[Music] Introducing first, speaking out of Akron, Ohio, representing teen popping the boys, the headline God, Jeremy Weber, and his co-hosts, speaking out of Atlanta, Georgia, representing more than one royal family, the King of Indian doing, Stephen, Justin! Hello, and welcome everyone to the spotlight here on Fightful. I'm Jeremy Lambert. That is Stephen Jensen, and shout out as always to Big Dick and Muljay for the intro. It is Thursday, August 15th. As always, we got a lot to talk about in the world of professional wrestling, but Jensen, how you doing this, my buddy? Doing good, doing good. Good morning, everybody. We got to get an interview for y'all at the end of this with cruel, magic, cruel, crueger, from MLW, the IW TV, and the Penn Wrestling World Champion. So, really good show. Line up for y'all today. Good stuff to talk about. Oh, this just came in the mail the other day as well. So, shout out to our homey, Nacho Mane. So, he was a recent guest. If you want to check that interview out after you watch this as well. So, yeah, things are good, man. How about you? To win well in all the early mornings again for me. I know we've talked about this before. We do this show very early, and I'm typically up early, but during the summer, I get to sleep in a little bit. So, actually, Thursday becomes my early day during the summer when I get to sleep in a little bit. Now, Thursday is just a normal day because kids are back in school, and so the wife's up before I am, but I'm typically up now starting about seven o'clock. And, yeah, this is now late for me. 830, I've already, I've already put in more work today than most people are going to do all day. Yeah, I've only been around for like an hour, but still outworking everybody. Oh, gents, it's coughing. So, no, we're good. We're good timing there. Yeah, I muted myself. Yeah, that's good. Sounds like you're being super productive. This is me starting my day, then rolling right into my shoot job, which by the way, but why don't I need to make sure that I'm clocked out of here. Yeah, we got just, we got just in in trouble last week, everybody. We did a little bit got slapped on the wrist for, for clocking in literally one minute after my allotted time, even though I clock in five minutes early every other day of the week, apparently that didn't matter anyway I don't think nothing nothing will happen out of it. Yeah, just a little, a little annoying that they brought it up to me anyways. If you're watching this, I don't know how I feel by all right now, you see if I just flip them off. I don't know if we can do that in the first five minutes so I don't know if I want to get this demonetized immediately. No, I left. I left my shoot job really yesterday. You guys want a real shoot. I got a little frustrated and I have, I have an entire week of paid paid time off that I haven't used yet this year. I actually hadn't used any paid time off this entire year and I realized we were halfway into August and I was like, okay, if I'm having any days or I'm just not feeling it. I'm just bailing. I'm just going to be doing it so I bailed went to DMB is baby, DMB's got me a got me this yo yo for 300 tickets. And yeah 300 tickets how much is that like, actual money. Yeah, it's like nothing I mean that's like the equivalent of like, there's a there's this game call I can recall it's like this. It's like a dinosaur based game but really all you're doing is you're hitting a button and they try to the arm like sweeps, like pucks into like if you if they have like ticket. Yeah, and I mean if you win that like one time. I mean you can you can hit for two 50 you get 500. So that's basically one win of one of those. But yeah I did my thing played a little baseball pro, you know, got the highest score for the day on that and the bonus and, you know, ran into a friend Dre who I hadn't seen in a long time frequent he's actually one of those guys who like does David Muster's full time, like just like goes David Muster's a David Muster's loads of his power for full, full time like this is like a legit job can you just I've never told you about that. There's an entire, there's an entire underworld see people aren't going to want to hear about this you're going to get to the wrestling time to take care of the wrestling, there's an entire like underworld of like people who are really really good at arcade games that like we'll spend an entire day going from like going to like three or four different even busters and they'll get there before all the bonuses have like kid on the machines so like they'll get there, they'll max out the machines they'll put like $100 on a power cart max out the machines and get a ton of tickets and then cash out for like, you know, an Nintendo switch or something and then split that for profit. I mean I guess that's good, good work in life if you can master it and get it all done. Yeah I mean I don't know how feasible it is I mean obviously I have not attempted the lifestyle I know a couple people who who do it I also don't know what their living situations are like for all I know their urban camping and the parking lots of David Muster's you know every night I don't get that more into their personal business, but they're good dudes like the way I discovered this whole thing was going down was a couple years ago during the pandemic when I was going to busters every Wednesday. And there was a there was a this so this will be a short story that we're going to get into wrestling basically what is happening was I walked away from this machine that I was at all day the basketball machine where you hit you hit basically it looks like a basketball and it shoots a little basketball into a hoop and you basically yeah. And I was really really good at that game. I decided to walk away for a second and there's two sides of the machine like so you can play against somebody else. I walked away from it for like a few minutes and then I came back both sides of the basketball machine were paying out the bonus. The clown, the clown game where you not the clowns out with the ball that was paying out of bonus. There's the game where you're like, you like, you like throw a balls and like a milk jug. That thing was going off. There was like, and then I think, and then the ball drop game where you hit you hit the, you hit a little red dot and it drops balls into buckets and if you get all the balls. And all the buckets you get to pay out. So like five machines were all paying out the bonus at the same time. And I have only been gone for like five minutes. So I started looking around for what happened. How did this happen? And I look and there's this dude on the clowns just walking all them over. I walked up to the dude. I was like, dude, did you just set all these machines off? And he's like, yeah, bro. And I was like, and then I found out that he's he does it full time. He introduced me to some of the other guys he was there with. They do it full time. And I was like, this is insane that there was actually like a hustle going on at arcades, you know, that people that can do this. So anyways, yeah, that's, yeah, it goes deep, it goes deep. Guys, let me inside, baby. Guys, leave a thumbs up on the video. You can also leave a super tag to question comment statement read on the air. Subscribe to the channel if you've not done that. Subscribe to our sister channel fight book. You've not done that as well. All right, let's get into it. Lots to talk about. Let's start with over a million fans and a great number in the demo tuned in. It was a great show. And I think it's been a run of great shows. It really goes to show how long we've been doing this show that like this million fan bumper is two years old. At this point, the joke is like they can't crack 700 much less a million right now. But it's still been a great show. And they've been on a run of great shows as we lead up to a w all in. Last night, a w dynamite headlined by sort of Strickland against Wheeler, you know, but really sort of Strickland saying he's going to cripple Brian Danielson. This came after they aired a video package with a career retrospective of Danielson, no WWE footage. Joel and I kind of speculated of maybe there might be some WWE footage or at least some pictures from independent photographers. Not even that it was all straight independent and a w clips and photos and highlights nothing from his WWE run, which, you know, if he's not really retiring. Okay, I kind of understand. I do think if he was actually retiring, which, you know, he might, he might lose. He might be retiring. But he's probably going to win. He should win anyway. What'd you make of the whole closing segment here with the video package and then Swerve taking out Danielson and saying he's going to cripple him. So I really liked the video package and I was watching the show with my buddy Mike Hughes and I said that same thing to him actually about the WWE footage. I was like, oh man, it would be nice if you get anything even from WrestleMania 30, just a clip of the crowd at WrestleMania 30 or something. We were both there. That was an amazing moment, an amazing show. I still wish Brock wouldn't beat the streak. That was so such a weird for you in the building. Like, I remember when that happened, I walked into like, like the general area, like right after, there were like a women's tag match or something afterwards that I don't even remember happening because like, I just remember like walking away after the Brock and take her match. And then just like making eye contact with strangers and like the, and like the hall for like, you know, for minutes. We were just like, what the hell just happened. Anyways, a very, very memorable night. It would have been cool to have some, some Danielson WWE footage. I'm with you. I don't think that, I don't think that he's in action if you're retiring. I don't think you'd want to put that, like, you know, I don't think he wants to pigeonhole himself like that. The guy was literally forcing a retirement for years out of his prime. And if he feels like he wants to years from now, even if he doesn't feel like it right now, he was to say years from now, he doesn't want to do some indies, do another AW show, do a one off WWE match or something. So I don't think he wants to do that to himself. So I expect him to win it all in real quickly, real quickly on the footage stuff. I do want to kind of make clear of like, we don't know if they asked WWE, we don't know if WWE made any type of offer. I'm not going to put this solely on like, Oh, look at WWE, they didn't give the footage. For all we know, Tony Khan didn't ask, Brian Daniels didn't ask. They didn't even want to broach that. And so, of course, there was no footage if there was no ask for that. We just don't know. True. Yeah. And I'm not speculating one way or another. I just, there wasn't any footage. So it was what it was. I feel like, now this is completely hypothetical, but there are certain people that I feel like WWE probably would be willing to have a conversation about. And I thought Danielson probably would be one that they would consider like, they have a really good relationship with him. Like, he didn't burn bridges with that company. You know, we've seen little things, even like Chris Jericho being under a WWE contract and doing Steve Austin's podcast on WWE Network. We saw Jericho and Danielson appear on WWE TV when they were with AEW for John Cena's 20, I think 25th anniversary. Right. Right. For sure. So, you know... But that benefited WWE. That was a year on WWE television. I just feel like once again, this is just speculation. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. But, you know, I think that I would like to believe like Danielson is a guy that they might be like, yeah, we have some, we have some pictures of like the clip you can use like it's for Danielson. And it's not to benefit AEW, it's to benefit Brian Danielson in their mind, you know. But anyways, regardless, I thought the video package was done really, really well. The match, I actually really enjoyed between Wheeler, Yuta, and Swerve. I mean, it was mainly all Swerve, but I like that Swerve basically like technically out wrestled at most of the match. Like, Wheeler, Yuta's whole thing is pure wrestling and the Playful Combat Club, what he's learned from them over the years. And Swerve was kind of taking him to school when it came to like the chain wrestling and stuff. And I thought that was really smart because he's heading into this match with Brian Danielson where he's going to be expected to be able to hang with his chain wrestling. And he proved like we can pretty much out wrestle one of his pupils. Let's see how he does against the master at all end. So I like the actual match between the two. I love the finish between Yuta and Swerve as well. I wish I wouldn't have, I wish I wouldn't have panned in so close on the punches at the end, the ground in pound because similar to the famous situation with Dark Order back in the day. Yeah, it was kind of kind of like that, but, you know, I'm not expected about actually punch these guys in the face. I'm just expecting the camera not to make it so obvious, but, but the actual finish of the match, I liked how he hit him with the three house calls. And then he stopped his head in, Danielson style, and then he just did a full mount and just rounded pounded until the referee stopped it. So, and then Swerve cut 100% heel promo on his way out of there, talking about how he's going to cripple Danielson and end his career in front of his kid. But he's still very over as a baby face that he did the who's house in the whole place Swerve's house. Yeah, I mean, they're, once again, it's strange because there's going to, there is going to be a portion of the audience that's going to want Swerve to win. And maybe he's not going to get like, like, outcheared by Danielson. Like, I think Danielson is going to be the baby face. People are going to want to see him win, want to see him save his career, don't want to see him retire. But like, there is a likability still to Swerve, well, I, I've always seen him as a heel, but I understand why people like him, because he, I do like him, obviously, but I wish you, I wish he wasn't meant to get a fan. It's just weird because the way that they really did it on television was he was a heel. And then like, he kept being a heel. But then the company, like, really want, they basically, they turned him baby face without turning him baby face, but they, they had him wrestling heels and had him looking like a baby face, kind of, and also with the Osprey stuff. It's just been, it's been strange, but at the end of the day, we're going to get a great match from Danielson and Swerve. I'm excited for it. I think Danielson is going to win, but I got to give Swerve all the credit in the world. Like, we're also how confusing sometimes it can be, like, the whole heel face dynamic or whatever. I think he's done a really damn good job for like what he's been able to do with, with the championship. He has really, really good matches consistently. So, like, I, you know, I really can't say a bad thing about either guy. I just, I just kind of, I guess at the end of the day, I kind of wish Danielson wasn't going against the guy in this situation that like, there is going to be a portion of the crowd that wants Swerve to win. I feel like we should be in a situation where everyone wants Danielson to win if that makes sense. Chantan Spares leave a super chef. So Daniel Danielson have done a really good job of placing a seat of doubt in my brain that this might be it. I mean, that is, you know, what's what Brian Danielson is great at. Honestly, he's, he's great at making you believe that he is injured or he's going to retire or that he shouldn't be champion, whatever it might be. That's a Danielson in a world in a wrestling landscape where believability is tough because everyone talks about everything. Brian Danielson does a really good job when it, when it comes to that. I think Swerve has always been the heel. I think where it becomes muddy was the Christian stuff. Chantan Spares mentions the Christian feud and like, yeah, he was full on babyface during that still did the sort of heel revenge tactics when it came to Christian. Otherwise he's been facing heel or he's been facing babyface Will Osprey was a full on babyface Brian Danielson is a babyface. I guess Osprey was kind of sort of a heel because he was aligned with Don Callis, but no one really wanted to boo him. I don't, this is a conversation we've had before we don't need to rehash it. I don't think the Swerve heel and face dynamic is that big of an issue. I think it becomes muddy because of the rest of the card is such an issue. I couldn't pull it off with Swerve, but I was thinking about this when Mercedes was wrestling Sheeda. I'm like, well, this is basically two heels, but they're also getting a bunch of cheers. They're off a match and it's just, that's where it becomes. And then you got the acclaimed and FTR and it's like, okay, both these guys at both these teams. I don't really feel a rooting interest for either of them, but then they're facing the Young Bucks, who are the most dastardly team. And then really the entire AEW because they took out Tony Khan, but they're not really present. It's, this is so much a Swerve conversation. It's. Yeah, I think it hurts Swerve because the rest of the card isn't as defined as should be. Again, we've had this conversation before. We're not going to go back into it as far as this segment goes. I think they've done a great job. I think they've done a great job of making you believe that Danielson might lose, making you believe that Swerve is going to end his career, really just selling this match. And I never thought that was going to be an issue. I know a lot of people were like, oh, how are they going to build this up when everybody wants hangman and Swerve? It's Brian Danielson. I am worried about what they're going to do. And obviously putting his career on the line is an easy way to sell this thing. But they've done a great job or a week away from all in a week from Sunday away from all in. And I'm looking forward to the match. Could they have gone in another direction? Yes. Will they get to that direction at some point? Probably. But I think Swerve and Danielson for right now is it's the hottest thing they have. Yeah, it's working out. I mean, you mentioned that we have the whole hangman and Swerve thing lurking, which definitely we're going to come back to that. And I wouldn't be surprised if hangman even played a role in the finish potentially of the main event of all in, I mean, they're not letting us forget that that is going to be happening, whether it's for the title or not, it's sometime soon. And also, but seeing a doubt, I feel like that video package helped with that too, because it was very much like an end of your career video package. Like, so, you know, but I also think that that's really smart to do that to make people feel like, oh, man, this is it. Like, we're getting the video package. But then he wins. But then, I mean, then it's going to be a whole other conversation after that, which we'll talk about when the time comes, but doesn't Danielson need like neck surgery and stuff so like, he is. That's what he says. Again, that's what he says. Right. True. Brian Danielson loves to lie. I mean, I can, I'm still pretty sure I still have here we go. Yes, that's the way he wrote Tommy lying is fun. Yeah. Um, yeah, that's, I mean, we're from the best. But, but I mean, that's what, whether he needs that surgery or not, though, it'll be really interesting to see what he does with the championship. Because I think none of us, including Danielson probably want him to win and then vacate and have like a tournament or something. He probably wants to lose on his way out to whoever the next champion is going to be, whether it's sort of hangman, probably one of those two guys that would guess. But how long does that last and is it going to be some sort of like Ric Flair type, you know, you know, next time I lose, I'm done typing with his champion or something, which actually would be pretty cool. I think that actually worked really well for him if he did like a retirement retirement step on his title reign. Um, but I don't think he won. I mean, he said it himself, like, I don't think he wants to actually fully retire. He wants to keep just wrestling, even if it's one off matches a year and things like that. So I don't think we're right, right, you wouldn't need to do the stipulation because he would just, he would just go away for a while and come back whenever he felt like was a good. Yeah, you're right. I'll actually retract what I just said, because I think that would be a bad idea. We don't need this. We don't need the retirement stipulation because we're hoping he is going to come back for one offs anyway. So I'm with you. Yeah, I don't think he's going to do the retirement stipulation passes. I think he's going to win. He's going to defend it a handful of times. I don't think it's going to be a long. I think he's going to get his moment. And then he's going to defend it and he's going to lose it. And then he'll just kind of go away. Everyone will know he's wrapping up full time. And then he'll come back whenever he needs to come back to do kind of cool one off matches. That'll sort of be that for for Brian Danielson. That's what I see how this goes anyway. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, look, it's going to be a great match. I have no doubt about that. It's, it's too. And it's in my opinion, the greatest professional wrestler of all time. And it's worth Strickland who's on a great run right now. And I think he's been very good as a champion and people want to knock certain things, but I think they've done a very good job with the presentation and even with the feuds that he's had like all of his feuds have gotten over all the matches have been very good. And then he's going to talk like some of the stuff, mainly the first appearance where he went 50, 50 with Kyle Fletcher could have done without that, but well, ever since then, everything has been upwards for for Sir Strickland. So I think it's going to be fantastic. He comes off like a major star, like he looks, he looks feels of the vibe everything about. I don't, I hate this word aura that everyone's using now to describe stuff. I mean, it's the word's been on forever but everyone's using it now. His aura, like it actually like, they, they've done a great job, it's credit to everybody involved AEW Swerve, everyone, but like, it's, just think about how, I mean, kill shot was awesome, it was a totally different gimmick, and then like he had to get some great runs on the indies. But like, you know, as far as like mainstream Swerve was relegated to like two or five live and then like the stuff that he did with, with his group was super super short lived with hit row. And like, when he even became AEW was like, all right, this is going to be, this is going to be his time to like really break out and then it felt like it took a while because it was like the stuff with Keith Lee and all that everyone was like, damn, like, is he going to, and I feel like he, we're at, he actually had the opportunity when I actually are watching him reach his potential. Like, so it's cool to see somebody who has been around for a long time, but just kept grinding and kept getting better. And like, when the time was right, you know, the opportunity was there, he knocked out of the park. And that's what he's doing. So I got, I got massive respect for Swerve, and the way he's being presented the way that he's carrying himself and the way he looks at the AEW champion. Swerve has always been, and I said this a lot when he first joined the company. Swerve is a good representative to have because he wants to go out there and he wants to do different things. He just released an album last week with garments and he's got the big pressure trill mix with Bun B and Westside Gun. He obviously crossed over with the hip-hop world. But when he first signed with the company, he did so much media. And that's one thing I think a lot of people in AEW lack is like they're, they're willingness to go out there and just do media go to different outlets and everything like Swerve was not shy about doing that stuff at all and that's continued as a champion. I think he's done less as a champion, just because he's probably just busier overall, but he still goes out there and does a bunch of media and promotes the brand and you need as many guys like that as possible on your roster. And Swerve, I do think part of that, I mean, there's a reason why most of the people doing media for AEW come from WWE. I think that's very instilled when it comes to WWE and that's the reason why WWE gets as big as they get because they instill that and people who maybe aren't even that willing to do a lot of media. Like, I don't think people look at Gunther and are like, yeah, this is a guy that's going to do a bunch of media and yet they're like, no, Gunther go out there, do media and he does and he does a great job. He carries himself in a great way with that. And Adam Copeland does a bunch of media, not so much now, Swerve, Danielson, always does a bunch of media. One of Darby is an AEW like kind of homegrown, who has really understood, hey, you got to go out there and kind of do media. And if you, again, you look at the guys who do a lot of media for AEW who are not from WWE, they're Cody guys. And I think they learn that kind of from Cody of like you got to go out there and you got to promote. Yeah. I agree for you. I agree. I know Cody's kids are out there out there in the wrestling world. And they conduct themselves different, man. I mean, I've heard people talk about this. Like, I think I heard QT Marshall talk about it like really recently about how even in wrestling, nowadays, a lot of people, a lot of people like, there's less like hand shaking and stuff going on. Yeah. It was QT. Yeah. And I, and he was, you know, talking about how that's something like Cody, when Cody trains kids, like, it's just, it's the old school mentality of treating everybody like your favorite wrestler of all time. And like, it's just, you know, I'm not saying that other people don't do it the right way, but I think it's proven that, you know, a lot of these kids that break in under Cody, they're, you know, they have good careers and they. I'm sure there's a fraternity aspect to it also, right? Like, you have an and you have a foot in the door like you have somebody can call and potentially help you out and stuff like that. That's awesome to have, but they're also learning like really important stuff really early and like it's basic stuff. I mean, they talked about it on the podcast that I had to heard this on, but I mean, it's like, even when I go into the office, like, if I have to go into the office for my shoe job, like I shake hands with my boss and stuff like it just common courtesy when you're an adult. And just, it's one of those things where I, there are little things and you even even see some like Jade Cargill and Ricky Starks are like really good friends in real life and they're both Cody kids to agree Ricky was around for a while before but he's good friends with Cody. You can kind of see their circle like some of the people that were with Cody and they all seem to stick together kind of behind the scenes also and you know what I mean so it's like, there's something to that and I think that's good. They mentioned the podcast QT Marshall was on, but it was Conan's podcast. Do you listen to it podcast. I like, I get the clips. I get, I don't listen to the full shows but I get, that's part of like the, I'll get like the clips of like, I'll get him, I'll get Chris Van Vliet, I'll get Saul Monster, you know, just like that'll go through clips of like kind of everyone that's on my own cornetty then I mean everyone on my algorithm I'll get like the like, you know, two, three, five minute clips and I saw that's why I could remember with when it was on but yeah, I got you. So what they were talking about is QT Marshall was saying like the advice he got was who's your favorite wrestlers like a Roddy Piper to treat everybody like their Roddy Piper no matter who they are treat them like their Roddy Piper. And because you don't know who is going to ascend to the top of the card at some point, but they're going to remember that oh this person treated me like I was a big deal when I was nobody and that's going to come back around to you. And that's what QT was talking about when it comes to respect level and that's something that Cody and stills in yeah basically all of his trainees treat everybody like they're your favorite wrestler, and then because you never know how it's going to going to pay off you have an important message is your boss watching is he going to fire you. No, we're going to have somebody pop in in a second. Oh, okay. Um, just real quick it's going to be about 30 seconds I think I got to get the link. I was going to do it a surprise but I can't I can't surprise you because you saw me on my right leg. I'm very scared. Oh, well, Roderick is it. Okay, it's called Roderick. That's so funny is like, hey, call if you're watching it. Hey, there's somebody. This is true hedgehog for one I love the screen name and I'm a big sonic guy. The first video game I ever played is Sonic Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis. If you're actually from Japan, that is awesome. I, that's one of the coolest things of all time but we have fans that are over in Japan or I don't like calling people are fan and people who we have any viewers over there and that is, that is, we are all friends, we're, you know, I'm just a wrestling fan who got super lucky to be able to talk about wrestling here like I'm, I'm one of y'all. Oh, Paul said to give me four or five. Come on, man. Well, anyway, what's up with me on the next topic and then we'll bring hold on for just a second. A.W. tag team titles. They were maybe supposed to be figured out last night. They weren't because the young bucks and the acclaimed went to a DQ when FTR interfered and now we will get FTR against the acclaimed on collision. The winners, if there is a winner, will face the young bucks at A.W. All in. And to kind of piggyback off of this, the Lucha Bros are reportedly leaving A.W. So sort of a state of the tag team division right now. What are your thoughts on Jensen? I'm with you and what you said earlier about how it felt like you don't have like a huge like really draw for this like the FTR versus acclaimed type stuff like either team. I don't like any of these teams. Yeah, well, I mean, so I would agree. I mean, the thing is in the ring, we like, I can't speak for you, but I mean, I think the young bucks are like one of the best in ring teams, literally in the history of wrestling. I want the Billy Gunn. I want Billy Gunn to just pan everybody. All six of them. Yeah. You've brought up these types of things for Billy Gunn before. I think you said you wanted to win the A.W. World title one time, and I didn't even sell you saying because I'm so used to saying stuff like that or just like, except that it is as something you actually want happening. Yeah. But I mean, I like that there's like some stakes to this matchup about to happen between FTR and the acclaimed and the winners are supposed to wrestle the unbox it all in, but I'm assuming it'll probably be some sort of non finish and it'll be a triple threat match. So I don't think that they're going to leave any of these teams off of the show. So that's my prediction is it's going to be a triple threat. And also when it comes to the Lucha Bros. Sorry, you froze for a second. I was going to say for the Lucha Bros. I, if they go to the WWE, they're going to be humongous stars there, like WWE is going to market the hell out of their masks and promote Ray Phoenix is like one of the next Ray Mysterio type guys and they're going to have a sick tag team run. But Pentagon will probably hit, you know, if they can get Pentagon to tap into kind of more of what he was like in the Lucha Underground. And like the both those guys as a tag team in as singles guys, even though they've been around a while, like, if they have us, they can have a really solid like three to five year run, I think, and the WWE be like right now and be massively over a massive merch sellers. You know, I really think that both of those guys are super super super marketable and that would be a machine so I think it's smart if I go there. I think we're going to see a draw between the acclaimed and FTR on Saturday. I think that's how they're going to set up this triple threat match. Maybe they go the Young Bucks interfere routes and then it becomes the, but they just kind of did that with Christian, and then go into a double count outs and I assume it'll be a three way for the six man tag team titles are the trios titles at all and as well. So that's why I think they're going to go a draw just a different way instead of doing a DQ or that type of interference spots since they just did that. And I guess as a draw for the acclaimed and FTR on Saturday and then it becomes a, a three way tag team match at all. And when it comes to the lucha bros, they'll do good in WWE as long as, obviously, WWE, depending on how much they get behind him because I thought Dragon Lee was almost next up in that and Dragon Lee as kind of I don't know if he's having visa issues or anything but now he hasn't been on for a little while. So it could be something as simple as that. I'm not sure. But they've kind of, he was doing well in NXT main roster that just kind of put him LWA and then he hasn't really been on there. Those will get, they'll be as good as say, however far WWE is going to push them and feature them. WWE's tag team division. They're featured, but there's not a whole lot that goes into a lot of it. Like it's, it's basically background fodder stuff for the most parts. There's no real, you're going to get concrete stories there. Yeah, I, I marked my words on this before we bring in Cole, mark my, I'll make some predictions here. The lucha bros, the WWE if they go there, they will get massively behind them. They will get massively over. They will be the tag team champions on one of the brands within, within, I'll say, as soon as four months of debuting, they'll be the one of the tag team champions. And I think, I think both guys will have singles matches at WrestleMania before the runs are up. And I think Pentagon will have a high profile singles back to WrestleMania. Maybe not for like a world championship, but I think Penta will be, I think Penta is going to be huge there. I really do. Let's bring in our guests for a few minutes. Hey, the guests antagonist. What's up, Cole? Steven Jensen here along with Jeremy Lambert. Cole, the holder of the GCW brass ring. Man, it's good to see if I hate that you're in it right now. This would be a really opportune time for you to slide in there and get that championship. Man, it really sucks, Kyle. Trust me. Yeah, man. It couldn't have came out of a worse time. It sucks. It really sucks. I miss doing what I love. Miss, just going out there and seeing people and getting people, seeing people happy, seeing people excited. It's hard not not feeling better or worse terms like alive anymore. It feels like I'm dead. Bro, you're in our thoughts, bro. Like, we were like, even when I'm doing my podcast, like, when I'm talking, when I'm doing the GCW reason stuff, I'm still mentioning, like, when Cole comes back, he's got the brass ring. Like, we'll get, we'll get right back to where we were at. Like, I feel afraid. I don't, I don't think we're going to get back to right where we were at. I think, I think we're, we're going way past where we were going. I think we're about to take the fucking ball and we're about to run that motherfucker home. I promise you that much. Let's go. Sitting on the sideline, it, it just, it's just pissed me off. Honestly, like, there's a special connection that I have with me and my people, me and the crowd. And I feel like that's gotten ripped away from me. And I feel like going out there and seeing those people, not only did they feel excited, it's what made me feel excited. It's what made me like. Hey guys, I'm here to tell you about eBay Auto. eBay Motors is the leading online platform for automotive dealers to get their inventory in front of over 7 million ready to buy shoppers who are buying cars and trucks on eBay motors every 3 minutes, every single day. They make it easy to find parts for cars, trucks, SUVs, motorcycles, and more. They even offer a massive selection of new and pre-owned classics. Whether it's fixing, updating, or maintaining your existing vehicle, or finding new and used vehicles, eBay Motors is easy to navigate by vehicle type, category of items, sales, events, or the brand type of car, motorcycle pickup, or SUV that you have. You can shop parts on the eBay Motors app, and with their eBay guaranteed fit, it is guaranteed to fit your ride every time. Head over to ebay.com and find what's right for your ride. That's ebay.com. I don't have that right now. It sucks. It's a very empty feeling. It's literally the worst thing. I've just included myself from all forms of life. This is the first anything talking I've done since any of it. I saw you guys were on. Maybe it would have been good for my own mental. I'm really, really, really hard-broken, more than anything. I am counting the days and motherfuckers are going to be put on notice the second I get back. I promise you that much. Do you have a timeline? Do you know a good idea of one? We had an idea. What sucks is what people saw online was the fracture, but they didn't see the stuff from the MRI or the muscles. Long story short, I actually broke my leg back in June. I didn't think anything of it. I thought I sprained it. I had kind of like a week off, and then the next show I had was GCW Texas and wrestled. Everything seemed okay. I tried to figure out work around it, and then we did it eventually. We came up to the three-day weekend. That was Louisville. That was St. Louis. That was Indy. And then come Monday, I couldn't really walk, couldn't really move, and went to the ER to figure out why the sprain is hurting as bad as it was, and figured out that I had been wrestling with the broken leg for a better part of a month. And so my muscles on my legs were overcompensating, and so now that's all out of sync. So it's a long process. It sucks, because I can't look at you and be like, "Oh, this is within the month range. I want to get back because at this point, who fucking knows?" But I'm telling you, I'm telling you, Stephen, I'm telling you, Jerry, I'm pissed as a motherfucker, and when I get back, it's fucking on, man. I'm so, I'm counting, bro. And, yeah, it's, it's on. Yeah. Well, Cole, it's good to see you. I appreciate you joining us. We're going to reach out and get you on in the weeds at some point in the next week, because the smitty is a week from tomorrow. And I'm very much looking forward to it. I don't know how I feel about you being angry, because I feel like you might take that out on me, and I don't know about all that, but... You never know, buddy. You never know. No, it's good to see you, and I hope things continue to go well. How is the smitty coming with everything? Because I know it's been a lot these past couple of weeks. There's been a lot with these past couple of weeks, man. There's a lot of shit that's being shaken up and shit, but at the same time, we have a great cast. We have a great group of wrestlers. We have a great, we have a great referees. We have a great commentary. We have a great film. It's going to be great. I have put a team around myself where everybody is a fucking hitter. There's no misses. There's no nothing. So it's all, it feels great to know that I have a crew that is going to knock it out of the park and kill it, even if I fuck up everything. As long as I get a ring in an entranceway, it's music there. I know they get, they do their job. But trust me, it's not just that. It's a whole spectacle. It's not a pro wrestling show. It is a pro wrestling experience. We got SpongeBob, we got Patrick, Manray, maybe Mermaid Man, maybe Barnacle Boy. There's a lot of things going on in this show, and there's also potential to be tables, and I believe Jeremy's going to be there. All right, man, Jeremy, through a table. I would love to see that. The date on the Shmitty. We got to stop pushing. I'm going to plug the date, then Jeremy said, but yeah, yeah, August 23rd. Cole, if you want to, if you want to join us on August 29th to recap that, Shmitty, we can have you on live. I don't have any, we have time restrictions on most Thursdays because I have to log in for my shoot job. At 10, but we're going to, we can go live on the 29th, August 29th. I don't have any. I'm taking the day off work. So if you want to come on and do a whole on like recap, we can talk. Let's do it. Hell yeah. Cole's going to have to be the co-host for that show because the way everybody's talking, I'm going to be. Oh, yeah, we can do a UOG for Jeremy here. This is upsetting. I just, I didn't want to interrupt for too long. I wanted to hop in. Say what's that? Hell, you're always welcome here. Be a man for sure. Be, be around and not shut myself completely off. But just want to say I love you all. I appreciate you, Jeremy. I'm so excited to see you in a week in real life. I'm excited to see you. In real life, motherfucker. Yes. I'm going to give you a big hug and then I don't know how close I'm going to get to you after that because I feel like you're going to still be able to. There's plenty of fun to be had. So I'm very much excited for. I appreciate everybody. And I hope everybody has a blessed day. Yeah. Good seeing you, man. Love you, bro. Love you. Love you. Love you. We'll talk to you soon. Yeah. Oh, it's great seeing Cole. Legit, what a much favorite. I don't like to play favorites because of the old. I'll play favorites. I don't care. Wait, everyone knows Cole's a pal. Like, we're not spilling any dark secrets here that Cole is a friend. He's the, he's been on this show. I think more than anybody outside of probably Mo's. We've had on a bunch, but Cole, Cole's been a multi-time guest. He's been on in the weeds so much because he just pops on and antagonizes me. Like he said, he's a guest antagonizing guest. Oh, yeah, he's been on, he's been on in the weeds plenty. He'll probably be on in the weeds next week to continue to promote the smitty. I'm glad he was here. I've reached out and I understand he doesn't want to fully shut himself off and everything. So, I know he's dealing with a lot, not only the injury, but putting together a show is a stressful time in and of itself. So I can only imagine he was going through with everything. So it's good to see him. It was good to hear from him. And I think he's going to kill me next week. So that's unfortunate. I can't wait to see him kill everybody, Manny. You're in for it for sure. I feel like you might be playing one of those characters you just mentioned. I want to. I told him, like, whatever he needs, I'm down for, but then whatever he needs turned into, I'm going through a table. I don't know. No, it's not. No, stop this. What about a door? You do go through a door, like a door bridge. Why is a door any better than a table? There's less risk, I think, in the door. There's less, you know, metal and stuff. Yeah, and it's more likely to break, I think. But hey, you got this, man. And for everyone, as I just mentioned, I'm taking off work into Thursdays from now. So we'll have colon live. You know, I can go as long as we need you that day. So Jeremy had to bounce for any reason. I can hang out pretty much as long as we need to and might have multiple guests, possibly on Thursday, that Thursday morning. So, I'm looking forward to that. But we need to get back on track. But Cole, thank you very much, bro, for joining us. If you're watching this still, Cole Ryder is the man. When we started this show, what, over two years ago, maybe two and a half years? I don't even remember. I think we're like February of 2022. Maybe we started the show or something like that. Cole was one of the first indie guys that we got on the show. And, I mean, that's led to us interviewing, but feels like hundreds at this point. I mean, it's cold, cold. I will have to call as a fan, too. He's also one of those guys. When I go to live GCW events and stuff, he's always willing to give me some audio interviews and stuff. Like, so it doesn't feel like I wasted my time, but I don't get to talk to anybody for fighting, you know, Cole, Cole's as close to families I got as far as like wrestlers out there. So appreciate you, Cole. We do love Cole, except next week, Friday. I don't think I'm going to like him too much. Let's move on. We got WWE. We got to. I was sending, I was sending a message. I will, I will hit the WWE bumper here in a second. I need to finish the story. In the WWE, the story never finishes. Cody Rose's next story is going to be against Kevin Owens. They're going to clash at Bash in Berlin. It's going to be a face-first face dynamic. Cody Rose was like, I want to give you the title shot. Kevin Owens is like, I'm a giant-ass loser. So no, I don't want this title shot. And Nick all this said, all right, we're going to give the match to Roman. Roman, look at his track record. He's champion for over 1300 days. He deserves this. Kevin was like, well, even though he wins all the time, I don't like the way he wins. So he doesn't deserve this title shot either. Who should get this title shot, Jensen? Kevin Owens is making a case for no, but, but. I don't understand. I mean, I know it's heading somewhere and I, you know, I'm not naive enough to think that there's like no plan for this. And I think it probably well eventually work out. Okay. But it then came off super strange to me when Cody offered up owns a title shot and no one's just like, no, I just had to deserve it. Like, I'm not. And the fans were like, what? Like, they sort of like chanting for him and like Cody was chanting for him. And it's like, that's a weird, because like Kevin Owens being the prize fighter and all that stuff. I know he's because he's evolved and his character over the years and stuff like it's, but when I think of Kevin Owens, they're still a part of me and maybe this is what they're probably ultimately trying to tap into eventually. And by the time he fights Cody, like, the Kevin, we're never gonna get like the Kevin Steen, the fact that we knew probably like the dude who was ripping our genericas head off and, you know, that kind of stuff. But we need something closer to that, I feel like, at the moment, like, I will put it this way as somebody who has been a Kevin Owens fan since his indie days. It was jarring for me to hear him be like, I don't deserve this. It's like, bro, you're Kevin, like, even if you've lost your last 10 matches in a row wouldn't care, you're still Kevin Owens, like, you know, because I, because I know him and Cody is going to deliver. And I know that they have history, you know, that Dusty and Owens had history, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, you can tell me on that without any win lost records, while I care. So it was just weird hearing Owens, like, saying he didn't want it. I liked that he used the win loss record of, like, now look at my record, like, it's not that good. There are more deserving people on this, where it kind of lost me a little was the thing. And Nick, all this is like, well, I'm going to give it to Roman Reigns, his win loss record is great. I think Kevin's like, okay, his win loss record is great, but I don't like the way he won. So, never mind, he didn't deserve this either. Like, who do you want to get this title shot Kevin should just picked what we wanted to get the title shot. He should be like, you know what, LA nights got a good win loss record, give it to him. Give him the title. Yeah, they wouldn't do that because LA night would out pop Cody. And so, get out of here. But LA night is getting good reactions. He definitely is. I'm going to give him his credit. As a matter of fact, I, I don't have any of his signed trading cards yet, but I have gone in on on his name on some breaks lately. I'm trying to get some LA. It's an LA night stuff to add to the collection. So, he's he's he's gained my resume, I respect. I've always respected the guy. Huh? I saw an LA night shirt about the other day at Round Town. A lot of wrestling shirts around town. I told you about the one, the camera and the shirt. I had to. He said he's going to grow up to be like a, you know, good role model and like, Cody teaches people how to lie. Is this like, is that the reliable school in the real world? I think that I think that, wow, I think that Cody, Cody, you know, if you're a little kid rocking a Cody shirt right now, you're probably, you know, going to have an accessible life. And you've already learned to do the work and, you know, I walked up to that kid. I walked up to that kid with my 12 kids and I threw the one up and I made all the kids so the one up in front of this kid as well. And I told him, acknowledge me. And I already had the visual of you doing it. That was enough. But you plus your whole family doing it together. That would just really be the ultimate like, what's wrong with these people. That kid just bowed his head in shame. He just, he just bowed his head. He's like, I'm lucky to engage with the crossroads, bro. I don't know how big this kid was, but that moves socks. It doesn't beat anybody be Roman. But that was awesome when Roman said that to Cody at WrestleMania like that. That really. Yeah. And now we got, now we got the, the superpowers, the mega powers, I'm sorry, the mega powers of Cody Rhodes, the third baby face on, on Smackdown. How do you feel about that? Obviously I'm not. I don't see it that way. But then behind you behind Roman and LA night. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that there's a debate between Roman and Cody, but Cody is there. There's not a debate between Roman and Cody. It's Cody. It's Cody. We can close. We can, we can. It's in the body. But as a matter of fact, I don't think I want to see it. It wouldn't even fit on the screen. I was, yesterday it was gifted a, I think it actually was gifted. It sounds like I'm capping when I say stuff like that. But my, my, my buddy Hughes, I'm always talking about like he's a big action figure collector and remember very collector and stuff also, and he comes over for most AEW shows. And like, we're randomly just like see something that we know the other guy would like in the, we were constantly just like giving each other wrestling stuff. He gave me a life size cardboard cutout of Cody Road yesterday. It's in my, my, oh my gosh. Yeah. Looks just like him. It's actually, it's like, it's like having him around. It's, it's great. Now if we just get him on the show, Cody, any, if you ever see this or hear this, please, one day, you like talk to him. Do you, do you like put your arm around him and soul him after, you know, Roman Reigns returns. It's going to be okay, Cody. You're still a guy. You're still, you're still a baby face. You're still the champion. Don't worry about Roman. Roman's doing some bloodline. You're the champ. Remember that you're staying late after the shows. You got the bus. You got the weekly vodka that you drink neatly wrestling as more than one royal family. Whoa, do you like do all that? No, I, I sing, I sing him the, have you heard the parody song online, the Cody Rahim Rhodes parody song? Oh, it's so funny. It's a little, it's a little kind of some of this stuff is a little, but it's, it's very, I think it's funny because it's, it's a song based on the idea of Cody, you know, saving, you know, races amends, you know, Cody, you know, like, the meme, the meme. And so it's Cody, Cody, the Cody Rahim Rhodes is like the, the, the movie. It's just like the name that they've given him, which is, anyway, the song is very, is there, I think it's funny. I bring them, we blew up on my, I'm like, I'll wear them on YouTube. But the joke was, yeah, I go around my room singing song in the Cody at the, at the cardboard cutout. So, yeah, I don't feel like you sing songs. I feel like you talk to them. Just give them pep talks. It's, don't worry about AWS. You don't need to worry about that. What they're saying online about you. It's a lot of context. I'll click bait. Don't worry about that. Keep focusing on the goal. Keep focusing on being the champion. Keep focusing on being undisputed and undeniable. Yes. Yes. Yeah, I feel like Draymond Green in his years. Yeah. Yeah, I'm willing everything in doing this, and it's been, you guys have the championship, bro. We have, we have to, we have to keep being the champion. I've been the champion since April and we got to keep this going. Um, brutality. Cody is working the girl to cook out. Exactly. That's the, that's the gist of the song that I was referencing. Um, but, uh, yeah, Stephen with fangirl so hard. I absolutely. The whole, I have to interview. Just be, I cheat. You're so cool. Just, just glazing in the entire time. Uh, anyway, what's the next topic? I don't know. Cody and Kevin. Give any of the thoughts on this. And I think it's going to, like, something is up, right? Like this thing's going to evolve with Kevin, where he'll either turn or snap, like something will happen to make me interested and he's going to eventually accept the title shot. I feel like there's just no way they're going to do that. It's already accepted. It's already, it's already a match. It's already. Oh, right, right, right. Sorry. I'm, well, let me backtrack. They are having the match, but I think that, oh, and I don't know if it'll be like just like a friendly one on one, like, you know, buddy, buddy match by the time it actually happens is what I. How do you feel that there. Uh, Cody has not been able to build up like any incredible heels to challenge him. Do they have? Well, they have to go with a baby face challenger because Cody hasn't, you know, put over any great heels as credible to challenge him. Okay. Well, obviously the bloodline is like multiple people deep and he was a big part of that story and there's plenty of them still to go. I think that, I don't know when they were planning to do Jacob Potu. I don't know like legitimacy of how injured he actually is, but I think that's incredibly ironic and like the weirdest way that like, if he actually got injured off of that spot that he was supposed to be selling an injury. That's nuts. Don't know if that's legitimate or not, but like there's, there are heels in the bloodline still that Cody can kind of go through. Um, there's a match with Roman eventually again to probably even if they're both baby faces. He doesn't like that match. I don't want to, you don't want, you don't want Cody to have that match. And like George says, it's not his fault. It isn't Cody's fault. If that's the best fault that they can, if they don't like Cody's massively over the baby face. So get, you know, they need to work on getting heels ready for him. He's, he needs to, you know, be able to elevate people up to his level. That's what Roman did as the champion. Yeah, but you know, these people got to get feuds with him. You can't just like pull someone out of the thin air and be like, you're the next heel challenge. You're like, they got to, they got anyone. That's what a great champion does. That's what Roman Reigns did. Well, I'm saying is the company, the company, any, I think anyone that the company puts in the ring with Cody right now, though, Cody will make it work. They just have to choose people who are, you know, who's the next people off that could be great heels on these shows. But he also has like, I mean, Randy Orton will eventually turn healing as a long history of him. And that'll be, there's stuff, there's stuff cooking in the background for heels for him. I'm not worried about that. I don't know. I'd be a little concerned, if I was here, that they can't, that like he can't elevate any heel to his level. They'd do multiple matches with AJ Styles because he couldn't get anybody else to that level. The matches were sick. I mean, they were good. Cody needed help to win. Like, you know, didn't mean event. That's true. That's true. He did not mean event. You can talk full on me now. What's next? What's next other to be topic? I don't know if we had anything. I don't remember. I know. Was there anything else? Come on. Let me look at what we've been doing. Let me Kevin and Cody. I mean, we can talk about other WWE stuff. You don't watch WWE. You've banished it outside of Cody Rhodes. That's not true. I enjoy the WWE product nowadays. I don't watch it all. I mean, I actually tried to watch Raw on Monday, but it was a different show with Eric. I was like, is this my experience? Yeah, that was. We had that as well. Like on the USA app, 911 was Eric. And then apparently, you had to go like the sports section and you could get to it. So we eventually figured that out. Well, I felt like I tried everything. I was going to like sci-fi and everything. I was like, where is this? And even said Monday Night Raw on the actual. Yeah, it did. Yeah. But yeah, well, let's move on to the other topics. We can circle back around to more debit to be if we need to, but there was like a, there's a big other spotlight that I really wanted to talk about also. Yes. I don't know if you want to go to that or the Indies first, but either way, like, we'll come, but if we have time left, we'll come by and smother stuff. Okay, we'll go to the other spotlight because I want to make sure we get this in. Our product is what it is. We're going straight up the middle. Sadly, in the world of wrestling, we lost Kevin Sullivan last week of fans may know it was August 9th that he passed away. Fans may know Kevin Sullivan through a variety of things. My personal sort of introduction to him was the Taskmaster Taskmaster. Easy for me to say. In WCW and kind of leading that staple, the dungeon of doom. But Kevin Sullivan, along with being part of WCW during that time, also worked for ECW also worked for Smoky Mountain, Crockett, like worked a lot of the Indies. And along with being a television character was also part of booking, especially in the WCW time. But I know you had a lot to say about Kevin Sullivan. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, first off, obviously rest in peace to the Taskmaster Kevin Sullivan. When I got into wrestling, we talked about all the time, me and Jeremy are in the mid 30s. When we got into wrestling, I mean, I was like six years old. This was early 90s WCW, and I was a WCW kid. I did not watch the WWE until later. And, excuse me, and it's Kevin Sullivan, it sounds weird and corny to people who weren't the age or weren't around at the time because of how poorly the dungeon of doom, three faces of fear, all that stuff has not aged well and it's a lot of like, you know, it's not hot, like with the Hogan with the water and stuff. There's a lot of like memeable stuff. But like at the time when I was a kid and I was watching that, that's actually what made me a wrestling fan. Like I became a pro wrestling fan because of the dungeon of doom Hulk Hogan story. I didn't know these guys is like WWE cast-offs that were joining this group. I didn't know about, you know, I'd seen Rick Flair a little bit, but he was like the older guy and like the green trunks at that point. I didn't know like the lore of Rick Flair. And I thought that like, I thought that the Taskmaster was the most evil villain. Like he was the top bad guy in wrestling history as far as I was concerned. He was the first man villain I ever saw and that that tree of whoa he would do where he put you upside down and run knee first into you. I was like, this is the coolest move. Like nobody does something like this that I'm watching. You know, my favorite wrestler immediately became Randy Savage and a lot of that had to do with like him doing the top rope elbow drop and the regalia, like the way he dressed and the Slim Jim commercials and stuff. So there was characters I really started to latch onto and become huge fans of and Kevin Sullivan was the main villain. And it means a lot honestly for him as a ride. Like he means a lot I should say for me as a wrestling fan. Like as if it wasn't for him, I legitimately don't know back in 1994 or whatever if I turn on WCW Saturday night and you know if it wasn't the Taskmaster trying to take down Hulk Hogan. The entire world knew of Hulk Hogan already because he was like a household name. So it's like I knew of Hulk Hogan. I'm watching wrestling pretty much for the first time. Who's this guy who's like beating up Hulk Hogan. And then like, then I become, you know, I get introduced to the booty man who I don't know of as you know, Buddhist beefcake and the zodiac and all this stuff. I didn't realize if he was these other characters in the dungeon of doom and then he was he was also the booty man anyway, Kevin Sullivan. Yeah, it's a big loss to the wrestling world. Obviously there's all those stories too about him quote unquote booking himself out of his marriage with Nancy Benoit and all that stuff. Well, there's a lot of lore and stuff that goes into Kevin Sullivan. He was obviously the Booker for WCW. He was, you know, the varsity club. There was a lot of stuff that he did throughout his career and his very influential. He also was reportedly a big part of the reason because of the Benoit stuff, the marriage stuff that like the radicals want to believe in when they did to go to WWE because he was going to be probably in more booking power. He was very, very important and a lot of different ways for various reasons in the wrestling world. And one really cool story that I'll tell real quick is back. And this would have been like nine, it would have been like the late 90s so probably 1998 and 1999. So backtrack a little bit back in like 1996 or 1997 was the first time I ever met a pro wrestler in person. It was Kevin Nash and I met Kevin Nash in the Atlanta airport with my family. My dad is six foot six and this was the first time I'd ever seen somebody just like completely tower over my dad in person. I was like this guy's humongous and we wound up getting an autograph of his on this like a receipt paper. This is before way before camera phones and people just carrying around and stuff where you can. So we got his autograph and he was super, super cool and I've always been a Kevin Nash fans since then because he was so nice to me and my family when I was a kid. And he was, he was in the end to be, well, I thought he was going to be me. You know, I didn't know what he was going to, how he's going to react because I was used to him being a jerk on the TV. Fast forward a couple years. My dad recognizes Kevin Nash sitting at lunch by himself in Atlanta one day. My dad just like happened to see Kevin Nash and recognize him. Well, this is the good. This is the rest of my, this is the rest where Stephen, you know, we met with Stephen at the airport. So my dad sits down with with Nash or maybe he was standing and he was like, Hey, hey, you probably don't remember. We met you the airport a while ago. My son's a huge wrestling fan. Would you mind signing us another autograph like he would make his day or whatever. And not only did Nash sign an autograph my dad, he asked him if he wanted to sit down with them and they might have having lunch together. And my dad said he was just talking about his job and stuff and Nash was talking about, you know, whatever, it wouldn't have been my wrestling. And during this lunch, the macho man Randy Savage walks down to town with him. My dad gets his autograph. Kevin Sullivan sits down. My dad doesn't know Kevin Sullivan is my dad knows who Randy Savage is because he's my favorite wrestler. My dad gets the autograph and Kevin Sullivan and my grand. But he didn't know who those guys were. But there's autographs so this day they're on. That's Randy Savage. That's both Kevin Nash's. That's Kevin Sullivan right there. My grand Eric Watts came to my middle school back in the day and I ran into Prince Albert at an airport also. So those are all autographs I got as a kid. And the reason I'm telling the story is because I didn't know until years later that that was a Kevin Sullivan autograph because my dad didn't know who he was. And he just brought back a bunch of autographs. I knew who macho man was because it was obvious I knew Kevin Nash was. And then years later I realized, oh my gosh that's a Kevin Sullivan autograph. That was and then I told my dad I was like that was the guy that was my favorite villain when I started wrestling you know what I mean and like it was just the coolest thing just knowing that all these guys Kevin Sullivan included were that cool to my dad. And apparently every one of them was like they thought it was really cool that he had a son who really loved wrestling you know and I just that just always meant a lot to me. Because you hear all these stories about never meet your heroes and people can be just pricks and real life and all this stuff. And it's just great to know that like for no reason other than they knew that my dad's kid like wrestling. All those guys were super nice to my dad signed autographs and they're my prized possessions I've held on to them ever since I was a kid they're literally right behind me. So yeah I that that's what I've got about Kevin Sullivan he means a ton to me as a wrestling fan it's a big loss for the wrestling world and and yeah I'm going to watch some Kevin Sullivan matches by today while I'm working. Everyone knows unironically not joking no BS. My favorite match of all time involves Kevin Sullivan yes you've talked about this yeah the doomsday cage match from WCW uncensored 96. It's Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage against the Alliance and Hokemania which includes Kevin Sullivan people are like why is this your favorite match what huh. Everything perfect about professional wrestling. Again you can watch your five star matches and stuff fine like whatever. Professional wrestling to me is sometimes the dumbest stuff the hokeiest stuff but stuff that still connects stuff that still makes sense and stuff you're kind of not always expecting. This alliance and Hokemania it's two groups coming together because they have the big bad Hulk Hogan who they see as a threat to they see as the top guy and they they don't like it they want to end that stuff. And then you don't know that that group was it was the donative doom combining with the four horsemen to try to take down. So you got the you got two you know villainous forces coming together to try to take down the big conquering superhero. Like that's what wrestling is almost the basis of I know it's evolved over the years but the other day wrestling is good against evil like that's what does the best when it comes to professional wrestling good again look at what just happened at WrestleMania force. It's the greatest biggest wrestle match of all time and what it was was villainous forces combining and then baby faces coming together to stop all of that. That's all it was. That's what this matches. I understand it's not as dramatic and cinematic as WrestleMania 40 but that's what this match is. You get the decay of Z gangster and ultimate solution coming out you got just the visual the spectacle of a triple cage. It's astounding to me you got they don't even know what the finish is which is hilarious of like the escape the cage but now we got to pin the guy it's there's the comedy aspect of it. It's perfect professional wrestling to me and why it's always going to be my favorite match of all time nothing's going to top it and Kevin Sullivan's involved in that and Kevin Solomon was involved in the dungeon of doom which I know a lot of people saws hokey and everything but like it is something I've worked for that time period and that like mid 90s WCW like early to mid is like a sweet spot for me because that's what I grew up watching I grew up with the WCW kid for the most part. And so that's what I remember and that's something like if I'm can't sleep at night or something like just comfort watching I throw on like a mid 90s episode of nitro because it's started in 95 so everything is sort of where it starts. But that's what I thought was because that's like the comfort wrestling for me is that like early early days of nitro so our pick Kevin Sullivan. Part of my favorite match ever has an impact on the business that I don't think a lot of people understand myself included because if you're not in it I don't think anybody really understands like how much impact these guys have we talked to cruel that interviews airing here in about 15 minutes. We talked to him and Kevin Sullivan had an impact on cruel and that's a that might not be a connection you think of because Kevin Sullivan wasn't super involved in the business later in his career. But MLW was an area where he was involved and cruel with somebody who he saw something in so everyone can can look forward to Kevin Sullivan talking about or cruel talking about Kevin Sullivan here shortly. Yes, absolutely rest in peace. The other other spotlight New Japan G1 climax wrapping up. There's four names left Jensen. I don't know what you call the tournament. I got the semis in front of me so I'm at least aware. Yeah. Okay. So David family, Zach Sabre Jr. Yoda Suji she goes cocky. Who do you think's winning this tournament and who do you think is going to go on and headline wrestling kingdom. If you have a full disclosure I am super out of the loop on New Japan. So like I don't know if there's like someone that's super obvious here. Like personally I think it'd be cool to see Zach Sabre Jr. do it like he's been around for so long and I've always loved his style being what it is being different. I don't really have any draw for for Finley being back in that spot. Takagi is always going to be good. Yoda I mean I really don't know I legitimately don't know I think these are going to be really good matches. He's actually a Virginia do it though I mean like he's he's never been the world champion there but he's come like really close. He's not like every other title there it feels like for the most part like I don't know I just feel like I feel like it'd be cool to see Zach Sabre Jr. do it personally. I think it's Yoda Suji. I'd be a little surprised if it's not Yoda Suji. They gotta make somebody and no knock on Zach Sabre Jr. I do think Zach Sabre Jr. probably should have a run with the title at some point I don't know if I'll ever get it but I understand the want for it. They gotta make somebody out of this because right now Tetsuya Naito is on his kind of last legs. This is not the best performances from Naito in the end of G1. I don't know how much you watched but his performances were not not the Naito you would expect. Ashi obviously he wouldn't even end the G1 this year because he just couldn't go through that grueling of a schedule. I'll cut it off. Yeah I'll ask you first back. You have no audio now. Okay. Am I good now? Yeah I think so. There's a little bit of a delay. We'll see. Apologies everybody. Okay so they've lost people and people have gotten older and they need to you know they've anointed their new three musketeers with Ren, Shoda and Suji. And Shoda had a good showing in the tournament. Ren had a good showing in the tournament but they gotta make somebody and it feels like Yoda Suji is the guy they're going to make. Yoda Suji should have beaten Naito earlier this year when they faced and he didn't and it seemed like it was probably too early at the time. But now you're talking Wrestle Kingdom biggest show of the year. Now's the time to make Yoda Suji and go on and start building the next generation of new Japan stars. So I would be very surprised if Yoda Suji does not win this thing. It would. I think there's a small argument for Finley because he is bullet club leader and they always put whoever's leading the bullet club in a good, good spot on the card. There's an argument for Zack Sabre Jr because he's been there for so long and people see him as the next non-Japanese wrestler to sort of take that mantle. Shingo we've seen before. The argument for Shingo was that he's great and so you can always kind of trust Shingo and that spot but it's also somebody we've seen. Again, I would be stunned if it wasn't Suji though. I mean regardless of who these people wind up being, they absolutely need to build new homegrown stars for the future for them. All the guys that we grew up on in Japan are winding down. And I've got the guys. Again, they've anointed Yoda, Shoda, Shoda and Renorita. So they've got the guys who they clearly see as the future. Now you just got to capitalize on it and actually prove that these guys are the future. Yeah, let's move on to our indie spotlight. I'm going to give a big motherfucking shot out. How about Thomas Shire and Derek Neal from San Luis Anarchy, Circus Maximus. This is 19 to the next night. Yeah. Yeah. This match was awesome. So Derek Neal at St. Louis Anarchy up to this point. I believe I almost positive he was undefeated in SLA heading into this match. She was the champion coming in. Thomas Shire is a guy I've been watching for a long time too. Both these guys have been like a big deal in like in their circles for a really long time. I remember, excuse me, I remember Thomas Shire coming into, I believe it was subgrabs in Nashville for a show or two. And I remember Righteous Jessie who was booking Suf at the time was like marking out big. Like he was talking a lot is like, I can't believe it. Like we got Thomas Shire. It was like one of my biggest wants for this company ever. And like he came in and totally killed it. He gives me, if people haven't seen Shire before, he gives me kind of like to catch a more Shima vibes. If that makes sense, like he's a, he's a bigger dude, but you can really move. And he, everything he does looks like it's like got content behind it. And he does like basic stuff. He's not a basic wrestler, but like this, he does the basics really, really, really well. If that makes sense, like you can make anything look really, really credible. And same with Derek Neil, like both, I could, I could mimic both of these guys. Like, and Derek Neil, you know, has been the man for a long time out of like New South, like the Alabama area and Southeast. And Derek Neil's fantastic. So both these guys are two big dudes who could both really, really go. And they put on a great match. The finish was a double power bomb by Shire with a stack pin to get the one, two, three. Excuse me. I hate that I keep clearing my throat. This time of year is so bad because the weather just goes up and down. It just gives me like a, like a cold every morning, almost. But, but yeah, this was a bad ass match. I'd recommend checking the whole show out. Surface Massimus over on. Is there an IW TV? Oh, it's an IW TV. I think it's on IW TV. Yeah. Excuse me. I get all the platforms mixed up now because now people are also running shows off their own YouTube channels and websites now too. So it's all over the place right now. I'm almost positive SLA was on IW TV. You just go to fight talk. Yeah, it was. It was. It was. It's definitely on IW TV. Um, but yeah, check the check the match out and I support the company and Thomas Shire is a new champion. This was like the undertaker 21 in one moment for Derek Neil taking the L on this one. So another good example of, you know, a champion being built really well in a company and Derek Neil. Winning and winning and winning and, you know, beating good opponent after good opponent after good opponent to the point where like when somebody finally beat him, it was a huge deal. And that person was Thomas Shire and Thomas Shire's got history in that area too and like that St. Louis area. Um, so yeah, this made sense all the way around and it's just cool seeing. It's cool seeing some of these guys kind of getting their flowers like that have been around for a long time. Like Derek Neil has been around for a long time and I feel like he's better now than he ever has been and like he could totally be a TV wrestler if someone gave him the chance and Thomas Shire like winning this championship is getting some flowers too for a guy who's been grinding for a long time. He's been good for a long time. So I think it's been a very big match in graduation Thomas Shire and to and to Derek Neil on a good title reign. I want to get your thoughts. Everyone can can go check out Sean. Obviously you mentioned another match. It was Mad Dog Conley against, you face Manders. Manders. Yeah. Yeah. And the ball rope match. Yeah. That was a lot of fun as well. Yeah. Um, Mad Dog Conley has been really making a name for himself in these type of matches. Yeah, he had the color match. Yeah. Actually I was going to bring that up. Yeah. Sorry. Got a lot of praise. Oh, it's all good. Yeah. Yeah, he had the dog color match at action Dean. So if you've heard the name Mad Dog Conley on before is probably from that match. We've mentioned it on the show. Yeah, that that match at action Dean is what we talked about. This was Scott Hensley, who books the SCI. He literally said that that match at action Dean. That was WrestleMania weekend. There was a lot of eyes on that show. And including Tony Khan's eyes. And that match that Conley had gave basically like that's what it took for the SCI to be like, that's what we needed to see. And then they they invited him to be a part of the tournament, which is a prestigious tournament that not many people can get into, because obviously limited amount of people, you know, that can be a part of that. So he got the SCI invite basically based off the dog color match. And now he's been going around doing, you know, hard for matches, death matches, ball rope matches and stuff. And the match with Bander's with bad ass, like, Mander's like, use the ball rope to like pull him towards him for his Lariat, which was nice. You know, it looks like, it looks like they killed each other. And it's one of those things where Conley has been losing a lot of these types of matches as well. But he's gaining this like cold following that like it's not. It doesn't really matter if he's winning or losing because he's just putting on these performances. And eventually when he starts getting on a win streak, the fans are going to be behind him, you know, like they'll be there, they'll be ready for it. So, yeah, he's planning some seeds for a really successful career, I think, he's still, yeah, he's doing, he's doing a good job. The match with Bander's was great. So yeah, if you hear more about Mad Dog Conley, especially in these types of matches, just don't just don't be surprised if you see him popping up more often kind of all over the place. I want to get your thoughts on this real quickly. Do you watch Impulsive with Dominic and Logan Paul. So I'm actually glad you brought that up because I was going to say we have a little extra time and that that is what that is the topic I was going to bring out to absolutely talk about that for at the clock. So for those who didn't see it, Dominic was on Impulsive and the big clip going around was. WWE just went to Japan, Dominic's like, "Oh Japan's great, it was fun. You ever gone? Can you go?" It sounds like, or Logan's like, "Yeah, of course, I can go, I can go, of course." He's like, "Okay, I wasn't sure if you're a shadow man, ex-communicado." He's like, "You'd be a great heel, especially if you were the hat." Logan's like, "Too far, bro, too far." Yeah. This felt pretty as real as it's going to be on this kind of stuff. What were your thoughts when this happened? I was cackling, by the way. Oh, so is I. I mean, I thought this was hilarious because it's an interesting spot for Logan to be in for a lot of reasons. Because that shows never alive, right? That's always a pre-taken. That was taped over summer on the weekend, I think before summer slam actually took place. Okay, that makes sense. And the reason I bring this up is because they could have cut it, it was going to be my point. If they didn't want it out there, they could have decided it out. But it's interesting because I don't want to get too into this because I don't want Logan coming after us. But he is going through a lot of stuff outside of the world of wrestling right now. Logan's going to come after us. He's going through a lot of stuff because he's doing a lot of dumb shit. Yeah, well, I mean, he's currently in a lawsuit where he's trying to sue a YouTuber called Coffeezilla, a detective who is one of the guys who really like blew the lid off of some of his scams, like Zucoin and Dink the Wank and these kind of NFT and crypto, essentially crypto scams and stuff that he was involved in. So that's not good that that's going on. Prime, the bottling company that works with Prime is apparently suing him for millions and millions and millions of dollars right now while he's in some sort of lawsuit with that. So it's one of those things where it's like, Dom can get away with saying whatever he wants to Logan because like what's Logan going to do, you know what I mean? He's kind of like a small fish in a big pond when it comes to like the debit to be locker room, you know what I mean? Like he's still like the new guy as far as like amongst the boys, if that makes sense. So like, so it's one of those things where like the wrestlers can really say whatever they want to him like what's he going to do about it, you know what I mean? Like he's got to kind of just play along. He even has tried to like use the storyline with I think was LA night recently where he put up like a lawsuit disclaimer or something on his Twitter, which to me was like wild because once again in real life he's sending those types of letters for real to the people that he's in lawsuits with, but he's making a joke out of it when it comes to wrestling story, trying to incorporate it so, but I thought it was hilarious that Dom said that I thought it was so funny. Like, because, yeah, I mean, do your own research if you want to, but y'all can find out why why Logan would have some heat with Japan, because not only did he do the thing in the forest, that's what everybody knows about. But there was another video afterwards that has also probably been scrubbed from the internet or there might be clips up there still, but he runs around Japan dressed as like a samurai and then like as like Pikachu and like runs around Japan with stuffed Pokeball. And he's like throwing Pokeballs at like civilians in Japan, like I choose you. And it's like, I know it's wild, but it's like, especially there where like the culture is like respectful and like Logan's walking around the whole city so all about the respect you he's mocking it the whole time. There was like this, there was like this wishing well, this like fountain that people were like praying at, and Logan walks up to it with like a quarter, and he's like I'm wishing for hella bitches, Kobe and like throws like coins in this thing like people like praying. It's super disrespectful, super disrespectful, but this was years ago, years ago I'm not saying that he's necessarily a good person nowadays because there's the current stuff that he's dealing with that's unrelated to this. But I'll say it a thousand times. In the context of professional wrestling, he's fantastic in the WWE, he has great matches, he gets big heat, he cuts great promos he's super athletic he learns fast. So I'm very torn on it always when it comes to him I glazed and constantly when it comes to wrestling and people know that y'all know I'm a Logan Paul fan when it comes to the WWE. Also know that I'm also I've always been aware of him as a human being behind the scenes and this kind of stuff so it's like it's almost like two different people but when those two worlds merge when someone like Dominic Mysterio makes those comments and Logan can't really say anything about it you just kind of gotta be like oh damn dude he kind of got me. That shit made me legitimately laugh out loud. Him looking legitimately upset was whole thing. There's a clip you need to check out before I clock in. There was a great episode of impulsive recently with one of my favorite internet personalities of all time he's got called DAX Flame and DAX Flame is kind of like the Andy Kaufman of YouTube for me where like he's he's clearly doing a bit but part of it is like it's hard to put it's hard to point out like when this guy is on and when he isn't but like he's clearly something's up with this guy but he's been on YouTube forever. He used to be a kid doing this like rant video vlogs and stuff and anyways I don't visit a documentary on him called Ice Cream Man years back to kind of regenerate his career. And DAX Flame was recently on impulsive and y'all need to watch this clip of DAX in Logan do something called the tickle challenge where they stand up with one another and take turns tickling each other under the arms. And like whoever laughs first loses and it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen on the internet. So check out the Logan Paul DAX Flame tickle challenge from impulsive and that's your homework for the week Jack. This sounds terrible. It lasts like three seconds because but it's so awkward like Logan going in for the tickle. It's the most awkward like his face. He's so uncomfortable doing it. And then when it happens to him he laughs immediately. It's so funny. Shilky Duckie DAX Flame is still a thing. He is. Go to his YouTube channel. He has a variety of content that's all over the place. Anyways, I'm going to be late for work and chat. I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it. Follow me on the exit. Fight Talk Underscore. You can go to Fight Talk to me on the panel wrestling.tv and listen to the Fight Pulse Light. We can reply. Cast every Sunday. Fight Pulse Light.com. I'm covering the world of independent professional wrestling. Enjoy this interview with Cruel. You're about to hear. And I get to see a new chat. Get to see a new Jeremy. And I'm going to go clock in. And hopefully not get yelled at this week. See ya. Bye buddy. Take a challenge. No. Not doing that at all. Alright everybody. Let's get into this interview with Mads Kruger. AKA Cruel. AKA Logan Creed. Who you may know from MLW. You may know from the independent scenes. On the top guys. On the independent scenes. On the top guys. And MLW. Really fun interview. So I'm going to set this up as. I didn't know what to expect. Jensen had been working on this for a while. Literally like. Jensen's been wanting to get Cruel on. Basically since we started this show. Because Cruel's big and in the Southeast scene. So Jensen's seen him and followed a lot through that. When he back when he was getting Logan Creed. But Cruel isn't like. Necessarily all that online. He doesn't post a whole lot. He doesn't check his messages a lot. So we sent like messages. He sent feelers out. And finally obviously we got this done. But if you've seen Cruel. You'll know he wears this mask. He wears almost like a Bane mask. Is the kind of the best way. I can describe it. So where's this mask? And so. I don't know what to expect. When Jensen books this interview of. Okay, is he going to show up. In this mask. Because he is protective of character as he should be. You know, when he when he's on screen. And everything so I was very not concerned, but I just was curious of. Okay, is he going to show up wearing this mask. And give us like two word answers. And not really say anything. Is he going to show up without the mask. But kind of still protect the character and being character and give us sort of short answers and kind of kayfabe everything. Or is he just going to. You know. Pull everything kind of back and let us in. On everything so I didn't know what to expect. I showed up behind the scenes stuff. Jensen and we're already talking. He was without the mask as you'll see. And he was just sitting back having a good time and he's like, Oh, we're good. Anything you guys want to do? Then you talk about where we're all good with that. So really cool interview with him to really learn about the character. The character, him as a person, you know, working at all that is done in M.L.W. and all that he's done on the independent scene and really cool to sit down with somebody who does play such a unique character on television and on the independent scene. But getting a peek behind all of that while he's still, you know, very active and very relevant in wrestling. So really fun interview. I hope you guys enjoy it. So here we go in the greater spotlight. Krueger aka cruel. Welcome to the greater spotlight here on the spotlight on Fightful. I am Steven Jensen joined as always by Jeremy Lambert and our guest today is someone you know from M.L.W. He is the leader of Contra unit. He is also all over the world of independent professional wrestling. He is the I.W. TV independent wrestling world champion. Our guest today is Mads cruel Krueger. Cool. Thank you very much for joining us, man. How you doing? I'm good, man. Steven Jeremy. Thank you guys for having me. Yeah. We appreciate this. We really appreciate this. We know that you don't do a lot of interviews on this one was a long time coming. You know, I planted the seeds on this one months back in like the timing is right and I'm really happy we're getting to do this. I mean, we got a lot. We can cover up. I jump around quite a bit throughout this interview. But first off, I want to appreciate. I always thought about this before we started recording, but I do really appreciate you kind of giving us a look behind behind the curtain behind the mask, behind the monster we used to seeing here. Getting to see your face and talking to you kind of as a human being today, man. We appreciate that. Oh, man. Yeah, no problem, dude. It's a listen, you don't talk a lot in characters. Sometimes it's nice to let it all out somewhere. Yeah. For sure. Well, you know what? I wanted to start actually with on like a personal note for you. They're in for the wrestling world. We had a big loss this week in the world of wrestling that has master Kevin Sullivan passing away. And I know that you had some history with him. I saw some posts that you had put up. Can you please maybe speak to the memory of the taskmaster who was the main villain of WCW when I became a wrestling fan? Yeah, absolutely. And hey, I remember that too as a kid, you know, that the dungeon of doom, like just it's that was, you know, it was fun. You know, back then I was a, I was such a sting guy, you know, as a kid, I was sting was sting was my hero because I was raised in the south. So like WWF was never really on my radar. It was all in WA and WCW. But yeah, you know, I got an opportunity to meet Kevin eight years ago. And it was that he actually was doing a seminar that I was going to be attending the seminar up in Wilmington, North Carolina. And I don't remember the details. I just know that he and I were the first two and the only two people there for about three hours before before the ring got there before anybody else got there. And we just set and talked, you know, for three hours and he got to know me and I listened to stories from him. And he took my number afterwards and, you know, he called me several times over the years. We saw each other on several shows. And I know that he was probably one of the driving factors and why M.L.W. knew who I was at one point before I was signing them. I have no doubt because he told me he told me he talked to them about me. So, you know, it's just, you know, it's just cool that that moment, you know, happened and, and I was able to meet him. But, you know, like I said, in the post that I made about it, he saw something in me that I didn't even see it myself at the time. So it's just, it's really cool. And, you know, it's sad to see him go. You know, we watched so many of these guys pass away that we grew up, you know, idolize it. And, and now you kind of have to look at it as this is our opportunity to take that spotlight and have the same effect on the younger generation, you know, and the next group of people who will come up and carry on this business that we love so much. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm sure that meant a lot to getting that shot in M.L.W. when you did, because you've been around for, for years. And, like, you know, it took, it took a long time. I feel like for the, the kind of national stage to really know about you. And you're kind of getting, you're getting a lot of the flowers. I feel like you deserve right now with everything that you're doing. Can you not speak to that? Just like how, how big of a deal was and maybe like, maybe a giant relief or like validation of like, you know, Kevin Sullivan pitched me to M.L.W. and not only that, but like, I'm, I'm here, I'm actually a part of the company and being used as like a big, big attraction there. Right. And it's such a, you know, 20 years, we're 20 years this year that I've been in professional wrestling. You know, the first, probably six to seven years of it was, was, that was just in middle Georgia, you know, very south Georgia, not even in the northern part where you probably had some of the shows. So it was a very long, hard road, you know, I didn't, I didn't start at a school. Like, I always tell people all the time when I started wrestling, we were still sharing VHS tapes and my space had just started. So, you know, it wasn't like I could just connect online and send a tweet out and say, Hey, I'm open these dates. Like, now we had a lot of work that had to go into it. And if nobody knew who you are, word of mouth was a huge deal in the middle of that. So if you didn't have somebody speaking on your behalf, it was even harder, you know, to get somewhere new. But, you know, yeah, the MLW opportunity was very huge. And, you know, who would have thought, four years later, you know, we're only four years since that happened. You know, I've been under the mask. And what I've done in three years is it just completely topples anything I've done the first 17, you know, like there's just there's no comparison. Sure. And I've got one more follow up, a little short story and then I'll pass her to Jeremy so get some questions in as well. But, you know, we were talking right before we started recording about how, in this goes hand in hand with you. There's a big, you know, kind of blow up you've had in recent years in popularity and everything you've been doing and people not even realizing right away that that is you like that, that is that was you that this was low and creative routine for so long. I was, I was, I remember years back, I was talking to John Mosley, he's been on the show many times commentator promoter for KOB K does a lot of stuff and then you wrestling and me and him were talking around the time you debuted on MLW years back. I remember we both put it together at the same time we were like, we were talking about like an action wrestling show or something and we were like, man, why is Logan not like more and then over the wait a second, there's a dude who just debuted in a mask on MLW like this week hold on the tattoos and stuff and I was like, dude, that's Logan. So, so yeah, I mean, I just want to throw that out there too that like I mean we, you were just mentioning if you can kind of tell us a little bit about that there's that's happening in the locker rooms as well where people are like put it together that that is you like after all these years. And that was, and you know not to I don't even know if I know names around offhand but you know I've just it's been situations where I get there I see the guys everybody's you know say hey look cuz everybody still kind of calls me Logan if they knew Logan that's what they call me. So then I start getting dressed and as I get dressed, you see their eyes kind of wondering you know like, and then when it finally gets to that point they walk up there man, I had no idea that you know this is what you were doing now. Which I think that's good right I mean you know that means doing if I'm doing something that different when it looks that different than then that's what we were going for. That's a testament itself. I love that there's a similar story that Renee Paquette has talked about about John Moxley when he realized that swerve and kill shot with the same guy he didn't know until until he ran like Swerve came in into W and like he got you know the from someone that hit that that was kill shot and Lucio underground he was like, wait I thought that guy just had like a bad ass match and just appeared like we just walked up to him was like you kill shot, you know, you're like marking out I saw that it was hilarious. Yeah, no it's that it's so much fun man and I'm sure we may talk about it more in a minute but you know the even the cruel character, you know, it was a creation out of what MLW started doing with me with the Mads Kruger you know that's, and that story is crazy We were in the middle of COVID. We haven't filmed in what October that would have been 10 months, 9 months that there's been nothing happening. And I remember the week before we were heading to Orlando for MLW to start recording So that point I had just been, well I think they started calling me Grogan when they put me with MJF and in Hammerstone and Hollywood. That was quick. You were going very much. Then they were like no, no, not doing this and they were like you're just gonna be Logan did Logan one show that was the end of that. And then the week before he, he gives me a call, what I actually calls and he says, I've got an idea. We think you can do it. And he kind of pitches it to me talks about Contra and talks about being, you know, and the whole basic premise of it was just to get them out of COVID so that they could do Hammerstone versus Fatu for the title when they had fans again. It was never even meant to last more than four months and then they probably would just set me home. That's probably next step. And, and hey, we went to Orlando. They handed me this mask and this basically is probably $50 worth of gear. Even if you don't take the mask, he's like $14 on wine, you can buy a mask, cruise a mask, please don't ever buy one. But, no, it's so I looked at it. Everybody, Walker looked at it and everybody was just laughing. I mean, really, it was like, is this a joke. But hey, you know, I decided right now is like, I've got to make this work, because this is this could be my only opportunity I have left, you know, and, and I did. It was just, it was that one week of taping. And when I got home, I think a couple days later, he called me. And he was just completely in love with the idea of this character and where it could go and what it could be. And then I started thinking about it. And it wasn't four months later that the cruel mask was made. We had it, I had it drawn, had it designed, sent it to William Rockwell. He made it, sent it to me. And, and I took it to court and I was like, Hey, look at this. He said, Oh, that's cool. I was like, right, I said, we should do this. He's like, it's too cool. I was like, it's too cool. He's like, it's gonna be a heel right now. So I was like, Okay, well, I'm just gonna do cruel. I'm just gonna be cruel then. And so that's where that's how it's happened. And right after that, you know, walked in the door, I see W so. I was going to ask about almost work shopping, cruel and mad's Kruger sort of on the independent scene because you mentioned you were mad's Kruger in MLW and then it wasn't supposed to last but then you took the cruel idea and use it a lot on the independent scene. And then when you came back to MLW, like it almost felt like a whole new person and like it really felt large in life. And I wonder how much of what you did on the independent scene came over into that and presenting it as a television character. I love storytelling. So that's the one reason why I am in this. I love storytelling. Don't get me wrong. I love good professional wrestling matches. I love watching these guys. The athletic ability of some of the wrestlers in the world now is just insane. There's also limits to what I can do in that aspect. So that's storytelling has always been what I want and what I'm driven by. So, you know, when mad's Kruger, when the court kind of pitched the idea to me. He talked about the backstory of it being like an underground African like pit fighter like a mercenary that had gotten lost in a whole, you know, another world, and was just basically fighting to survive. And in my head. I was like, well, what if I give this character a backstory, but like it plays out in real time, while we're telling the story on TV. And so that was why I said, okay, I'll be cruel because I wouldn't be mad as Kruger. Mads Kruger is caught with Contra. That's the name that Contra gave him. Who was he before Mads Kruger? He was cruel. And so that was my, that was just my completely 100% my made up process to all of this. And I'm like, if he was an underground fighter, we're underground fighters fight. They fight in the deathmatch world. Right. That's where that's where they would fight. And so that was that was the motivation about it. And that's why I did and you're right. What happened in that time period when I left me for a while, was, you know, I had, I believe in what I was doing more than I think they believed in what they were doing. And, and now, as I've returned, you've seen both of them merge into one. And now you see, you see both characters, basically, this become the one entity. Yeah, that's I mean, I think you nailed all that. I mean, the way you explain all that is literally perfect because I watch all that play out in real time as well as a fan. They, you know, watch a ton of IWTV and, you know, all those, all those various promotions you're a part of and like to watch the progression of it because I was even saying it. And I'm not afraid to say it. You're right here and you could kill me if you wanted to. I'm very aware of that. But, but years back, I would say over and over on different, whether it was this podcast or the one I do on Fightful Slick. Or I cover indie wrestling and I would constantly say, this guy is better than what M.L.W. is showing us right on your on your first run. I was always like, this guy is better than what we're seeing. Like, I know I get that I get where the character is going. I liked the I liked what I was seeing. And I know you had so much talent because I'd seen you do things on the indie scene. You're doing like dives over the top to the outside, like doing wild stuff. And I was like, man, I really feel like M.L.W. really could be using him to a bigger degree. And then when you came back, it was like, there it is. Like, and I felt like it was all put together just like you mentioned. Like, I think I think your plan worked perfectly. You know, there's always things, you know, there's there was frustrations, you know, inside internally. And that during that first run, especially at the end, to no fault of anybody's, you know, except for, you know, they don't always have guys signed to deals. As you guys know, they do have some I don't think I don't know how many they actually have anymore because I didn't I didn't resound this time it's just, you know, I'm just working. But at the time, you know, when you're trying to tell a story, and you you're filming a month or whatever with the TV and one night. And so you start a story and then a week later, the guy that you had involved in that's gone. You know, you can't use him anymore. So then you have to kind of start over and you have to come up with something totally new. And that kind of happened right at the end, especially after the feud with thoughts who had myself stopped. There was just really, we didn't know where we were going and everything we tried to do just completely felt. And, and I got frustrated, you know, and I was like, you know, I think it's time for me to to go do my own thing for a while. So, and it worked out, you know, everything for a reason. What's it been like hearing their reactions, especially right now, I mean, you're getting massive reactions from every crowd that you're in front of, but I mean, like kind of the gradual progression and hearing the validation. From the fans throughout this process as well, because it's just like, it was a real, it was a real reinvention of, of kind of everything that we've been seeing up to that point from you like, and I feel like it just, you know, to continue to involve, evolve and I feel like it's honestly kind of vibes like when you enter the building, it's almost like this cold falling vibe, almost like, like in Mortal Kombat, like the OG Mortal Kombat movie from the 90s when like Goro would show up and the crowd would be like, oh, gores, kill somebody, you know, like, I just feel like, what's it been like, I guess really old to me like what I want to ask is just the fan reaction and the fan support that you've gotten the last couple years, especially. I love that you compared it to Gora, I've compared it to that before, you know, but that's, that's also what I'm going for every time I walk out, you know, when I really started digging into this thing and this character, you know, horror movies, of course become the course of like, let me watch this, let me see how they move, let me see how a monster thinks, you know, and that's, that's part of the introduction right, one of my biggest pet peeves and one of the things I tell people is, is the first 15 to 20 seconds that I walk out, the music, the vibe, the way I look, the way I'm standing, the way I look at people standing close to me. That's it, like that from there we're done, you know, there's not much else that has to be done now because everybody in the room after they've watched five or six matches are like, holy shit, like, this is not like anything we've seen all night, like we've, you know, Yeah, so, and that, that means a lot, that's what you have to do, that's what you hear it from, from guys business that've been there and are there now, and they talk about separating yourself from, from the pack and being different, you know, hey, you have to be, you know, if you want, if you wanted to work, you gotta be different. So, this is about working with Jacob Fatou because you really started with him and MLW and then you were his last I don't know how the taping schedule was but it was the last air to match on him, I don't know if that was recorded before he did the live show or after they did the live show So, I don't know if that was the last nagata, just get maybe I wouldn't be 100% sure but I, I know I was the last aired one because I was like, yeah, he wanted that he when they talk to him about the last match and they get I guess they gave him some names Because then he told me this, like me, he and I were really close and man, I love him to death, he's one of the best people that you ever be around and ever get to hang out with but he was just like, hey, when they said your name I was like, yeah, you know, he's like, give me this So, he enjoyed working with me, man, we had some awesome matches, and he's so athletic, you know, he's one of those guys you work with, you never have to wonder where he is or what's happening, you just turn around and get ready for what's coming next, you know what I mean It's just, it's just easy. And it made so much sense you being his last match as well, obviously the way you returned but when you got sardin M.L.W. and pairing together and then of course the weapon of mass destruction match like so that being the last match for him and basically the send out for him made a whole lot of sense It brought that whole thing full circle and we closed it out and, you know, moved on with something new, which is really cool, like I said, that felt really good after that first run and the non closure, you know, that I didn't get And then to come right back and that's the first thing we do and now, you know, now we see what it's becoming and it's becoming something different, it's going to continue to change it's we're not even, we haven't even started yet, you know, it's going to continue to grow and look different because The one thing about contrib was contrib was fought to, you know, if you think about the contributor, that was his, that was his baby, even though I know, you know, Joseph Samuel was the, the leader, but when people when a fan thought about country and M.L.W. They thought about Jacob fought to, you know, so now we have to change it and it's got to upgrade and it's got to sound and look like cruel. So, and then, you know, speaking of, like, you know, these, this wild like crew of people you have around you, and that you've wrestled against and that your contrib, you know, stable mates currently. What's it like being associated with the horses, I just got to, got to ask. Well, you know, of course, it's just amazing. It's just getting to work with and around these guys and, you know, they're just, they're just the guy, they're just the boys, man, that you know, they're, they're there to, they do what they love. You can, you watch them. I watched them when we're filming backstage. I watched them having fun, you know, and enjoying what we're doing, you know, in between takes. And so that's just really cool. So yeah, like you just said, here I am working with these guys, you know, so it's, it's exactly where I wanted to be. Yeah, yeah, you mentioned kind of with the whole change over into what cruel is becoming a big part of that was like doing death matches. And can you speak to kind of the mindset of that where you a death match fan previously are there people you look up to in the death match scene and I know you've worked with plenty of them now as well. You're kind of your thoughts on death match wrestling and kind of your place there. You know, it was, I was a huge back in the back in high school so we're talking in 2000 and non 2000 I've seen the Japanese death matches, me and my friends, you sat around and watch a lot of this stuff was not very familiar with a lot of the American death match, simply because we just didn't get our hands on the other down here. And then, you know, once I got started training, it was almost immediate that I was told that if I ever did any of that that I would never be booked anywhere, you know, ever. Right. So, you know, almost immediately that was off the table. And like I said now and also that's been a lot of time it shows that nobody had ever heard of so, you know, it just, I didn't really, I really didn't watch it only because I was told not to, you know, more or less that it was, it was something that would give me blacklisted and I'd never be able to wrestle anywhere. But now as far as the motivation behind it, it all kind of played hand in hand together, you know, like I said earlier talking about creating the cruel character, you know, I knew, I knew I had to do something different. And I knew at a time when I watch on TV, where guys that are, you know, six foot eight or above are treated like clowns and then it's just, it's the truth. You know, how do I create a monster in a world where people don't believe it anymore. And I was like, well, if I go to that world, and no cell everything they hit me with, then nobody can tell me that I'm not a monster. So that's what I did. I mean, and, you know, somebody that you have a lot of history with and it has also transformed along the way within what you're doing with cool was, was Matt Tremont killdozer. You know, what's it been like working as an opponent of his and as a, and as an ally of his and obviously he's one of the top memes people think of like, you know, all time death bad wrestlers. You know, Matt's the he's like, and listen, most of the death match community that I've met a lot of these guys is, they're like family to me now, you know, but they're out. I still talk to them, you know, maybe not since I've seen them, but they're still conversation that just picks up and carries on right where left off. But no Matt's great and he has such a great mind, professional wrestling, I don't think people give him the credit for that he probably deserves because they judge him based on the surface value of Oh, he's just a death match guy. He's just he's so much more than that. He's he the way he thinks about the business. He's so unselfish. Just one of the most unselfish people that I've ever met. And it but he loves watching, especially his kids, you know, you can see how much passion he puts into the training he does and watching them grow and prosper become their own person. So I think it speaks volumes about him, you know. Yeah, absolutely. He does a great job with his training with H2O and everything like I mean, one of the big names out of there of course obviously is Marcus matters and I've been hearing a lot of rumbles about him maybe being somebody who's got a shot against you potentially would not be TV championship. The main reason I bring him up because I feel like that list is very short right now. You've been very dominant as that as a champion at points I felt like guys like our price had a good shot. There was the whole thing with like the two title belts going on with that and you know our price had a good run. I thought Adam Priest had a really good shot at you and you know you took him out as well you have a long history without him priest. And you know we're just kind of thinking like you might be next up a name that does come up fairly often is maybe he's got a shot at cool be Marcus matters. So yeah, I definitely agree that you know him and a lot of the people you know and bought an H2O with the three minor just are doing great stuff for sure. Absolutely. And we'll find out about Marcus in just two weeks you know the arm wrestling is coming up soon so we don't have to wait long to find out. That's a big one I'm really looking forward to that match so go ahead Jeremy. Oh you mentioned you know going into the death match world and then the independent world and like how you could stand out with everything like I'd say you're a big dude but one thing I want to kind of go back to is match that you've only had against Megan Bain and Megan Bain is super impressive but also female and how do you kind of craft that of okay we got to make her look impressive but I got to kind of stay who I am in my world as well It was a great match. I want to go ahead and put that out there like it was a fantastic match but it's a tough match in before it played out in my head of thinking how is this actually going to go so I want to a little peek as much as you want to behind I don't know it's how you kind of put that together. So if cruel if cruel is a monster and Megan Bain's a goddess then we stand on equal ground if you if you're going to look at it you know the way I look at it. So that's that was my thought process and that's what I told her because you know she she when we started talking about things like I was like hey, you call yourself you know the mega sis right. My mind she would do every match just like she did the one she had me she beat everybody's ass because she is a goddess and you know look at she's physically she's she's bigger than most of the guys that that I work with on a regular basis. You know so that that was my thought process behind that match was that if I'm a monster then she's a goddess and we're about to watch dark seed one woman fight in her in a ring. Oh it worked like you guys did it fantastically but again like when it was announced like how how is this go cruel should just like dominate like it kind of does everybody but also Megan shouldn't look too weak because she is super impressive So it was fantastic I won the spot a spot that'll always get me as if you punch through something and hit somebody love it absolutely. But yeah I appreciate you kind of peeking that of how that was kind of kind of crafted because yeah before it played out I was not sure how it was going to go. And I love that my it was it was super proud you know and she was undefeated and beyond wrestling for three years. You know you have to think about that like she had she had beaten former champions former WTV champions. So you know it was you have to look at things in the realm of where you're doing it. You know I of course I've seen negative feedback about I've seen people you know I've seen the things they say and hey that's fine that means they watch clips or wrestling they don't watch wrestling. There's a lot of there's a lot of wrestling fan that walks clips wrestling and they don't actually watch wrestling. So I don't worry about the fans that watch clips wrestling I worry about the fans that are invested in the story and they buy tickets every week to come watch this wrestling. Well I think it speaks to you not only in the wrestling character part which is as a person where I feel like if you wanted to if this was pitched you could maybe just be like I don't know about this but instead you were you're pretty open to obviously open to it Okay, let's do something let's figure this out and go out there and do what you did like I think that speaks to you again as a who how you feel about your character where you're still protective of it but also as a person of wanting to help Meghan and help the show overall. Absolutely and that's what we're there to do you know it's about the show. It's not about me part you know to an extent it's about the show and what we're trying to do to build that you know I just want to help do that if I can. Now in doing so you do have to protect yourself sometimes sometimes every idea is not a great idea but there's always a way to compromise and come to some sort of agreement. Sometimes people forget that you don't you don't tell me something and I just just get angry right in the moment and now we're you know it's you walk away you take a second you come up with something. Do you know that maybe this is better or maybe we could compromise on this and then you just you handle things that way it's just all about how you handle things you know but in this situation with Megan it was never. I never questioned as soon as it was said to me it was like yep I know exactly what we can do. Can you speak a little bit about your relationship inside in outside of wrestling with Adam Breece he's been on the show a couple times and your name has come up quite a bit in association with him you obviously have had some of the major matches together and you also then team together a DPW not long after as well which is a cool to see yeah that was fun. He's a he's like a brother to me you know you say he's but he's he really is he's my best friend you know I don't I don't have a lot of friends outside of wrestling anymore just because if if I'm home I'm with my kids. I'm on the road that I'm with you know I'm with the boys so you know he's he's my best friend we don't there's not a day goes by we don't talk and you know he's 13 years my younger. So it's it's a very uncommon I guess friendship in some ways but we share our passion for this obviously you know that from talking to him and watching us work you know it's it's there in him just like it is me. That's what I like I'm I'm excited watching him grow and I think I'm able to help him in some ways because of the things that I've been through and the road that I've had to travel. I can kind of help steer him in the right direction sometimes and keep his head straight when when he gets frustrated because it's so easy to get frustrated you know you want you want everything to happen today. I remember that sometimes that's just not the way it works out and I don't think anybody in the world can tell you that better than me you know that sometimes you gotta wait your turn. Sure, it was cool seeing him pop up an MLW recently even though it was it was quick like you know I just want to see him get more opportunity he's doing great everywhere he's at you know I'm I'm from Georgia as well so and I live in Asheville for a while too seeing him plenty and pretty much every circle of fans or bookers or anyone we know I mean it's pretty universal everywhere Adam Priest is involved he's like one of if not the top guy there consistently it's just everyone dollars like he's gonna get his shot somewhere at some point so you know it's gonna happen it's gonna happen and you see I mean DPW you know they put him in a great spot they're using him you know well and he aw's bringing him in a lot you know you don't often see a lot of those things but I mean he's hey he's been there a lot you know even if he they're not putting him on TV they're bringing him in and want him backstage so that means he's making impressions on the right people somewhere. I think he did call you a big idiot on our honor. I think it was we were talking about the tag team match he's like cruel you know the big idiot he teamed with me and didn't have to face him after that so I think you did. Listen we'll be totally fine if we don't have to wrestle each other anymore because God that's the rare they hurt so bad. Because you don't hit anybody as hard as you hit your friend it's really true and yeah we're good for a while. When I also come at you with like a flaming granny iron. Yeah how much goes into like I'm sure this varies by match but like especially when you do your death matches because sometimes I'm convinced and I might be wrong but I'm convinced that you guys just like find out what's at the venue you're just like okay well like roughly how many tubes are there how many glass paints. All right well we're going to break all of it before I go to the match so is that kind of the mindset of like in some of these matches whatever's out there we're destroying it. Yeah no that's that's yeah I don't know I may get hated to death match me I don't know how much I'm supposed to throw this stuff but now you kind of come up to me with a list you know it's like hey here's what we got and I'm like all that's going to be out there. Are you going to use it all I'm like what do you need me to not use it like what do you want me to do. And it's not that's never even a question she's like no no here's here's what's out there and then when you get out there it's never what was on the list anyway. There's always like 10,000 tubes and I'm like I said I didn't want but three like I did. And now I've got to eat all this stuff you know because that's the best the best part that I signed up for like now I'm just going to eat all this. And then punch you to the board right so like yeah I'm actually the best guy to do a death match because you don't actually have to say anything I'm just going to eat it all and hit you with the rest of them. And then any issues and obviously I need to name any names but have you any issues with anybody like not wanting to go along that like as far as like like just you being too overpowered and then just being like you're not selling any of this stuff like I'm not like I don't want to hit him with a thousand light tubes and not win like have you ever kind of dealt with that before. No because I think I think I've always done it in a way to make it make sense to some extent you know what I mean like it's never it's never a matter of where I just completely walk through somebody if you go back and watch any of the death matches I've had like sure it's never just a complete beat down. Now you may think that in your head when you watch it which is exactly the point like that's that's what I want it. But if you go back and look at it you're like cool took a lot you know. He took some stuff like he was you know and at some point even Jason you know he starts staggering and then he's kind of and he's got to crawl back to life you know so that that's kind of how I always tried to do it was even though I wasn't necessarily selling it. You started realizing it actually does stun him or it may be hurting him he just doesn't react to it you know what I mean. For sure and I don't want to imply that you are just going in there and just squashing people. No that's fine. But you know if you're talking to the right person that's what they would say on shoot you. And I'm talking about upper management people would be like I don't know why you do it you should just be everybody. I love I have a love relationship with like the IWC or the wrestling fan online wrestling fan in general that the deathmatch scene generally is pretty cool for the most part it feels like most of the people like are on the same page you just respect that y'all are doing your bodies for our entertainment and stuff but but you're to your point like one of the things that I think really makes what you're doing works so well is what you just said where like you you'll get beat. And that's what that's what keeps getting me as a fan and in the in the good way is like I've watched so much wrestling I cover so much independent wrestling in particular and you're different than everything else going on in the scene. And part of what you're able to do is like there's been so many matches where I thought you were going to lose that title like I was like okay this is the one like he has been there's no way you win after this and this and this and this and this. And then you still win and then the crowd is like it's like an eerie feeling all the time after you win these matches it's almost like uncomfortable people are like what did we just witness and how is this guy is still the champion who is going to beat this guy. And I like knowing that because whoever I mean so you'll probably be the forever champion you know I don't want to put any bad news you out there. But hypothetically speaking if somebody ever beat you for that title it's going to mean a lot for somebody to finally beat you I mean that's the thing right. That's that's exactly what it should be you know and that's you know you think back to when I want it. What was that 2022 October 2022 when I when I won it from AC Mac. You know and then literally two weeks later completely destroyed my shoulder. And it was everybody everybody was equally just like you know I just it hurt because there was so much that we wanted to do right. You know and you say you talk about forever champion like that was the gonna be the idea behind it you know was just there's nobody that can touch him. Now what happened. I think it turned out that we told a even more fun story, you know with me. And the fun thing about the second title so I just never gave back the title I had. And I don't know if they just thought I would never give it back so they made a new so I just showed up with it. And then we walked out told nobody. I was like nope I'm the champ. And and and then we ran with it. It was like oh yeah that's great like yeah who who's going to tell them. I mean did you think cruel male developed that no. He's going to tell him he's not the champion so that was the that was the mindset behind that. And like I said we got the movie with Tremont out of it which was great. We're talking about maybe doing a re-edit and releasing that again where the match is done cinematically I think that was cool that was. I wish that's the only thing I wish we'd have done differently the first time around about that whole thing was done and shot so well that it took away to to film the match like a regular match. But that potential still on the table we do that again. And you know like I said that everything and then led back to me and and out price having that match it beyond last year which was great. And the doors that it's open for me in the Northeast were now I'm a regular beyond you know they didn't even rest and open. So, I was able to prove myself to them because they had never seen anything but the death match. They had no idea that I had the ability to come and wrestle. So I'm not going a long way in setting this up and I apologize for that I don't know if you've you've seen this online somebody tagged you and Ben Bishop who has been on a different show that I do like all this would be a great match and Ben Bishop posted a photo of you and him from one of the rumbles I believe you guys were in together. And when I had been on the show he's like he wasn't complaining about bookings or anything he's like they just put me in rumbles because I'm a big guy like I get it I'm big put me in the rumble fine. You big guy you're in a bunch of rumbles is it a thing of like okay here we go get it in another rumble let's go what are we doing like how do you feel about rumbles. Is that southern honor that you're talking about. It was. So, in fact for that one I actually did load and create and cruel the other night last Friday night in the same rumble. So, and that's fully south. Yeah, well here's the best part there was a long running debate I'll get back to being I'm sorry, but there was a debate about you know who would be more over now it's been three years since anybody seen load and creed. And a lot of the guys in locker room the Georgia guys were like oh you know Logan these people will never turn on Logan you look a cruel got the bigger reaction that night. Which speaks that says a lot about what about what I've done so but no. I don't hate battle royals. I think as a big guy you've always got your place in about a row. You kind of know what that spot is. And it just kind of depends you know I remember early on it's funny that then says that when I post. And this was back in the 2000s but that's kind of what I got booked in when I first started, it was always about royal it was. It was just a matter of what we want you to come and they always just want you to be the monster spot in the battle royal and everybody dumps you over so I can understand that frustration. Thankfully that's not what we did, you know Friday night the point of that Friday night was actually to set up and match with me and Ben. So there's a little spoiler for everybody. So yeah it's it'll that match will happen sooner than later. I'm going to send him this link right now I'm just trying to try to get him to pop on and sell this whole thing. Ben's a pal Ben's a pal. Yeah it was. It wasn't a complaint of like oh god like please don't book me on these rumbles but I can imagine you're feeling a little pigeonhole of things. All right rumble like you want to try to do a singles match or something else. Let's just let's just be real for a second Ben's probably two inches taller than me. You know he's a giant he's legit giant too. So yeah it's even worse on him than it may be even for me because a lot of times what happens with us is the bookers and everybody looks at a guy like that and they're like. Who am I going to put him against. You know who goes because then they can't do all their cool they can't do all their cool moves to Ben. I mean they can't pick Ben up and throw Ben so I don't want to wrestle him I can't do my cool stuff to him you know it's just the truth that's what happens. So it does pigeonhole you a little bit. Gary any success do you say you're trying to get oh yeah I just messaged him I just messaged him I said I said you were burying him and that way. I'm sure if he feels he's getting buried so we'll see if you've been around to hop on. Now I do want to ask and obviously if you can't go into detail I totally understand that but if I, you did mention a little earlier in the interview you do not currently having a contract with them all W. No, no we I'm just her parents. They give me dates far enough out we don't have any conflict of interest and I told them you know if they were going to use me and we're going to do a storyline that I would honor that. So it's a verbal handshake agreement, which is fine you know listen I'm not I'm old school and I'm from the south so if we agree to something that's what I'm going to do you don't really have to worry about me not living up to whatever I'll tell you I'm going to do. So you know it's been I like that you know it kind of leaves my options open at a later time in life when my time's running thin you know if something does happen. Now I don't have to wait a year or something you know to get out of a contract. The opportunity can can be there so. Well that's like the obvious follow up would be like is there interest I mean like is there anything. I mean there's never been any conversation you know the closest thing I've ever got was a WWE trial, which did not ever happen because of COVID. So you know and that was that was it that's the closest thing I've ever got to a call you know, but Jim and you know as far as a w goes like I'm sure that the opportunity for me to reach out and get some of those. Dark spot you know the or not dark but you know an extra or something but to me. I just got more respect for what I'm doing. Yeah, I do not mean that to hey Adam goes every week and I've told him that I said bro has nothing to do. It's just that character presented on that size of a network or TV. You would not want to just see me standing in the middle of the ring the first time you saw me on a TV. You want to see it make an impression. So yeah yeah I mean I totally get what you're saying because like there's a certain. It is what it is you're a certain level of protection that goes along with the way that you look with your character all the equity and the good will you've built with your fan base and the independent wrestling scene and stuff that like. It would be almost similar to like and I don't mean I don't mean to put this guy down because it's nothing against him but I remember a couple years back when RSP was the ran in GCW world champion he'd been like the one of the main guys in WCW for years. And then he pops up on like a w dark or whatever loses in like three minutes and I'm like man it's like man I'm used to seeing this guy is like the top guy and like in this like. The watch you go out there with once again all the equity and your look and how much you've done with this character if they were to have you go out there and like do anything other than what I'm used to seeing I don't know if I really want to see that as a cool fan. Right now you wouldn't and neither with anybody there and that's the point like it would it wouldn't do anything for me you know which you know I know that's the point of having that spot. But in the same breath like I said I just that's not what I want to do you know if I would love to work with them I'd love to work for them. I think it would be awesome to see that and see this character on on that level of production and the things you could do with it. But I will save it for when that time comes when somebody sees me and says shit I we should do you know what I mean like. I would rather wait till then. One more follow up before I forget to ask this and it's only because I was on YouTube earlier just I just YouTube your name just to see just what would pop up on YouTube you know. And there was one video that was something I think the title that was like. Is the new came quote in my opinion and I was like is this good or bad like I looked at the video and it was clearly like the guy was a fan he was like oh dude this is the new like you clearly was a big campaign and like you're. What kind of do you like getting those kind of comparisons because I feel like that's gonna be pretty cool yeah. No I mean that's listen this sport that's that thing that's a great compliment you know when somebody if somebody compares you to Ric Flair as a worker that's that's a compliment you know they're not saying you're copying that person they're saying that you're living up to the expectations put before you. And so it came with hey came was a monster he was he was the monster you know. And you think about how they talk about introducing somebody like look how they introduced him that moment made him that was the moment if they to put Kate out there in a match in his debut. We're not talking about this today. I'm serious we're not right conversation they made you forget that he was a dentist with terrible teeth. Sure yeah. Listen you got to go through a couple of different characters before you get the right one or that he was diesel he was diesel. Speaking of that if I remember correctly. I'm almost positive MLW like tried to like explain how you and grogan and Logan like weren't the same guy like there was like a couple weeks they were like on commentary they were like oh no definitely not like they were trying to like cover it up. But like it's obviously him like the one else in your roster that looks like this. I've ever seen people. God they thought it was gallows which is funny because he and I look so much alike. You've wrestled an attitude. What's that? You've wrestled an attitude. Oh yeah he all I trained with him for for right before actually I saw him in my W for about a year I was going up to Jackson and training when he had his he had a little school he was doing at the time. So yeah I've trained with him many times over the years. So that's all right I mean to cut you off they thought they thought that it might be gallows and. Yes and here's what's cool is I think I found it later that they had actually reached out to Cody Hall for that spot before giving it to me. And he like he just didn't want to do it he didn't want to work under a hood. So that was a note that was somebody else that could have very well have been there. And I would have never happened so. Interesting. I know Jensen probably has more wrestling questions but I want to shift real quickly because I know he also we don't take up too much time you've already been very gracious for a world. Yeah you're fine. I believe I noticed a dog I assume a dog pal. Oh yeah this is a this is a sports memorabilia room there's baseballs and baseball cards that's the UGA. That's happens. Yeah that's what it that's what I thought it was it was the Georgia University in everything. So I have to ask this I've been trying to find someone who's actually played this game have you played college football to 25. I have. Oh thank you thank you there's so many people I've had on and nobody's played the game I'm like what is wrong with you it's our childhood. I had to I had to spend the hundred dollars on it just for nostalgia I don't even have yeah I have so little time to play games anymore. And I'll play a couple I've gotten destroyed every time I play because they changed everything now it's like all along on like everything's going on I'm like y'all took all the fun I used to like people 107 to nothing. It's my main character that's hundred stats like I just basically made cruel every time I played it. Start with natural dance finishers already loaded before the match. Right. Right. So you know but it's a different it is fun. It's like I said I play I play and I play with it boys sometimes I've got three three boys 13 11 and five. And so they of course love video games and so it's fun it's fun to kind of go back actually. And then the other came over a few weekends ago. And we played a game which was you talk about throwing back you know what I mean. That's a. And he stole my ass and that was a look that was definitely retribution for him because I used to beat him pretty bad. My kids aren't into the sports games at all they like the the Fortnite and things like that so all of that and they destroyed me on that this game came out I was like all right you know what I don't care if you like this or not. And I'm getting this and I'm getting back. All these times you guys saved me and killed me in Fortnite. So that's what I had to do. But somebody's finally played it. But yeah, it's a challenge of nostalgia. No it's it's fun. It's it's just cool to have again. I have an update I have an update from Ben Bishop he's being cowardly and he said that he is in a class right now I won't say what kind of class I won't blow up his spot like that but he says he is in a class so I'm going to call him a coward. I'm going to call him a coward and tell him that we will continue to bury him. He's in coward class you're in coward class. He's trouble. He's trouble. I know he's bigger than me. I've seen him in person before here and here in Georgia. I'm not messing with that. Yeah. We ought to get him on here sometimes soon as well. That's a good reminder. Be cool to get him on. Oh, he he'll definitely be down. Speaking of like games and stuff side note I'm mad and comes out this week. I've been waiting on that I didn't want to get mad and ants and and NCAA because they're so similar but it is really cool that NCAA is back. How cool is it by the way to have your own action bigger. Oh man are you kidding me. There's one back here. Yeah, that was my dad's really funny. That's when I when that first come out or when I got him and he ordered he had ordered one he got his he like he called me to the house. You know, it's like it's super secret. Like I didn't know what I thought I was in trouble. I was like, what the hell's going on. He's like calls me in his office and he's like, sign this. And I was like, why don't you just tell me the sign? He's like, do you have to your high against your mom? What's happening? But no, he was that's he was like, no matter what happens. Now he made it. I was like, that's so funny. But yeah, you know, you're right. You're right. No, it's super cool, man. Well, I think one of the best parts about it for me was I was able to get a. Boss fight, they actually sent me one early. Right before Christmas this past year. And I was able to give it to the five year old for Christmas and man that. You know, that made his whole career. It made his whole Christmas. So, you know, that was super cool. And it's just cool to see him playing with it and just to kind of like try to try to imagine in my own mind. As a five year old kid, what it would have been like if my dad would have been an action figure. You know what I mean? It's super awesome. Does he how does he break fingers? Oh, sorry. They're great. They're great. They're great action figures, by the way, like the really, really well, well, well made. Your likeness has done really well on that. Yeah. And they're durable because he's had that one, the same one since Christmas and listen, there's no paint chips. There's no everything still functioning. So I think that speaks a lot because I've felt off of everything in the house. No, it's funny. So he's been using Drew McIntyre figure as Matt Justice. I was just about to say, you can recreate Matt, you Matt Justice. That's so funny that you said that. I walk into the kitchen and then there's the window sill. And he's got me and Drew. And I was like, well, what are we doing? Because like the rings down below the window sill, you know, we're up here. And I was like, he was like, you're wrestling Matt Justice. It's like, you know, he just falls off over to tables. And I was like, oh, yeah, you're watching the product, I see. We don't do anything in the ring. Yeah. Oh, you're going to have Matt Justice come over and help him book the matches. Just walk in and just start finding the highest points. That's exactly. Yeah. Just exactly. Whatever we can, whatever the highest thing we can jump off of today. Yes. Yeah. I was going to be being, I was going to say, being, are you being booked strong in the fig fed by the five year old? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the only person that needs me is Reagan stereo from. Yeah. The WCW version though, the purple. So that was like, he had to have that one. That was the one. So yeah, that's, that's my normal contest is every time. Every time I walk in, I'm working right in Syria. That's great. You said the purple. So that's like the Halloween havoc. Oh, yeah. I mean, I had to have that one. Had to have it. Yeah, speaking of having a half, I do need to, I missed the, I missed the sale period when those M.L.W. figures came out because they actually sold really well. I mean, like, everyone was doing really well in that line. I do need to get one for myself ASAP as well, because by the time, so this will be airing on Thursday morning and we're live before this airs. I'll be in my office. I'm a big collector. And I love getting things signed, especially about people we've had on the show. So like, I'm going to try to find that figure, and then whenever I see you in Georgia, I'm going to try to get that thing signed and put it in my office. Before you get it, I have some. Oh, oh, I will. But when we, when we end this interview, I will inquire about how to, how to obtain that. That is. I went up as soon as I knew they were available to me. I'll put in a lot of them. Let's go. Just, just to have, you know, because you don't ever know. It might be nice to have a case in 10 years if I do really something that happens. Dude, I'm looking forward to that. It'll, it'll, it'll be, it'll be my backdrop and my new office that I've been putting together. It'll be behind me when we're doing interviews going forward. So, um, awesome. Awesome, man. I'm looking forward to that. Jeremy, any, any final questions? We always, we always ask everybody the coolest thing in their room. You got a lot of cool stuff behind you. I don't know if it's going to be a tough time to choose. Uh, you did it. Hold on. Let me, uh, let me grab this. Awesome. I love this memorabilia set up he has. Yeah, it's a sick. Yeah. Knowing like the, a lot of that stuff is like autographed football baseball. Yeah, I can only imagine what you're about to, like what you're about to pull out here knowing that you have all that stuff and you're almost being asked to pick. The absolute coolest thing. I feel like he's about to bring over a baseball sign by Babe Ruth in the rest of the squad. Um, that, you know, to reflect. Yeah, yeah, to replace the Babe Ruth ball that you lost over the. Oh, I don't know. Oh, that's not good. Yeah, it's in here somewhere. Oh, here it is. Okay. I'm glad we found it. It was baby Ruth. The writing on it's so, uh, it's just so faded. You can't really see. I can't say. I don't know where it's at. It's in there somewhere. I have a lot of sign balls. So, but it's so. When I was a kid, um, I don't remember exact age, but this would have been the years when the Atlanta Braves won the pennant for like the first time in forever. Oh, that's like early 90s, you know, but we went to the game. We got there. They were doing back in practice. Somebody hit a foul ball actually like bounced off the bleachers hit me in the head. So yeah, we started, we started and it bounced back into the field and the groundskeepers couldn't give us the ball. They, you know, just to get us the rules for them to do. So some ushers come down and checked on me. They got me a back rice. Well, like the seventh end of the game, the same usher comes back down with a ball and he had taken it to the dugout and had the entire Braves team sign the ball. Oh, it's talking glavin and smokes and Jeff blouser. Oh, yeah. Oh, let's go. Yeah, it's covered. You know, just Francisco Cabrera, who's the one he hit that think he hit the hit that scored the winning the winning run for the pennant. So that's that's probably just not even the coolest thing. Just the coolest story of the coolest thing that I have, you know. Yeah. Oh, I love that. I was a, I was a huge baseball fan as a kid. And I remember those 90s Braves teams very well. That was like the whole. Everyone just mentioned and then you can go deep cuts because I can't remember exactly like what years guys kind of came and went. But I mean, you can go deep with like Raphael Bellyard and Mark Lemke and Ryan Klesko and Otis Nixon. All those years, man. It was like anyone who gave a justice a little bit later on. And Fred McGriff. I love those 90s Braves teams. Man, that's really cool that you got something like that. Yeah, this, and so this, so like this is sports room. Well, then there's just a, there's a room just dedicated to toys and like hot toys. So like, I actually have a video of that on YouTube, I think. Of that word. So it's just how long that we just go into the different head spaces in my completely screwed up brain. And this validates so much, honestly, because the next time that anybody, it looks at the, because I live in a man cave by myself. So like my living room is just Minnesota Vikings because that's my NFL team. My office is action figures and I've got, I've got a little thing with signed baseball and stuff too. And it's so funny because I take so much pride. It's like my magnum opus is like, this is my kitchen technically and I got a Cody road. But it's especially not wrong now cruel because now from now on, anytime somebody tries to roast me on or says that I'm wasting my time and I'm like, yeah, cool collection is the same thing. How do you say to him about it? Don't anybody roast you for that, dude. Yeah, you've got my back now. I love it. Thank you very much. Well, that's all I've got. I have to talk to you for hours. We'll try to have you back again in the future, but like, I really appreciate you doing this. I know you don't do a lot of these interviews as we mentioned at the top. Yeah, what are you doing? We got a special. Let's go. Oh, hey. Hello, man. What's your name? What's your name and tell your name? Yeah, I'm almost going to play games. Yeah, he's ready to play video games. Here's your favorite in your turtle. Yeah, what do you want to play? No, what is it? Gang beast. Yup. It's either gang beast or Roblox or Roblox is big in this household as well. Yeah, I love it. And you're teaching it well. He's rocking an internal shirt. Did you see they made the like they come back out with the ones from like when we were kids recently, like the whole series of them again. Like you remember those like back in there. Yes. Yeah, we bought all of them. Like, I bought all of it. He's open and playing with all of them, but I was like, you need to play with these. I am sure you do the same thing. I have to like create these rules in my head to like justify or not justify buying certain things for these collections. Right. So, like, my thing is, I only collect hurdles now. It has to be specifically secret of the ooze for the second movie or the newest movie that just came out because I saw it with like my family and it was a good time. I'm not really nostalgic. So, like, I quite for me and for in for secret of the ooze specifically. But that gets that gets expensive too because like all these NECA figures come out there like, you know, incredible nowadays and stuff and they're super expensive, but you got to buy them before they triple in price. So, you got to get them. Kids made it all worse. It is. That didn't help any of the problem would spend money on toys. It just gave me. Like, yeah, amazing. I got three kids over here. I can tell you often I come across that scenario just like checking out from like a target or a Walmart just like with like a handful of toys for and people will look at me like, Oh, yeah, how are your kids just like. Yeah, these are, these are for me. I'm 36. But, uh, you can be impressed with my collection, I think. And I cover pro wrestling. So, anyway, we don't want to keep, I don't want to keep you too long. Jeremy, go ahead. Yes, cool. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. We really appreciate it. Let everybody know where they can find you at, where they can support you at anything you got coming up, anything you want to get out there and just promote. Yeah, any, any of the social media is at atrocity cruel so pretty easy to find Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, whatever, whatever else there is now. I just, I just added light that I can just share it all at the same time. So you can follow me any of those and then, you know, this I'm actually off this weekend. I took some breaks during the summer, but we're getting ready to kick back off pretty hard in August and in September. Next week is going to be TWE in Chattanooga, actually, on Friday night. That's their big 11 year anniversary show. So that's going to be fun. It'll be, it's been a while since I've been back to Chattanooga, probably since I see W was running. So it's going to be fun to be back up there. Then the very next week, we're going to be in New York with MLW. And that's going to be the road to back to Atlanta, where I'll be getting my MLW title shot. So that's going to be a, that's going to be a big deal and a lot of fun. And then beyond that weekend. So, like I said, it's just, it's going to be a busy end of the year. It's already pretty much filled. Sorry, pretty much full, probably just December. I still got some open dates, but as you can imagine, October fills up really fast. So just follow me there, follow me on social media. I do a really good job of posting where I'm going to be and what I'm going to be doing. Off this weekend, but technically not because MLW never say never aired on YouTube and you were part of that show. So technically not really off. So I love that. That's the best one for you tape shows, man. There was a week, a few weeks back when we had Adam Priest on, he was coming off the week where on the same night, he technically won the SCI and won the DPW National Championship. So it's free tape. So it was going to be one huge night, two different promotions at the same time. Hey, that makes it fun, man. I mean, and that's, that puts your name out there a lot, because if somebody sees one thing and then they're looking at it, he just did this somewhere else like at the same time. So, same building, TWE. That's where that CI went down. Can't wait to see you there again. And hopefully be there live in Atlanta for MLW two at center stage. I love that venue. So awesome. Yeah. Thanks again. Thanks again. Cool. Yeah. Thank you so much for doing this. Guys, all the links are below where you can follow. We can support cruel again. Thank you for for joining us here tonight. And guys, we'll be right back here on the spot. We're back. Big thank you to cruel. Get really fun interview. Hopefully people got enjoyed the peek behind the man behind the mask there with mad's cruel Kruger. He will be in action at MLW. He'll be at TWE again. You can follow him on socials. He's promoting where he's going to be at. And that is everything for us today. We appreciate everybody hanging out in the chat, being active in the chat, leaving a super chat. Leave a thumbs up on the video. Subscribe to the channel. We'll be back next week. Talking all the world, all the things that going on in the world of professional wrestling, all the news, all the happenings. It is a w all in next weekend. So plenty to talk about there could be my last show as cold. Radrik is threatening to kill me at the Shmiti event on next Friday, August 23rd. Everyone, if you're in the area, go check that out. If it becomes streaming, I'll let you know where it's streaming. We'll continue to promote coal and all the good things he's doing with that event. Guys, we'll be back next week. Everyone can head over to FightfulOverbooked.com. Check out in the weeds every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 10 a.m. to noon, Eastern. Check out coexisting with Rob Maggie every Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern. We're wrestling Mimi cry with auntie Collins. And Kylie, that is back. That return this past weekend. That is Sundays at noon and indeed with Mike and Reg, that is Wednesdays at 6 p.m. As we appreciate it, all below of all the support. Hope everyone has a great weekend. Whatever you're doing this weekend. Hope everyone enjoys. Enjoy yourself. Have a good weekend, everyone. We'll be back next week. Bye, buddy. [BLANK_AUDIO]
