Okay, I want you to picture two completely different
scenes for a second. Scene one, you are flipping
through channels late at night and you land on
a local wrestling show. Right. There is a guy
in the ring and he is technically flawless. He
is following every single rule. He's grappling
with honor. He just looks like a pure, dedicated
athlete. Okay, got it. Scene one is purely a
sport. Right. Now scene two, you flip the channel
over to a major cable news network. I'm talking
CNN. Fox News, the big leagues. The prime time
slots. Exactly. And there is a guy in a sharp
suit and tie sitting across from a very serious
anchor debating state immigration policy. Yeah.
He is intense. He is highly polarizing. And the
chyron right at the bottom of the screen identifies
him as the son of a state governor. Two very,
very different worlds. One is pure entertainment
and one is, well, supposedly serious real world
political discourse. Right. But here is the kicker.
It is the exact same guy. And that right there
is the hook for today. That is the paradox we
are unpacking. Welcome back to the Deep Dive.
Today, we are looking at the absolutely wild
career of John Stagikis. Now, depending on who
you ask, he is either a technical wrestling wizard
known as John Walters, or he is one of the most
hated political villains of the last decade,
R .J. Brewer. And just to set the stage for you
listening, the sources we have for this deep
dive are fascinating. We aren't just looking
at old wrestling match results or fan forums.
We are looking at actual broadcast clips from
ABC Nightline. We have articles from the L .A.
Times and even Harper's Magazine. Which are definitely
not the places you usually find. No, usually
you find them in the sports section or, sadly,
the obituary column. But Stajica's managed to
break out of the wrestling bubble, what people
in the industry call kayfabe, and he actually
infiltrated the real -world news cycle. And that
is exactly what I want to figure out today. How
does a guy go from being an anonymous silent
druid holding a torch for The Undertaker to debating
seasoned pundits on national television? It just
feels like a glitch in the matrix. It really
does. But when you look closely at the timeline,
it is actually a masterclass in psychology and
media manipulation. But to really get it, we
have to go way back to understand the raw material
he was working with. Because before he was a
villain or a ring general. He was just a kid
in Framingham, Massachusetts. Yeah, looking at
the biographical data here, he wasn't one of
those kids doing backyard wrestling backflips
off the couch. He was strictly a football player.
A very dedicated one, too. He was a wide receiver
at Framingham High. He graduated in 97 and went
straight on to play at Assumption College in
Worcester. By all accounts, he was building his
entire life around the gridiron. So what actually
happened there? Did he just wake up one day and
decide he liked spandex better than shoulder
pads? No, it wasn't a choice at all, actually.
It was a completely forced pivot. In his junior
year life, threw a massive flag on the play.
He developed a cyst on his neck. A cyst? That
sounds pretty uncomfortable, but is that really
career -ending? For a wide receiver taking hits,
this one absolutely was. It required significant
surgery. And just like that, the whole football
dream was over. Man, that is just rough. I mean,
you spend your whole teenage life identifying
as one single thing. You wake up every day saying,
I am a football player. And then a doctor just
looks at you and tells you, no, you aren't anymore.
It's the kind of identity crisis that breaks
a lot of people. But Stajica's graduated with
a communications degree in 2001 and immediately
shifted all that athletic drive into something
else. Right. And he didn't just join some low
-level backyard wrestling league either. He went
to basically the Harvard of wrestling schools.
Which is? Killer Kowalski School over in Malden,
Massachusetts. Okay, I definitely know that name.
Killer Kowalski. Just the name sounds terrifying.
He was a total legend, a real golden era villain.
And training under Kowalski meant you weren't
just learning how to fall down on a mat without
getting hurt. You're learning the psychology.
Exactly. You are learning the old school way.
Respect, discipline, and most importantly, storytelling
in the ring. It gave Sajika a classic foundation
that, quite frankly, a lot of modern guys just
don't have. So he trains there for, what, five
months? Yeah. Which seems really fast, doesn't
it? It is extremely fast, but you have to remember
he was already a high -level conditioned athlete,
so he adopts the ring named John Walters as a
direct tribute to Kowalski. John Walters. It
just sounds so reliable, like a tax accountant
or a third baseman. It is a very solid babyface
name, a good guy name, but he added a nickname
to it that I absolutely love just because of
how utterly meaningless it was. Hurricane John
Walters. Was his style super fast? Was he destructive
in the ring? Not at all. His college roommate
just told him it sounded cool. That is the most
college thing I've ever heard. Dude, you should
totally be a hurricane. Exactly. Just a random
suggestion, but it stuck. And this really kicks
off the first major phase of his career, what
we can call the technician phase. Right. He starts
working for Chaotic Wrestling, which was the
really big indie promotion in New England at
the time. And looking at our notes here, he wasn't
just a background participant either. He was
actively winning titles. He was their heavyweight
champion, their television champion. He was the
exact kind of guy you could build an entire regional
company around. But there is one specific detail
from his time in chaotic wrestling that I think
perfectly foreshadows his future genius for character
work. What's that? He formed a tag team. Let
me guess. The Hurricanes. No, they were called
12 -pack. 12 -pack. Please tell me that is a
beer reference. It is, but it is a clever double
entendre. See, Steadicus, or Walters at this
point, was the extreme fitness nut. He had the
literal six -pack abs. That was a super strict
diet. His partner was a guy named Good Time Vince
Vicolo. Let me guess, Vakala was the 12 -pack
of beer in the cooler. Precisely. It was the
absolute classic odd -couple dynamic. You have
the straight -laced, intense athlete right next
to the beer -drinking party animal. That is actually
pretty brilliant for an indie wrestling show.
It really is, and it shows that even way back
then, Sticktick has fully understood that wrestling
isn't just about the physical moves. It is about
contrast. It is about those character dynamics.
Yeah. But he clearly wanted more than just local
New England fame. He set his sights on Ring of
Honor. Okay, I have definitely heard of Ring
of Honor. R -O -H. Back in the early 2000s, that
was the cool underground place to be right. It
was the absolute mecca for the purists. If WWE
was a loud blockbuster movie with giant explosions,
ROH was a gritty, serious, independent film.
Right. It was all about what they call work rate,
pure athleticism. If you couldn't actually wrestle,
the fans there would literally eat you alive.
They were merciless. So how did our friend Hurricane
John get... His foot in the door. Did he just
walk in and ask for a match? He really had to
chase them down. He sent VHS tapes that got completely
ignored. He finally met a ring announcer at a
show, sent another tape through him, and eventually
got a call from the main booker, Gabe Sapolsky,
in 2003. And once he finally got in, he just
found his niche perfectly. Yeah, he did. And
that niche was pure wrestling. I'm looking at
this term right here in the sources. ROH, pure
champion. What does that actually mean in practice?
Is it just regular wrestling without hitting
people with steel chairs? It is much, much more
specific than that. The Pure Championship had
a very unique set of rules specifically designed
to simulate a legitimate, real -world sport.
Okay. For example, you know how in standard wrestling,
if you get put in a painful submission hold,
you can just reach out and grab the ring ropes
to force the referee to break the hold? Yeah,
the classic rope break. Right. Well, in a Pure
match, you were only allowed three of those for
the entire match. Wait, only three total. So
what happens if you panic and use them all up
early? if you use all three and then later in
the match you get put in a submission hold you
can grab those rogues all you want the referee
will not break the hold you either have to figure
out how to escape You tap out or you pass out.
Oh, wow. That changes everything. That adds a
whole layer of chess -like strategy to the match.
You can't just rely on the ropes to save you.
Exactly. And on top of that, closed fist punches
to the face were totally illegal. If you lost
your temper and punched someone in the face,
you automatically lost one of your rope breaks
as a penalty. So it literally forces you to be
a technician. You have to actively out -wrestle
the other guy. You can't just turn into a street
brawl. And Stajikas was the absolute master of
this style. In August 2004, he defeated Doug
Williams, who was this incredible British technical
wizard, to win that pure title. Wow. And look
at the list of guys he defended it against. Nigel
McGuinness, Homicide Jay Lethal. Those are some
incredibly huge names in the industry. They really
are. So at this point in his career, John Walpers
is known as the wrestler's wrestler. Which makes
what comes later in his career so completely
shocking. It really does. But before we get to
his big villain arc, we have to talk about the
grind of the business. Because even if you are
the respected champion in ROH, you still want
that mainstream WWE paycheck. Right, you have
to make a living. And he did the hard work. He
took the extra bookings. But usually when you
go to WWE as an uncontracted outsider, you aren't
there to showcase your skills and win. You are
there to make their established stars look like
monsters. Yeah, I see a note here about a television
match he had with the big show on SmackDown.
Yeah, just picture it. Imagine a guy who is maybe
six foot something, very technically sound, standing
across the ring from a legitimate seven foot,
400 pound giant. It went exactly how you think
it went. It got completely squashed. Like a bug
on a windshield. But you know that is the job.
That is how you pay your dues. Right. But there
is one very specific moment. from his time doing
extra work for WWE that I think is just delicious
irony. WrestleMania 20, Madison Square Garden,
literally the biggest show of the year. Sterikis
was there. Wait, he was actually on the card
at WrestleMania? He was definitely on the television
screen, but you would never, ever know it. He
was a druid. A druid? What does that mean? You
know, the Undertaker's iconic entrance, the smoke,
the dramatic music, the fire, and those anonymous
hooded figures standing perfectly still holding
the flaming torches. What you are telling me,
this technical wrestling wizard, this guy we
have been building up as a serious pure athlete,
his big WrestleMania break was standing there
holding a stick. He wasn't even wrestling. Zero
wrestling involved. He was essentially human
furniture. He was atmospheric lighting. That
is just incredibly humbling. You were standing
in the middle of Madison Square Garden listening
to 20 ,000 people scream their lungs out and
you were wearing a hood so you can't even show
your own face. It really shows you the strict
hierarchy of the wrestling business. You can
be an absolute king in the independent scene
and turn into a literal stage prop in the big
leagues. And I really think that massive contrast,
being so talented but being treated as totally
anonymous, might have... really fueled what he
decided to do next. OK, so let's jump forward
to 2010, the massive shift. This is where the
story just completely goes off the rails. He
joins a brand new promotion called Lucha Libre
USA. Now, context is extremely key here. Lucha
Libre USA was an MTV -backed show specifically
designed to bring Mexican lucha libre, which
means the masks, the high -flying acrobatics,
the heavy cultural traditions to a mainstream
American audience. So why on earth would they
bring in a guy like Stajekis? He is a grounded
technical wrestler from Massachusetts. He doesn't
wear a colorful mask. He doesn't do crazy flips
off the top rope. That is exactly why they brought
him in. They desperately needed a foil. Every
great cultural hero needs a terrifying villain.
And in a promotion entirely celebrating Mexican
culture, the ultimate villain is the ugly American.
But he didn't just go out there and play a generic
USA chanting bad guy. He went incredibly specific
with it. He completely transformed. He became
R .J. Brewer. And who exactly is R .J. Brewer
in the context of this show? In the storyline
they created, R .J. Brewer claimed to be the
actual son of Jan Brewer. Jan Brewer as in the
real -life governor of Arizona? The very same.
The governor who, at that exact moment in 2010,
was the national face of SB 1070. Oh, wow. Okay.
I remember that. Just show me your paper's law.
Just to give you listening some context, if you
don't remember, it was a massive nationwide controversy.
It was real -world legislation dealing with illegal
immigration, and critics argued it heavily encouraged
racial profiling. We're talking intense national
debates on... Every news channel. It was a total
political powder keg. Right. And Stajica's walked
right into the wrestling ring carrying the lit
match. He wore wrestling tights with SB 1070
printed right on the side and big letters. He
walked out to the ring with the Arizona state
flag draped over his shoulders like a superhero
cape. Doing that in a company literally called
Lucha Libre USA. That is nuclear heat from the
crowd. It was entirely visceral. He wasn't just
being booed because he broke a rule or cheated
to win a match. He was genuinely hated because
he represented a very real -world legislative
threat to the audience sitting in the front row
and the other wrestlers in the back. He even
formed a villainous stable called The Right.
The Right. Subtle. Very subtle. Subtlety was
absolutely not the goal here. He teamed up with
Petey Williams and John Reckon, and their stated
storyline mission was to clean up the company
and forcibly remove the Mexican influence from
American television. It's basically the classic
foreign invader wrestling trope, but completely
turned upside down. Usually in American wrestling,
it is the scary foreigner coming over to destroy
American values. Right. But here it is, the scary
right -wing American actively trying to sanitize
a Mexican cultural space. Exactly. And because
he was such an incredibly good technician in
the ring, remember all that rigorous ROH training,
he could actually back up his words. He cleanly
beat the heroes. He beat Liz Mark Jr. He beat
Marco Corleone. He actually won the Lucha Libre
USA Championship. But here is where I get really
stuck on this story. of stuff stays safely inside
the wrestling bubble. The fans in the arena know
it is a show they get mad they go home. But RJ
Brewer somehow broke out into the real world.
And this is the true genius part of the performance.
The character was so triggering and the real
world political climate was so incredibly tense
that the mainstream media completely took the
bait. Wow. They saw this guy claiming to be the
son of the governor physically wrestling illegal
immigrants on TV and they simply couldn't resist
covering it. And we are talking about major big
time outlets, right? Huge outlets. He was booked
on ABC Nightline. He was on Fox News, CNN. The
Geraldo Rivera radio show. He was literally featured
on the front page of the LA Times. Okay, so he
goes on these serious news shows. Does he drop
the act? Does he sit down and say, hey guys,
I'm just an actor playing character for MTV?
No. And this is where it gets genuinely kind
of terrifying. He treated those mainstream news
interviews exactly like a wrestling promo. He
stayed 100 % in character as R .J. Brewer. But
surely the news anchors doing the interviews
knew it was a bit right. They had to know he
wasn't really Jan Brewer's son. That is the fascinating
thing about kayfabe. Back in the 80s, everyone
in wrestling protected the secret that it was
scripted. But by 2010, everyone watching already
knew wrestling was scripted entertainment. Right,
obviously. But Brewer played the character so
incredibly straight with no winks to the camera
that he essentially gaslit the interviewers.
He forced the anchors to treat him as a legitimate
political activist simply because he f***ed.
flat out refused to blink. That takes unbelievable
nerve. Yeah. You were sitting across from seasoned
journalists on Nightline. They're asking you
complex, porny questions about actual immigration
law. If you stumble even once, or if you accidentally
use wrestling jargon, the entire jig is up. Right,
you look foolish. But he realized something really
profound about the media landscape. Cable news
functions almost exactly like professional wrestling.
It desperately needs conflict. It needs a polarizing
heel to drive up the ratings. So he just gave
them the exact heel they were looking for. He
argued passionately for SB 1070. He spewed the
nativist rhetoric perfectly. And the news networks
ate it up because whether they agreed with him
or not, it made for incredibly compelling television.
It really heavily blurs the line, doesn't it?
Right. He literally used real world. political
polarization to sell tickets to a predetermined,
scripted fight. And it absolutely worked. The
crowd heat was incredibly real. It all finally
culminated in a massive Lucha Estiapuestas match
down in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Translate that
term for me. What is that? It means a betting
match. It is the absolute highest stakes you
can have in traditional lucha libre. This was
in January 2011. R .J. Brewer versus Magno. Magno
puts his legendary mask on the line, which represents
his identity and his entire culture. And what
does Brewer put up? Brewer puts his hair on the
line. Pair versus mask. Yeah. The ultimate classic
stipulation. And the building was just ready
to riot. The atmosphere was electric. And in
the very end, Brewer finally lost. So he actually
had to sit there and shave his head. Completely
bald, right in the middle of the ring. It is
the ultimate public humiliation for the... Arrogant,
untouchable villain. The crowd finally got their
emotional catharsis. The evil governor's son
was humbled. It is just perfect traditional storytelling.
But it's just amazing to me that he could balance
that mentally. Because let's be very clear here.
And we absolutely have to be neutral reporting
this. These views he was shouting on CNN weren't
necessarily John Stagikas' actual personal views.
He was playing a deeply controversial part. And
that is the big man behind the curtain reveal
of this whole deep dive. If you dig into John
Stagikas, the actual person, the contrast to
his character is almost hilarious. Yeah, looking
at his bio here, he literally owns a villa down
in Costa Rica. Right. The guy who was on national
television constantly preaching isolationism
and America first. Frederick literally owns vacation
property in Central America. And he also actively
works with shelter dogs. He trains them. He has
worked a regular job in real estate. By all accounts,
from people who know him, he is a very quiet,
compassionate, normal guy. Which honestly just
makes the performance of R .J. Brewer even more
impressive. He somehow tapped into a specific
darkness that wasn't. authentically him he amplified
it to 10 and he served it up on a silver platter
to an audience that was desperate to see that
specific kind of villain get beaten it really
perfectly highlights the fundamental difference
between cheap heat and real heat in wrestling
what's the difference Well, cheap heat is just
walking into an arena in Boston, grabbing the
microphone and saying the Red Sox suck. Right.
Easy booze. Exactly. Real heat is wearing a giant
SB 1070 logo in a room full of people who might
personally be deported or marginalized because
of that actual law. That is very dangerous heat.
Yeah. But because he was a consummate professional,
because he was that disciplined technician from
his Ring of Honor days, he could control that
danger perfectly. He kept everyone in the ring
physically safe while making the audience truly
believe they were participating in a riot. So
after the whole Lucha Libre USA run wrapped up,
the character kind of had to fade away, right?
I mean, you just can't keep that intense level
of political heat going forever without real
consequences. No, you really can't. He had a
period of quiet inactivity. The MTV show eventually
ended. But you know how pro wrestlers are. They
never actually retire. Never. In November of
2020, he actually announced a return to full
-time wrestling. Once you are a worker, you are
always a worker. So when you look back at this
whole crazy arc, the college football player,
the pure technical wrestler, the background druid,
the polarizing political pundit, what is the
main takeaway from all these sources? For me,
looking at the media coverage, it is really all
about the raw power of commitment. John Stagikis
wasn't the biggest guy in the locker room. He
wasn't the most acrobatic flyer. But he committed
to the bit harder than anyone else possibly could.
He committed so incredibly hard that he somehow
ended up on the front page of the L .A. Times
operating as a totally fake person. Exactly.
He realized a very dangerous truth. If you treat
your own fiction with enough absolute seriousness,
the real world will eventually start to treat
it as fact. It is actually kind of terrifying
when you really think about it. Why is that?
Because if a guy who trained in a wrestling ring
in Massachusetts can put on a nice suit. and
completely fool CNN anchors just by speaking
loudly and confidently, who else is doing that
right now? That is the ultimate million -dollar
question. We turn on the TV every single night,
we see these intense political debates, we see
these personalities clashing and screaming, and
we just automatically assume it's all 100 % real
and authentic. But the story of R .J. Brewer
proved that you can totally hack that system.
He proved that with the exact right costume and
the right inflammatory catchphrases in what we
call the news often becomes just another form
of professional wrestling. It really is just
performance art masquerading as serious discourse.
And that is definitely something for you to chew
on the next time you are sitting there watching
a panel of angry experts screaming at each other
on television. You might just be watching a well
-crafted work and not even realize it. Always
remember to check the source. Thanks for listening
to this deep dive into the strange and blurred
reality of RJ Brewer. We will catch you on the
next one. Stay curious.