Transcript
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Welcome to The Battleground Podcast, all things pro and exclusive
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interviews with some of your favorite wrestlers.
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Podcast stop It, What's up you guys? Welcome back into
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iHeartRadio's official wrestling podcast, The Battleground Podcast.
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It is Battle from one.
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O five to nine the Right Nashville's classic rock station,
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and of course, Friday Night SmackDown is here in our backyard,
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literally down the street from us Bridge Don Arena. And
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joining us on the show, we got the Man, the myth,
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the legend, and he's been on this show multiple times,
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so we can now consider him a friend.
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Austin Theory joins the show. Austin, how are you doing, sir?
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I'm doing great and I'm super excited to be coming
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back to Nashville. It's always a good time in Nashville.
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That's where the party is at.
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Absolutely, and you and Grays are gonna hit up Broadway
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after the show on Friday night or what?
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Oh, me and Grayson we got so many plans for Friday.
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You know, we might beat up the Bloodline. I don't know, Wait,
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that might have been too far. Let's see, you know,
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maybe Cody Roads. Maybe we'll beat up Cody Roads. That's
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you know it's a better option, and uh yeah, Broadway, man,
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there's a lot of bars over there. There's a lot
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of you know, opportunities to showcase your singing skills. So
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maybe Grayson can do that. You know, he's a good singer.
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If you guys didn't know.
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Oh really, no he's not.
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I wouldn't.
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I would not be surprised if as it gets he's
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just got the accent, you know, that's.
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All he's got. He's got that accent. That's it.
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Of course, WW right now is tremendous that it's on fire.
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The product is great.
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You can grab tickets still available ticketmaster dot com. But
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let's just kind of dive right into it. You've been
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in some high profile storylines recently. What's something about the
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creative process behind the scenes, pulling back the curtain a
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little bit that fans would be surprised to know about
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your involvement in.
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I would have to say, man, with the creative process now,
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it's very hands on and there's a lot of opportunity
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for us superstars to you know, make tweaks, make changes,
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have our own ideas and you know them, not be
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shut down them, you know, actually having the opportunity to
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be looking at and say, well, you know, maybe we
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could go somewhere with this, or that's not really the plan,
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but you know that that might have something to it.
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So it's very hands on, but it's also very uh,
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you know it being the creative. It's very creative for
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all of us because we're all being able to create.
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And you know, when it comes to what we do
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as sports entertainers professional wrestlers is showing our art. So
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that creativity is so important for us to have in
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our own hands. And I feel that way now that
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we do have it.
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Yeah, and it's you can you could tell as you're
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watching it from you know, previous regimes. Now with Hunter
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and Sean taking over and everything else, you could tell
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like it's a little bit more relaxed that the camera,
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the production, the pyros, the vignettes. The thing that I
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really like is shooting the interest ins, like for example,
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Jay Uso coming in from the crowd.
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I know you don't really want to hear me talking
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about Jay on the show, but you know what, I
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love though.
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You know, and I'd love to beat him up, so hey,
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we can talk about him all you want.
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I mean, he's got a he's got a title around
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his way, so there's obviously a target on his back.
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So I mean, maybe we see Austin after that IC title.
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Hey never been in the Continental Champion, you know. But
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I'm definitely marking off the boxes of all these titles
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and briefcases and whatever you want to call these achievements.
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I'm taking them all.
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Yeah, absolutely, for sure.
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We recently saw you guys in NXT popped in from
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her parents there. Well, I mean, do you guys, is
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there any motivation for any like, are you just looking
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for a fight anywhere at this point?
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I mean, Grayson, we you know, we like to really
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look at the field of you know where we're at,
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and it's huge. You know, you have NXT, you have
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Monday Night Raw, you have SmackDown. I've been on Monday
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Night Raw. Grayson hasn't, but I'm sure in the future
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you'll see him there. But SmackDown. You know, we've been
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running smack Down. We're always in the main event. You
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always see us out there with celebrities, Hall of famers,
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World Champs. It doesn't matter because me and Grace and
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Waller are the two guys you put out there with anybody,
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and we get the job done, and you know we're entertaining.
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That's what this is about, you know, But yeah, man,
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we're just I feel like when it came to NXT,
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you look back, I never got a championship opportunity in NXT.
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Grayson never got one as well. So tag team championships,
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grab those, go to SmackDown, grab those, like, just take
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all the tag championships. But I feel like also too,
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when you look at NXT and you have two guys
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like us come down there, I think we kind of
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straighten everybody up and they're like, oh wow, like these
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are two young dudes that are getting it on the
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main roster. And we're young too, but we're in NXT,
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which NXT is amazing, and I mean you saw last
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night the arena full, the new championships, the matches, the
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way the superstars are in the ring, their next level.
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But I think when two guys like us come down there,
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it really makes everybody go, oh whoa, Like there is
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another level and age really isn't the thing here, Like
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it's about just being that good and being able to
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prove yourself.
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Right for sure.
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And I know recently we had a conversation with Tamaso
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about you know, superstars being up on the main roster
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and then going to NXT and how fans kind of
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think that that's like a punishment per se. But what
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is your thought on that, because I mean it seems
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like everything is cohesive. You have everybody on this brand,
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this brand and this brand. But again, like you said,
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we could show up anywhere and it's not like a
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punishment according to the you know, IWC.
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I think you know, like we all saw NXT right,
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Like you have the Performance Center, that's where I started
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when I got signed, and then you slowly get on
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NXT TV and then eventually you make it to the
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main roster. But it's crazy how the feeling of NXT
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has changed and the caliber of superstars that they have
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and the level they perform on the arenas they go to,
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how they showcase those stars. Man, you can't really argue
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that it's not a main roster feel. So to me,
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I feel like WWE, it's this universe and we have
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all these different you know, almost planets. You know, you
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got smacked Down, you got RAW, you got NXT. So
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I think it's it's so cool to look at it
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as Wow, there's all these new characters there's all this
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new talent. Let's see how an Austin Theory would collaborate
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with this star, or Grayson Waller would collaborate with this star.
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So I look at it more so as you know,
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anybody that's on TV and the WWE, whether it's NXTTV, SmackDown,
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or ROW, you're looking at a superstar. That person made
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it out of millions and there's a reason they're there.
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So for me to go to NXT, it's not a
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step back, it's not a downgrade. It's not a know
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like do I have to like get worked on or
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do I have to get better at something. It's none
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of that. It's just about elevating everybody and all of
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us being in there together. It just makes us all
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better and it improves the WWE for sure.
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So the three current tag team champions would be the Bloodline,
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Judgment Day, and then an NXT. Nathan Frasier in axiom, Yeah, well,
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I was just say objectively, if you had to go
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after a set of belts, who do you think would
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you would have the best chance of defeating?
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You know, I don't really look at it as like, oh,
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what's the best chance, because me, I love the risk.
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I love to be all in. I love the chaos.
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A lot of people would say, hey, you know the
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blood Line. I made that joke at the beginning. Lead
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the blood Line out of it. The only reason I'd
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leave the blood Line out is because, you know, anytime
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you got a close chance of beating them, there's like
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a new guy. I'm like, who is this? Who is
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this guy? Get this USO out of here? You know
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what I mean? Hard to keep up, Yeah, but as
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far as you know the other tag team championships go
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Judgment Day, me and Grace and Waller would drop them.
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We could do that on Raw and NXT. I mean,
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we've already made a point. You know. We got little
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Nathan Fraser that looks like Kurt Cobain, and we got
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the Power Ranger Axiom over here. These two guys they
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call themselves Phraxium. Now as we do make fun of them,
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they're both very impressive. They both you know, they've they've
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done their thing, They've proved it. That's why they're the champs.
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But we definitely know we're taking those NXT Tag Team championships.
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Me and Grace and Waller are on the same page.
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It's scary, man, and there's only one way those people
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are gonna go, and that's atown down under Oo.
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Man, that's gonna be fun.
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Of course, speaking of fun, SmackDown is at the Bridge
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That Arena Friday night, WW makes their return.
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You can still grab tickets ticketmaster dot com.
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Now, a little bit ago you had mentioned talking about
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working with legends and Hall of famers and whatnot. Has
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there ever been a moment while working with his legends
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where you're like, in your head, You're like, man, this
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is unreal, Like I'm really doing this.
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What was that feeling and what was it for you?
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Man? I have to say, like every opportunity or a
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moment that I've you know, had the honor of being
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a part of, I really take every moment in Like
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I can remember a lot of moments, so specifically, I
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remember the Rock promo. I've never met the Rock before.
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There's a couple of guys in the back, you know,
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they've met him at the performance center, or they've met
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him on the main roster, never had an interaction with him.
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And thirty minutes before that whole segment took place, I
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met the Rock and we went out there and just
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how he told me, sorry, how He told me that
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we're going to create magic out there. You're going to
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feel it, so just just feel it out there. And
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I did, and just how the crowd just reacts to
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him and it's just magic man, And that moment really
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stuck out for me. And you know that goof Pat
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McAfee was in there too. Whatever.
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Yeah, And that's that's always a cool thing because you
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can that you could see that that magic happening on TV.
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You could feel it through the TV. I know as
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a fan, like, uh, you know, watching Monday Night Raw.
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A buddy of ours who is a professional wrestler's name
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is Colby. He was actually one of the security guards
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in the Hell in the Cell match or the Hell
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in the Cell promo, and like I'm sitting there watching
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it and I'm like, you could just kind of feel
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him taking everything in as just being like, you know,
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one of those guys.
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And hey, you know your your friend Colby being an extra.
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You know he might become a world champ. You know
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that's usually how it goes, right. Yeah.
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Well, and he was in the ring with Punk and
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Drew McIntyre, so I mean he's he's off to a
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good start.
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You know. It's a good start to his story.
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Dude, Yeah, absolutely for sure. So you know, is there
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a you know, you've you've done a lot of stuff.
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I know, last time we had you on, my my
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son presented brought in some old promos from uh Pass
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Wrestling promotions that you have worked for with Chammpionships and
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you had that on everything. Is there a specific match
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or moment, because I mean your career is still going
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that looking back, you think completely redefined you as a performer.
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M you know, I feel like maybe not specifically a match, right,
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but I think all these little moments, like we were
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saying before, like we had the rock situation, We've had
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the scene of situation, We've had the Stone Colt stunner,
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We've had Jelly Roll, We've had it just keeps going,
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you know, even having the match with Pat McAfee. I mean,
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look what Pat McAfee's doing now and what he was
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doing before. You know, the guy doesn't stop as much
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as he sucks, you know. But yeah, it's just for me,
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I think that all of these moments define me. And
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I think ever since I started on the main roster,