Welcome to this curated educational transcript of the Joe Rogan Experience. In this session, we provide a deep-dive examination of the critical perspectives and historical dialogues presented in Episode #1598. Our mission is to offer a high-fidelity, searchable research resource for students of cultural history, emerging technology, and global discourse. This transcript has been specifically optimized for academic reference, linguistic study, and archival preservation regarding Sports Entertainment Evolution, Professional Wrestling History, and the Psychology of Longevity. Joe Rogan Podcast. Check it out. The Joe Rogan
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The Undertaker and the biggest fucking wrestling
fan on planet Earth. Like I was saying before
the podcast, if I did not bring Tony Hinchcliffe
on this podcast, I would have never heard the
end of it. No one loves you more than that, man.
Like, being right next to you right now is probably...
He's tingling. He's tingling a little bit. It
might be lactating. This is the highlight of
my life. I don't know if I'm happy or sad about
that. But anyway, thanks for coming on here.
I really appreciate it. No, thanks for having
me, man. It's an honor, really. Oh, my pleasure.
Honor to have you. So what is it like being in
Austin, Texas right now? Are you enjoying it?
You're from this area, right? Yeah, well, I'm
from Houston. But I've been here since about
2004. you know it's crazy man we got this influx
of people from california right now i know we're
trying not to fuck it up what should we do tell
us what to do uh you know it's fine bring the
money leave the values and we'll all be good
what values do we need to leave behind specifically
well fuck everything that fucked up california
yeah i think that's the government man no it
really what the government gets voted in though
right yeah but i don't think we expected them
to do that Exactly. Yeah, no one expected them
to shut down all the restaurants and shut down
all the gyms. And now that studies have come
out, there was a new study that came out. It
was in fucking Newsweek. I'm hoping that when
Biden comes in, they're going to go, well, you
know, we realize that lockdowns are not really
good. It doesn't really help. Give people freedom
and let them do. I'm hoping that this is a political
thing, which is a terrible thing to hope for,
that this is political. But that's where we're
at, though. Yeah, but that's where we're at.
I'm hoping that it was all political and that
they'll adjust once Biden is in office. Yeah,
I hope so, too. It's been nuts, man. It's crazy.
What do you believe, too, right? Exactly. You
hear this, you hear that. My buddy Brendan Schaub
just went down to the comic store the other day.
He rode his bike down there. He said, dude, it's
like the fucking Walking Dead. He said, Sunset
is just a zombie land. Yeah, it's crazy. Tents
and shit and weirdos and no businesses open and
everything's just amazing how quick things can
fall apart. Quick. Like that. Yeah. Like that.
Everything changes. And the Sunset strip's extra
sad because, like, all the neon lights and everything
is what? kept it when those things are shut off
it's as dark as it gets like even the comedy
store it's just a black building with a bunch
of red and white neons around it but if those
neons are off it is just it looks like nothing's
there you gotta wonder what's what's gonna happen
when everything comes back like how long is it
gonna take for things to bounce back it could
take five years yeah it could that or just everybody
lose their freaking mind and you know just go
absolutely ape shit because they've been cooped
up for so long yeah We can do what? We're good?
Let's party. Let's go. What have you been doing,
man? What have you been doing with your life
post -wrestling? Trying to figure out what's
next, really. I've done this for 33 years altogether.
This is crazy. It's just one of those deals.
You're walking around like you're okay, though.
A lot of the guys that hit 30 years, man. I hung
out with Iron Sheik one night. That poor guy.
Very entertaining. Hilarious. It's great. Hilarious.
I love Sheiky. But you're right. He can barely
walk. His ankle's fused. He can't walk. I've
already got both my hips. Birmingham resurfaced
job, so my hips are metal. It's incredible that
they can do that now. Well, it added 10 years
to my career. Oh, so you did it and then kept
going. So I did the first one. I did the left
one in 2010. Wow. I mean, it looked like they
filmed the whole thing for me. And my hip joint,
the ball socket, looked like a landmine had gone
off on it. I mean, it was just potholes. And
I had spurs and arthritis. It was filled it up.
And they'd only been doing them for about 10
years at that point. So they didn't have a whole
lot of scientific study on how long these were
going to last. And then no one was going to put
it to the test like I did. Right. Especially
with the amount of weight you're carrying around
and then picking people up and slamming them.
And getting slammed and just all that jarring.
So Dr. Sue out of the hospital for special surgeries,
he was just... And he was so gung -ho because,
like, you know, that was his baby. And, you know,
he knew what I was going to do. And he's like,
no one's put that kind of test on it. We're going
to see. And I was like, yeah, we're going to
see. And it's held up. I've been – I was in pain
easily 12 years, every step of every day. You
know, it was just – you know, I had that searing
down the leg pain. And you just dealt with it.
I just dealt with it. You know, it was just –
it's part of the game. Thankfully, I've got a
high threshold for pain. But you know, people
that are in chronic pain all the time and you
live with it, you don't even realize the drag
it is on you. I mean, you get used to it, but
you don't know how much until it's gone. And
when I woke up from surgery and I'm pain -free,
it was like, this is a whole new lease on life.
re -motivated me to do, you know, things. Right
away you were pain free? As soon as I woke up.
Wow. How's that possible? Don't they have a saw
at the top of your hip off? No, so here's what
they do, and I wish I'd have brought it with
me, but we're trying to pack our house up and
move. So they take the head of the femur, all
right, the top of the leg bone. They go in there
first, and they clean everything off of it. They
get all the arthritis. They shave all that off.
Bore it and clean it as good as they can clean
it. Then they drill a hole in it in the head
of your femur. And then they take a titanium
cap and they stick over the head of the femur.
Jamie could probably find it if you know the
exact model. Yeah, there it is right there. That's
it. Jamie's on the motherfucking ball. That's
money right there to pull that up like that.
Birmingham hip. follow -up so that is uh what
yours looks like so this thing yeah so the thing
with the stem on the right side there that goes
right into the head of the femur and then the
porous piece of metal that goes over the top
of it goes into the acetabulum and no restrictions
wow no restrictions yeah i had to walk i was
walking on the left is the old way to do it right
So they see A and B over there on the right -hand
side? Yeah, and they still do it that way. And
if I screw these up, I can still have the total
hip where they'll go in there, cut the femur
off. What would be the benefit of doing that,
though? Well, at the time, if I'd have done the
full hip replacement, then I would have been
finished. Right. Yeah, because it just couldn't
have took the trauma that I put it through. Right.
But the resurfacing, that way... I have absolutely
no restrictions. Wow. Yeah. So you have no pain
now. How long is this supposed to last? Like
don't they say that you might have to get another
one of these or do something with it eventually?
Eventually. They don't know. Like I said, when
I did the first one, they'd only been doing them
for about 10 years. And no one, you know, no
one had. got in a wrestling ring and get thrown
around 270 days a year on it to either you know
i mean it's just well think about cars right
you can get like a 95 land cruiser with 300 000
miles on it right easy and they're driving they're
driving fine like and those pistons are just
going and maybe it can just keep going yeah no
warranty yeah there's no warranty but i you know
i just I keep holding off and they get medicine
keeps getting better and better. And yeah, no,
it'll definitely continue to get better. I mean,
it's just incredible that you can do that and
then still wrestle. I mean, yeah. And then when
I did the other one, I did the other one, maybe
five years later, same thing. Yeah. Same thing.
I only thing then is I kind of had to learn how
to walk again. I mean, I could walk, but I had
to, my gate was so screwed up because I, from
dragging, you know, from dragging the leg and
everything. So I had to. What they had me do
is, weird, strange enough, is start walking backwards.
Huh. On a treadmill to correct my gait. Yeah.
How weird. Yeah, because, you know, you compensate.
When you have an injury, you know, you start
to compensate and do things differently. So I
walked differently to kind of alleviate the pain.
So once I had no pain, I still had the habits
of walking that way. So I had to retrain my brain
and my body to walk correctly again. So the left
hip was the one that was really bothering you
for the longest time and the right hip was bothering
you less? Yeah, I didn't really have, it was
kind of weird how it happened. Like my left hip
was bad for years and years. I finally, you know,
I said, okay, I'm going to call it a day. My
normal orthopedic surgeon, I said, okay, Doc,
I'm going to call it a day. He said, shit, Mark,
you should have called it a day five years ago.
He said, you got more out of that hip than what
anybody ever should have. I was like, well. I'd
come to grips with my career was going to be
over. I cut my hair off. I said, shit, I'm not
going to need this long shit anymore. I cut my
hair off. Sitting at home, phone rings. It was
only about two or three days later, right? And
Dr. Bird, he's out of Nashville. Awesome, awesome
doctor. He's probably the leading doctor in hip
preservation, like taking your natural hip as
far as you can go. Just really good. What does
he do for that? You know, he'll go in orthoscopically,
clean the bone off, clean the spurs out, clean,
you know, he just. And anytime there's, you know,
what starts to happen is you start getting that
arthritis and then the spurs. And it just, what
happens is every time that you're walking, it's
just chewing that up. So he goes in there and
he's actually designed his own instruments, you
know, that he uses to go in there and orthoscopically
clean these hips joints out. So he calls you.
So he calls me and he goes, hey, I might have
another option for you. And I'm like, fuck, I
already shaved my head. He goes, there's this
doctor in New York that's doing this thing called
the Birmingham hip resurface. He says, it may
give you an opportunity to make a decision that
you want to make instead of having it made for
you. I was like, oh, shit, okay. So I go to New
York and I meet with Dr. Sue. And he goes, yeah,
I think you're a perfect candidate. Your bone
density is really great. He says, I think you'll
do good with it, right? So I was like, well,
fuck, let's go for it, right? I got nothing to
lose at that point. And I wake up. I'm pain -free.
And I'm like, holy shit. Like, I'm walking that
day. That day? Yeah. No crutches, no nothing?
I started out on crutches because I had, you
know, for a while I had an epidural in. So, you
know, when I first tried to get up, it was funny.
They bring in two male nurses, right? you know,
I'm three and some change at the time. Right.
So, and I've never had any, you know, kind of
side effects, but I guess I got up and I got
it. Oh, wham. Did they catch you? They got me.
They got, I landed on the bed. So I, you know,
the last thing I remember is getting up to go
take this walk. And the next thing, you know,
I'm laying in bed and my wife's looking at me
like, you okay? And I was like, what? You passed
out. shut up i didn't pass out yeah they got
you up to walk and you passed out wow i was like
got it holy shit yeah i was so you know i was
so looped up i i feel good i'm just so happy
that they could do that for you that they could
resurface both of them when you're walking i
mean because you walk you would never know yeah
it's it is crazy i feel i'm really blessed but
you know now you know If I could, obviously I'd
still be, I'd still be going full steam ahead,
but I just physically can't, I can't perform
at the level, you know, and that's the thing
with, you know, with, when you use your body
for athletic purpose, you know, at some point
it's going to say enough's enough. John Wayne
Parr, he's a Muay Thai champion out of Australia.
You know, John Wayne Parr, he has over a hundred
fights. He's, he's like. He was trying to get
100 wins, but they robbed him on his last decision,
on his 100th win. But he just got his hip redone,
and he's throwing kicks again. It's crazy. Because
I thought, like, he was saying that he needed
to get his hip done. I'm like, well, you know,
I guess the career's over if you get a hip replacement.
But he got a resurfacing, very similar to yours.
I don't know if it's the exact same one. But
he's, like. a couple of weeks later he was like
throwing kicks in the air and uh a couple months
later he's this is him like right post operation
but uh if you go to his instagram jamie like
uh right now like if you can see some video of
him what is that one is he running yeah this
is crazy you can run yeah I mean, he was fucked.
He was in pain for a long time. I mean, that's
just nuts to see him being able to do that. See
if you can... There's a video of him throwing
kicks. He got a float tank, too. Someone hooked
him up with a float tank. Nice. Yeah, there he
is, right there. I mean, this is only a couple...
Oh, this is like a parody of John Codd Van Damme,
the kickboxer. He's being... John's a funny dude.
He's always fucking around. But there's videos
of him... Get out of this one. It is eventually,
but... it's gonna take too long but keep scrolling
down there's a video of him throwing kicks no
no like scroll down right there that's it exactly
so this is uh i think this is three months post
surgery and he can throw kicks so he's got someone
holding the pads for him which is just yeah it's
insane and that's that leg That leg he's throwing
right there, that was the one that he felt much.
Yeah, and there's so much pressure. And John's
in his 40s. But he's a fucking savage to the
end. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy, man. Modern
medicine, it's phenomenal, man. It really is.
And from the fans' perspective, they don't tell
you when these guys are getting surgery and things
like that. You know what I mean? What do you
think happened? Well, we don't... What do you
mean? No, we don't know when they're getting
surgery. So my point is, is like, for example,
you know, you're watching The Undertaker, right?
Who's already been doing it years longer than
all of his peers and all that. And maybe you
could tell that matches not necessarily are different
or slower, but they're just. They are. They're
different than obviously headlining an hour -long
WrestleMania match, right? I think you just dissed
me. I'm not sure. No. I think you did. I felt
it. You felt that, right? I didn't like it. But
the return on that is that people say, like,
oh, this must be it. This must. We're coming
towards the end of The Undertaker. Right. It's
different than it's always been. And then he
would come back from one of these hip surgeries,
and it would literally add to the mystique of
The Undertaker because all of a sudden he's...
faster, stronger, right? For a while there, that
was the template. At the end of my career, I
had to almost like a fighter. When a fighter
goes into camp, because I would get ready for
one event. For years, I had an eight -year stretch
where I averaged 270 dates a year. That's what
a lot of people don't. They don't get that part
of what we do. They don't get the live events,
town to town, flying everywhere. That is bananas.
Easily. Easily eight years, 278. With the beginning
of my career in the early 90s with WWE on the
weekends, we'd do two shows a day. Boo! Yeah.
Oh, my God. Who works harder than pro wrestlers?
Like literally. Honestly, I mean, obviously I'm
biased, but a lot of people really, they don't
get that because they see Monday nights or they
see the Friday night show and they don't know
that we're doing live events. And when I came
up in the early 90s, we only did TV like every
three weeks. We would tape three weeks of TV
and the rest of that time we're on the road.
It'd be like they're throwing darts. Like, one
day I'd be in New York. The next day I'd be in
Denver. Then I'd be in Miami. Then I'd be in
Toronto. Then I'd be in L .A. Then I'd be in
Dallas. You must have been in a constant state
of jet lag. Oh, I say fucked up, really, honestly.
I mean, we had a motto. We'll sleep when we're
dead, right? I mean, you're young. You know,
when you're young, you've got that kind of energy
and you can do all that and, you know, you're
going out and you're enjoying your nightlife
too. Well, no wonder why so many guys have a
problem with pills too because you're in a constant
state of pain. Absolutely, yeah. Things have
progressed in our industry so much. Like, we
are on the same standards now of... Major League
Baseball and the football. I mean, our drug testing
programs, wellness programs, concussions. I mean,
we are probably in some cases even, you know,
better. Why would they test you for drugs? Why?
Yeah. Well, so, one, well, prescription drugs.
Right. You know. Just see if you've got a problem.
They started out early on, you know. So we're
talking 90s, right? So they didn't want people
getting popped with, you know, getting pulled
over and cops finding weed in the car or whatnot.
So that would be a fine. You'd get fined a little
bit this time. The second time, you'd get fined
a little more. The third time, you'd get fined
and maybe have to go, you know, rehab. But I
think what they kind of figured out, I think
they still do, but they didn't realize when they
took that away, what are you going to do? You're
going to drink more. And then you're going to
take more pills. Because you've got to cope with
the pain somehow. And so then you've got guys
overdosing, right? So everything's kind of led
up to this drug protocol now. We have, I mean,
we're talking about, we didn't have doctors with
us at the time. We didn't even have trainers
with us back then. Now we travel with trainers,
doctors. you know, there's all kinds of protocols.
You get, you get your head, you know, you get
a dinger used to, it was like, okay, well, you
know, I gotta go, I gotta go make a living. Right.
You know, it's the same with injuries. Like you
don't work, you don't get paid. Right. So, you
know, in that sense, our industry's come a long
way. They really take. good care of the athletes
now. When you think of drug tests, people think
about steroids. Yeah. If I was Vince, I would
tell people, I want to make sure you're on steroids.
I'd be testing everybody. Well, we've had a few
different... Why are you not on steroids? You're
a pro wrestler. Come on, bro. You would think,
right? There was a time where everybody had to
be... You had to be clean? No, you had to be
big. You had to be jacked, right? Yeah. And especially
the guys, you know, the 6 '8", the big guys.
There was the stigma. You've got to be 300 pounds.
Right. It's in our head. Nobody gives a shit.
They're interested in the characters and what
you do on TV. But in our heads, like, fuck, I've
got to be 330 pounds. They're interested a little
bit. But if a guy like Brock Lesnar comes out
and he looks skinny, people would be furious.
Yeah. Even the guys that weren't huge had to
do it to stay medium. you know what i mean like
i was friends with uh roddy piper right and he
was telling me about it and he's like well yeah
i mean you you had to even keep to even stay
in the middle to stay in the game you had to
be on steroids that was that was the wrestler's
mindset though now that we're tested for everything
they test for steroids they test for stare they
have for a while really yeah and which i don't
understand because there's some big out there
yeah and cut And I don't know how they did it.
I couldn't get that way when I was on steroids.
Who's the biggest guy in the WWE right now? I'm
going to pull up a picture. Braun Strowman. Passes
the sniff test. Yeah. Braun, I think he's about
my height. He used to be a power lifter. Let
me see. Here you go, Jeremy. Oh, Jesus. So, yeah,
he's 330 pounds. Look. Are we trying to say that
that guy doesn't do any steroids at all? I'm
just telling you. Hey, I'm just telling you.
This is preposterous. They test him. They test
him. And then they give him a grade A. Good job.
I'm just saying. Look, I can only say what I've
had to go through. I mean, it's positive. It's
possible, right? It has to be because I'm telling
you. So before I switched my contracts, and now
I'm not a talent, now I'm a legend, I guess,
or whatever they call it, I'd only work two or
three times a year. This is at the end of my
career. But I was still under a regular contract.
So under a regular contract, you have to, this
is if you've tested clean, you have to have four
mandatory tests, four mandatory piss tests, and
two blood tests every year. well, they'd get
to the end of the year. Like it'd be December,
right? Going into Christmas and I'd get a call
like, uh, you need to go to this such and such
lab and, and, and do a piss test. And I hadn't
been in a ring in six, seven months, but they
would look at their book. Oh shit. We forgot
about him. And it's under, you know, you've got
to have, you've got to have those piss tests
done. So then, okay, well that's only three.
Sure enough. Next day I get another phone call,
go back to the lab. So, you know, I'd have to
go two days in a row to get tested to make sure
that I had everything that I was supposed to
have. Maybe that's how they do it. Maybe they
bang all their tests out early in the year, test
four days in a row, and then just do steroids
the rest of the year. No, they're totally random.
They just show up. The drug testing, you never
know when they're going to show up. I was home.
That's why I didn't get tested until the very
end. I just don't understand why they would test.
I mean, that's like testing the rock. Like if
he's doing a movie, you want to make sure you're
not on steroids. You'd be like, what? Well, so
obviously, you know, we've had some dark shit.
Come on, son. I'm just saying, brother. Come
on. Well, he is the beef king. Come on, look
at the size of that fucker. He used to be a power
lifter. Yeah, he was 400 pounds at one time,
and he's my height. It's possible to be that.
Like, it's not bodybuilding size, right? Bodybuilding
size is impossible. Yeah. That's not possible.
No, yeah. Yeah, if you look at Ronnie Coleman
in his prime, not possible. Not possible. But
that guy, maybe some Viking DNA in there. I don't
know. He's a giant fucking dude. Maybe. I know
what the protocol is, and I know if anybody was
going to get out of it, it would have been me.
Right. And I didn't get out of it, so I'm just
saying. Did they test Vince? I don't know. Yeah.
Like, I don't, Hey, I wish whatever he's on.
I wish I was on, you know, look at that guy.
Yeah. He's 85. That's all he does. He's 70. He's
75. Come on. Who the fuck has traps like that
when they're 75? Like, if you didn't know that
was his traps, you would say he's going to die.
He has a tumor. He's got a tumor on his back.
Who's size is that man? Let me tell you though.
That guy, that's what he does. He's a fucking
animal. His love is working out. Who the fuck
has ever been that big at that age? Ever. He's
phenomenal, man. How old is he? He's 75. He's
older than my mom. I'm going to send my mom a
picture of him. I don't want to hear any excuses.
Get it together, mom. No excuses, mom. His mom
is 99. His mom's 99 and was still playing tennis
in her 90s. Jesus Christ. I mean, he's just got
some, he's got some, that's his trainer there.
Wow. Uh, he's shooting them in the back right
now. It's just all day long. Just keep hitting
them. He's the one guy I'll call. He'll call
me out of the clear blues. Hey, you work out
today. Wow. I'm like, no boss. I didn't. What's
wrong. He's like, I don't feel like it. He's
like, well, you need to get your ass in the gym.
It's amazing his enthusiasm after all these years.
Look at that picture where it says related images
right below that with him screaming. Go to that
one. Amazing enthusiasm after all these years
in the game. It really is pretty incredible.
He is a workhorse. His company and working out.
It's kind of crazy. That's his love, man. That's
his passion. That's what causes success. I mean,
it really is. It's consistency. But look at him
there. He looks like he's about 30. Probably.
And look at him on the right. He's 150 years
old and still jacked. It's crazy. I love it.
I love people like that. I do, too. I wish I
had a little bit of it right now. Well, he's
been lifting weights and occasionally wrestling.
Yeah. You've been wrestling. Well, what year
did you start? I started. Training in 86. Wow.
Had my first match in 87. Dude, I was just out
of high school. I mean, we don't need to know
everything. That is crazy. It's been a long time.
It was tough for me. I'm not a legacy. I didn't
have anybody in the business. I didn't know anybody
in the business. So usually you need somebody
to open that door for you, right? So in 86, were
you thinking, like, I've got to figure out a
way how to do this? How did you start taking
classes? So I was in college. I was a basketball
player, right? And my coach tells me, hey, Mark,
there's some European scouts that are interested
in you. Maybe after next year, they may want
to give you a tryout. european pro basketball
right but they all say they want to get you you
know they'd like for you to be a little bigger
because of the style they played back then okay
so i start lifting weights trying you know i'm
six foot eight 230 240 which is in in the 80s
is huge for a basketball player but still so
i started training european league were they
just more physical yeah yeah that you know it
was like uh rick mahorn and and bill lambeer
you know on the gas they were just monsters and
so I start training and I'm trying to you know
put on size and strength and I met this guy in
the gym who was like every day I'd come in he
goes hey he goes man I'm gonna I'm gonna go and
I'm gonna I'm gonna get in this wrestling I want
you to do wrestling with me and I was a big wrestling
fan as a kid but as I got into you know basketball
and football and everything else I kind of you
know I kind of drifted away yeah and I was just
like man, I think I'm going to go try to play
some pro ball in Europe. And he goes, man, you
should really try and do this with me. So I kind
of started getting in touch with the product
again. I kind of started watching again, and
I got no clue. I kind of fall back into it again,
right? I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. That's
different. I think one of the things that's helped
me through my career is being a realist. what
my talents are and what my talents aren't. And,
you know, I was like, you know, I kind of started
having these conversations with myself. Like,
even if you do make a team, you know, I mean,
how long do you really have? Right. And being
21 and sitting on the end of the bench in Lithuania
just really didn't, wasn't that appealing of
a, you know, you know, I'm trying to weigh it
up against what I'm seeing on TV. Right. And
I'm like, you know, I'm like, because you got
the Von Eriks and you got Hogan. I'm like, well,
these guys are, huge household names, you know?
So I'm thinking maybe I ought to give it a try.
So we find this guy by the name of Buzz Sawyer
to, to train us. Right. And I got to come up
with two grand and I ain't got a pot or a window
to throw it out of. Right. So I, uh, I get my
brother, my oldest brother to co -sign a loan,
hawk everything I own and, uh, come up with two
grand to pay Buzz Sawyer to train, train me to
wrestle. show up to his house, first morning
of training, right? Buzz was a – he was a good
amateur, really good amateur. And show up at
his house, knocking on the door, knocking on
– there's about 10 of us standing out in the
fucking front yard, knocking on the door. Finally,
fucking door swings open. What the fuck do you
want, right? He's standing there butt -ass naked.
Woke him up out of a – he's just standing there
naked. And everybody's like, we're here to train?
And he goes, oh, fuck, is that today? Yeah, you
know, and so he gets another guy that was staying
there with him. His name was Perry Jackson, who
I'm friends with to this day. He says, go out
there and warm them up, right? So he goes out
there and we run and do all, just, I mean, everything
they can do to blow us up and run us off, right?
Totally gassed out, about two hours, just nothing
but cardio shit, right? Finally, Buzz comes out.
All right, everybody line up. All right, everybody
get down. Amateur position, right? So everybody
gets down. Fucking he just stretches the shit
out of everybody, right? Cross -faced, just fucking
chicken wing and just hooking everybody and rolling
them around in his front yard, right? That was
it, right? Then he goes in the house. Y 'all
come back a couple other days. So this goes on
for weeks. And, like, every time I show up, there's,
like, one less guy that shows up. Until I was
the last one there. So I'm the last one there.
I knock on the door. Knock on the door. Fuck.
He never answers, right? So I start peering in
the windows. Fucking all the furniture's gone.
Everything's gone. He's gone. He's gone to a
different territory to work. He just left, right?
Never learned any pro wrestling. He was just
teaching you wrestling. He was just teaching
me. Obviously, we signed up to teach us how to
pro wrestle, but he just came out there, and
his whole goal, and this is the way it was back
then, is they always try to take your money,
and then they try to run you off. Most of the
guys in that era were all shooters. They were
all good amateurs, and that was what they would
do. They would take your money, and they'd hurt
you, twist you, try and get you to quit. And
they got your money, and, you know, they didn't
have to worry about it. There's some wrestling
trainers that were famous for, like, crazy physical
training standards before they ever taught you
anything. Like Carl Gotch. Oh, yeah. I'm sure
you know who Carl Gotch is. Carl Gotch, who is
not just a wrestler, but one of the... He's like
one of the legends of catch wrestling. Catch
wrestling is like... It's a lot like submission
wrestling that you see in the UFC or in jiu -jitsu,
but it's very wrestling -oriented. Whereas jiu
-jitsu maybe would be... I don't want to say
it's less technical, but it's more violent. It's
a lot of snapping people down and cross -facing.
guillotines and ten finger guillotines and there's
still a lot of like um sakuraba was like one
of the legends of mma learned yeah from uh another
catch wrestler in japan and a lot of guys who
like josh barnett is another one who's a big
uh catch wrestling uh enthusiast he his style
is all and he you know he submitted a lot of
like really elite guys but yeah carl gotch was
famous for making you had to you had to be able
to do crazy like i think you had to do a thousand
body weight squats you had to be able to do like
you had to do all these things before you even
teach you anything like you had to be fucking
tip -top magoo before you would ever get into
those ropes yeah absolutely and that was the
whole goal was to run you off that you know weed
out the week read out the week yeah and then
if you went through all of that and you were
still there okay well this kid you know you know
let's see what he you know let's see if we can
teach him how to do this. But there was that
big weed out process. And that was, yeah, I think
Buzz's whole deal, his whole deal was a scam
from the start. I mean, he, he wanted the money
and he knew, you know, what, you know, back then
we had territories before Vince kind of, you
know, took it nationwide, you know, Texas had
a territory. California had a couple of territories.
Oregon. $2 ,000 in 86 is a lot of fucking money.
That's a lot of money for a kid in college on
a scholarship. I didn't have shit. I sold everything
I owned. So you're fucked. How do you go from
there? I lived in my car for a little bit. You
know, bounced in bars, collected a little money
here and there. I just did whatever I could just
to, you know, keep eating and keep training and
did what I could. And I knew, so the Von Eriks
ran Dallas. That was their hub, world -class
championship wrestling. And I knew that they
were in the office on Wednesday. Like, they would
come in there and book the cards, and the guys
would come in, get their paychecks and shit on
Wednesday. So every Wednesday for about eight
months, I would go down there, and I'd sit in
the lobby. And fucking guys would come right,
walk right by me, not even acknowledge my presence.
Every Wednesday? Every Wednesday for eight months,
I went and just sat there. And eight months.
Did you ask to speak to anybody? Yeah, so there
was a referee back there. His name was Bronco
Lubitsch. He was the only one that would speak
to me, right? And they would be kind of like,
you're here again, huh, kid? I was like, yes,
sir, Mr. Lubitsch. I was hoping maybe I'd get
a chance to talk to somebody today. All right,
well, just good luck. And I would sit there.
And I'd walk by and try to like, as somebody
would come through, I'd kind of start to stand.
Fuck, they ever stopped. Just blew right by me.
One day, I was right at the end of my ride. I
was like, fuck, I'm not getting anywhere here.
And Fritz von Erich, the patriarch of the family,
the guy that owned the company, came in. And
he walked in, and he stopped, and he looked at
me. Once again, I started to get up and introduce
myself. He turned around and went into Bronco's
office. He had a deep, gravelly voice, and I
could hear him. He's like, who's that kid out
there? He's been coming here for months. He's
just trying to get booked. I heard Fritz go,
book him. Book him Friday night. I want to see
what he can do. He looks just like David, one
of his sons that he had lost. I looked a lot
like David, and that's how I got my first break.
Wow. Because I was in the right place at the
right time. So had you ever practiced? No, I
was practicing. But I'd never had a real match.
Every little outlaw, independent kind of deal
that I could get, I was doing. But I hadn't worked
with top guys or, you know. When you say, like,
outlaw independent, like, so you were doing some
matches? I was doing some matches, but not professional.
Like, not televised, not for a real company.
Right. It's just like some jackass, like, okay,
I'm a wrestling promoter. I'm going to go to
the Knights of Columbus Hall and see if I can
put 20 people in here. You know, that's the kind
of shit you would do. And then you have to go
for no money. And then, you know, you'd set up
the ring, whatever you had to do. But the wrestling,
the time in the ring was what was so valuable
at that point is getting those reps and getting
that stuff. So they booked me. And I don't know
if you've heard of Bruiser Brody. Yes. Yes. Tough
guy. In anybody's standards back then especially.
It was my first match. Right. So. I'm a pretty
respectful guy, and I'm sure in any industry,
even a new comic, you pay respect to the older
guy. I mean, it's just the way it should be and
the way it really was back then, especially in
our business. You didn't say much. You spoke
when spoken to kind of deal. And so Bruiser Brody
is my first professional match, right? Wow. I
don't know. I'm 20. 21 maybe. And, uh, I'm, you
know, I'm in the ring and I'm looking at him.
I'm like, fuck, I'm bigger than he is. This is
the shit that's going on in my head. Right now.
I'm so nervous. Like you couldn't have drove
a nail up my ass with a sledgehammer. I'm so
nervous to start with, but I'm looking at like
that, that, that stupid voice in the back of
my head. It's like, you're fucking bigger than
he is. You know, cause bruiser Brody was bigger
than life, man. He had all that hair and he was
just. He was an animal, right? So the bell rings,
and I tie up with him, collar and elbow, and
I jam him up into a corner. Hey, kid, lighten
up a little bit, kid. Relax. And I'm just like,
I mean, my body's like angle iron, right? I'm
so just, whoa. Anyway, so I go to shove him,
and my hands, you know, we're kind of hand fighting
a little bit, and my hand slips off, and I kind
of. You know, I kind of palm him in the face.
Temperature in the room changed a little bit
at that moment. So we tie up again, and I'm about
to shoot him across the ring, and I shoot him
across the ring, and I'm yelling, like, I'm going
to hit him with a clothesline. So I tell him,
clothesline, right? He comes off the ropes like
a bullet, like a 6 '5". 300 -pound bullet, and
he kicks me square in my fucking jaw. My eyes
rolled back in my head, and next thing I know,
he's grabbing me. He's like, let's go for a walk,
right? So he throws me out of the ring and throws
me down on this table in this place called the
Sportatorium in Dallas. They've torn it down
now, but they had the folding chairs that had,
they were metal. But then they had the wood slats.
Fuck. He takes this chair as hard as he can.
We're not talking about the metal folding chairs,
which hurt enough in their own right when you
get hit enough times with them. He swings as
hard as he can. This chair just fucking explodes.
Wood slats fly all over the place. I'm thinking,
I've never been hit so hard. I've been hit, you
know, but I've never been hit that hard. by anything
at that point. He throws me back in the ring,
ties me all up in the ropes, right? I'm greener
than shit. Don't know what the hell I'm doing.
And he just starts hitting the other ropes and
coming and just kicking me as hard as he can
in the head. Oh, my God. And I deserved it. You
know, I mean, he was giving me a lesson that
I needed to learn. Anyway, a couple of minutes
later, boom, he pins me. And, you know, that
was it. We go back to the dressing room, and
I'm like, holy shit, I just got the shit kicked
out of me. And I went over to him. I was like,
Mr. Brody, thank you. He said, all right, kid,
just relax next time, will you? I was like, yes,
sir. I just appreciate being in the ring with
you. And went back off in my corner to kind of
gather where I was. And I overheard him telling
the promoter, he's like. fuck, you ought to book
this kid some more. They were trying to find
someplace else to send me. He said, that kid's
going to be something. But at the time, I was
too green. I didn't know what the fuck I was
doing, so I had to go somewhere else. But that
was my first introduction into wrestling, and
I got thumped pretty good. Isn't it crazy when
you think back to the days in the gym when you
were getting ready to go play basketball? If
you didn't meet that guy, who knows where you
would have gone? Yeah, I would have probably
tried to make a team somewhere, but I don't think
that would have lasted because I wasn't real,
you know, I mean, I was limited. I mean, I wasn't,
you know, my game was limited enough. I would
have probably ended up in the military, I'm pretty
sure. Isn't it crazy how life just, I mean, do
you ever think about that? I think about it all
the time. That one dude who was like your doorway
to a different life, to becoming a superstar.
There's one guy. You run into one guy in your
life. It changes your direction, and then all
of a sudden you become wildly successful at this
other thing that you were not even really considering.
Yeah, it's nuts. And just the fact that I went
to and sat in that lobby for eight months. Eight
months. And it was at the end. I was like, fuck,
this is getting me nowhere. And then just one
day. That is what people need to hear, man. In
this day and age, everybody wants everything
to happen right away. Yeah. You know? That is.
Everybody's got that sense, one, the sense of
entitlement and figure they're owed something.
Yeah. And, you know, and aren't willing to put
in the grind. Yeah. And, you know, I tell people,
you know, yeah, I was living in my car. Yeah.
You know, sometimes I could stay with my brother,
but there was a lot of nights I had to sleep
in a Monte Carlo with fucking... at 6 '8 and
315 pounds is not real comfortable. Is there
more of a pathway, like an obvious pathway, for
a guy to get into pro wrestling today? So, yeah.
So we have in Orlando, it's called the Performance
Center. And they have, you know, there's still
wrestling schools, legitimate wrestling schools
around the country. And then every once, I don't
know how many times a year, Then they'll have
a call there at the PC like, okay, you go in
and they test you and see if you're, one, physically
fit enough to do it. And then, two, you know,
do you have some personality? Do you have something
that you can bring to the table that might be
a draw? And then if they book you, I mean, this
is the crazy part right here. If they feel like
you might have, you know, a chance or something
to offer. You get a contract right there, and
you get a contract to train. Really? All you
have to do is train. That's how far we've come.
That's amazing. From my story. Eight months in
the lobby. Eight months in the lobby, getting
people walking by to, all right, this is your
contract. Yeah, this is our place in Orlando
right here. Well, you know, it makes sense for
them because, I mean, you need talent. Absolutely.
You constantly need new talent. Why not just
train them and groom them? Exactly. You train
them and groom them in the way that you want.
We send guys to the combine now, the NFL combine.
Really? They sit there and talk. Who's going
to make it? Who's not going to make it? We go
all over the world now. They recruit in China.
The Middle East, everywhere we have TV programming,
which makes sense as well, they're looking for
that hometown star. If we go to Saudi or somewhere
in Dubai or someplace like that, if you've got
somebody local, that's just great business. How
did you become The Undertaker? So that's Vince's
brainchild. So I went to another company, WCW.
where I was mean Mark Callis. And right there,
check that young stud out right there. That's
terrifying, isn't it? You look like an enormous
hobbit. Yeah, we can take that down anytime.
So I go there. I was there about eight or nine
months, and my contract was coming up. And I
go in to renegotiate my contract, and they were
like, look, you're a great athlete, kid, but
no one's ever going to pay money to watch you
wrestle. Like, I'm just looking for a little
bit of bump, right? A little bump in my paycheck.
I'm not looking for the mega deal. I'm just looking
for a little bit of bump. Now, we're going to
give you the same deal for a year. I mean, you
do great things in the ring, but no one's ever
going to pay money to see you wrestle. Did they
give you advice on how to get someone to pay
you? No. Wow. That was it. That was it. So I'm
like, okay, I know where my ceiling is here,
right? So just through a few different people,
I get connected with some people in the WWF at
the time. It's WWE now. I had a match coming
up, and my hip was already bad at that point,
even back then. Yeah. It got much worse, but
I was already limping. And I just heard it when
we got Vince. They had said, all right, they've
got a pay -per -view just watching work. So Vince
watches me work, and I'm calm. I'm talking to
my buddy Bruce. I'm like. Bruce, my hip is jacked.
He goes, just go out there. Vince is going to
be watching, right? So I'm working with a guy
by the name of Lex Luger. Went out there and
did what I could. I sucked. I mean, I was physically,
you know, I was physically not able really to
go the way I could go. And Vince wasn't impressed.
You know, he's like, okay, he's, you know, he's
running the mill. Fortunately, guys like, you
know, Paul Heyman and Bruce Pritchard. you know,
they believed in me and they kind of kept pushing
for me to get this meeting with Vince. And finally
I did. And he calls me, I got to go to his house.
Right. So I go to his house, Vince's house. Like
it's nice. It's fucking nice. He's in Connecticut,
man. He's yeah. So I'm up in call to the castle.
Oh dude. Yeah. And that's what I'm thinking.
Right. Cause most people go to. you know, the
office, to the towers there in Stanford, right?
And I'm thinking, fuck, I'm going to the house.
I got this shit, right? So I go in and I have
the meeting. The meeting goes for about an hour
and a half. And, you know, there's a lot of...
Does he have a butler? I know he had a housekeeper.
I would imagine there'd be a dude with a British
accent answering the door. I never saw him. No
sleeves, just ripped. Yeah, right. You had to
be, everybody's jacked. It works for rips. So
I go there and, you know, granted, we do some
hokey shit. It is what it is. And they really,
at that point, had some really, really fucking
goofy characters. you know, so that we're having
this, we're sitting in his living room and he
goes, well, Mark, you gotta be hidden talents,
you know, other than, you know, wrestling. Do
you do anything? Yeah. And I'm trying to be funny
and not nervous. And, uh, well, you know, I was
sitting in the shower pretty good. And as soon
as I said it, right. I'm like, Oh fuck. I shouldn't
have said that. I'm going to be fucking, I'm
going to be fucking shower guys. You know, something,
something silly, right? Yeah. I'm going to have
to say, you know, I'm thinking, I'm like, Oh
shit. I should not have said that, right? And
then I'm like, I'm kidding. I'm trying to clear
the air right away. I'm just kidding. I can't
sing. And he's got the look, right? And he can
read people. And he's like, really? No, I can't.
I can't. So I got this long meeting. And at the
end of the meeting, he goes, well, we don't have
anything for you right now. I'm thinking, oh,
fuck. I guess I overplayed my hand here because
I'd already give. WCW, my notice that I was leaving.
I like, fuck, I got it. I mean, this is what
I'm thinking in my head. Right. I was like, he
invited me to the house. He's going to hire me.
Right. So you guys, I see you guys down the road.
So now I'm sitting there. Fuck, I got no job.
And anyway, so one day it's getting, it's getting
close to Thanksgiving and they start doing this
promotion where they've got this giant fucking
egg. Have you heard this story? Oh, yeah. The
gobbledygook. The gobbledygooker, right? So we
do a pay -per -view around Thanksgiving. It's
called Survivor Series. So this year, this particular
year, it's 1990. They're going to... Yeah, there
it is. They've got this giant egg on the set,
on the TV every week. And I'm sitting there thinking
to myself, holy fuck. I'm going to be... Now
I've gone from shower guy, now I think I'm going
to be Eggman, right? Fuck, I'm going to have
to... I'm trying to grow my hair out. Fuck, he's
going to make me shave my head. I'm going to
shave my eyebrows. I'm going to be fucking Eggman.
I'm a nervous wreck. One day I'm sitting at home.
Phone rings. I get up and go answer it because
we didn't have cell phones back then. Hello?
He goes, is this The Undertaker? I was like,
Undertaker. Undertaker and Eggman. Fuck, Undertaker.
That's pretty fucking cool. Yeah, yeah, this
is Undertaker. And it was Vince, and that was
how he introduced the character to me. He called
you up and asked you if you're the Undertaker.
Yeah, and I had no clue to what it was. Wow.
And I said... Yeah, I'm the Undertaker because
I knew it wasn't Eggman and everything had to
be better than Eggman. He wasn't singing the
shower guide. Yeah, he wasn't singing the shower
guide. It wasn't Eggman. Flew me up to Connecticut
the next day, showed me the storyboards, and
the character, the original character, is based
on an old Western Undertaker. You know, the two
guys in Main Street, they had the fucking shootout.
One guy loses, Undertaker comes out and measures
him, does the box. Well, that was the original
likeness. and the name The Undertaker. And he
had just never found the guy. He had had it for
years, I guess. So why did he send you away the
first time? At the time, he didn't have a spot
for me. But he was thinking. But he was thinking,
and then it kind of dawned on him that he had
that character, and he just needed a big guy
with no personality. He needed a guy that was
void of personality to do the deal, and he gave
it to me, and there's my debut right there. That's
November of 1990. And I was six years old and
I was shitting my pants. Were you? This was the
scariest thing you can imagine for a six -year
-old. You know, you're watching all these. It
was some guy in a chicken suit that came out
of that egg to show you how silly things were
back then. So it had our attention. And then
all of a sudden this guy comes out and he's like
half dead and you don't know what's going on
and he's scary. And dominant more than anything.
Yeah, the thing was dominant. But this is the
era of everything. I mean, you could tell. This
guy's in bright pink. So that's Coco Beware.
Yeah, he's wearing some hot yoga pants. Yeah,
that's, you know. I mean, you know, that guy
had a parrot on his shoulder when he came to
the ring. Did he? Yeah. Right, was it a parrot?
Yeah, yeah, Frankie. How does one do a pile driver
and not hurt your opponent? This is the guy to
ask. Yeah. I mean, it's the way you grab them.
You just got to be strong enough to support their
body. And the key for me is when my knees start,
I'm kind of pulling them up. So it's kind of
like a shock absorber. Ideally, the head never
touches. Did you ever see the fight between Bob
Sapp and Minotauro Noguera in Pride? Yeah. That
ruined that guy for the rest of his career. Yeah.
Bob Sapp actually pile -drived him. And Bob Sapp
was 375 with abs. Yeah. He was a freak. Yeah.
And he pile -drived Nogueira, who was at the
time the heavyweight champion. Yeah. It's crazy.
Rampage suplexed some guys. Oh, my God. Arona.
Ricardo Arona. Oh, my gosh. Well, he suplexed
a lot of guys. He slammed a lot of guys. But
Ricardo Arona was the worst slam I've ever seen
in my life. Ricardo Arona caught Rampage in a
triangle. And Rampage picked him up. And instead
of abandoning the triangle, he tried to hang
on. And Rampage picked him up like a pillow.
like you know like you would hit some like your
little brother over the head with a pillow like
you'd lift back like this and then boom and he
slams him into the into the mat and then his
head collides with arona's head upon impact yeah
that's the same way uh rose lost to uh similar
yeah yeah similar way yeah she didn't she didn't
let go yeah exactly dropped on her head yeah
you gotta let go when you get picked up in a
triangle you gotta let go or you gotta hook a
leg it's hard I think for fighters, us, it's
part of every day deal, but I think for a fighter,
it has to screw up your whole perspective because
you don't expect somebody to be able to do that
to you. You know what I'm saying? Your instinct,
I would imagine, is to squeeze tighter. The issue
is it's hard to get a secure triangle. So if
you get to the point where your leg is like that,
you're literally locked in, you don't want to
let that go. But you gotta. Yeah, especially
when you're looking over the top of the cage,
something ain't right. Especially when Rampage
was so fucking strong. That's a scary moment
because Ricardo Arona was really never the same
again. Never the same again. Because before that,
he was a big contender. He was an elite guy,
built like a Greek god. He was a killer. But
that one slam changed his whole career. He was
never the same again. Yeah, it was nasty. That
was really nasty. In wrestling, the amount of
trust that guy has to have in you is off the
charts. Yeah, it really is. I mean, we've established
at this point, I think everybody understands
what wrestling is. I mean, it's sports entertainment.
And I think everybody's kind of gotten over the
fact that that's what we are. We're entertainment.
But I don't think what people really realize
is that in any given match on any given day,
you're two inches away. from something catastrophic
happening. And it, and it is, I mean, it just,
it's that it's that it's two inches from being,
but Holy shit. That was really impressive to
Holy shit. That guy ain't getting up. Right.
And I think, I think a lot of people that, you
know, that, that shit on wrestling, they don't,
they don't understand. They don't understand
that aspect. And you're right. And it does take
an enormous amount of trust. And it's really
hard to get in the ring with somebody. That's
hurt a few people. Right. I mean, you have to
be, you know, I mean, I mean, I've, I lost, you
know, I've lost both eye sockets, but one was
just because the guy was completely out of shape.
There's so many, there's a lot of similarities.
It's one's a sporting event and one sports entertainment
talking about MMA, but you know, there's conditioning
is kind of, I think the key to everything. And,
you know, the guy was out of shape. He was 6
'8", 500 pounds, and I ran straight into what
was supposed to be a clothesline. But he was
so gassed and behind in the spot that instead
of catching the meat of his forearm, I ran right
dead into his fist with his momentum coming off
of the ropes. Oh, jeez. Just blew my, you know,
my eye socket. completely apart and you know
dumb ass me i didn't know it for for three days
but but that's the kind of stuff that did you
have to get it operated on oh yeah yeah i've
had them both rebuilt oh jesus but i didn't you
had to wear the mask yeah wow that's yeah so
so you were just wrestling with a broken orbital
well i'd already had the surgery at this point
but that was just uh so that happened that match
happened And like I said, back then, we didn't
have doctors with us and trainers. So it's funny
how I found out that my face was shattered. So
I wrestled three more days. With a shattered
face? With my orbital socket blown out. So I
wrestled three more days, right? And as stupid
as it sounds, it's normal for our world back
then. You worked hard. It's just the way you
did it. If you could walk, you go to the ring.
And I think, you know, that was part of the mystique
of the guys. They were tough guys, you know.
And I think, so I work, and me and the Godfather,
he's another wrestler, great dude. We were going
to meet up after the show at some bar and hang
out, right? And we were in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Like, I'm looking for the bar, and I can't find
it. So I finally give up. Once again, we don't
have cell phones back then. So I give up. I'm
going to go back to my hotel. So I'm driving,
and I pass this hospital. I said, you know what?
Something just ain't right. Because every time,
you know, I just, like that, my face would just
blow up. And I'm going to just go in and get
this. If there's nobody in there in the emergency
room, I'm going to go in and get this thing checked
out. So sure enough, I drive through. I don't
see anybody in the emergency room, so I go in.
It's midnight. I go in. They do a CAT scan. Doctor.
He comes out. He goes, he says, do you have an
ophthalmologist? And I was like, no. He goes,
well, you need to find one. And you're going
to need a surgeon, too. I'm like, what are you
talking about? He goes, you've lost 50 % of your
orbital floor. It's gone. I'm like, really? I'm
like, okay. So I go home. I call and say, look,
I got to go home. I had this injury. So they
go, I get home. They do another scan, another
CAT scan. They said, no, you've lost more like
70 % of it. So they end up doing the surgery,
two surgeons, one to, so they, you know, they
go inside the eyelid. make the incision. One
surgeon holds up the eye and the nerve while
the other one picks out all the pieces and puts
in the, in the mesh kind of thing. That's going
to be your eye socket. Come to find out I'd lost
90 % of my orbital floor and my optic nerve was
sitting right on top of a piece of jagged bone.
Oh, Jesus. If I took another shot to that side
of my head, I'd have probably lost the eye or
my sight. And it's just, Because we didn't, you
know. So your eye was just hanging on. It was
just hanging. It was just sitting on a piece
of jagged bone. And that would have been it.
You couldn't have. Yeah. I mean, I would have
been, yeah, I'd have been done. And, you know,
so I had the surgery. So the mask, I healed,
I don't know, maybe six weeks. Went and had the
mask made and wrestled in that for a while and
made it part of the story. So what do they put
back there? The mesh. It's a, it's a. So my other
eye that I did, they have, it's titanium, but
this is, it's, it's a, it's a, it's not titanium,
but it's kind of a, a wire mesh that's, that's
just, it's screwed into my, into the bone and
it works as my orbital floor. So you don't have
an orbital floor in that eye anymore. You just
have this wire mesh. Yeah. Is what it looks like.
Yeah. That's what it looks like. Yeah. Do you
feel anything back there sometimes? No, never.
Holy shit. The second one, my right side, I had
a blowout fracture. And funny enough, it was
just a freak thing that happened. The smallest
guy in the company, Ray Mysterio, he's tiny.
But he jumped off the top rope. I should know
what the move is, but I don't. Like right there.
That's it. Right there. See, I set my nose, or
I'm about to, because it broke my nose, too.
Oh, wow. But you're good, man. You're fucking
good. Wow. And you still fought your way out
of it. So that was me grabbing it. I was straightening
my nose out. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, right on your
nose. Oh, Jesus Christ. So I grabbed my nose
right away, and I could feel that it was way
over to the side. So I squeezed it back straight,
but there was three of them. Oh, my God. So that
one, it was just way back in the cone. It blew
out the back end of it. It wasn't as severe as
the first one, but after the second one, left
me with double vision. Like, if I try to, like,
if I look peripherally. Like, you become opaque.
Like, I see two. Like that, I see two lights
when I look like that. Still to this day? To
this day. And that's been over 10 years. And
what did they say is the cause of that? Just
the way the nerve was pressed. You know, when
the fracture happened, it pressed the nerve for
too long. It never kind of... It rewired itself.
There's nothing they can do about that? Not that
I know of. I hadn't tried. As long as I look
straight, I'm good. But what if you have to do
a U -turn? Or what if you're parallel parking?
Exactly. That's funny that you mention it. I've
got to literally turn my body so that I can get
my head straight. Wow. So I can see straight.
because if you turn your eye too far yeah everything
it just kind of instead of that image i got that
image wow that had to certainly affect you in
the ring a lot too after yeah yeah that and then
you know then i have no uh super spinatus either
none none it's completely severed when did that
happen well it was a progression of a lot of
tears and uh The last hair I was working, I think
maybe around 2010, I was working with Kane, who's
just a big, big dude. And I was trying to throw
him up on my shoulder, and I was going to try
to give him a pile driver. But, you know, he's
330 pounds, and his weight kind of gets stuck
here, and I'm too stupid to put him down. and
readjust. So I'm trying to, you know, trying
to pop my hips and get him up there. And finally,
I heard it pop. I was like, holy shit. Got through
the match, flew to Nashville the next day. And
I said, Doc, I need a shot of cortisone. And
he's like, he goes, Mark, he goes, your shoulder
really needs to be fixed. I'm like, Doc, I'm
right in the middle of something right now. I
can't. I said, let me get through. you know,
let me get through mania. I said, just give me
the shot. And then after mania, I'll come and
I'll get it fixed. And reluctantly he did. And
normally the shot would last four or five months,
six months. So he's in Nashville. So I go, I
get the shot. I fly back to Austin. By the time
I get home, it's like I didn't get the shot at
all. So I call him back up and I was like, all
right, Dr. Bird, you're. You're a little smarter
than I am. He goes, he says, well, fact, Mark,
it's so bad. Like, I want you to go see somebody
else. I want you to see a shoulder specialist.
So I go see Dr. Andrews. You know, Dr. Andrews
is like the, you know, he's the guy that did
Tommy John. He's the athlete's doctor. I go see,
I go see him. And it's the first time this has
ever happened to me. I go into the examining
room and he's already there waiting. I don't
know if anybody else has ever been to the doctor's
office and the doctor's, he's sitting there and
he's looking at me. And I'm looking at him like,
because I'm a little taken back that he's already
in the room, right? And we're looking at each
other. Nobody says anything. And he goes, son,
he goes, I don't know if there's anything I can
do for you. He had obviously already seen my
MRI and everything. He goes, he says, can you
lift your arm? I was like, yes, sir. Yeah, I
can lift it. He says, can I see you lift it?
Yeah. He said, can you lift to the side? And
I go, yeah, I can lift to the side. He goes,
there's no reasonable explanation why you're
able to do that. I'm like, he says, you've taught
yourself how to use that arm with that severe
injury. He goes, so we talked for a while. And
he goes, he says, can we meet back in about an
hour? He goes, I need to think about this. I'm
like, well. yeah, I'm in Birmingham. Like, you
know, what am I going to do? I got nothing else
to do. You know, I got to find out what I, you
know, what's going on with his shoulder. So we
meet back in an hour and he goes, he goes, I'm
going to try. He goes, I don't think I can fix
it. He says, but I feel like I owe it to you
just to try. Wow. And even with that, I'm thinking,
well, that's James Andrews, right? Surely he's
going to fix it. You know, he's just being humble.
So I have the surgery. I wake up out of surgery,
and my wife, she's right there. I could look
on her face, and I could tell, like, you know,
it wasn't good. And I was like, babe? And she
goes, and about that time, Dr. Andrews comes
in. He goes, well, we found it. I was like, you
found it? He goes, yeah. He said, the end of
the supraspinatus was about back here. He says,
we clamped on and we pulled, we tugged. And he
said, we might have been able to get it sewn
back together. He said, but the first time you
try to use it, it was going to pop. It was just
so dead because it had been torn for so long.
How long was it torn before you went to talk
to him? Well, that last one was when it tore
completely in half. So it had already been damaged?
It had already been damaged, yeah. And I was
getting shots of cortisone. Oh. To kind of mask
the pain. And then it popped off. That was it.
And there wasn't enough left to attach it back.
He says, your biceps tendon had come out of its
groove, too. He said, we did put that back. That
should help you a little bit. I'm like, okay.
And so, you know, I go back to work. But now,
you know, now I'm getting older. And so, you
know, my physical skills are already starting
to kind of diminish and you know when that happens.
But now, like when I'm in a match, now I've got
to be cognizant all the time of where my shoulder
is in relation to whatever it is I'm doing. Like
I had, there was a lot of things like tombstones,
like I had to change how, you know, how I would
pick people up because I couldn't get my arm
out extended because I had no strength. And I
couldn't clothesline people. I mean, I had to
have my arm almost supported by my lat to do
a lot of different moves. And there's no other
option? Like they can't do a cadaver? Well, in
the shit that I do and we do, it would have tore.
He told me that. He said, we could have tried
a cadaver. He says, it's not going to last if
you want to wrestle. And at that point, I had
no... I like I've been doing it this long with
it hurt. I'll figure out a way. You know, I wasn't
ready to I wasn't ready to give it up yet. And
so I waited a couple of years and then I call
I call Dr. Dugas. And I said, Doc, because he
assisted on on the first one with Dr. Andrews.
I said, hey, you guys doing anything new with
the shoulders? And he says, yeah. He said, like,
come on down. He said, I think I can hook you
up. I was like, oh, shit, okay, I wish somebody
called me, you know, let me know. You know, let
me know what's going on. And so same kind of
deal. Have the surgery, wake up, see, you know,
Michelle's sitting there, see her. Didn't have
quite the same disappointed look on her face,
you know, about this time, here comes Dr. Dugas.
And he goes, well, he goes, plan A? No, that
didn't work, which would have... to re -touch
everything. He said, plan B? I didn't work either.
He said, what's plan C? He says, which will help
your recovery time. He says, well, what I did,
they took the part of my infraspinatus, the one
in the back, they detached part of it, stretched
it over the top, so my infraspinatus is doing
double duty now. Wow. So it works where if you
were to look down before the surgery, like if
you had a tube that could see down in my shoulder,
I was 100 % exposed. You could see the joint.
So now I'm about 50 % to 70 % covered by the
infraspinatus that he stretched over the top
and reattached it. Once again, modern medicine.
And, you know, my right side isn't as strong
as my left side. I'm right -hand dominant. But
I'm twice as, three times as strong as I was
before I had the surgery. Wow. Yeah. It's crazy.
Yeah. I'm like a lab project. That's an interesting
one. I know a fighter who's got no super spinatus.
I think in both of his shoulders. Yeah. It's
done wonders. Like, I mean, I can bench. I mean,
you know, everything's got to be, I can't, you
know, everything's got to be in tight. Like if
I do pushups or anything like that, I need that
lat and tricep help. instead of getting in those
funky angles like that. I mean, is there anybody
that gets through pro wrestling without a series
of catastrophic injuries? You know, there's one
guy that's really not had many injuries. His
name's Chris Jericho. And I can't think of anything
that's really bad that's happened to him. But,
I mean, Stone Cold Steve Austin. Yeah, his neck
is completely fused, right? Yeah, his neck is
completely fused. From a pile driver. From a
pile driver. But didn't he win the Olympics with
a broken neck? That's Kurt Angle. Oh, Kurt Angle,
that's right. Yeah, yeah. Kurt Angle won the
heavyweight gold medal in wrestling. With a broken
neck. And 190 pounds. He was so undersized. And
to Stone Cold's credit, most of the big stuff
that happened in his career happened after he
broke his neck, right? No, he was already the
guy. He was right in the middle of it. Kurt Angle,
they were talking about him fighting in MMA at
one point in time. You know, I saw him. It was
strange. I hadn't seen him for a while. And then
I saw him at Lesnar Mirror One. He was there.
And he was acting really weird. And I was like,
Kurt, are you thinking about, you know? And nothing
ever came of it. But he's got some miles on him,
too. Yeah. Well, it looks like he's got atrophy
of his arms. Yeah. His neck. And his neck's 23
inches. His neck looks enormous. But when I see
a guy that I know has neck problems, you see
his arms look smaller. One of the things that
happens to guys, like it happened to Boss Rutten.
He got his discs fused in his neck. His arm atrophied.
He wasn't getting the nerve signals to his muscles.
So his right arm, he calls it baby arm. It's
smaller. It's very weak. I don't know how much
it's recovered. But at one point in time, he
couldn't even hold out a jug of milk. Yeah. It's
crazy. I mean, the neck is, there's so many of
those nerves. You get pinched or squeezed. Yeah.
I mean, what does Kurt Angle do to make his neck
that big? I'm guessing a lot of bridges and,
you know. Jesus. I mean, his neck's always just.
Yeah, look at that neck. He could go, man. Yeah.
I really enjoyed. That neck is preposterous.
I really enjoyed working with Kurt, man. That's
an extra waist. It's a waist. It's like his waist,
right? Look at the size of that. The muscles
in that thing. But, I mean, obviously a lot of
that is probably to compensate the fact that
he's got a snapped neck. He could go, man. What
an athlete. Wow. Oh, yeah. And Brock, too. Both
of them. Phenomenal. Angle in his prime as a
wrestler. He was a fucking savage. Yeah, he was
a beast. Yeah, I mean, as an amateur wrestler
in the Olympics. I mean, he was a phenomenal
talent. Yeah. Yeah, he was. And then he transitioned
so well. That's the deal. He transitioned so
well into pro wrestling. And how did Steve Austin
fuck up his neck? Piledriver. Not a piledriver
like I give. There's another kind where you grab
somebody and you put their head in their crotch.
There it is right there. Oh, my God. Look at
his head. Let's see where his head's going to
land. Oh, my God. With all the weight of both
people. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Just seeing that
makes me shiver. Just seeing that image. You
know, for the sake of entertainment, man. Crazy
way to make a living. It is a crazy way to make
a living. Now, take into account what you were
talking about before when you were doing that
270 nights a year. Yeah. That is. Year -round.
I mean, there's no off -season. I mean, it just
goes. It's episodic TV now, especially. We do
live TV every Monday, every Friday. The schedule,
I don't think, is quite as bad now. There were
days where I would be out 45 days in a row. And
you didn't think anything about it. Actually,
when you get into that, you don't want to come
off the road. Really? Yeah, it just fucks everything
up. It's just like... More than four or five
days, especially when you're back in the early
90s, you get hurt, and you're home six, seven,
eight weeks, you're a raving lunatic because
your body's just conditioned to go and just be
out there and doing it. It's tough on relationships.
And you're always worried about that next guy
coming up too, right? Like, fuck, I'm healing
up here, and this guy's coming up. Don't want
anybody taking your spot. You don't want anybody
taking your spot. Although it's not competition
in the sense of MMA competition, it's competition.
You're competing to be the top guy, or you're
competing for your place on the card. So it is,
in that sense, a competition, an important one.
Tony, it's got to be wild seeing him. when you
were six years old for the first time. And then
hearing these stories now about how all that
came to be. Yeah. It's wild. Did you have a lot
to do with the creative side of things? Because
there was an urn that his manager would hold
that would charge him, right? It would summon
superpowers. Somebody who's not a fan, he's listening
to this shit like, fuck, what have you been smoking?
He would put his opponents, after he beats them,
he would put them in body bags. At one point,
he was... building a casket for an opponent for
a casket match. I think I told you at the Chappelle
show when I met you, I got in trouble when I
was a kid because, you know, I was like learning
about death from this man. Like I didn't know
you went into a casket after you were dead. You're
seven years old. You don't know that yet. Like
you don't know what a box is. You're like, oh
my God, you put your body in a box. I got in
trouble because I nailed my mom's piano bench
shut because of the promos that you had for the
Kamala. casket match he was nailing a coffin
shut and it was so scary to see as a kid so i
nailed my mom's piano bench like a you know how
they open up i pretended like it was a coffin
and i destroyed it i got in so much trouble i
once took a uh one of those suit bags that zip
up And me and my buddies, we would have these
fake wrestling matches as kids, and then we would
zip up the suit thing and pretend like we're
dead afterwards. All these things were a part
of my childhood. Was that some of you, some of
Vince? Yeah, so Vince had the original likeness,
and then after a couple years, it had kind of
taken over. I lived that. Everywhere I went,
I was always dressed in black. What people saw
on TV, they pretty much saw in real life. So
if you went out to dinner. I wouldn't dress quite
like that, but I would be an all black. I didn't
say much to people. Because you had to stay in
character? I always stayed in character. I always
felt like that I needed to be what they saw on
TV. Because if they saw me differently, like
if they saw this, and then they see that on TV,
it's like, oh, fuck. It's just acting. It's just
this. It's that. So I tried to make that guy
real. And I did for a long time. Like, I didn't
do for years. I didn't do interviews. I didn't
do personal appearances. You got very little
of me other than what you saw on TV. And that's
what kept people captivated. Like, I mean, everybody's
like, fuck, I know he's not dead. he's fucked
up. He's something's wrong. There's something.
Right. And it captivated, you know, to stay and
I pat myself on the back, but to stay relevant
for 30 years in this industry where there's so
much exposure. I mean, you have to, I felt like
that's the extreme that I had to go to, um, you
know, to, to make that guy continue to mean something.
Does it feel almost weird for you to be doing
like a podcast? Crazy. Absolutely crazy. So it
started, you know, I did a docuseries kind of
chronicling the last few years of my career.
It was actually me trying to come to grips with
calling it a day, really. Do you mind scooting
this way just into the microphone? Yeah, there
you go. So we ended up calling it, it had nothing
to do with the Jordan deal, but it was called
The Last Ride, which is one of my finishing moves.
So it kind of chronicled. like the last few years
of my career and the, and me kind of chasing
the dragon for that, that one match that I could
hang my hat on and say, that's it. That's it.
You know, and it, and as you get older and the
injuries and all that, I don't, I don't, I mean,
I, I, I figure that in, but I still see in my
head what I used to could do. And that's what
I was striving. I mean, you've said you've seen
it in the fight game all the time. Guys are looking
for that, you know, They can't come to grips
with the fact that their skills have diminished,
and there's a changing of the guard. And it's
kind of the same with what I was doing. I was
looking for that one match that I could say,
motherfuckers, I still got it, and now I'm out.
Was there a conversation about this with Vince
where you were trying to figure out when to close
the door? Yeah, there was lots. There were lots
of those conversations. And there were people
that I talked to along the way through my career.
I was like, look. If I get to a point where my
skills have diminished and I can't recognize
it, I want you to tell me or at least bring the
conversation up. And it got to the point where
nobody wants to have that conversation. Nobody
wants to have that, like, hey, dude, your day?
Yeah, it's up. It's a real problem. I put a big
burden on people, and they just couldn't do it.
And now Vince, who I have an unbelievable relationship
with, But also, that's a huge intellectual property
for Vince. 30 years. So he didn't, you know,
I could go out for another few years and I could
knock somebody on their ass or I could chokeslam
somebody, but I can't do it personally. Right.
I can't because I know there's so many guys that
are coming up that are trying to get that spot.
I can't go out there and say, okay, I got all
this equity built up from all these years. I'm
just going to live off of that. I remember when
I was a kid in Boston, it was a local wrestling
promotion, but Killer Kowalski was on. I don't
know how old he was at the time, but he had to
be way, way up in the years. He looked like he
was in his 50s. And, you know, I remember thinking,
like, even as a kid, like, how long can a guy
do this? Yeah. And it varies. Who's the longest?
Are you the longest reigning guy? No, I think
there's guys. I think there's guys that have,
like, flair lasted. At his level, yeah. He's
the longest by, like, a lot. He's probably going
to be humble about this right now. But even then,
the Kowalskis and all that, the styles were different,
right? It was more like arm drags and, like,
little tosses. He had the claw. Right. Yeah.
And he's, I mean, he's throwing people off of
16 -foot cells. getting thrown off of titantrons
like ramps and all this crazy physical stuff
it's a whole different game and he went 10 15
years probably longer than most of his peers
well the fact that i stayed 30 years with one
company i think that's the one really big thing
is once i started with with vince i stayed with
vince where a lot of guys you know they would
they would jump from one promotion to the other
and i stayed once i got there i was there and
you know wow It's been a hell of a ride. 30 years
is a crazy ride. So what was your last match?
My last match was in April. The Boneyard was
April. April 2020. Yeah, right here. There it
is. It's a nice bike. Yeah, that's a West Coast
chopper right there. The bike actually belonged
to Garth Brooks' security guy. But this was...
We got lucky because COVID had already shut everything
down. So everybody else, this is WrestleMania.
So everybody else is doing their matches in an
empty warehouse. And we got to go off and do
this kind of themed match. They turned this whole
area into like a cemetery and got to do a lot
of theatrical stuff. So that must have felt like
I can hang my hat on this one. Yeah. We started
filming that at about 8 o 'clock at night, and
we wrapped at about 5 in the morning. And at
the end of it, I was like, fuck, I can hardly
stand up. Everything was just locked up. Because
I went into it. I started training for Mania,
and obviously I thought I was going to be in
a stadium, in a ring. So I had really got a good
head start on my training, and my weight was
coming down. Everything was good, and then fucking
COVID hit. And then it was just like the gyms
shut down. And then, you know, then I had to
get to Florida just to make sure, you know, that
I was in Florida. Right. Yeah, because you never
knew, like, when they were going to shut all
the airlines down. So the training, you know,
my training kind of went to shit. But I was really
happy with how this turned out. And I knew at
the end of it physically, your day's done, man.
And, you know, as much as I want to do it here.
And I want to do it here. It's just the body
just can't deliver. So what do you do now? I
mean, that's a long career. Yeah, it is. And
I'm trying to figure that part out because I've
dedicated my whole life to this business. And,
you know, there will be times, you know, I help
out and maybe mentor some guys. But, you know,
I got to find out what I'm passionate about.
and still earn a living. Right now my goal is
to be the best outdoorsman I can be at this point.
Is that what you're into now? I've always loved
hunting and fishing. I just never had time. Have
you thought about doing a television show where
you do that? I've thought about it. Undertaker
Outdoors? Undertaker Outdoors, right. I think
it would be a hoot, actually. But it's just kind
of, you know, I've thought about it, and I don't
want it to be a job job. I understand. I just
enjoy it too much, and I'd hate to lose the fact,
like, I don't want to go hunting. I don't want
to go, you know. Right. But, I mean, I'm open
to whatever. What kind of hunting do you do?
What is your thing? Well, I've always been a
rifle because I've had limited time. So, you
know, sit in a stand and, you know, wait for
a whitetail to come stick its head out. This
year I bought – I just bought my first brand
-new bow this year. I didn't get to shoot a deer.
Austin has a very good archery. Yeah. Archery
country is fantastic. Yeah. It's really good.
Yeah. I had an issue with my bow just a few weeks
before I went to Utah for an elk hunt. It was
shooting low, and it turned out that the strings
had been stretched, and it had lost some of its
poundage, so everything had to be readjusted.
So I had to get it tightened up again and get
the poundage put back on it. They did an amazing
job. Yeah, archery is... And I just found that
out, that Austin's a real, there's a lot of archery
hunters here. Yeah, well, Texas in general has
a lot of hunters and a lot of archery hunters.
But that is a real good archery shop. And it's
hard to find. In California, I used to have to
go to San Diego. All the way down San Diego.
Yeah, I had to go to Performance Archery down
in San Diego to find a real good archery shop
anywhere near me. The biggest issue with me was
finding a bow that would get my draw. Oh, I could
help you with that. John Dudley's pretty close
to your size. He's 6 '5", I believe. 6 '5", 6
'6", something like that. What's his draw? Mine
is 32, I think. Yeah, mine's 33, almost 33 and
a half. Oh, they make them for guys like you.
Yeah. I mean, you just have to get the right
cams and have someone who – like a guy like John
could set it up, a guy who knows how to set up
a bow. I'm sure he'd be happy to do that for
you too. Yeah. That's what I'm passionate about
because that's the one thing like it's always
been that carrot dangling. Like, okay, once that
career is over, you know, you're free. You're
going to do this and you're going to do that.
But, I mean, that's not the way life works. I
mean, you still need to, you know. I still need
to be productive and do different things. You
know, I work with a lot of, uh, yeah, I love
working with the veterans. Um, you know, uh,
I've worked with these guys, uh, nine line. I
do stuff with them. Um, it's kind of, I'm just
really passionate about people that have served
our country. Um, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.
I think, like I said earlier, like if I hadn't
have made it here, that's probably what I would
have done. And like, I think about it sometimes,
like, I think it may be my only regret. Like,
I wish I had served, you know, because I guess
because I'm surrounded by so many of those guys
now and getting to meet guys like, you know,
Oz and Tig from Benghazi and Latrell, all those
guys, you know, it's just, man, I'm just, I can
sit and listen to stories, you know, all day
long from those guys. Yeah, Latrell and I have
been talking about him coming on here. He's a
good dude, man. He's a real good dude. He's one
of those guys, like, he's so laid back, but you
can tell, you can look at him, and you can tell,
like, he's been through some shit, right? Yeah,
he's been through some shit. Yeah. I mean, when
they make a Marky Mark movie about your life,
you know you've been through some shit. You know?
Yeah, he's as nice as could be. Yeah, real good
dude. I'm not, you know, I don't get real excited
about. Meeting celebrities or people like that,
I just leave people alone for the most part.
He spoke at the church we go to, and I called
the pastor up while he was talking. I was like,
look, I need to be introduced to him before I
leave here tonight. He's like, absolutely, come
on back. But those are the kind of people. I
appreciate that. Yeah, I just, you know, I don't
think we can do enough for people that put their
lives. I couldn't agree more. You know, and just
people like that that have been through so much.
They're just different kind of people. They're
exceptional in a way that it's hard to describe.
Yeah. It really is cool. You've had Goggins on,
right? Oh, yeah. He's a fucking maniac, right?
Yeah. He'll send me text messages out of the
blue. Just stay hard. I'm like, okay. I was going
to go soft, but I'm going to stay hard. I'm trading
my ass off right now, but I enjoyed his book.
It was so good. Yeah. he's a fascinating person.
Yeah. He's wired a little different too. Oh,
for sure. But he's got a great, I love his story
because Goggins was fat and he was lazy and he
was, you know, eating fucking drinking milkshakes
and shit. And he was way overweight and couldn't
run at all and just decided that, you know, he
wanted to be in the seals and decided he wanted
to lose weight and decided now's the time to
do it. And just. forced himself to be this fucking
barbarian man if you can't get inspired if you
don't read his book and can't get inspired by
that yeah if you get a fuck why tell everybody
go to his instagram page yeah go to when i find
a good one i repost it on my page all the time
yeah it's good shit you know he'll he he'll have
some that literally will make me go up and work
out like maybe i'm not even thinking about working
out and i watch this or you already worked out
what i'm going I'll go right now. Time to go
to war. He's yelling at us. I always wonder who
the guy is that gets no credit that's running
alongside of him. He's driving. First of all,
that's his wife, and she's driving. Oh. Yeah,
and she's got the phone out the window, and she's
driving. Wow. A lot of motherfuckers will tell
you. But no excuses, right? There he is. Give
me some volume of this. This guy makes me feel
like a bitch every day. A lot of people lost
jobs, lost businesses, lost family members. A
lot of folks spent a lot of time in the hospital
on ventilators. That should have caused a lot
of demons in your brain. Folks see how much I
work out, and they think I'm running from demons.
It's not demons. It's discipline. And I'm a disciple
of discipline. You cannot run your demons. They'll
always find you. Only way to beat them motherfuckers
is look at them eye to eye and make them your
bitch. Mindset's the only thing that gets you
through hard times. Merry fucking Christmas.
That's awesome. That's awesome, man. No excuses.
He's a national treasure. That man is a national
treasure. Make him your bitch. Okay, yeah, that's
shit. That's just good shit. Yeah, but, well,
you know what? There's a lot of people out there
that their mind concentrates on stupid shit.
They complain too much. They whine too much.
They're haters. They're jealous. They're weak.
You need a guy like that out there that is just
all about performance and... And you realize,
like, wow, there's a lot of different ways to
live this life. You know, there's a lot of people
that waste time. They waste time on nonsense.
Their life is filled with nonsense. Absolutely.
And then you need a guy like David Goggins to
go, oh, my God, I'm a bitch. Yeah. I didn't even
know. I didn't even know. I had no clue I was
a bitch, but I'm definitely a bitch. Okay. Appreciate
that, Dave. All right. And his body gets beat
the fuck up too, man. He had a video he posted
just a little while back. See if you can find
this of him draining his knee. They drained his
knee, and it's like a fucking coffee cup filled
with pus and fluid and shit inside of his knee.
And he was on crutches for a couple of days,
and then... There's a video a few days after
that where he's running. A lot of you motherfuckers
thought I was going to go soft. I bet you hoping.
Oh, Dave, you fucked up your knees. You can't
run no more. Look at this thing they're pulling
out of his knee. Look at that thing. Do you see
that? That's a syringe full of shit. Look at
the size of that fucking syringe. They're pulling
that out of his knee. Look at the size of that
fucking fluid. That's a lot of shit they're pulling
out of his knee. They're getting another one
to fill it up because they're not done yet. Oh
my god, they're screwing another one in there.
Jesus Christ. Look at this. This is how much
pus and fluid is in his knee. And he's still
running. So he's got two gigantic syringes of
fluid that are stuck inside of his knee. I mean,
what in the fuck? First of all, if I had a quarter
of that shit, I'd be like, well, no more running
for me, son. I'm done. Time to hit the pool.
Yeah, I mean, it's full and they keep going.
That is a big, fat, fucking syringe. And then
you go to, like, two days later, he's got a video
of him with crutches. And a couple days after
that, he's running again. Ha, ha, ha, motherfuckers.
That's crazy, man. That's a lost mindset, man.
It puts him miles, too. I mean, I don't know
what the fuck the inside of his knee looks like,
but, you know. Definitely need more people like
that. Less people, you know. Well, it's just,
you know, you need to know. Like, there's all
kinds of people out there in this world. But
you need to know there's dudes out there with
bulletproof minds. Absolutely. You need to know.
I mean, just the fact, no excuses. Everybody
wants excuses, like I was talking about earlier.
Everybody's entitled. Yeah. But those guys are
valuable. Oh, hell yeah. Hey, if the shit goes
down, I want him in my compound. You know what
he does sometimes? Sometimes he takes time off
and goes smoke jumping. Like they just drop him
out of fucking helicopters and he fights fires
for like 12 bucks an hour. He's rich. But he
just, he practiced what he preaches. He stays
hard. He doesn't need to work for 12 bucks an
hour. He does it because it's hard. When he was
telling me that on the podcast, I'm like, what?
He goes, yeah, smoke jump. He just jumps out
of fucking helicopters with a parachute to fight
fires with a shovel and camps out there. That's
a hard gig. That's a hard fucking job. But he
does it just to stay hard. That's fucking awesome.
Man, I feel like shit. I mean, he'll do that
to you. But the people like that, they're valuable.
They really are. With all these weak people in
this world, weak entitled people. And this is,
you know, the old expression, hard men, you know,
hard times make hard men. Hard men make easy
times. Easy times make soft men. That's what
we're going through right now. The world got
a little too easy. It was just a little too,
there's too many soft people out there complaining.
That's a fact. It is. It really is. It's weird
how that cycle just keeps repeating itself over
and over and over again. It doesn't seem like
human beings are ever going to learn. It seems
like we kind of have to go through that. Even
though you know these cycles exist, like the
Hindus, they wrote about it years ago. They called
them the yugas, the different cycles of civilization.
And we're in Kali Yuga, which is like the age
of confusion. What is the exact term of Kali
Yuga? But it's chaos and everything's falling
apart. this that's what we're in right now and
people have been predicting that we we were entering
into kali yuga like uh over the last like 10
years or so and now it's pretty obvious we're
full on in it yeah we're we're on the coast tomorrow's
the the election i mean the inauguration and
i'm like oh my god i don't even want to leave
the house Let's get a buddy to land around the
perimeter and just make sure. Well, they said
gun sales were at an all -time high yesterday.
People were just going crazy buying guns. You
can't. Yeah, the place I deal with, I mean, their
shelves have been empty for... Yeah. I mean,
you can't... It doesn't matter what it is. Like
the toilet paper aisle in March. I mean, I...
That's what it's like. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,
that's what it's like. It's crazy. I walk in
there and it's just like fucking... tumbleweed
rolling through yeah i'm lucky i know people
that like work in gun manufacture i can buy bullets
off of them because if you try to go to a regular
store and just buy like nine millimeter or something
for an ar or a wind mag like Good luck. I don't
have one. I thought they just handed you one
when you moved to Texas. I'll hand you one. Really?
Yeah, I'll give you one. All right, perfect.
Because right now all I have is a golf club.
I have to get within four feet of someone. Well,
I've been given eight guns since I got here.
Okay. That's an excellent welcome. That's a Texas
welcome. But we'll have to take you to the range.
Take you to a place. You've shot a gun before?
Yeah. How many times? A lot when I was younger.
But, I mean, I don't know. Maybe like 10, 15
times. Oh, okay. So you know which way to point
it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we'll set you up. Yeah.
Yeah, it'd be good for you, too. It's fun. It's
fun. There's a great place out here called The
Range. It's an indoor place. It's such a big
place that they have a 100 -yard indoor rifle
range, which is just bananas. Like, who the fuck
has that? Yeah, it's a nice place. That's high
-end shooting out there. When I got there, they
told me, if you hear a helicopter, it's Tim Kennedy.
He helicopters in. He flies his own helicopter.
He's another maniac, yeah. I used to watch him
train over here at Onnit. He's a psycho, too.
Oh, yeah, he's a bad motherfucker. You know,
again, you need people like that. But he's got
a lot of varied interests, too. Tim is a fascinating
guy. Yeah, he's a good dude. He was a great fighter,
too. And really did a lot of his fighting while
he was also still serving in the military. A
lot of his early days. So did Brian Stan. A lot
of the elite guys that were in the military,
they were in the military while they were fighting.
I didn't know that about Stan. I know Tim was
still. Yeah, Stan, I believe when he was in the
WEC, the early days of his career, I think he
was still serving. I'm pretty sure. And then
he went from the WEC and transferred over to
the UFC. And now I forget what he's doing in
business. I think he's. I don't want to say because
I'm not exactly sure, but he's very successful
in the corporate world now. Oh, good for him.
Which is crazy. Yeah. This guy transitions, and
he was a great commentator as well, but he just
decided he didn't want to do it anymore and just
decided to do things outside of fighting. That's
not an easy job either. Commentator? Yeah. No,
it's not. When you hear a guy like Dominic Cruz
or Daniel Cormier or something like that, just
because you're a great fighter doesn't necessarily
mean you'll be a great commentator. There's a
lot of things that they have to learn, but it
is really nice that the UFC has that available
to them so they can transfer from fighting right
into commentary. Yeah, DC does a good job. Oh,
he's phenomenal. I can't remember the fight,
but y 'all were doing it together, I think. y
'all are like a couple of kids i don't know i'm
trying to think i'm always a kid with him i love
him to death but something happened i was talking
i wish i could remember who was fighting man
but you guys were jumping on each other and it
was just like it's fun no because yeah It's good
because you're obviously still a fan, right?
Obviously you're doing your job. I know the fight
you're talking about. It was Benil Dariush and
Jakar Close. That's it. And Jakar had him hurt
bad. And then Benil, he abandoned his defense
and started going after him. And Benil wasn't
as hurt as he thought he was. And Benil cracked
him back. And then Benil wound up KOing him.
And it was such a wild exchange. We're like,
wah! We're leaning back and DC's leaning on me
and John Anik is like this. That's us. Yeah,
that's it right there. That's it. That's it.
Look, he leans on me. And you don't see in that
small version of it, you don't see John Anik
in it, but John Anik was freaking out, too. It
was wild, man. It was wild. I mean, it was just,
here's the exchange. I mean, look, man, a lot
of people would have been out. And then once
he had Jakar closed, he hit him with that beautiful
left hand and drops him. and we were just going
ape shit. But I just love working with DC, period,
because that's the picture. That's like a famous
picture now. Yeah, that's awesome. There's one
where we're all green, and they gave us alien
antennas, and it's the aliens watching Earth
2020. The series finale of Earth 2020. DC's...
he's such a big kid like you would never believe
like my wife said it best like she met him for
the first time pretty recently and she was like
He's so nice. You would never believe that he
is like one of the baddest fucking people to
ever compete in the sport. Two division world
champion, heavyweight champion, light heavyweight
champion, elite wrestler, fucking savage. Literally
the only guy that ever beat him is Jon Jones
and Stipe. Two other complete total savages.
He's such a cool guy. I remember I was positive
it was the first time I ever saw you guys commentate
together. And, you know, you guys were like getting
ready or whatever. He's like, hey, man, you know,
such a cool guy. He's like, you know how to tie
a tie? I'm like, yeah. He's like, will you tie
this for me? And I put it around my neck and
tied DC's tie for him. He's just like such a
down -to -earth guy. And then you see him in
the octagon at the highest level. One of the
smartest fighters. Yeah, I mean, knocked out
Stipe Miocic. I mean, what? Didn't see that one
coming. He's a fucking... tank of a man too you
know because he's only like 5 '10 but he's like
5 '10 wide you know just and just couldn't be
nicer I mean there's a lot of people that are
really nice but DC's like he's exceptionally
nice and funny it's hard to be funny when you're
A fighter. It just is. You've got the stigma
on you already. Like, oh, okay, he's going to
be a dick. He's a badass. He's got a great sense
of humor. He's always silly. Him and Max Holloway
were always fucking with each other. It's really
funny. Like, when he was the heavyweight champ,
Max was saying, I'll fight you too, DC. They
were talking about him going. Did you see the
Max Holloway fight? How good did he look the
other night? Jesus Christ. It was insane. He
broke his own record. He has number one, number
two, and number three for the most strikes landed.
Most strikes landed and most strikes thrown.
Oh, it was ridiculous. His volume is off the
charts. It's hard to imagine. And didn't slow
down one iota. In the fifth and final round,
he still. That was amazing. No problems with
his cardio at all. I mean, that pace will cripple
a person. It's just, he's superhuman. It was
like a superhuman performance. Like, I really
want to talk to him about what the fuck he does
for cardio. Yeah. He should give seminars. Because
I just don't understand. I don't understand how
he can keep that volume up. And you could see,
like, and Calvin Cater, the dude he fought, is
one of the toughest men that's ever lived because
the beating that he took in that fight, the fact
that he never stopped swinging, never gave up,
never stopped trying to win, took some shots,
I mean, was wobbled on multiple occasions and
covered up and was still swinging, was still
trying to win. God, what a fight. That was great.
What? I mean, what a performance. Like, one of
the greatest performances. It might be the greatest
single performance I've ever seen. He was sharp,
man. I just, you know, wow. Yeah. And that's
coming off, what, two losses, too, right? Yeah,
but I don't think the last loss was really a
loss. The last loss was, you could make a real
argument. Yeah. Yeah. It was a draw. Real good
fight, though, still. It was still, yeah. That
just shows you how good Volkanovski is. Because,
you know, that he could beat him in the first
fight and then, you know, have such a close fight
in the second fight. But when you watch... But
Holloway, in this fight, he was different. First
of all, he was never in the same spot. A lot
of guys that make this mistake, they think, I
want to hit this guy, so I'm going to go at him
and hit him. Holloway's thinking, I want him
to think I'm going to hit him, and then I'm going
to be over here, and now I'm going to hit you,
and you're going to swing, but I'm not going
to be there. I'm over here now. His footwork
and movement and angles were off the chart, and
he never let Calvin set. Guys like to set up
and think, ready, now. And you don't get a chance
with Holloway. There's always punches coming
at you. There's always a kick. There's a side
kick to the leg. There's a leg kick coming. There's
a jab in your face. It's all mixed up. And then
when you think you've got to figure it out, boom,
spinning back kick. Like, fuck. It was a clinic.
It was an absolute clinic. And you've always
been a huge MMA fan, right? Oh, yeah. I think
you were. You had to be one of the first people
to really start bringing those elements into
the WWE. Yeah, I started to. I mean, Hell's Gate
is what, a triangle? No, no, no. It's a go -go
-plata. I just changed the name. Yeah, I've been
a fan from way back in the day. I'm trying to
think. The first one I went to was in Miami.
Might have been, so Liddell was on the way up.
I think Randy was the champ. So this is like
2003 or something. Early, yeah, yeah. There you
go, Goga Plata. Wow, that's crazy. Changed the
name to Hell's Gate. So you would grab them by
the back of the head and run your shin underneath
their neck. without trying to actually do that
yeah did you have you trained much jujitsu like
actual jujitsu i used to we used to have a funny
enough we used to have a ref that uh he i'd get
in and roll with him and uh man i would i would
get there early and just pick his brain and by
the time it shows i'd be i'd just be exhausted
but you know um but i was but then you know and
i did it because I was such a fan of it. I like
to understand. I like to understand why things
are done and why they're done and everything,
boxing and wrestling and everything else. That
fight that you're talking about, I feel like
that's 2003, the Miami one. Because I think that
was the first time that I ever did play -by -play.
Boy, was I fucking terrible at it. But Phil Barone
did color. So it was me and Phil Barone did the
commentary. Because I think Mike Goldberg at
the time had a hockey game to call or something
like that. And he couldn't get out of it. So
they asked me to do it. But I didn't know what
I was doing. Play -by -play is like what John
Anik does is hard. My role is pretty easy. If
you understand fighting, there's a lot going
on. You just have to know who's fighting. I'm
such a fan. I'm watching everything, so I'm paying
attention. I remember the fight because Tank
Abbott found me. He wasn't even sitting anywhere
close to me, but he spent the... He spent the
fight with me. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, he talked
to me the whole night. What a character that
guy was. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I ran into him years
later in L .A. at a bar. Same thing, man. He's
lost a crazy amount of weight now. Yeah, he was
a lot slimmer when I had seen him in L .A. I
think he had some issues, some health issues.
Yeah. I wouldn't doubt that. Yeah, for all the
boozing. Yeah. Yeah, I have a big fight. I quit
going to Lesnar's fight, so every time I'd go,
he'd lose. Sure enough. You felt like you were
a jinx? Yeah, I was a jinx. So I went to his
fight with Mir, and he got caught in that knee
bar. And then he obviously came back, and he
won the next one. Then I went to Velasquez's
fight, when he came back from that fibroticlitis
thing. That was not the Velazquez fight. That
was Alistair Overeem. Alistair Overeem was the
diverticulitis fight. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah,
so I was at the Velasquez fight. Yeah. He had
diverticulitis already when he fought Velasquez,
but he doesn't know when he had it or how long
he had it for. The scary one was him coming back
from having, I mean, I think he had like 12 inches
of his intestines removed, and then he fought
Alistair over him, like not that long later.
Less than a year later, Alistair kicked him in
the body. Right in the liver. Alistair, at the
time, he was hopped up on all the Mexican supplements.
That was when they had a silly drug testing program.
It was basically like an intelligence test. They
would just test you the day of. If you knew what
you were doing, you could pass. Alistair passed.
You looked at him. You want to see someone not
pass a sniff test? It's Alistair Overeem when
he was fighting. Go to the weigh -in with Alistair
Overeem. He's fighting Brock Lesnar. It is the
most preposterous physique in the history of
the sport. I mean, if you think like Yoel Romero
has a ridiculous physique, Alistair Overeem,
when they used to call him Uber Eem, and he was
260, shredded, full six -pack, and just a destroyer.
Like, no, no, no. That one down right in the
bottom, lower right -hand corner, right where
it says related images, right below related images.
No, right below related images. Right there.
You see the word related images? It's right next
to your cursor. See where it says related? Yeah,
right there. Bam. Look at that. Son. What is
that about? I mean, what are you fucking talking
about? Are you out of your mind? That is a preposterous
physique. So that's Alistair when he fought Brock.
I mean, he has small children living in his biceps.
Look at the size of his fucking biceps. They
were ridiculous. And he just smashed Brock. It
was just, Brock really shouldn't have been fighting
at that time. Yeah, no, he came back way too
late. Major surgery. And his trainers, they were
concerned. You know, like you get kicked in the
stomach after you've had... literally a gigantic
chunk of your intestines removed for a disease
that who knows how long that was bothering him.
Yeah. You know, he really didn't know. He got
sick. He almost died, man. You know. Diverticulitis
is crazy. Oh, it's, yeah. It's nasty. Yeah. Yeah.
It's just like something gets caught in your
intestine and it gets infected and jams up and
clogs up. Yeah. And they don't totally understand
it either. I once saw a clip of Brock leaving
the Octagon. You guys are staring at each other.
That's it right there. Yeah, you guys have a
very serious moment. What was that about? Do
you think he was trying to goad you into a fight?
I was there to pick a fight. You were there to
pick an MMA fight with him? Fuck no. What are
you smoking? Never mind. Are you fucking crazy?
So you were there to pick a WWE fight? Yeah.
Yeah, that's... Well, you and Ariel Helwani...
You didn't let her in? Huh? You didn't let her
in on it? No, she knows what's going on, but
she's still like... Does she play it off? Yeah,
she's a worker, too. She gets it. I was on Ariel's
show, and he asked me about it, right? Did anybody
ever off you in an MMA fight? Because when CM
Punk had gone in, and then Alistair, or excuse
me, Brock, and there's a few other guys that
were circling it. Yeah, no. Fuck, it's too late
in the game for me. If MMA and UFC had probably
taken off sooner, I might have. But fuck, it
took a while. you know for them for you know
for the ufc to come mainstream right um really
2005. yeah that was when it really started happening
with the first season of the ultimate fighter
yeah and then but even but even still that was
for the the people that that were in it you know
not in it but were fans of it yeah mainstream
society was still kind of you know and i think
it was like ronda rousey Yeah. Those years, like
the Ronda Rousey. Yeah. She, yeah. You know what?
I think when sports center and everybody kind
of started like, cause they tried to stay away
from it as long as they could. Yeah. And, uh,
uh, you know, but once sports center came in
and ESPN and those guys, and it was like, Oh
fuck. Yeah. Cause I think, you know, there's
some people like in the MMA, MMA world, like
all Ariel's fans, they just kill him. Like when
he interviews me. Why you got the fake -ass bullshit
wrestlers on there, right? I'm like, hey, I do
what I do. I don't make any bones about it. But
I think MMA people are a little more sensitive
about it because I think they got looped in.
Because they didn't understand. Most people didn't
understand what it was yet. Really? Early on.
Like, early on. And I think there's that stigma
that MMA was. Was it kind of, is it like wrestling?
You know, and everybody's like, fuck, no, it's
not like wrestling. It's, you know, this is a
fucking shoot. So I think there's a, you know,
if you get it, you get it, you know, what we
do. But I think that, that stigma of like, is
MMA pro wrestling and fighters, you know, they're
like, and it's not even so much the fighters
as is the fans, you know, somebody, most of them.
thrown a punch or got hit by a punch, they get
all up in arms. Why you got that fake bullshit
wrestler on there? Yeah, you can't worry about
those people. No, I don't worry about them. Don't
judge me for what I do. Yeah, I know. It's like,
don't read the comments, but it's just like...
What do you think about what David Arquette's
doing? What's he doing? I don't even know what
the fuck he's doing. You know who David Arquette
is? I know who he is. He's in wrestling right
now. Oh, yeah. And they just did a documentary
about him. Yeah, and it's great. I saw it. What
is it called? Oh, jeez. Man, I can't remember
it. I can't remember the title of it, but I watched
it. He did some stuff back with... What is it,
Jamie? You Cannot Kill David Arquette. That's
what it's called. Interesting. It's really awesome.
I know he was a big wrestling fan, and he did
some stuff with WCW. Well, he's like really,
really into it now. I mean, that's mostly what
he does these days. He's doing a lot of... pro
wrestling really and he's super dedicated to
it apparently i know that he look he gets busted
the fuck up jesus christ yeah and the wrestlers
that he goes against all want to teach him a
lesson like oh you're not gonna you know they're
all extra tough on them and so it goes into that
a lot they're like oh david arquette thinks he's
gonna come and yeah show us show us yeah yeah
that mentality's kind of going away i think yeah
Is it? Yeah. You know, back in the day, like
when I broke in and the guys before me, like
anybody, you know, fucking wrestling is bullshit.
it's fucking go time right yeah it's like could
you had to defend remember that famous excuse
me famous video with john stossel oh fuck yeah
the shit slapped out who was it david schultz
right slapped the dog shit out of him like hard
and that's fake yeah was that fake yeah yeah
uh yeah but that was the mentality back then
like well it was also the way he was talking
about it was pretty disrespectful yeah saying
it in a way like he was immune to getting hurt.
Oh, he slaps the dog shit out of him. Let me
hear this. Give me some volume. I'm holding the
camera reading he ain't in it. Reading these
rednecks out here ain't in it because it's a
tough business. That's terrific. Wait, is that
all you got? I'll ask you the standard question.
You know? Standard question. I think this is
fake. You think it's fake? What's that? Is that
fake? Huh? What the hell's wrong with you? That's
open hand slap, huh? You think it's fake? Huh?
He was not expecting that. That was disrespectful.
Yeah. The way he communicated was disrespectful.
And he thought that he could just get away with
being this hard -ass reporter to a guy that was
clearly amped up. That's called reading the situation
incorrectly. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you see
how amped up he is? David's looking him in the
eyes all fucking jacked. Yeah. Like, you don't
say, I'll tell you what, I think it's fake. Yeah.
You don't have to like it. Not everybody likes
all forms of entertainment. Whatever happened
to him? Did he suffer because of this? Yeah,
I think he got blackballed from a few places.
It wouldn't touch him. It's unfortunate because
he was taken up for his business. Not only that,
what great publicity. The same thing with Kaufman.
You need to stop that, David. Give him a little
slap on the old wrist. And come on. Listen, yeah,
you shouldn't go around smacking reporters. Also,
reporters shouldn't talk so disrespectfully to
a gigantic savage. Yeah, exactly. And that era,
guys, too. Those were men. You go into a dressing
room nowadays. It's a lot different. I remember
walking into my first real dressing room, and
I also wore some crusty men, right? Like half
of them had guns and knives in their bags, and
shit got handled back then. Now you walk in,
the guy's playing video games and fucking making
sure they look pretty. Hard times make hard men.
Exactly. Yeah. you know it's evolution i guess
or yeah i don't know what it is but i just prefer
i don't know i just i just liked i like those
areas man i like that when men were men and i
get it well i mean that's obviously how you came
up when you came through that era when you see
people that have it easier you go like when you
you know you think about those days you spent
rolling around on the grass in front of that
dude's house face cranking you i do i think about
that off i was like Dodging piles of dog shit,
yeah. Look at what a rich, amazing story you
have. Like the eight months you spent in that
lobby, going there every Wednesday. All that
stuff is what makes you you. And when it's all
said and done, you're 30 -plus years in the game,
you can look back on that and go, I earned every
fucking ounce of this. Yeah, I can look back
and, you know, I didn't cut any shortcuts and
nothing was given to me. I'd be proud of that
if nothing else. Do you think it would feel the
same way if you went through the grooming situation
that they're going through now and when they
get paid to train? I'm sure they think they've
got it hard. Yeah. Well, it's still not easy.
No, it's not easy. But I'm sure they wake up
certain days and they're like, fuck, I've got
to go to the performance center and train. You
know? They're like, fuck, I don't know where
I'm going to sleep tonight. Meanwhile, David
Goggins is running with a port of fucking fluid
in his knee. He's running. Stay hard! Did you
ever find the guy, your original coach, that
just moved out? Oh, that guy's dead. He is dead.
Yeah. Yeah, he's dead. I ran into him a few years
later. I got in the business. I left a really
key point out of that story, what I did. So I
showed up at his house that day, right? All the
shit's gone. All his furniture. He'd moved on
to another territory. But I guess he had to leave
so fast that he couldn't take his dogs. He had
two beautiful Rottweilers. He left his dogs?
Just left them? Just left them. Oh, my God. They
got good homes. Well, you took them. I took them.
Oh, that's right. Yeah. I was like. I mean, imagine
if you didn't take them. What the fuck was he
going to do? I have no idea. I would think he
would have came back or had somebody come back
for him. But I was like, I got. I'm out two grand.
I hadn't learned anything but some amateur wrestling.
I was like, fuck that. I'm taking these dogs.
I couldn't eat myself. I didn't have enough money
to feed myself. I didn't know how the fuck I
was going to feed some dogs. But I knew I was
getting something out of this. I got the shit
kicked out of me for six weeks. I'm getting something
out of this. And I ran into him. It was a few
years later for a different company. And we're
sitting across. And he had no clue. He had no
clue who I was. And we're sitting across. the
the dressing room i'm just staring at him right
and he's like you know and he was like i said
buzz was he was he was a tough guy he was you
know a good amateur he said why are you staring
at me i said you don't know who i am do you he
goes should i i was like yeah you probably should
you took two thousand dollars with my money you
should probably know who i am yeah he's kind
of squinting at me like what do you want to do
what's up I don't need to do anything. I got
my money. I said, how do you have your dogs?
It's like, you took my dogs? I was like, yeah,
I took your fucking dogs. You fucking left me.
He was like, well, fuck, what do you want to
do? I'm good, man. I'm all good. At that point,
I'm still a fucking greenhorn, right? He's a
veteran. I'm like, fuck. I'd have probably got
my ass kicked. He'd have probably took me down
and fucking put me out. But I'm thinking like,
hmm. But there's always like, fuck. Here I am
trying to get my foot in the door. Do I fight
this guy and get fucking fired right out of the
get -go? Right, right. And I remember one night
I had a chance. I don't know. Sometimes I think
about it. I should have took it. I was looking
out my hotel window. this hotel, there was a
waffle house and I was looking out my window
and I could, I could see in the waffle. I could
see him and he was by himself and he was all
fucked up. He was all peeled up. You know, you
could tell, you know, he's bobbing and fucking,
I'm thinking, fuck, I could go hide behind a
car right now and just fucking tee off on him.
No one, one, no one would care and no one would
know. So I'm, I'm having this battle with myself.
It's like three in the morning. Like, fuck. Yeah.
No, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. Good
thing you didn't do it. Yeah, I didn't do it.
That's how people die. Yeah, that's how people
fucking really, you know. And there would have
been me on camera somewhere. He owed me $2 ,000,
but I did get his dogs, and now he's dead. I'm
sorry. Yeah, everything worked out all right,
I guess. Yeah. Have you ever tried Dallas Diamond
Page's yoga? I have not, and you know what? I'm
actually contemplating giving Dallas a call.
You should give him a call. It's legit. It's
very legit. It's legit for everybody, but he
has a soft spot in his heart for wrestlers, obviously.
Yeah, he's taking guys in. He really helped Jake
the Snake. But his whole system, his DDP yoga,
he doesn't even like calling it yoga. He likes
to call it just DDP. It is yoga. I mean, he's
doing yoga moves, but he adds some dynamic tension
to them and a bunch of other things. I mean,
that guy is fit as fuck. Yeah, he's 60. He's
in his 60s? I think he's in his 60s. He's in
his 60s, super flexible. And that's one of the
secrets to Chris Jericho's not getting injured.
He's another one of those big yoga guys. And
when DDP came out with his, he switched over
to that. Listen, man, Hickson Gracie, the greatest
jiu -jitsu player of all time, was a yogi. He
was really into yoga. It was one of his big secrets
early in his career is that Hickson was super
flexible and super strong. I mean, yoga's amazing.
But Dallas, he can grab his foot. like right
now at his age and stretch it up to a full split
standing. It's crazy. He did it in my fucking
studio without even warming up. Just grabs his
foot and can do it. Fuck, I'd tear something.
You'd have to pull me out of here. Well, he did
it. He learned yoga and did all this because
his back was so fucked. And his back to this
day, it's like, you know, stenosis is off the
charts. He probably barely has any discs back
there. But he just strengthened all those muscles
on his spinal column so strong through yoga to
the point where, you know, he doesn't really
have any pain anymore. Never had to get everything
fused. Like a lot of guys wind up getting their
shit fused. He just really got into yoga and
helps a lot of people with it too. And there's
amazing success stories on his website where
you see there was this one guy in particular
who was overweight and he had to walk around
on crutches. And at the end of the video, the
guy's running. You know, like a couple of years
of him training him and adjusting his diet and
then this constant daily dedication to that yoga.
Yeah. My wife's been on me. She says, you need
to call him. You don't even have to. call him
i was like well if i want to do it i need to
i need to you know i need to talk to him just
how to do it i need to do it because he's such
a great guy too he's such a great guy yeah he's
another one of those guys that you know positive
energy yeah you know It makes you feel better
just being, you know, being around him. He's
also, he, like, does so much for other people.
Like, he really does love helping other people.
Likes helping them get clean, clean their act
up, and then get their body in shape and get
fit. You know, he has a whole house in Dallas
that's dedicated, or is it Atlanta? Atlanta.
I think he's in Atlanta. Yeah, he has a whole
house in Atlanta where he keeps people that,
you know, like, that are trying to get their
shit together. He helps guys out. Yeah. i should
i get me i got i got these guys a guy comes in
once a week to my house helps me stretch and
uh it does wonders and i'm you know i should
probably do it three times a week but yeah it's
stretching is one of those things if you don't
do it you need it yeah yeah these guys are good
they used to be out on it too uh i don't know
if you ever saw tk tk is that from black swan
yoga No, no, no. There's those guys. TK stretching,
man. It's his couple. Oh, okay. And, uh, uh,
Kimberly, she, she stretches my wife and then
Tim stretches me. And it's like, it's like one
of the highlights. It's like afterwards. It's
like that two, three hours where I, I can still
move. I can, I, you know, I could, I could, maybe
I could still do this shit, you know? And then
it goes away. And then I just did yoga every
day. That's how you feel. Like legit. Like that's
how Dallas is. I mean, it's really because of
his yoga. Yeah. I got it. That mindset. Like
when I have, like when I was getting ready for
an event, I'm a fucking animal. Like, it's like,
okay, I got to be ready on this date. You know,
what would you do? Like, what's your, I would,
it's kind of like a modified CrossFit strength
training kind of deal. And which is, uh, catered
around my injuries. You know, there's a lot of
things that I can't, do, but most of my concerns
over the last few years, because I would, you
know, sometimes only work once a year, is cardio.
You know, I'm not so worried about, you know,
being all yoked up or a lot of times I need to
lose weight because I feel better at this point
in my career at, you know, 290 or 285 than I
do at 305. And so, you know, first thing to do
is assess where I'm at. okay, do I need to add
weight, gain weight, or lose weight, whatever
I need to do, and then where's my cardio? Because
if my cardio is good, then everything else is
kind of like riding a bike. I'll need to get
in spar a little bit just for timing of certain
things, but it all begins and ends with cardio.
So I back out 16 weeks and have the, you know,
this is the goal for this deal. A fair amount
of strength. I have to do some strength training
just to keep my sanity. Because I'm a muscle
head. I used to do five exercises, four sets,
ten reps. That's the school that I come from.
So I had to break it down into pushing sleds
and kettlebells and all of that. Assault bike.
Fuck. Yeah, that's my favorite. The assault bike?
Yeah, for torture. Oh, my gosh. Tabatas, you
do tabatas on it? Yeah. 20 -second sprints and
then 10 seconds off. Have you ever seen the assault
bike? No. It was at my studio. I have it at home
now, but it's got the handles. I got an Echo
bike from Rogue. That's the best one. That's
the best one, yeah. Yeah, it's fucking phenomenal.
It's so hard to do. You do sprints. So for 20
seconds, you go all out, and then you rest for
10 seconds, and then 20 seconds all out, and
you do a series of eight of those. It takes four
minutes. And, dude, you just want to die. After
four minutes is over, you just fall down. You
collapse. You look down. There's a puddle of
sweat. You're like, what happened? Yeah, four
minutes. Honestly, yeah. Yeah, four minutes will
crush you. Yeah, and I do, when I was getting
ready for elk hunting season, because you know
that's in the mountains and it's hard, I did
10 of those. So I did 10 of those four minutes,
so 40 minutes. So I'd do one, I'd let my heart
rate drop down below 130 beats per minute, and
then I'd just do another one again. And then
I just kept doing it. I just kept doing it. And
my legs never got tired elk hunting season. They
would always get tired. But it conditions your
legs so much because you're pushing against the
resistance of that thing. It's just one of the
best cardio exercises ever, and fighters use
it all the time. They'll do all their drills
and all their pad hitting work, and then when
they have to do some extra conditioning at the
end, a lot of guys love that. Yeah, yeah. Usually
I would start up. Uh, either on a wrong row and
then, uh, you know, do my workout. And then the
end fucking hit that Tabata. It's amazing. Cause
the whole time that it is, you're right. You
feel so good. And I've actually done it too with,
with, uh, uh, where you cut the oxygen off and.
Oh Jesus. Oh yeah. Like we're wearing those masks.
Ugh. Why? Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm thinking
while I'm doing it. I feel like my lungs are
like a dried out sponge. I'm like, get this thing
off of me. When I have that date, I've got four
months and I don't want to embarrass myself.
That's the key. You're old. You're putting yourself
out there. Nobody's making you do this. You're
doing this yourself, so you've got to be the
best you can be. Then it's easy for me. Right
now, I'm in this transition period, COVID. I'm
going to need a Goggins call here in a minute.
I'm about to puss out. I'm going to need Goggins
to call and just cuss me out like a bitch. It's
just trying to get that... You know, that workout,
I'll go upstairs and, you know, do some bench,
see what I can, you know. Okay, yeah. With your
shoulder, I can't imagine that you still do benching.
It's crazy. Yeah. Because that's the thing that
fucks shoulders up the most, really, is benching.
I tore my pec benching early, or in 99. I used
to train with this guy. He passed away. His name
was Brian Adams Crush. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was
one of my best friends. And he grew up in Hawaii.
And, you know, he'd go down. He's always in the
ocean. Just incredible. Funny story about Brian.
So I met him when I first started with WWE. I
met him in a gym. And, you know, I don't know
anybody there, really. He's on a squat rack,
and he's got 315 on it. And he comes over, hey,
you mind spotting me, right? And I said, yeah,
yeah, sure. So, you know, he's moved up to the,
you know, he's up on the bar and he's getting
his hands on it. So, you know, when you spot
somebody, when you think they're about to squat,
you know, you grab them, you know, underneath,
right? Right. So I go and I grab him, right?
And he goes, what the fuck are you doing? You
know, I won't use the expletives in the derogatory.
Yes. You're following me, right? Yes, I got you.
Okay. So he goes, I'm not going to squat this.
This would crush me. I'm on a military president.
315 behind the neck. He did eight. Boom, boom,
boom, boom, boom. Wow. And racked it. And he
was 6 '7", right? big upper body. That's a lot
of fucking weight to military. Yeah. It's standing.
No, not on a Smith machine. He just did it. Right.
Huge upper body, like pool, pool cues for legs.
But, you know, uh, but anyway, that's who, that
was my training partner. Right. So we're training
one day and, uh, I was rehabbing a groin injury
and I was just about to go back to work. And,
uh, feeling really strong one day so i got 485
on and brian was a social butterfly right so
he's talking to the guy over here so he unracks
it i go down one i'm like oh fuck that felt good
right so i come down for the second one and it
felt like you know when a fish starts to hit
a line yeah it starts tugging Oh, no. That's
what I feel. It's like... Oh, no. Brian's oblivious.
Oh, no. So I'm sitting there with 485 on my chest
like this. Like, Brian! Brian! And he comes up.
Come on, you got it? Oh, my God. And I'm like,
look. I could already tell it was just fucking
gone. So he fucking upright rose this shit off
of me. Oh, my God. Well, adrenaline. And I'm
just like, oh, shit. I tore the muscle from the
tendon. Did you get it reattached? Yeah, I got
it reattached. Another time, Dr. Bird tells me,
he goes, I know you know a lot more about medicine
than I do. He goes, you tear it again, I'm not
going to be able to fix it. So you might want
to do your rehab. Back then, I'd do half -ass
rehab and get back to work as soon as I could.
How long did it take to recover from that? That
took a while, and it was a long time. That was
about an eight -month rehab on that one. And
then I didn't bench again for years. Yeah. I
was just scared. Fuck, I don't want to tear it
again. Yeah, it's a scary one. Yeah, it was.
Torn pecs are weird. I had a friend who had a
torn pec and he never got it fixed, so he had
this weird, crazy divot. Yeah. Yeah, it was real
odd. It's like he had extra tit here, and this
was like a hole. It's crazy how tough wrestlers
are. I remember one of the Piper things that
I remember the most is we were hanging out a
lot. He was doing stand -up at the Comedy Store
in some of the last years of his life, hanging
out there a lot late night with me, embarrassed.
We would all just go to the diners afterwards.
He would drive a lot, and he was having trouble
with his shoulder sort of famously for a month.
He was like, oh, God. When he was turning his
steering wheel, he was like, oh, you could tell.
Even though he obviously had a very high tolerance
for pain. Extremely high tolerance for pain.
He's like, ah, shoulder. He's like, yeah, I'm
going to a doctor in a couple weeks. Next couple,
whole couple weeks, my shoulder. Jeez Louise.
Then after that, he's like, yeah, I went to the
doctor. Turns out my neck's broken. He just had
a broken neck. Thought he had a sore shoulder.
How did he break his neck? I mean, it's just
like every injury. It's crazy. So I wrestled.
After that, I think it was 2015, I wrestled Lesnar
at WrestleMania at the Superdome. Somewhere in
the first five minutes or so of the match, I
get concussed. I can't tell you where it happened,
when it happened, but I have no memory whatsoever
of the match at all. Crazy. My memory from that
day, the last memory that I have is at about
3 o 'clock in the afternoon. This is crazy, right?
Three o 'clock in the afternoon, I have a conversation
with my wife. So obviously I had all that time.
I think we went to the ring around 9, 9 .30.
The concussion happens somewhere within the first
five minutes of the match. And anyway, I go through
the match. The match goes for 30 minutes. I couldn't
tell you one thing about it. I mean, I've seen
it back now, but I mean, at the time. I got no
recollection. Couldn't tell you my name. Couldn't
tell you where I was at. Had no clue. Never lost
consciousness, but had no clue. Anyway, they
take me to the hospital. And they take me back.
And my wife and Vince are there in the waiting
room. They come out. It's the same kind of deal.
They go, all right, he's broken his neck. And,
you know, we're going to give him another scan.
Obviously, my wife is completely freaking out
at this point. Come to find out, they had read
the scans wrong. It was an old break that I never
knew I had. So you had a break. You're just still
wrestling with it. I never knew it. Oh, my God.
Yeah. Probably just assumed. Was that pain in
your shoulder too? That's what I'm noticing.
It's like a lot of these neck injuries go to
the shoulder. You're talking about your neck
injury. Is that where it's bothering you? Totally.
The whole back of my shoulder blade is messed
up. I just found out that my neck is messed up.
Disc on disc. Whatever. Bone on bone. You have
stenosis. You probably got that from wrestling.
Yeah. They have me on steroids right now. Can
you tell? They ain't got you on the right ones.
They probably have you on cortisone. Yeah. Methylprednisone
or something? Yeah, prednisone. Yes. I don't
think you get jacked on prednisone. Damn. It's
the wrong stuff. I'd be huge if you did. Yeah.
I contacted that dude about stem cells. Oh, cool.
I talked to him about that. Have you had any
stem cells? I have. I did PRP and stem cells.
Didn't do much good for, like, I put them in
my knee. But I had all these guys now that are
going down to Columbia and Panama. And they swear
by it. I think because they're getting more down
there than the FDA will allow here. Exactly.
But I have two guys that I know have gone down
there and swear by it. Yeah, I sent my mom down
there. I sent my mom to Panama. Yeah, twice.
She had a really bad knee, and it was in pain
all the time. And she went, and then six months
later, the pain went away. It took a while, but
for six months, she was like, I'm not feeling
anything. It feels the same. And then about six
months later, because she's in her 70s, it took
a little while before it kicked in. It started
feeling much better, and then she went back again
for a booster a while later. It helped a lot.
It really stopped all the pain. I've heard nothing,
but I hadn't heard any bad for sure. What's going
on with your knees? Arthritis. Arthritis, yeah.
I think, once again, going back to my hips and
throwing my gait off, my walk off. Well, it's
just also the weight, you know, carrying that
much weight around for anybody with your cartilage
and your meniscus and the kind of shit you're
doing. So these crazy explosive movements and,
you know. When I was getting ready, I was getting
ready three or four years ago. I did a, I was
training, I was training over here for that too.
Way too old, but did a 40, 42 inch. Box jump.
Box jump. And then did a 500 -pound pull, which
I was like, fuck, I couldn't believe it. I was
like, I didn't even know, one, I could get down
that low, you know, to even get to deadlift.
But it started, you know, then I started looking
back through some of the footage of the training.
Like, it started with me doing step -ups. Hmm.
I mean, that was where I started my program at,
just doing step -ups on a bench to end up. 42
-inch box job. Yeah. That's impressive. At 50
-plus, yeah. That's impressive. Yeah. I couldn't
do it now. But deadlifting, you know Robert Oberst?
He's a strong man. He doesn't even believe in
deadlifts. He's like, you shouldn't do deadlifts.
It's very controversial for him to say. Some
people disagree. It's one of those things. You
can fuck your back up. Easily. Especially if
you're doing heavy weights. With poor technique.
It's real easy to do. I don't have any reason
at this point to try a 500 -pound deadlift. I've
got nothing left to prove. I've got one. I got
one on film, bro. I'm good, man. We got to boost
Tony up to that. That's it. I've been telling
you, if you want to get bigger, you got to lift
heavy things. Squats and deadlifts. You got to
tell your body that something's wrong. Something's
horribly wrong, and you have to lift heavy things
now forever. Yeah. I was going. I was going to
the gym, and then my neck got messed up like
a month ago. We need a fucking Goggins hotline.
He just saw Goggins pull a quart of fucking fluid
out of his knee. And you're like, my neck's kind
of bothering me. I can't really do squats. I
was really getting into it, but now it's just
uncomfortable, so I'm just going to sleep. Sleep
it off. Do you still follow WWE now? Yeah, because
I think once things kind of start to lighten
up, hopefully. Can you enjoy it as a fan, or
are you too close to it? I try. It's tough right
now for me because the product has changed so
much, and it's kind of soft. Are you going to
get in trouble for saying that? Probably. I'll
probably piss a lot of people off, but they need
to hear it. It is what it is. But to the young
guys, he's a bitter old guy. I'm not bitter.
I did my time. I'm good. I walked away when I
wanted to walk away. I just think the product
is a little soft. There's guys here and there
that have an edge to them, but there's too much
pretty, not enough substance, I think, right
now. 100%. You agree? Yeah. What bothers you?
And I think they're, you know, I think they're
playing for, you know, a billion dollar market.
They want the kids. They want the kids merchandise
to sell. You know, the parents will buy stuff
for the kids. The new T -shirts come out. But
really, it was, you know, I think that the peak
of everything was, you know, the Attitude Era,
right? Ninety nine, early 2000s and all the you're
you're learning thing. Like it's like you're
becoming instead of. playing to kids to be like,
Hey, look at this silly character. You're a kid.
You'll enjoy this. The kids like me, you know,
in grade school and high school, we're watching
because it was wrong. It was like, Oh my God,
you know, it's darker. It's a crazy sexual, like
the stuff DX used to do. You learned, you just,
they would just make fun of each other harsher.
It was, there was the shit talking was harder.
The. The storylines were tougher. Now it's more
of a big brand for a big network. They don't
have that edge that it used to have. It's always
been this way. They're trying to put something
out for everybody. Some guys are into the comedy
shit. Then there's other guys that want to see
the more hardcore type. I think one of the big
things that happened is that the generation before,
we all got old at the same time. And so there
weren't enough guys to work with the young guys.
I mean, we can sit and talk and I can give you
my theories on what you should do or you should
do this or maybe you should try this. But until
you actually can get in the ring and actually
do it, it doesn't really translate a lot of times.
And then you also have too many people that,
well, they're on the internet. These guys on
the internet say, I'm pretty fucking good, you
know? Okay, well, you can listen to them or you
can listen to somebody who's been there and done
it, you know? So I think there needed to... You
can't help it, but there was just not enough
merging of the young and the new talent. Like
when we had Stone Cold and Rock and Triple H,
Sean, all these guys, you know, we were all working
together. And everybody, we were making money
and we were drawing. And then we all just kind
of, we aged out. You know, I mean, I hung in
there for a long time, but we kind of aged out.
And then it just left all these young guys to
learn with more young guys. And the product.
The product changed. The PC, the training center
is helping. We got Triple H, a great wrestler.
He heads that whole thing. And he's trying to
get some of the toothpaste back in the tube.
Trying to move it back to kind of a... take a
step back to move forward to give the product
a little more edge. And I think that's what it's
missing. What is CM Punk doing? Is he wrestling
again? No. No, I don't think so. I don't think
he went to AEW or anything now. I don't think
so. Yeah. So when he had his last fight, he just...
I've seen him a couple of times on one of Fox's
shows. Yeah, they had him on a few times. I think
they stopped doing that show. They had him doing
a little like, here's what's happening this week
in WWE on Fox. And it was on Fox One or Fox Sports
One or whatever. But then that was it. I think
they canceled that show. God, that was a crazy
gamble for him to fight. Yeah. I'm not real close
with him. We got along. I didn't understand it.
I know he had an issue with the company. And
sometimes, you know, people just want to, you
know, they need a new challenge. But, I mean,
he was a top dude. He was, you know, he was a
top guy for the company. Sometimes, you know,
like I said, I don't know enough because I wasn't
around enough at that time. But, you know, I
don't know that he had enough background. It
was kind of late in the game. I think, for him
to make that transition. Yeah. You know, it was
easier for Brock. Brock had that really strong
wrestling pedigree. Brock's also a crazy athlete.
He's a freak athlete. Just crazy. I mean, you
see his combine numbers? Oh, my God. It's ridiculous.
Bananas. Yeah. I mean, he's one of those guys
that defy, you know, I mean, he was 260 pounds,
but, you know, his shot was like a 160. I mean,
it was just. You can't believe somebody his size
can move the way he can move. No, he was a freak.
He was a freak athlete. You know, I used to call
him the vanilla gorilla. Yeah. I mean, and he
was, he was just a freak, freak dude. And so,
you know, I just don't, you know, punk, you know,
I don't know. I mean. If he just wanted the challenge,
I mean, good for him. I mean, he tested it. I
think that's what it was, you know. I mean, he
had one. He fought Mickey Gall, and it didn't.
Mickey's a good fighter and up -and -coming guy,
too. And then he fought Michael Jackson, another
guy afterwards, who was like a pretty solid striker.
Yeah. So you got kind of a tough draw. Yeah.
The Michael Jackson fight, I'm telling you, that
was like as easy a fight. No, I want to say easy
a fight. But that was commensurate to someone
who is 0 -1. Like, I mean, and Michael's much
more, like, much more experienced. But he wasn't
terrifying. Right. Like, he didn't put him in
there with some guy who's going to kick his head
off into the fifth row. Right. It was a good
fight for him, but not really. The guy's good.
I don't know what CM Punk's ultimate motivation
and goal was, but I think he wanted to test himself.
I think they paid him a lot of money. I'm sure
he did good buy numbers, I bet. I'm sure. I'm
sure he got a piece of the pay -per -view or
a really good deal. I feel like if somebody wants
to do something like that, if you really want
to do it, what you should do is... start as an
amateur. I don't know if he has the time because
I believe he's deep in his 30s by the time he
had his first fight. Yeah, absolutely. That's
what I'm saying. It was late in the game. But
if he wanted to do it, the right way is not just
jump into the UFC. The right way is you do some
amateur fights, maybe a Muay Thai smoker to really
learn how to do it. Long fucking time. Long fucking
time to get real legitimate martial arts skills.
Anything. It takes a long time to be relevant
with WWE. Anything you want to do and want to
be good at, you don't do it in a couple years.
You've got to take your lumps and you've got
to learn your craft. It is interesting how few
guys have jumped into the water, though, of actually
having a real MMA fight. Yeah. Wow. I think now
it's so specialized now. Now everybody's so good
at jiu -jitsu, and everybody can stand up as
good. Everybody can wrestle. Not like in the
early days where everybody had their specialty.
You had your stand -up guys, and then Gracie
came along and fucked everything up. What happened
with Cain Velasquez? Cain Velasquez was working
for the company for a little while. You know
what? I saw him one day at the Performance Center.
I was there working. I think I was getting ready
for Mania. He had a match with Brock Lesnar.
Yeah, and I thought, okay. They messed that one
up on the creative side, is my big guess here.
I mean, they had one sort of match, right? Him
and Brock, sort of. And then they did this weird
MMA thing where they tried to make the second
one like MMA, and it was just a debacle. Was
it? Yeah, it was really one of the saddest things
I've ever seen. Because they tried to make it
like... They were doing MMA in the wrestling
ring. It just didn't make sense. I mean, even,
you know, unless you go, you know, unless you
go half shoot or full shoot, it's just hard to.
People don't know what you're saying. Shoot,
for folks who don't know, means a real fight.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Old school wrestler's terms.
I'm old school. That's all I got. What's crazy
is Kane is a big fan of pro wrestling and he's
got moves. There's a video of him. You see the
way he does that flying scissors? Catches a guy
and wraps his legs around his head and then flips
him. And that's exactly what they should have
done with him and Brock. They should have had
him learn a few cool moves like that. Protect
him and then let him come along. It's funny.
I remember going to a fight. It was in Vegas,
and I run into Matt Hughes and his brother. They
were huge wrestling fans, and they started showing
me their moves. Matt was putting a body scissor
on his brother. It's standing, right? They were
just like, what do you think about this? What
about this? I was like, yeah, it's pretty good.
You've got to fight. You've got to fight in about
an hour. You're worried about – He's trying out
pro wrestling dudes. It wasn't my opinion on
him. That's hilarious. Yeah, it was funny, but
those were good dudes. I remember Pat Milich,
he used to invite me out to his place all the
time. But that's when I was on the road all the
time. But all those guys, Tim Sylvia, all those
guys are big wrestling fans. Huge, yeah. Yeah.
Well, listen, Mark, thank you very much for being
here, man. I really appreciate it. Thanks for
having me, man. I've had a good time. Thank you,
Tony. Dean, thank you, guys. You're the boss.
You're the gap, brother. Well, if there's ever
a pro wrestling person on, I have to have Tony.
I was just hearing it lessen the testosterone
in the room a little bit. Lessen it a little
bit? Needed to add some, what's it called? Estrogen.
Let me extend it. So we just announced for the
next three years where our manias are at, right?
Okay. So this year is it? It's going to be in
Raymond James. Next year, 22 is going to be in
Texas stadium again. Where's Raymond James? That's
in Tampa. Okay. That's going to be 21, but in
22, it's going to be in Dallas at Texas stadium.
You should come. I know you're not a, I know
you're not a wrestling fan. I know, but I'll
take acid and go. How about that? I guarantee
you. I guarantee you'll have a good time. I would
go if I'm home, if I'm around. I just never know
where I'm at, especially in 2022. I hope in 2022
you actually have real audiences. Isn't that
weird? I would have imagined we would have real
audiences by now. You kind of can still in Tampa.
Is that why in April it's in Tampa? I think so.
They just announced these yesterday. So we got
the Royal Rumble coming up. In two weeks, that
kind of sets off WrestleMania season. But I promise
you, fan or not a fan, you will have a good time.
I'm sure. I've been telling him this for years.
Hopefully you get it through to him. Can you
pull up a live shot of Texas Stadium? Just to
give you a feel. That's the one in Dallas, right?
Yeah, that's where the Cowboys play. They wanted
to do a UFC fight there. That's where Conor wanted
to fight. I think he wanted to fight Khabib there.
Oh, that would have been awesome. Yeah, I think
he was trying. They wanted to do a UFC fight
there, which is just fucking bananas. Oh, my
God, that is so crazy. Hundred and... Jesus Christ.
5 ,000 people. That's so many people. Look at
the size of that crowd. Oh, my God. How big is
fucking WrestleMania? That's crazy. Huge. That
is crazy. When you look at how many people there
for that. What a successful fucking event. They
come from 25 different countries. Just people
all over the world. That's the big one. That's
the big event. This is our Super Bowl. Wow. Yeah.
That's amazing. I was supposed to go to my first
one this year. I still have the ticket. Never
got to use it for Tampa Bay. I was going to go
in April. I was going to do shows in... Florida
and then have the Sunday off. I had it all planned
out. I tell you. We're alive. We're alive. We
can keep going. Yep. Well, thank you. Thank you,
Mark. Thank you very much, man. Thanks for having
me, man. My pleasure. Thank you, Tony. Thank
you, Young Jamie. Always. Thank you, everybody.
Goodbye. Thank you.