want to hurt you. I want to join you, and she just walks in a circle around Beth, and Beth just follows her with her head and while she's circling around her, she goes, look at you, and look at me, and now look at all the rest of these dumb bitches in this room, and it's all the rest of the female wrestler is in there, and they're all sitting there and they're just there. They know it's not personal. This is how these promos

are done. I mean, they'll shoot on each other straight up. And she starts naming like their weight. This bitch weighs a hundred twenty two pounds. I'm three of her. You could snap her into We could break each and every single one of them, and beyond that, we could break the whole damn system. And they go through this whole thing and she circles her about three times and at the end, Beth just looks her dead in the face

and goes, you can go straight to hell. And everybody was like oh, And obviously that I was like, yo, these chicks because Beth wasn't the best on the microphone, right, so I had to protect her more than I would have to protect Kia. Apparently I didn't know how much I would have to do with Kia, but she was just fire, like straight fire. Now the story couldn't couldn't play um and ended up not going because he ended

up leaving the company. But that moment in that promo class is basically the beginning of the story of the Ice Store. So I'll give you a tease for the Ice Store, and then if you want to hear the rest of the story, you can tune in next week, or like I said, you could smosh them and binge it. So SmackDown is over, and uh, I'm working late because I'm working on this, this story, and I have to

show it to Stephanie. Ah. Pretty much everybody already left, and I told Angelo, the other writer that I was close with. I was like, man, I'll find it right, Like, there's always people so and I and I was getting along with a lot of the people at this point in the company were digging me because they saw how hard I worked. So I'm finishing up this story. Everybody leaves.

I'm walking through and there's not many people left in the arena, and uh, I see one of the makeup artists and I say, hey, uh, do you wanna cruise to Atlanta with me? I'll drive, I go, you can just sleep. She goes, oh, that would be amazing, thank you. So we get in the car and makeup artists in Hollywood gossip. It's just they're sitting there in a trailer. You can only make so much conversation when you put

makeup on somebody for an hour straight. So they start gossip and they started saying, Hey, oh, this person, that person, who, this, that, and this. I'm not one for gossip. That's why I'm in and out of the makeup trailer inside of twelve minutes. And I make them play music when I'm in there so that everybody hopefully will note a song and sing it, even if it's music I don't like, so long as I have to hear that. Unfortunately, this night I did.

But she shaped the company in a different light, and I started looking out for myself a little bit more. And she started telling me not only like who was sleeping with who, but who liked me and who didn't. And so I found out that John Cena couldn't stand me and and didn't want didn't want me in the company. And this even goes into a promo class. And I'll tell this story out another time when when John Cena interrupted the promo class to try and like bury it.

But um but yeah, we ended up with a little bit of respect at the end. Um. So She's telling me everything, and I'm like, alright, alright, this wrestler, that wrestler, and uh, we get in the car and we get on the highway. She knows the way, She's done the drive a hundred times, so all she has to do is get me on the highway. And she gets me on the highway and it is the craziest four hour road trip that I've ever been on in my life. And I can't wait to tell you about it next week. Also, guys,

you can follow me on Twitter or Instagram. Twitter is real f p j R. That's real fp JR. Instagram is real Freddie Prinz. And I'll speak with you guys on the next WWF Wrestling with Freddie. This has been a production of I Heart Radio is Michael Twitter podcast Network. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H