When I Worked with John Cena at WWE

The host of Wrestling with Freddie, Freddie Prince Junya. But we went to Hawaii, Home of the Rock, and it was lovely. I felt the Mana, I felt the magic. I've always felt the magic there. Actually lived there when I was a little kid, only for six months. My mom was working in a hotel and she was in the hotel industry. She was a chef and uh we stayed on Oahu in Honolulu. But I was just a little kid. But I guess you just get some kind

of weird connection to that place. The only thing I could link it to that I felt similar is New Mexico because it's such an old land. I mean, when we were kids, we would go on field trips to like the Anasazi ruins, which were built into walls, and you would see civilizations that live there. There's a magic to New Mexico. But Hawaii is a special place, I think.

And the Rock talks about Mana, right, but that's that's real because it's like lava coming from the center of the earth out and it's it's it's an earth builder, you know what I mean. So there's a lot of power there and it's very humbling. And the point of this is, when I'm an old, fat, retired guy, I'll probably live there and I'll start my own little indie Hawaiian Wrestling Federation. But I digress. We're back to the show and it's gonna be no guest today. You're stuck

with Uncle Freddie and you're gonna get some stories. And I thought we would kind of take it old school, not old school like the old days, but just old school, meaning three of the dudes that weren't necessarily people I worked with, but people that had an impact on me, that were there before me, during my time there and

long after. And we'd start and I've talked about John Cena's distaste for me when I was there a little bit, but I thought we would kind of deep dive into that, um, deep dive into my relationship with with Kane, who has mayor Glenn Jacobs. That's right, people, he is the mayor of a small town in Tennessee and uh. And then finally with Chris Jericho with a conversation he and I had that really kind of broke down Vince for me, and people go, I love your your your perspective and

your philosophy on Vince. Well, these perspectives come from experiences with other people who are more experienced than me, and I sort of I rely on their on their knowledge to kind of come up with my own opinions with live in a world today where opinions are solidified so quickly because of a like button, or even worse, the retweet, because then you're you're you're reiterating something that you just

saw that must be fact. Um. But I you know, I'm forty five, so I didn't grow up with that, and I kind of wait to make my my opinion on someone until I have as much information as I'm comfortable with. And my generation is just I think, maybe comfortable with more or uncomfortable with less information. Maybe that's

a very brustly way to say it. We started at the company and me and this other writer, Angelo, who I've I've mentioned a couple of times on the show before all the writers would take heat from meaning they would catch a lot of crap from the talent, because a lot of the old school talent doesn't think there's a need for writers, and I tend to agree with a lot of them, because a lot of the men and women that are over in that company are highly

capable of writing or improving their own promos in ring or backstage, and they don't really require writers. Sina. I mean, Brian Gowertz wrote for him, but Sena could write his own promos if he wanted to, and I'm a hundred percent certain that he did many a time, or at least rewrote what Brian laid down for him in some bullet points and then filled it in. They worked together, but John was a hundred percent capable as people can see now, he's an incredibly talented actor, uh a talented

artist period. And I've always said I respected John even though he didn't like me when I was there, because I was an actor, which he is now, um, but I always respected him because John was willing to wear the crown during the g rated era, and that was a crown that no top guy wanted. John made his bones being the opposite of the Marine. John made his bones being a brash, in your face, white rapper who would talk trash to you, and you know, there was

nothing marine ish about him. And then when he became the Marine, and he became the world champion, and he found a gimmick that would stick right, because he's not any of those things. He's all of those things. And it's about finding certain personality types that you think will

make an impact. And when he found the Marine character, even when you booed him, he would take the booze right the way a soldier would take it, the way a soldier returning from Vietnam was was you know, yelled at and people were throwing things that our soldiers coming home. You know, you really try. You saw John really trying to embody that character. And other guys could have taken it, like Triple Edge could have worn that crown. But Triple Edge didn't want to do segments in the first hour

of Raw when it was still family friendly. He wanted to be in the last hour of SmackDown or raw and do his d X adult stuff, the stuff that got him over, the stuff that he always did once he found the right character right, so he could have taken the crown. Vince would have gladly given it to him, but he chose not to. John took this on himself. And you, I mean, you don't have to respect that. But a guy like me is just programmed to respect the hell out of that. So when I got there,

I already had respect for John. And the first time I met him, he called me Ashton Kutcher. So you have to understand, I'm going in there as positive as as a human being could possibly be. Looking at this guy like dang man, that's that's a thankless I'm not saying this, but in my head, I'm like this, it's a thankless job. He's getting booed for being the good guy so much, and you know it bugs him, and he's been public about it now and said that, yeah,

that that bothered him. Sometimes he learned to embrace it, and when he did, they started cheering again, which is crazy, um and a cool journey on itself. But uh, I met him and he hated me, and it wasn't even that he hated me. It was just like a total disregard. I think he called me Ashton Kusher and uh, you know, great, we got Ashton Kusher working here now. And I take everything with it with a smile and uh and a chuckle. And I I don't take myself seriously, but I take

what I do very seriously. And I was there to work. And I've said this before, I don't mind earning it. So I go, yeah, and I'm I'm I'll learn it now. I never wrote anything for John because, like I said, he didn't need it, and Brian Gowertz was his guy the same way that he was the Rocks guy. And Brian knows what he's doing. And uh so I never had to work with him. I worked with other talent that he would be in segments with sometimes and sometimes

would write like a half of a segment. Believe it or not, there would be two writers, each one writing a different half of the segment. Don't ask me how it works. Oh wait us in so maybe they saidn't do that, but I, you know, dealt with him a lot. And when we it got awkward when I started the acting class, so we had I've told you the stories before our numbers. When we first started, and this was

before the class was real popular. But a lot of the younger talent, the f c W which is now an XT talent that we're coming up, they were just looking to brush up their their acting skills, and so we started doing scenes from movies they liked. I said, you you find any movie you want. I'm not gonna make you do any of the crap work. You send it to me. I'll transcribe it. I'll give it to you a physical copy and an email so you always have it. When you lose it, I will print you

up another one. All you have to do is the scene work, breaking down the moments. Why is the character saying this, what's the motivation, Let's look at the scene on an overview, what's the obstacle and what's the goal? What do you want and what's preventing you from getting there? And once you start to analyze that, it's like practicing a martial arts technique. You stop thinking about it and

you just start doing it. And that's when acting feels more real, is when actors aren't searching for lines or trying to remember blocking because they rehearsed and put in the work, and that way your take one is actually pretty damn good instead of it taking fourteen fifteen takes because an actor was lazy. I get a little triggered by lazy actors. If you can't tell this will turn into a thirty minute podcast about people not knowing their ship.

Uh sorry. So anyway, I was working these scenes with the talent and I think it was Writer and Hawkins, and they were doing a scene from Bad Boys with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, which was making me laugh before they even started, just to see these two guys do it, and they actually did really well with the scene.

And in the middle of this class this scene, John just swing has opened the door, grabs us a folding chair that we were all sitting in, sets it down in between Hawkins and Rider, and sits in it and just looks at me like what are you gonna do? And in my head, I'm just like, what the why would you do? Why would you make this about you? Man? Like why wouldn't you wait until after this? Like what why would you interrupt this? And I get answers to

this in a moment, but I don't say anything. I just go, hey, man, you want to talk to me outside? And he stands up right away and he's mugus dude, he's built like Ben Grimm from The Fantastic Four for crying out loud. And we go outside. So I'm not going to fight the dude. So we go outside and I go, man, what the hell was that? And he goes,

that's what I was about to ask you. So he has zero respect for whatever process I'm I'm attempting to bring to the table, right And we kind of jaw back and forth for a minute, and he and these are his words, and he would he would admit to all this. It is not a bad thing. Confrontation is good.

Conflict is good. That's how situations get resolved. When you avoid it, it becomes passive aggressive, and then it carries on and on and on, and it affects your work, it affects their work, and then it affects the company's work, and then everyone sucks a lot of passive aggression in Hollywood. So so I'm of the opinion you should just confront

situations head on, and that's what we did. And he said, look, maybe I'm a neanderthal his words, and he says, but I just don't see how any of this ship works. And I'm looking at him, like in my head and look and now look in hindsight, he's out here making movies. So it's all it's a growing it's a growing experience, learning experience for all of us in the end, whether we recognize that or not. But I look at him and I say, hey, man, not everybody can do you do?

All right? I'm not saying, hey, can I work with John and can I give him acting lessons? When I had my first meeting with Steph, I said, why the hell weren't you Duke and g I Joe, You're the best actor on the roster. I said, but I'm trying to get them to a level where you're at or close to it, because if I don't, who the hell is And he kind of like shrugged his shoulders and like excelled, and I said, hey man, it's not like

you're helping him out. And that kind of like tightened up as humongous muscles, these massive shoulders that kind of like tense stuff. And he goes, yeah or whatever, and he walked away and I go back in and Cardona was like, dude, I thought you guys were gonna fight, Like bro, I'm not trying to fight the incredible hulk Man. Shut up. So we finished the class, and uh, I didn't.

We have our taping of whatever show was that day, Monday and Iraq as John was there, and uh he was the face of the company and Monday and I Raw was the show of the company back then. So I'm on the jet. We're flying back to White Plains, New York from whatever city were in Cleveland or wherever it was, and Vince has me hold out my hands.

He's got some hand sanitizer and he's he's you know, you don't like germs, and so he starts to put some hand sanitizer in my hand and then as a rib won't stop, he just keeps squeezing it and squeezing it, and he's just staring me down, and I'm staring him down. Right. It's not like I can just let the crap fall in his G four, G five, whatever it is, G something, because that's disrespectful. But I'm not gonna wine or whimper

or tap out. So I just let him into the bottle and I stand up and I slap it down in the sink in the bathroom, wipe my hands. I come back in and he's laughing. He thinks it's great. And Kevin Dunn thinks it's the greatest joke that anyone's ever pulled off in the history of jokes. And uh, I sit down and Vince goes, so, I heard you had a little, uh, a little problem with Sina today. I'm like, no, man, I try to downplay it. I go, no, I think he's just testing me. Man, all you guys

like to test me. And he goes, I don't worry about it. I'm the only one that can fire you anyway, and Kevin laughs at that. He starts laughing at Vince's joke, like, man, that wasn't even that good. And uh, but I I learned in that moment, like, Yo, don't worry about it. Keep doing your thing. If they're giving you crap, I'm the only one that you need to worry about giving you crap. Right, you could take it from everyone else,

is how I took it to to me. So I go in there and I'm just hopeful that he doesn't interrupt the class again. And to his credit, he never did, not even once, And as time went on, he called, he still said, oh, what's up, Baston Crusher. I think one time I used to wear this hat that my uncle, he was a Vietnam veteran. Uh when he passed away, I stole it from that from the house, and UH I used to wear it a lot. Because my uncle is real responsible for the man that I grew up

to become. I'm named for him. His name is James Barber, and my middle name is James. My son's middle name is James's. He's an important man in our in our family's history. Side Quist a very important man, and he demanded not only respect for himself, but he always demanded the family show respect to one another. He was in and out of our lives a lot because he had

a lot of problems coming back from from Vietnam. I remember I used to have to crumple up newspaper and toss it at him when he'd be napping on the couch to wake him up for dinner. Because if you went while I learn hard way, if you went and shook him, you were on your back and his hand was on your throat because in his head he was still in the war. He had to do just look up reconnaissance Marines Vietnam, and you'll know what he had

to do. We're not gonna make this depressing. So anyway, I'm wearing this hat and he goes, oh, nice doe she had, and I hit him. I don't even look at him when I say it. I go it was my uncle's he was in Vietnam, and it just goes, oh, like that right. They never talked about that ever again. So there is respect there. It just has to be something he deems worthy of respect or you gotta earn it. So six months in I'm doing a segment and it was with Santina Morella, Beth Phoenix and some and someone

else I can't I can't remember who else. And I'm sitting next to Vince in Guerrilla and the segments going well, because our Santino is the man Like anything you wrote he would make better. I loved working with him when he was on SmackDown. I got to work with him all the time and we would just crack each other up with jokes like on what the scene is gonna be? Things he would say words he could butcher, and he would just not get dead no matter, no matter what.

And he needed so little direction you could. If anything, it was only to like tighten it up because he could go on for thirty minutes and we only had two. So it was a segment that was going really well. Again all credit to the talent, especially in the case of of of the Lion. It's going well, and Vince gives me the elbow to the ribs, but not the fu elbow. It's it's not like the Randy Macho may

have finished your elbow. It's like the revitalizing elbow when he hit Hogan with it and woke Hogan up, which was like horrible, should have never happened, but it happened. He's given you the positive I'm like, hey, good job, kid, God damn. And Cina is back there too, because he's in the next segment. I think I'm even wearing my uncle's hat and uh, he says, and again I'm my eyes are on. The monitors were just backstage. They call

a guerrilla position. It's where they come out of the curtain and walked to the ring for those of you that don't really watch the brand. And so he's back there waiting for his time and he goes, hey, man, that was a that was a really good segment and I didn't even look at him much, but yeah, whatever, and just they liked it, and I phil Vince gotta give me another nudge, which was either chill out or

well done. I don't know which one it was. We didn't talk about it, and uh, that was the moment where I was like, all right, he's I think I think I earned his respect and I don't. But I don't know, you know, man, maybe not. Maybe he was just like, well, I'm just done crapping on him because the boss is right there. But either way, we never had an issue or or a conflict ever again. After that, he was always just would give me a nod. He didn't talk about my uncle's hat. He called me Freddie

instead of Ashton. By the way, his last name I think is Coucher, not cousher. And I don't know if John knew that. But you know, you can't say a man's name, right. I don't say John Cena. I say John Cena. So anyway, I know people have had fun, and I've told some of the Seni stories before. I wanted to be clear. Even though he didn't like me and I didn't like John, I respect John. I respected him then I respect him now. I respect the irony of what he what he's doing now because he hated it.

He hated Hollywood so much. But Hollywood doesn't show wrestling the respect that I think wrestling deserves. So I think if there's ever a company man, John Cena is the ultimate company man, like he would do anything for the company. He would take any bullet for Vince McMahon, because that's his experience with the company has always been not I'm

not gonna say always been positive. Everyone has ups and downs, but this company found him, developed him in o VW, brought him up, made him the face of the company. Not for a year, not for two years, not forever. Okay, he was the champion forever, Himmer Randy, and he would always win it back. So his love and respect for that company is the way you would love school counselor that saved your ass and and put your life on the right track, or the way you look after your

parents as someone spoke against them. So that's where his loyalty was in Hollywood has never been pro pro wrestling. They're happy to pluck the most talented people and make them a star, but they've always had their their kind of crappy feelings for it. That'll switch us over to a more positive relationship. I had, and that was with Glenn Jacobs, who plays this hideous monster from hell named Kane. And he was the Undertaker's brother, younger brother, thank you

very much. And he had insecurities throughout his career about being the younger brother. He had conflict with his brother. They had resolutions and wrestled together, and we're the most powerful tag team in the universe. He had his own singles title runs. He did horror type wrestling all the way to comedy type wrestling when he tag teamed with Brian Danielson who's in a w He's shown a large range as far as what limited range the Kane character

allows you to have. He's even starred as the monster in a monster movie. I can't remember the name off the top of my head. You get this image of him, and he is a a hideous beast behind a mask. Why else would he wear a mask? It must be hideous, he wears. When he took the mask off because he was no longer hideous, he would put in crazy contacts to make himself look more freaky. Freaky, and and and and strike fear in the hearts of men. And then

you meet Glenn and you could call him Kane. He responds to either one, and he's a he's like a poet. I think he's immensum member even like he's this. The dude reads Shakespeare. The guy gave me book recommend The guy got me to read that Hawaiian The Rich Dad, Poor Dad. He like, hey, man, this book meant a lot to me. You should you should give it a read.

And I'm like, alright, cool. He gave me a book about the Rothchild's system of banking, its influence on America, and why should we should be wary up at his way into bigcoin and why should we should be wary of our paper currency that's barely backed on gold anymore. He gave me this in two thousand seven, y'all. I don't know the name of it, and I'll be honest with you. I only read about the fourth of it. And Bill Burr had a joke he said, reading puts

me to sleep. It I fell asleep a lot, but I got through a quarter of it, and I did learn that the Rothchilds were some evil sons of bitches, and our banking system is corrupt as all hell. So if you want to buy a gold I'm not mad at you. If you want to buy a big one, I get it. But this guy, first of all, I never saw Vince more hands on with a promo than

his feelings for Kane. He has this weird case. I've described Vince as as a as a kid with a toy box, right, and they're all his toys and you have to play with them the way he wants you to play with them. But he's never more particular than when he was with Kane. For real. He never yelled at me louder and we would go back and forth from time to time, but most of the time, dude was really cool with my with my ideas are the ones that got to him. Sometimes they die on the

vine before they even get there. They go, no, the show is full. I remember I came in there and I don't remember the promo. This is you know, however many over ten years ago. But there was the word destroyed. He reads the word destroyed, and he stopped and he looks at me and he's like, piste off at me, like I've done something not wrong but offensive. I go what? And he shot? He goes Kane, what never say it destrong? Hey? What say ah blaate? And there's this long pause. Right,

you gotta remember the way my brain works. I'm not a reactionary dude, and I'm comfortable with silence, so I don't mind it. So there's this long pause, and in my head, I'm like, this isn't a fight that I'm gonna fight. It's it's it's a word, but I kind of want to know why it's it's so important to the boss. And so I take a beat and I say, you got it, obliterate? Are there any other words in here that are going to get that kind of reaction?

And if so, can you tell me why? And he just gives this grunt that he would give when he's unamused by your amusement. Basically, he wanted he wanted me to take a more serious I guess it was just more like and he starts reading it through, reading it through, and he goes the rest of it is fine, just trying to make the end a little better, Like all right, I go back and uh, there's a writer named Christopher to Joseph who worked there, and he was always good

to me, not all the writers for kids. To me, Chris was always cool man from Jump Street. And I go in and he goes, how'd it going? Yeah, pretty good. He wants me to rewrite the end. I said, he really hates the word destroyed. And Chris goes, yeah, I wanted to warn you about it, but I just thought it'd be funny if I didn't. I what are you talking about, man, he I said, I've never seen him get angry. He goes, he's so crazy about kine and the words that you use. When I was like, I'm

telling you broke it was. I've seen actors trip out right, and I mean trip out where it's over a word, over a line, and you're like, dog, just just tell him you're saying something different, Like you don't need to be this dramatic and make it a level ten need in order to convince them like you're the lead of the show, you're the four hunder pound gorilla to be like, yo, man, need I need a different line. You don't even have to say better. You can say it better if you

don't want to worry about their feelings. But you can just say a man need a different line there, and it has just as much weight and so it was a rib on me. But I brought it to to Glenn and he does his thing, and he does what he does right, and here's the difference you'll see in like some of the writers. So he kills it and everyone goes, oh, great bromo, Freddy, great bromo. I'm like, man, I didn't do anything like it. It's the same speech he's made a hundred times. It's just you know, different

bourbons that's on that's on him. The next week they gave the same storyline promo to someone else because I was just trying to help out. They were busy and worn down. On that week's episode, Kane does his thing and kills it, and the writer in chargees like, hey, Freddy, did you see my promo? Which thing? Man? I was like, you feel like looking for a compliment. You didn't say nothing. This dude said it. So there was a lot of There was a lot of insecurity and ego in that room.

And it wasn't just because I was there. I mean that that's just a that's a personality trait that he either exists or it doesn't, and you either grow out of it or you don't write. And a lot of these guys probably grew out of it, and a few of them probably didn't. We're gonna end with Vince McMahon. But to get there, the best perspective I ever got on the man was from Chris Jericho, and Chris was always really cool to me. He didn't have to be.

We didn't work together. There was no reason for us too. He was high quality actor. Forget the fact that he's one of the best wrestlers ever. Forget all that he didn't need any help writing a promo. He didn't need any help with direction on how to execute a promo. So there was no reason for for he and I to talk outside of me asking questions about, you know, the history of wrestling, you know the matches he was in promos that he had done, just so I could

gain information. Right, So I'm sitting and I'm talking to him after a match, and uh, he was. I remember his trunks they were like blue with like sparkles on him, and he was. He was in a run with John Cena that culminated in Boston, And this was the week before that, and we were talking about Vince and this idea that I had to to get one of the smaller wrestlers over, which which was Kofi. And we'll get into that storyline in another episode, which is the Kofe

Gauntlet match, which they took years later. In turn, didn't do the Kofe Gotlin match that got him the World Championship. The one we came up with was simply pitched for him to win the Intercontinental Championship. So I was talking to him and he said this one sentence that I'll never forget. He said, Vince is his father's son. And I said, what did that? What? What is that? What

does that mean? I knew nothing about Vince's dad outside of the fact that Vince got the company from him, you know, years ago, and and and did like some hard business, but business he felt that had to be done right. And he goes. Vince's dad only liked the big guys. He never he never pushed a small guy ever. He just didn't. He didn't believe that a small guy could be the big guy. He goes, and that's Vince's son. He goes, and he believes that. He goes. I can

show him a million UFC tapes. I can show him, you know, a million instances where a smaller guy goes, he has said. But outside of you know, a handful of of choices that he's made over the years with Ray and with Sean, things like that goes. He just doesn't.

He doesn't believe in the smaller guys. I said, yeah, man, but you had all all the titles, he said, I didn't have him for a long and I was sitting there and it kind of it didn't hit me right away, but on the plane going home, I never knew my dad right, so I didn't connect with with what he was saying at first. And then as I was going home, and I was always trying to think of I was

always trying to figure Vince out. And there's no figuring anyone out completely, but I was always trying to figure out where his head was at and what would be the best way for me to get my ideas over to contemporize the business, so to speak, right, And I feeled a lot, regrettably. I don't have an issue saying it now it's ten years later, but it sucked. You know, Failing in a segment is one thing. Failing in a pitch,

for whatever reason, always hurts me more. Right, It's like the infancy of an idea that you're rejecting as opposed to the totality of it. I'm sitting on the plane and I started thinking about the father figures that I had. My uncle James, I call him jimmy uncle Jim, my godfather, Bob Wall, my uncle Ron de Blasio, who was my father's manager, Richard Pryor's manager. He was the one that got me hip to the business real quick. He was the one that taught me the phrase it's show business,

which words bigger. That phrase came from Ron de Blasio, and he didn't get it from anyone else. He's just been in the game. That was Prince's manager. Y'all, remember Prince. Everybody knows Prince, yet that was his manager. The guy's seen everything. Anytime I had questions about Hollywood, not the side quest, but I always went to him before my

own agents are managers. Just because Ron's seen everything, He's dealt with everyone, I could get a better sense of how to enter a negotiation with Warner Brothers because they're notoriously the most evil, disgusting negotiators in the world. You'll be worth a million bucks, they'll offer you a hundred grand and and act like you should be thankful. And you gotta figure out the people to speak to, when to speak to them, to walk away, to not even respond,

and how they'll react to that. And I always wanted to be able to be three fourths. I told you, I want to know how Vince thinks. I would want to know how these studios would think and operate, and so I would always talk to people who had who had dealt with them before any time I had a big negotiation, which is why I always got those bumps before to the rest of the actors, and all you other actors should thank me for helping raise your quotes in the nineties. It's because you know it's not Reese

Witherspoon I think is credit for that one. I start applying that to me, which helps me then apply my philosophies to Vince and the w w E was making. This leads us to our final story and to close. They were making movies, and I'm not gonna say they were good movies, but I can say that because I've been in some dogs myself. Y'all aren't allowed to say that,

or you're just haters. Dylan is allowed to have opinions anymore, so they weren't necessarily great, but they were making movies, and they were making them for five million dollars a pop, which limits the type of movie you can make, limits how good it can look, limits the level of talent

you can get. Money helps make a good movie. Granted you can pull it off without We've all seen some great movies made for a million dollars or less considerably less, but for the most part, money can help you get the technology and the talent at the levels you want. So five million back then got you what it got you. And they weren't getting distribution. They were relying on the

Walmart DVD distribution deal that they had. They weren't even attempting to go to theaters because they were making enough money off the Walmart releases and Walmart had paid them in advance because they kind of had a built in audience, right.

There was a writer on the creative team who was a television writer and I'm not going to say his name, but he was getting it wasn't clicking with what wrestlers needed to say and the types of stories that wrestlers could pull off, and the types of story whereas that we could pull off as a company. While having to have wrestling matches. Think about that philosophy, and that was this guy's philosophy. You have these matches are really affecting

the story. It's like, nah, dog, you're supposed to service the matches is a wrestling show. That's why Bruce every week would be like, it's a lot of talk. It's a lot of talk. And he was dead on, by the way. So this guy asked Vince if he could transition from the creative team to the film division because he had experience in film. Now he had experience in television, but not really experience in film. This gentleman. Now, I respect the man's hustle, but this was a hustle just

the same. He started selling his own scripts under a different name, a pen name what you're allowed to do to the w w E, and then was producing his own movie himself and paying himself to do it. And I saw this right away, right right. I know a Hollywood hustle when I see one. And Vince, like I said, when you don't have a dad and people call you a son, it has an effect on you as a young man. I'm forty five. Now you can call me son. I'm not gonna do anything you ask me to do.

I'm old and cranky, so I didn't. I felt like there was advantage being taken of. I felt like he should have just said, hey, I wrote this great script, let's make it, and Vince would have said yeah. He would have said yes, but I didn't like that there was this subversive element to it. So we're on the tarmac in White Plains, New York, which is the home base of the w W E jet, and we're getting ready to fly. I think to New Orleans, and everybody's bags are out there, and I have my car. Is there.

I get out of the car. I'm on the phone talking to the wife. I see Vince's limo pull up, and that's usually means it's time to get your ass on the plane. Let's go in and say waiting on nobody and I go, hey, babe, the boss is here. I'm out. I love you about click the phone off. I'll walk straight up to Vince. I go, hey, man, before we get on the plane, I gotta tell you something. I said, you guys are making these five million dollar movies. This guy is selling you scripts that would not sell

in Hollywood. That I'm sure he's tried to sell a dozen times and everyone passed on. And you're paying him for something like that and then paying him to make his own movie. I said, that's five movies a year at five million dollars a piece, or maybe it was four four movies a year at four at five million dollars a piece. Vince, he looks me dead in the face. He goes, Freddie, it's twenty million dollars. Get on the fucking plane. And I literally my jaw must have hit

the girl. I looked at him and said, can I have that job? And he started laughing, slapped me on the back, and I got my ass on the plane and we flew to wherever we flew toto a match and the whole flat I'm sitting there like, that's a billionaire, that's a bill, that's that's what a billionaires. I never I knew Vince a little bit at that point, so he was more comfortable to bullish ship and and and

chat a bit. But to hear someone say that the way like if someone's like, hey, whatever your might, Hey Mike, can I borrow some money? A normal amount of money? You could lend somebody, what fifty bucks for me? If a Boddy was like, Hey, I need some money. I probably have a little bit more than I hook it up. Hey man, I get five million dollars for a movie. He couldn't we do that four more times? Oh yeah, that's the million dollars cares the whole flight. That's all

I'm thinking about. I'm sitting there like, he ain't even this dude ain't even gonna get fired. It's probably knew it was a hustle. He just doesn't care. He's got the money from Walmart already, so it doesn't even matter if the movie makes a dime, so screw it. And it was just that I never I've never looked at my finances that way, even if I was in a position to, I don't. I don't think I could do that, But who knows, maybe I would be the exact same way. Anyhow,

storytime is concluding. I hope you guys have fun. I really am enjoying this podcast, and I'm really having a lot of fun talking with you guys. I like when y'all hit me up on on social media. I really enjoyed the conversations. Uh, you don't have to agree with everything I say. If you have questions or or you disagree with something, feel free to hit me up. Like I said, I don't take things personally. If you're If you're rude, I'll be rude back. If you're cool, then

I'll be cool. We can, we can disagree, and I can. You might even change my mind on some crap. It's been a while. We're gonna have Chris Jericho on, who is has so much knowledge of the business on a on a global scale, and for people that aren't even wrestling fans, we're gonna talk about a lot of the business of wrestling, the legit and some of the illegitimate stuff, and we're gonna get into it on a on a

deep level. And he's a really cool guy to speak to on that, about how the Arenas make money, who runs the Arenas Sometimes it's the mob. So there's there's a lot of deep stuff that we can talk about and have some fun with. So even if you're not that into wrestling, you might be into some scandalous stories. But for those of you who are, it's Chris Jericho. We're gonna talk wrestling outside of that. I love talking to you guys. I'll see you guys again next week

right here. On wrestling with Freddy. This has been a production of I heart Radio's Michael Tura 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 m hm