[MUSIC]

>> The Joe Rogan experience.

>> Shrink my day, Joe Rogan podcast my night all day.

[MUSIC]

>> Here's the rolling, what's up?

John Cena in the fucking house.

>> Put these on, yeah.

>> Let's put these on, pretend we're professional.

>> What's up, good to see you, man?

>> Thanks so much for having me.

>> My pleasure in here.

>> And there's no way I'm having a pro wrestler on without Tony Hinchliff.

>> Of course, he's the expert, he knows more about pro wrestling than I know about UFC.

>> Yeah, sometimes I translate little things here and there.

>> That's cool, it's all right.

>> Yeah, he has to, he has to.

And he's a giant fan of yours too.

You know what's a giant fan of yours is Brian Simpson.

Brian Simpson was going on last night about how intelligent you are.

It was really interesting, you know.

>> Sure was me?

>> Yeah, man.

Well you do speak fucking Mandarin, which is kind of crazy.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> How long did it take you to learn that?

>> Man, I was doing that for quite a long time, I've since kind of declined on the studies.

A wonderful takeaway from the study of Mandarin, just because you know a language doesn't mean

you know the culture.

So that was a fantastic experience with, but I studied Mandarin for like a decade.

And I would say like, not even conversationally fluent, it was a really tough hill to climb

for me.

>> It seems like a really big hill.

>> Just different.

You know, you could use the language in the structure.

>> You could read it.

>> No, I didn't bother to read.

And like reading all the characters, understanding everything at you.

>> How long did it take you to learn?

>> Around 10 years.

>> Well.

>> Yeah.

And then like, I mean, I would dream in Mandarin and like have conversations and kick

down in that.

So it became like a second language, but you know, I lived in China for a little bit.

I filmed a movie with Jackie Chan, so I was there for like six or seven months.

I lived there and maybe we were in Mongolia, in Chuan Province, so like in China.

>> Wow.

>> And it was fun.

Yeah.

>> You were in Mongolia.

>> Inner Mongolia.

>> Yeah.

>> What's the difference?

>> I don't know.

Because I've never been in Mongolia.

Inner Mongolia was, man, I was the only person that looked like me there.

And everyone would say, look, it's big white guy, Hyundai Byron, Hyundai Byron, that would

call me.

>> Wow.

>> Yeah.

So what motivated you to learn that?

It seems like such a task.

>> Honestly, man, everything in my life seems to be wrestling related.

It was wrestling related.

Like WWE's reach spread everywhere.

I mean, I've been able to lucky enough to perform everywhere from like Moscow, Philippines,

South Africa, Bangor, Maine, every place in between, except China.

China was like the one place that didn't understand what we did.

So it's literally like it's a universal language because you can turn.

It's like UFC.

You turn the volume down, but you can see like, oh, this is two guys, best guy wins.

I get it.

The Chinese just didn't get it.

So I figured if one of our superstars spoke the language, maybe that would help break down

the barrier.

>> Was it your idea?

>> It was my idea, but the WWE offers, and I think they still offer it.

They offer a free second language program.

So like when they rolled out the initiative of financial advice and they'll pay for portions

of your secondary education and free second language, this is like 2011, 2012, big talent

meeting in like an auditorium.

I'm one of the old guys at the time sitting in the front being like, these kids don't know

how good to have it.

I should stand up and tell them to like, no, fuck that.

I'm actually going to lead by example and take a language.

So I signed up right then and there for Chinese because I wanted to get it sent to China.

>> Wow.

>> And like I said, it worked, but it kind of only worked and I think actually right now

China is experiencing what wrestling is to them because like there's, I've read articles

that there's promotions over there that are thriving.

So like now they get it.

>> So they have their own promotions?

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> And this is a fairly recent thing.

>> I think so.

Like I just read recent articles that like pro wrestling is thriving in China and they

have their own, like their own way of doing it.

>> Wow.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Wow.

That's wild.

It's wild how like expansive the pro wrestling businesses that they would be that open-minded

to say like let's give second language programs to the athletes.

>> Well, you know, just it's weird.

The origins of the business are carnival related.

It is like a carnival attraction and then it was like ruthlessly territorial.

And then when it became national, I was still trying to find its way.

It's almost like you see pro sports doing it, you know, the more a sport succeeds, the

more benefits they offer to their competitors and athletes.

So, you know, WWE kind of hit that stride.

Yeah.

>> It's just such a smart thing to do.

>> Yeah, well, you give your talent, give your talent the opportunities to gain knowledge

and wisdom and the sad thing is I don't know how many people did it or do it still, you

know.

than you that you know of that.

- Two other people.

- Who?

- Claudio Castignoly, who speaks, I think, four or five

languages already, and he just wanted to take,

like, a brush up course, and Nadi Knight Heart.

- Wow. - Yeah.

- That's it. - That's it.

- That's it. - That's it.

- Not gonna do it. - That's too much work.

- Yeah. - What was the, not knowing the culture aspect?

- So, man, I got, I got put in a bit of a hotspot

with, I made a pack to myself when I was like,

okay, I feel fluent.

We would do these global press tours,

and I'd just happen to be on a global press tour.

I'm like, you know what?

I'm gonna do 70% of my media in Mandarin, like, in dialogue.

And I gotta say, I did it.

Like, I went over there, spoke, people were taking off

the translator headphones, like, life was good.

Everything was great.

At the very end of the day, as with all these press tours,

you do like a bunch of prompted reads.

So, I'm doing prompted reads for everywhere.

And it's like, hey, go this place and see this movie.

Go this place and see this movie.

And no, my bad, I didn't check the reads

'cause it's like an end of a 10 hour day,

you do a million of these things.

And one of them said like, hey, Taiwan, see this,

this is, and it was all in Mandarin.

And the opinion described Taiwan as a country.

So, be the first country to see this.

Now, over there, they look through a different lens.

Like, geopolitics are murky waters, man.

And that's what, when I learned of like,

I just said it, left, everybody was cool.

I did my thing, like, I read the prompt.

It was like a Ron Burgundy moment.

Like, go fuck yourself, saying the English,

like the most offensive thing you could say.

So, I'm like, man, you know, good job, John.

You said you did 70% and people understood

what you were talking about.

And then they put that out.

And everybody was like, what the fuck did you just say?

We don't, that's not how we do it over here.

And again, just because, like, my take away.

And it was a, it was a pretty tense moment for me.

Like, I had to apologize to China.

And then apologizing to China, I pissed off my home country.

I'm a patriot.

I love the United States of America.

And everything it stands for, but like, no one,

it was never enough, nobody was happy.

Everybody was fucked up.

And it was, it was like murky waters for me personally.

And it was weird.

Like, I'm not, I think I might have been the only guy

almost to get canceled for doing his homework.

You know, like, trying to like learn and try to do something,

but the cool takeaway, you know, we can learn

from every mistake.

My mistake was just because you know the language

doesn't mean you know the culture.

Did they even refer to as Taiwan?

I think they refer to as Chinese Taipei, right?

Man, what was in the, I know what I read and everything.

So that's, again, I don't know enough depth to know that.

And now, like, people like, oh, man, can you,

can you speak Mandarin for this?

I just won't do it.

It's a skill that I have and it's,

but it's a skill that's going to remain with me

because it's, I don't understand,

I don't have the depth of field to know what,

to call that place in that region of the world

and I haven't done enough research.

I don't have the wisdom and I don't have like,

the, the cultural fluency, you know?

So it was a cool lesson, it sucked.

'Cause I thought I was just trying to do something good,

but it was, it was a cool lesson.

And was it really that big of a deal?

Man, I thought, like, I, I was filming a piecemaker season one,

and when they came out with all of this stuff,

I went directly to James Gunn and was like,

hey, man, if you have to fire me, I understand.

Wow.

And this episode is brought to you by Zip Recruiter.

Today's world look a lot different

without innovators like Gulliel Momarconi.

- And that's serious, but it wasn't even words that you wrote.

Someone out, the WWE wrote it?

- That doesn't, no, no, it was for the movie.

I was promoted.

- Right, so the movie, the people that made the movie wrote it.

- So I don't know, like when you do these press tours,

let's say, if I'm doing a movie for Warner Brothers,

let's say, let's use peacemakers example,

I'm doing a global peacemaker tour,

and we go into China, or we go into South America.

You meet like the PR person there,

and they have all this stuff you're supposed to do,

and they curate your experience, and they hold your hand.

You're like, okay, now we're gonna go to this station,

then by the way, there's just want you to do some shout outs,

and so anytime I go anywhere globally now,

as much as I wanna thank fans for their attention,

and you know, investing in the product,

I really shy away from like speaking the language,

'cause I don't understand the cultural nuance.

You know, I just wanna be like, yo, man,

thanks for watching what we do,

and I love the fact that you're entertained,

but I wanna speak to you at a level

that I understand that I'm fluent,

'cause your boots on the ground here every day,

and I might say something that's a nice gesture,

but completely fucking offend you,

and that's not good for anybody.

- So was the teleprompter in English,

and you translate to Chinese?

- No, it was in, no, everything was in Mandarin,

and in Chinese they have the characters,

which are virtually impossible for me to learn,

there's like an infinite number,

but they also have what's called pinion,

which is it's kinda spelled out in English with phonetics,

so it has the four tones,

so if you were to put something in front of me

in pinion right now, I could definitely read it,

and I got good at reading pinion,

so I was like, man, I could send all these messages

in Mandarin, and then more people will know about this movie,

and more people will know about me,

and more people will know about wrestling,

and more people will be excited.

Look good on paper, just, my follow through is a bit weak,

you know?

- It doesn't even seem like that was your fault.

- Right, it's probably a PR's assistant,

that's probably in charge of doing the grunt work of typing

in all the different languages in the different countries.

- And tedious.

- From what I know, I know I'm gonna learn a lot about you guys

in this episode, but from what I know about you,

you're into looking things through different lenses

and different perspectives.

It also could have been somebody being like,

I'm gonna get this kid, but here's the thing,

I do appreciate you saying like, it's not your fault,

that's not true, it was my fault,

and I think that's when I can start to work on like,

well, what did I learn from this?

And I could easily blame a PR and assistant,

I could say somebody had a target on my back, all that stuff.

I fucked up.

- Did you suspect that somebody might have set you up?

- No, we were saying it like, it's a possibility.

- Well, man, when it happened, every theory came,

like here's the thing, the world doesn't revolve around me,

but my little world, everybody was like,

they fucked up, they did this on purpose,

I was like, well, first of all, who's they?

So I was able to kind of eliminate all that,

and once I realized I could still go on working,

I really made a lot of people angry

and for that that I'm sorry, like again,

I was just trying to...

- That's crazy just by saying that Taiwan's a country.

- In Chinese, though, like those are murky waters

to begin with, I'm not even thoroughly fluent

on the US policy.

I think it's like territorial ambiguity,

or something like that, it's so weird,

and it's so fragile, and I got into some water,

I shouldn't have been swimming in,

but that's on me, it was my fault.

And I think that's important for me to bear the burden of that,

and be like, yo, how can I course correct?

What did I learn?

Who do I really, really genuinely have to apologize

for offending?

The biggest thing that was a kick to the nuts

was when people states I'd got pissed off.

- Because you apologize?

- Yes, in Chinese, and I understand it,

I mean, completely like bowing down to the demand of this,

that gosh, what a shitty move by me.

Like I just, I should have taken a breath.

Again, what did I learn?

Don't be reactive.

Take a breath, find out what's going on,

find out the best path of action.

- Maybe give it a few days, maybe give it a hot second?

- And then move forward, but immediately I was like,

oh, they're mad, you want us to do this?

Find no problem, I'll fix it right now.

- Man, not only did I not try to fix the hole in the boat,

I sunk the Titanic.

But again, it was a learning experience.

- Well, it speaks to your character

that you don't blame anybody else,

'cause I blame everybody else.

(laughing)

- I'm like, who fuckin' wrote that?

Don't you know what you're saying,

or are you making me say?

- The release you guys have for the show, I read it.

And you might be the only person.

- So that was whoever handed it to me,

that was what they said.

I think you might be the only person that ever read it.

Man, if you're gonna take liberties with me,

at least I want to be able to read that you are.

You know what I'm saying?

And I can't say I'm perfect with doing that,

but like, I was handed a release.

I'm like, oh man, can I just glance this over for?

Oh, this is what I think it says, okay, let's go.

- Trump didn't even read it, just Trump.

(laughing)

- Tweets their own?

- Yeah, no, it's very smart of you to read it.

You know, who knows?

You know?

- Who knows?

- So this is Tony, is this the full trifecta now?

Is like, if you've gotten all of your heroes

on this podcast now?

- There's a couple more week in knockoff

out of the arrests in the world.

There's a couple more.

- Talk, let's, if you don't mind, if I can tell.

- Who is?

- Talk pro-resting heroes.

Who do we need to knock off?

Who do we need to win?

- Well, I mean, in all reality,

and it's a diabolical, diabolical moment.

And he can invite, you can invite anyone you want.

- Yeah.

- He just gotta give the wish list.

- I mean, you gotta, you gotta start with the number one

without a doubt Vince McMahon,

who started this gangster shit and spread it around.

- I would definitely have him as a little man.

- Yeah.

- He would be great.

- Yes.

- I, whatever magic you have out there

and you have a lot of gravity.

- Do you think he'd be interested in doing it?

- Are you kidding me?

I think he would love it.

- Really?

- I think he would love it.

- I don't know when the right time is,

but man, don't miss out on that arm.

At least send it out to the universe.

- Yeah.

- Well, I would definitely Vince, if you're listening.

- Vince, if you're listening.

- Let's go.

- I think this experience would be a great one for you.

- Is he still involved, is he out, is he in?

He's out.

- He's out.

- He's out totally.

It seems like he's the guy that'll be out for a little while

and then something will happen that bring him back in.

- No, well, I don't know.

Again, we were talking about why is your last event

in this place?

I'm like, man, 'cause I don't choose the events.

All that stuff is so far above me,

but I know now he's out.

In my eyes, I'd like to think that time heals everything

and I believe in forgiveness,

and I also believe in looking at the body of work,

but I also know there's a lot of fragile stuff going on there.

I don't know, I don't know, man, I don't know.

- Yeah, it's a hot subject.

It gets into another Chinese Taipei incident.

- Well, no, no, man, I'm, again,

I've learned to become a little bit more accountable

for what I say and just because I feel a certain way

about a person doesn't exonerate them

from being accountable for their actions.

- Right.

- And just because he did start, quote unquote,

all this gangster shit that doesn't,

that doesn't mean he doesn't need to be accountable

for his actions.

So let's figure out what that means

and then figure out if we can move forward

and bring that back in the fold,

or if it stays the way it is.

- Well, he's like Tony, he's coming back.

- I think he would come here.

- Yeah, I think he would come here too.

And I think he, that's one of the more entertaining people

of all time.

He created the entire universe.

You gotta remember, Hogan's Hogan,

'cause of him, seeing a scene.

- I mean, he 'cause of him.

- Yeah, every single stone call,

he's like, that sounds good.

Yeah, keep it going.

We'll do the glass breaks thing

and they'll throw you beers.

I like it.

Let's do it again next week.

So everything that we think--

- When he sits here, you gotta do that impression.

- Yeah.

(laughing)

- Yeah.

- Yeah, stone colds, another one that hasn't been on.

- See, it would be great.

I think you would dig Steve.

- Oh, yeah.

- I'm sure.

He lives out here too, doesn't he?

- Yup.

- Does he?

- Well, actually--

- Does he have a ranch out here?

- I think he does somewhere else.

- I think he does.

- Yeah, but I think he's based out of somewhere else,

now in New Mexico or Arizona.

He's on the, he's like kind of cool and reclusive.

He doesn't really do a lot.

It's amazing.

- He would be a good get.

And I'm pretty, I guarantee you would do it.

- Yeah.

- Steve, if you're live, I know you're watching.

Come on.

Come on in.

- Yeah, we'll talk some wrestling.

- Well done man.

I mean, everyone has him on the Mount Rushmore.

Triple H who runs it now, the son-in-law of Vince McMahon.

- Yeah.

- I mean, he runs the entire thing.

I mean, you want answers to those high-level questions.

- Yeah.

- There's your guy.

- Yeah.

- That's the guy you need to get into.

or visit the link in the description to get started.

- Well, if you don't know the history,

Tony at one point in time was offered a job

with the WWE before he really made it.

- No way.

- Yeah, he was offered a job to write for the WWE.

Because Tony was a giant pro wrestling fan

and he had already had a Netflix special.

So he was known as a comic book.

- Was it before the Netflix special?

The first one, the one that you released yourself?

- Yeah, really.

- Yeah, it was only a couple years into me doing standup

like seven nights a week at the comedy store all the time.

And somehow I ended up,

someone's like, "Hey, I have a friend in WWE

if you wanna have a meeting with them and just talk."

And I went in with straight up ideas.

This, that the Undertaker's brother comes back again.

This, that, the next, like everything back and forth.

I can't even remember any of them.

It's been so long, but I went in with the whole thing.

This guy's like, "Where the hell did you?"

Like, "Oh, this is crazy."

You just like, "Did this?"

I'm like, "Yeah, I found out a couple days ago

we were gonna talk, so."

But yeah, they offered it.

But I would have had to move to Connecticut

and take a train to New York every night

to do go to standup and that would have just been exhausting

and everything I heard 'cause Patrice O'Neill,

the late great Patrice O'Neill wrote for WWE for a while.

- They really? - Yeah.

Yeah, for like a couple of years, I think.

- What did it, it just wrote lines for them?

Like, what did he do?

- The whole Shabang.

When you're a WWE writer, they make you write.

It's not like a cute job at all.

- No, there's a lot of, there's a lot of television.

Or there's a lot of content every week.

- Yeah.

- Right now I think they got, they have three weekly shows.

So that's 20, I think one of them's going back

to three hours and 16, it's like 50 segments of TV.

- Yeah.

- Every week.

- Yeah but I remember when you were talking about it.

- Yeah.

- When you were talking about what you're potentially doing

and it was like, yeah, it was tricky.

- And I was like, dude, you do not want to live in Connecticut.

- No.

- That's the main thing.

It was anywhere else other than Connecticut

it kind of made more sense.

If it was in New York City, it would have been a no-brainer.

If it was in LA, definitely.

- But like fast forward, now you're more and more involved.

- Yes.

This is the crazy thing.

Like we had talked, like during the old days,

like we would talk in the green room.

I'd be like, that would be your ultimate dream job.

Like to make it as a comedian and somehow be involved

in the UFC, the way, or excuse me, in WWE,

the way I'm involved in the UFC.

Like very similar.

- Yeah.

And look.

- Crazy.

It's insane.

- No.

- And tomorrow night I'm going to be in the front row

at the arena in my hometown.

- Are they here?

- Yeah.

- Oh man.

You messing with me, are you going to, is your music

going to hit your top out?

- No, I'm not there.

I got one more left.

- This is what they do, by the way.

- Oh yeah.

- Oh yeah, as well.

- And they didn't even know they were going to be in town.

- So he's correct.

There's a lot of, you mess with people.

You're right.

But then somebody like me will actually shoot you straight

and be like, I'm not going to be there.

And I won't be there.

And you'll be like, ah, now I'm just,

I'm building the equity for people to mess with people.

- Exactly.

- I'm giving 20 Mulligans out there.

- Tomorrow.

- No, music plays.

- Yeah, exactly.

- I heard a great story.

You'll probably love this.

You might even know this story.

But the undertaker, his wife and his podcast co-host

went to WrestleMania.

They're up in a fancy suite.

This was, which one was it?

The rock?

I mean, my parents, did you?

Yes, you were there, right?

That huge finish at WrestleMania like three years ago.

It was just boom, boom, boom, boom.

And all these legends were coming out.

This huge finish, just like they can't even like follow it.

The ultimate climax of a WrestleMania.

And one wrestler comes out and erupts this huge main event.

And then another one, then another one.

Anyway, the undertaker, his wife and his podcast co-host

were up in the suite.

Undertaker goes, I'm gonna go use the restroom.

They're like, he's been gone a while.

The lights go out, the beltels.

They're watching from the suite.

He's been gone for like 10 minutes, 20 minutes.

He went and changed real quick.

And then now he--

- Came out as the undertaker.

- Yeah, came out as the undertaker.

They're in the suite like, oh my God, it's the undertaker.

(laughing)

They don't tell anybody, it's so old school and awesome

that they keep secrets so locked up,

that their own loved ones, his wife didn't even know.

- That's hilarious.

- That is so crazy.

- It's fun to be able to surprise a live audience.

- Oh yeah, oh yeah, I mean, it's gotta be a big part of it.

How did you get involved in pro wrestling?

Were you a fan as a kid?

And then-- - I sure was.

I think we have the same gravity of like,

man, I was a super fan as a kid.

But then I fell out of it.

Admittedly kind of when Hogan went to WCW.

So like, I was into wrestling and then I wasn't.

And then I got into sports or whatever.

And then I got back into wrestling

when everyone else did.

When like Stone Cold Steve Austin became big,

the rock became big, the attitude era hit.

And I was just working a dead end job over at Gold Gym Venice.

And like, didn't know what I wanted to do with my life.

- I will do you?

- 21.

- Wow.

- 21, I'd moved out to California,

not to be famous or anything.

My degree was in Kines.

And I wanted to, like that was the center

of the fitness universe in '99, 2000.

So like all equipment manufacturers are there.

I'm like, man, I'll go get a job with hammer strength.

There are sidebacks or like maybe golds

or like put that piece of paper on the wall

to like get a good paying job.

It did not work.

So I ended up like front desk, clean and toilet,

selling protein bars in that order.

So I don't have to buy a protein bar.

I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding.

But no, I was kind of like a jack of all trades over there.

And a friend of mine, Chris Bell and Mark Bell.

- Oh, I know those guys.

- Yeah, literally, you were like,

dude, you talk about WWF all the time.

You know, we train down in Orange County

and at that time Chris Bell was kind of like writing

for this promotion.

You're like, would you want to do it?

And I, man, I, that doesn't happen

without them accidentally saying like,

yo, we train to do this.

So.

- His documentaries are fucking incredible.

- Yeah. - Bigger, stronger, faster.

And then the other one, the pill one.

What was that one called?

- Magic pill.

- No, what was the one?

The addiction one, that Chris released.

But bigger, stronger, faster.

So it was such a fucking great documentary.

- The Bell family, I've been friends with them

for a long time.

- Great guys.

- Yeah.

- That documentary like blew the lid off of like

the reality of steroids.

Prescription thugs.

- Prescription thugs.

- That's another great one.

- Yeah.

Crazy thing is he got addicted to pills

while he was doing that.

'Cause he had surgery while he was doing that

and got addicted to pills

while he's making a fucking documentary

on people being addicted to pills.

That's how potent pills are.

A guy making a documentary about addiction.

He just thinks, well, I'm just taking these

'cause I got hip surgery and I'm in fucking agony

and then gets hooked.

- Oh yeah.

- That's how crazy it is.

- Yeah, they're strong.

- Yeah, I would imagine.

(laughing)

Did you ever have an issue?

- No.

- No, as a matter of fact,

I've had fusion in my neck, right pec,

completely detached, reattached,

both triceps reattached, both triceps scoped,

nose relocated, like I got,

I probably am in like 10 physical surgeries

where they gotta go and correct something,

never taken one pain pill.

- Wow.

- I have all the prescriptions

in the bottom drawer of my house filled

and it's weird because at every facility,

the first thing they,

the first hill they climb is pain management.

You wake up from anesthesia,

you're like gray and murky

and I've been in a bunch of surgeries

and a bunch of different facilities.

The protocol's always the same.

Do you want something for the pain?

Here, we gotta make sure you take this with you

'cause you're not in any pain.

- Yeah.

- Like I understand,

'cause if you leave, if you're feeling okay,

maybe you're high off adrenaline, I don't know,

and then the operation sets in

with like holy fuck, this is a 10 out of 10,

I can't, I need something, I get that.

But I guess from falling down and hurting my body a lot,

like I know my pain threshold.

- Yeah.

- And when I, the worst one was probably the,

putting the whole pack back on and then attaching it.

But when I woke up,

I was able to like mess around with a stress ball

and I never took one pill.

- That's amazing.

- You know, I still have the full bottles.

Like summer labeled 2008 is when I have my first surgery

and they're just all there.

- There's a lot of people listening right now,

but I want to fix them.

- You count them all?

(laughing)

They're still good.

- I found out.

- I found out what John Cena's tore some.

- It was weird because the medical staff

couldn't believe it.

Like they're like, you don't want anything.

No, because man, I know I am with this.

- Yeah, it's a fucking slippery one.

- And I would just, I'd be high on opioids all the time.

- I got my first knee surgery,

I think in '93 or '94 and they gave me,

I got an ACL reconstruction

and they gave me Vicodin, I think.

Pretty sure it was Vicodin.

I took one, one day and I felt so stupid.

I was lying on my couch watching TV

and I felt so dumb and my knee still hurt.

You know, it was just like it was distracting me

from the fact that my knee hurt.

But I'm like, I can't be this dumb.

I'm dumb enough as it is.

I can't add to my dumbness with pills.

Like, I just saw it coming.

You know, I also knew a bunch of guys

who had pill problems.

I wound up selling my pills to a friend of mine

that would sell pills.

- Gosh, I should have taken your idea.

I could have made some cash.

- I only made like a couple hundred bucks or so.

I don't even remember, it was like in the '90s,

but I remember just that one pill.

And so then every surgery I've had ever since then,

they always offered me stuff

and I never took anything.

I got my other ACL reconstructed in 2003.

Never took anything.

I got my nose fixed.

And it's like 2008.

I got my nose reconstructed, deviated septum.

The God was insisting that I,

He gave me two prescriptions for pain medicine.

And I was like, I don't want anything.

I was like, is it gonna get worse than this?

He's like, it could get.

I go right now, it feels like nothing.

It's like, but if you've been, again, like you,

you've been beaten up so many times.

Your body, you're so used to just being in pain.

And I think for some people,

it's just the daunting anxiety of pain itself.

And it's like, they just want a pill

before they even realize, like, I can kind of just,

yeah, it sucks, but it's not gonna suck forever.

It's gonna heal.

So let's just deal with the suck and just lay here.

Put some ice on it or whatever and just relax.

- And along with that,

it's kind of like your body's natural way of saying,

like, okay, maybe push a little bit more.

Try to get a few more degrees of range of motion

and physical therapy.

Like, if those senses are numbed and like, shut off.

- Right.

- First of all, you do feel just,

like I don't want to do anything.

So you won't work, but in many cases,

you won't work to do the work to get better

to get used to it. - Right.

- Or you just numb.

- You don't know the messaging.

You can't listen to your body.

Like if it's really, really in pain,

maybe your body's trying to tell you something.

- I don't know.

- I always assume that people feel pain differently.

I mean, I just would imagine.

Like, people feel hot sauce differently.

Like, some people, they can't have any spice.

Some people fucking can have like, you know,

death peppers and they're fine.

- So, all right, I'll throw that out to the group.

Is pain a personal experience?

- I mean, there's no way I'm as tough as you guys, so.

- Yeah, it has to be.

- But I think in other dimensions,

you might be way tougher, I don't know.

I don't know, maybe.

(laughing)

I think there's something.

- He doesn't know how to tell me.

- I can't imagine the dimension.

I went and visited a fire house the other day,

and I was going down the pole going, "Weee."

Like, you guys wouldn't do that.

- I would do that.

- So, in that aspect, you're tougher than me?

(laughing)

- Yeah, you could take ridicule.

- Yeah, we could take ridicule really easily.

But I don't know how, what it feels like

for other people, you know what I'm saying?

I mean, I would assume that everybody feels the same.

But you know one of the reasons why I think maybe it is,

like, it's different, because my mom,

my mom has a crazy tolerance to pain.

Like, my guy, who, my stem cell guy in LA,

my mom had a real knee issue,

and he was treating her as well,

and he goes, "It's hilarious, your mother's just like you."

She just takes it, like, she doesn't even flinch.

She just stick it, like, he's like,

that doesn't happen, like, 75-year-old ladies.

Like, take a needle and shove it in their knee

and push it, and she just doesn't move.

And, you know, she's like, "Oh, it wasn't painful.

It was no big deal."

It's like, you know, a lot of 75-year-old ladies

would be fucking sweating and freaking out,

seeing the needle.

- Pretty sure I would be.

- Yeah. (laughs)

- But I don't know.

You know, I don't know what it feels like to other people.

Like, when I got my ACL, my right ACL reconstructed,

it was a lot easier because it was a cadaver,

and I'm recommended to anybody.

The difference between a battella tendon graft for recovery

and a cadaver recovery is literally like six months.

The difference is, the cadaver was so much quicker.

- Wow. - Oh my God.

Because the cadaver, they take it,

I mean, it's all swollen and everything afterwards,

but it's somebody else's tendon.

They take in a kille's tendon off of a cadaver.

So it's 150% stronger than an ACL.

They fuckin' screw that sucker in place.

Little tiny orthoscopic holes, not nearly as invasive.

And then five days later, you know, Matt Lichtenberg,

I went to his party for his birthday party.

Five days later, just walk around.

And he was like, "Did you just have surgery?"

I was like, "It's not that big a deal."

Like, it feels fine.

You know, it was so much easier.

The left one was brutal.

'Cause they take a slice out of your patella tendon

and then they could take a chunk out of your shin bone

and a chunk out of your kneecap.

And then they use those to screw this new tendon

that they created into the shin bone

and into your thigh bone.

That was rough.

That one was painful as fuck.

And it took a long time before it felt normal.

It took a long time before I could go down on one knee again.

- When was that pain?

You said those in the '90s?

- And then the other one was--

- 2000, early 2000s?

2000, like, two-ish, somewhere around two-three?

- I mean, 10 more years of performance surgeries.

10 more years of that.

- Yeah, I just think it's the difference.

'Cause they still do that patella tendon graph.

And I think George St. Pierre had it done that.

I know a bunch of people that I'm friends with

had it done that way.

And I was like, "Oh, don't do that one."

Do the cadaver.

But people were worried like, "What if you get AIDS?"

Like, "Jesus Christ, you're not gonna get AIDS from it, stop."

And it's also, it's like, you feel better

before you are better, unfortunately,

because the way the tendon works,

so that when they replace a tendon with a cadaver,

it's not like you have this guy's tendon in your body.

What it is like is that tendon is a scaffolding.

And then your body reproliferates that with your own cells.

So over the course of six months,

my body had filled in all of what used to be a cadaver

with my own cells.

So you'll feel like it's better before it's better.

So a lot of MMA fighters, they start training too quickly

and they blow it out again, 'cause it's still soft.

- That's always the concern.

- It's always the concern.

- And you feel good, man, I can do this.

- Especially animals, you know, guys who just used to pain

and used to pushing, you know,

and they just pop it out again.

I know multiple MMA fighters that have had knee surgery

and then blew it out while they were recovering.

- And just a few months more,

it could just, it's in patience.

You only get back in there.

- And then it's even worse, 'cause you got to drill

into the same holes and pull it out and open you up.

And it's more invasive surgery.

They got to remove the screws and fuck, yeah.

But I just, I don't think everybody feels pain the same.

I think it's a genetic thing.

I mean, it's just an assumption obviously,

'cause I don't feel what other people feel.

But I think some people just any kind of pain,

it's just they can't function.

They're just an agony.

And I think those people are way more vulnerable

to the pills.

That's just my assumption.

- That's a decent perspective.

I definitely, I would agree with pain is a person's experience.

There are people who, I mean, I've seen people

like I can't believe you go through that

and then people will be like,

but you get the shit kicked out of you.

I can't believe you do that.

It's all relative.

I would be shit and cufflinks.

If you get that stem cell needle out,

I would be sweating right until the fucking final moment,

like some stuff I can't take.

You know what I guess it is?

It could be combined with like what we fear in life

or maybe fear of hard work or fear of effort.

Who knows?

I don't know.

- I think it's also being accustomed to pain.

Did you wrestle when you were younger?

- No, I played football.

- You played football?

Well, that's just like that.

And that you're always in pain.

I mean, if you're playing football,

you're always colliding with people.

You're always, you got to have shoulders,

fuck with you, your back's fuck with you.

It's like, it's never ending.

- I've always said that there's something,

there's some value into losing a fight.

- Oh yeah.

- I'd go up with four brothers

and we kicked the shit out of each other

and I was not always on the winning side.

So very early on in my life as a young person,

you know what it's like to lose a fight.

- Oh, it's very valuable.

- And I think that there's a lot,

maybe to do with the pain conversation there,

if like just flat out getting your ass kicked

and then being able to dust yourself off,

I'm like, I'll get you next time, you know?

Like, it's not over, you know?

- Right, right, right.

- We're brothers, we're gonna fight again, you know?

- That's also knowing like, why did he beat me?

What can I do to beat him next time?

You know, like if you don't have that in your life,

also if you don't know what it feels like

to get your ass kicked, you get a little mouthy.

I mean, how many mouthy people do we know

that have never been fucked up?

And I think that's why.

Like there's real consequences if it actually comes down.

You start yelling and you get mouthy,

but it actually comes down to it.

And we've all seen many of these videos on the internet

where someone just don't,

they don't know what the fuck they're asking for,

what they're getting into,

and then also they're getting hit.

- And man, I'm not perfect.

And there are days where I'm short of patience,

but when it gets to that weird spot of like,

yo, someone's gonna get hit in the face,

I always try to like lean on diplomacy.

- Always, always, yeah.

- Please, let's not do that, 'cause that fucking sucks.

- And I've had a lot of people say to you,

but if I was you, I'd be fucking everybody up.

That's the dumb people always say that.

Like, it doesn't end with that.

Then this guy gets his brother or he shoots you

or he run you over with a car.

- Or you think you're gonna fuck somebody up

and you get fucking handled.

- Right, yeah.

- Like, you never know, man.

You never know anybody else's story.

- You know, you never know.

- There's so many people out there that train today.

It's so much different than when I was younger.

Like, you would assume that like,

I assume that a good solid 10% of all men you meet

have martial arts skills now.

- Because of the UFC?

- Popularity of it.

So certainly, it's certainly in Western society.

- Yes.

- There's a gym every plaza.

- Also, there's so many kids that watch UFC

and then play practice with themselves.

And you could learn a lot, just doing that.

You know, guys learn a lot, just watching it on TV

and then emulating it at home with their friends.

- Can tell those who watch WWE

because when those moments happen,

they try to do some crazy movie.

It doesn't work, it doesn't happen.

- Oh, how many guys are fucking thrown their buddy

onto a conference table?

- Because they thought I was the way to do it.

- Oh, it's crazy.

- You know, I mean, the fucking sheer amount of punishment

you guys put yourself through is staggering.

I mean, it really is staggering.

- Thank you very much.

It is all for the, like it's like a pro football player,

pro hockey player UFC.

I think the beautiful advantage that we have

is that we can make choices on what we do.

So when you're in UFC and they close the door,

it's kind of fucking best person wins.

You know, it's survival.

When we're in WWE and we both step in the ring

and they ring the bell, we're working together.

We're working together to put on the best show

for the audience.

And in that process, you can calculate the risks

you want to take.

And I think that's what allows somebody to be able

to perform for 23 years.

You know, I don't know, I know that age old staff

that everybody says about like the average NFL career.

That's what two and a half years or three and a half years.

I don't know what the stat is on average UFC career.

Like how long, what's your window to be functionally profitable

in UFC?

But I know because our risks are calculated

and we're working together rather than against each other,

the math is way higher for you to have like a 10, 15,

20 year career in WWE.

But that also is 10 more years of falling down.

15 more years of falling down.

So yeah, it's weird.

Like you can choreograph the risk,

but you have to do it time and time again.

And the schedule in WWE just changed.

Like to do 70 matches a year now in WWE is like,

man, you're a workhorse.

We used to do 220, 230.

Which is so crazy.

It's 220 days of trauma in a year.

'Cause you're getting, no matter what,

you're getting some trauma.

No matter what, I've got body slams you,

something you have, you're colliding, you go off the ropes,

you're smashing into each other.

I get such a warm feeling when first timer

is going to the ring for the first time.

It's like, oh, it's like a bouncy floor

and then they fall down once and like the winds knocked out

and they're like, my brain moved.

Yeah.

Now you gotta do that again and again.

But it's weird, I've gotten to work with a lot of standups.

And WWE is kind of changing.

I would say it's on the progression of a standup

making it to just like a stadium tour.

But men, when I performed my sweet spot,

we ran very parallel lives.

Like you, I've worked every city,

Hampton Beach Casino ballroom to Madison Square Garden.

Like to the Psych Thomas Super Arena,

to AT&T Stadium, to Bangor main,

or to Valparaiso, Indiana.

Like you go to all of these places and it's like,

Friday or in one place, Saturday or another place,

Sunday or another place, Monday or another place,

Tuesday or another place, one day to drop your shit,

one day to catch your flight out, do it again.

Like it's kind of, we're kind of like touring standups

in that regard.

Very similar.

Yeah, exactly.

And you're responsible for your own trends.

And I'm speaking from my, I don't know how it is now,

'cause I got one left and then I'm done.

But you were responsible for your own transportation,

booking your own hotels.

Like you were, they were just like,

"Hey, we're starting here, we're ending here, good luck."

Which is awesome, 'cause you create,

people are really independent when they go through that fire.

And you weed out the people who don't want to be there.

Yeah, because they're just a sheer work,

the sheer workload.

Making those clubs and like, making doing a tour.

It's, it's the adrenaline.

Like it's like, what do you do after a night like that?

Dude, most jobs people can't wait to be done

and then go home and relax and fall asleep

where if you, where you're doing stand-up

or obviously wrestling, you were just.

You're done late at night and you're like,

"Man, what the water rush?"

Yeah, fuck, what can I do better?

This fucking killed and then it's four in the morning.

Yeah, you're buzzing, yeah, you're buzzing.

And it's also it's really hard to have

any kind of a normal relationship

because you're just constantly not home, you're constantly gone.

Like even your friends, like you get, you really,

as a touring comic, the best thing that I ever did

is start taking friends with me on the road

instead of just working with like random guys

that I didn't know in different towns.

Those are fun sometimes.

Sometimes like, you know, two out of 10 times,

you meet a new friend, eight out of 10 times,

he went with some annoying alcoholic.

Ooh, you know, this is fucking sucks and they're annoying

and then they want to take you someplace

and you're getting in trouble.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that certainly, the normal life aspect of it,

it's also like at full tilt, it's a very absorbing thing.

It's a very selfish thing.

So I think not only you don't work regular office hours

and you're a nomad, a gypsy,

but especially from a WWE perspective,

you have to, like you're a start up founder.

You have to wake up thinking about it,

you have to think about it all day,

you have to go to sleep thinking about it,

wake up in the two hours of sleep, did you get me?

And like, I remember this line

or maybe we can do this stunt or whatever.

Right.

And it's people who are in your sphere,

at least through my perspective and my journey.

Man, if you were in my gravity from like 2002 to like 2019,

I wasn't a part of a team, you did it my way.

Like bus leaves at 10, if you're there at 10-01,

you are fucking left.

Like we're doing this and we're training here

and then we're doing this and it's so the end product is good.

So like the dream job of like, man,

I never, the six year old kid holding the paper belt

can be an adult holding the real belt

and get shackles for doing that.

And I don't ever want to put that in jeopardy.

So you fuckers are going to have to get in line

and we're just going to have to go.

Like, you know, I was absent a lot in relationships

because if it wasn't on my terms, it didn't exist.

Mm.

You know, because here you catch lightning out of a jar,

I'm a kid from West Newberry who's, you know,

come from a family of five and we,

there's always more broke.

But man, we were a good level of broke.

And then now like, hey, if you just work hard at this thing,

you can kind of not ever be that again.

All right, fuck this, I'm doing this thing all the time.

But that comes with, hey, I'm getting married

or like my grandfather died or I got a birthday coming up

or like, hey man, you missed another Thanksgiving.

You're damn right it did because I'm doing the thing.

Yeah.

So it's all, for me at least, it was that as well

of like laser focus all things WWE.

Well, it's that and everything that you do

where you want to really be successful.

It takes saying yes to the thing means node everything else.

I had Jensen Hawaiian on the podcast the other day

who's the CEO of Nvidia and you're like,

one of the biggest companies on planet earth, huge company.

Fucking dude still to this day works seven days a week.

And he was talking about when he goes on vacation,

I go, do go on vacation and just put it all down

and he goes, no, I work.

He goes, even when I'm with my family, I have to work.

I'm working.

I'm working seven days a week.

I don't take a day off.

I love it and he goes and I'm terrified of failure.

He goes, that's my motivation.

My motivation is not, I want to succeed.

My motivation is fear of failure.

Every day I show up saying, if I don't do this,

we could fail and I'm going to work seven days a week.

Everybody thinks they want to be a CEO.

You think you want to be a billionaire?

Like you want to do that?

You want to do that and when you're 60 years old,

do you want to be working seven days a week?

All day long from the moment you wake up,

you wake up at four third in the morning.

He says he answers thousands of emails a day.

I'm like, what?

How is that even fucking possible?

Gets up at four third in the morning,

answers all these emails, works all day long,

constantly problem solving, making AI chips.

It's fucking crazy, right?

But that's with everything.

You want to be at the top of the heap?

- When you see something on one way.

- Yeah, when you see something difficult, look easy.

There's a bunch of 430 in the morning wakeups

that made that happen.

I think with everything in life.

Anything in life where you really want to excel at it,

there's no shortcuts, it doesn't exist.

That weed's a lot of people out.

- It does, it does.

And there's a lot of man armchair quarterback

is the easiest and best position on the field.

- Yeah, I can do that.

All I need to do is do this.

- Sure, go right ahead.

- Yeah.

- Take your best shot.

- Yeah, good luck.

It's interesting because it must weed out

so many talented people.

There's probably a lot of talented people

that you've seen over the years

that just didn't have that drive

to constantly improve and succeed

and really be thinking about what they're doing all the time.

- I like that statement because I think the talent

is doing it all.

You could have a...

- No, you can have one.

You could smoke if you want.

I don't care.

- We have fans in here.

- Yeah.

- We have fans that suck out all the smoke.

- I think the statement of man,

so many talented people didn't make it.

They may have, they may be an acrobat.

They may be a fast hawker.

But that's not the only attribute

that makes one special.

You may be a great jokewriter,

but man, if you don't master stage presence,

I mean, be a great jokewriter with stage presence,

but if you can't lug the tour,

- Yeah.

- You're not talented for it.

- Well, it's really the grind.

- It is, it's like the all-encompassing thing.

So when someone with great athletic ability

decides that it's not for them,

'cause eventually that is...

One thing about WWE, for all the arguments

of backstage, political,

everybody understands the sound of money,

and no one refuses it.

Like, I fucking hate this guy,

but I gotta give him another match.

It may not be, but I now have to give him a 10-year contract,

but when they go out there, if the noise is there,

even if the veys fucking hate you, you get another match.

I am proof positive of that meritocracy at work.

Like, everybody fucking hated me.

- Why did they hate you?

- I was just real different.

Like, I was just really different.

- In a way.

- So I didn't rock, I didn't roughly feathers

when I kinda entered the business, kept quiet,

did my stuff, but I also didn't connect with the audience.

And I don't know, maybe you guys see this

in stand-up or not, but then I got like a personality

of like the white rap guy, like the white hip hop guy.

- You know about that?

- But like, I fucking went all in.

You know, a urban gear, like, and I'm a hip hop head.

So it's like, oh man, this is my sweet spot.

This is the avenue, this isn't all of my personality,

but this is one level that I can show

that I think everyone will get.

So if you go to Madison Square Garden, you get it,

but if we go to Wheeling West Virginia, you'll also get it.

And you may like it in some places

and hate it in some places, but everyone will get it.

I will not be selling apathy.

But doing that, I never followed dress code.

I was saying disrespectful shit about my peers.

Like, I kinda did it my own way.

So I was kinda ruffling some feathers backstage

or just, I was taking big swings

'cause I was gonna fucking get fired anyway.

The alternative was lose my job.

So I was like, fuck it, I'm going down swinging.

- Yeah.

- And then the people behind the curtain were like,

"Ah, the kid's disrespectful to the business."

He doesn't care about the business.

All the while, I just wanna keep my fucking job.

You know, so the days behind the curtain weren't really

invested, but they were also humble enough

to be like, there's noise out there,

gotta give them another match.

And one match at a time, times 23 years

of compounding interest, we're here.

- What did Vince think about your hip hop?

- He hated it, and then loved it, he hated it,

and then loved it.

And I think I'm thinking for somebody,

but I think from his perspective is,

like when I hear somebody's idea for a personality.

Man, I wanna be this sports-azing guy or whatever.

Oh, yo, I have the idea of what that is in my head.

And if they're projection of that idea,

it doesn't match my projection of that idea.

I'm like, "Ah, fuck, I hate it."

But that doesn't mean it can't work.

So I think what maybe would happen was

my perspective of the white hip hop guy

from the mean street of Wes Newberry.

And Vince's perspective of John Cena, the rapper,

we probably missed, like he had an idea,

and I had an idea.

And usually he will craft it to his vision.

I gotta give him respect for allowing me to,

to kind of, to run with it, you know?

- Well, it's probably that fear of being fired,

that like keeps you on the edge too.

- Dude, that was it.

Of like, the invidiate guy of like, "I don't wanna fail."

- Yeah.

- I got the sit down of like, "Hey, we're gonna cut you."

'Cause it's not working.

Like, you're out there for your matches.

You hear the same thing.

It's not working.

And there's no argument there.

I'm like, "Fucking all right, I got to touch the sun.

I got to make it, I got to play for the Yankees.

I got my one at bat, I'm moving my gram."

And then they heard me rap in the back of the bus.

I was like, "Man, Stephanie,

"heard me rap in the back of the bus."

(laughing)

And I was like, "Yeah, you wanna do that on TV?"

I'm like, "Lose my job or fucking rap?"

"Yeah, let's go, let's do this."

(laughing)

- So Stephanie's idea.

- And it was a fucking accident dude.

It was an accident.

It was my final overseas tour for the WWE.

And the boys just spend time.

Like, that's the one time they get the whole group together

is overseas 'cause you don't wanna be heard in cats

like in Amsterdam or something.

Hey, everybody rides on the bus.

You go from town to town.

So like, to pass the time, the boys just do whatever.

And they were freestyled on the back of the bus.

And I normally just fucking kept to myself

'cause I was raised in the environment

of like, "Keep your ears open, keep your mouth shut.

"Don't do anything unless you're spoken to."

So I did that.

But I also didn't make any connections

with people who were putting their lies on the line for me.

You know, some of the guys, you really beat the shit out

of, in the rings of like, your best friends.

So I didn't have any of those connections.

And I heard these guys rap and I just remember playing

roller coaster tycoon on my laptop.

Fold matching up, putting it away.

I'm like, "I'm going to the back of the bus."

And just waited my turn and then flayed like 12 guys.

- Yeah.

- And Stephanie was like, "How the fuck did you remember all that?"

Like, no, no, it's freestyle, you just make it up.

And she's like, "Well, make up something about me

"and we're boarding a plane."

And I literally like, you lies the plane,

the people getting on the plane, what she was wearing,

what she was eating.

She's like, "Would you do this on TV?"

And that's where we got a chance.

- Wow.

- And it wasn't like off to the moon.

Like, I got a shitty chance on a small spot.

And that worked.

So then I got moved to like, the dog shit Saturday night

program that nobody watches.

But the cool thing is no one's watching.

So like, I can do whatever I want it.

So I started seeing more racy shit

and dressing more at landish and having more personality

and like, claiming ownership of the show.

I call myself Mr. Saturday night.

And it's the shitty show.

You don't want to be Mr. Saturday night, but I did.

And then that got another match and got another match

and one by one, it kind of brought me here.

- Wow.

- Just the fucking happy accident, man.

- That's crazy.

- All the way to, even when the bells were like,

hey, the whole thing's a fucking accident.

You want to start training?

Fuck, yeah, sure, all right.

Right.

(laughing)

You want to start wrapping?

Yeah, fuck it, sure.

Let's see what happens.

- That's amazing.

- It's a happy accident.

- And for it to go all the way to last year's massive heel turn.

- Yeah.

- He went heel, dude.

- That was this year, by the way.

- Yeah, yeah, that was this year.

- Yeah, it's been a year.

- It's been a year.

- Yeah, that was, I was a mania and man,

literally, perhaps other than maybe Hogan, right?

The greatest heel turn in wrestling history.

When a good, good, good, good crowd pleasing guy

goes bad, bad, and dark.

You had moments, the things you were saying,

the way you were saying them, epic.

Iconic, iconic heel turn.

Cold, dark, working with the rock, he was in cahoots.

That's the good guy, Cody.

- You can like see the people's faces, though.

That's the fun thing.

- Yeah.

- The stuff is so simple, but if you take out the crowd

in that situation and just put those three guys,

it is really fucked up what we do.

But when you add the audience in the back

and all of their faces and what's going on,

that's what makes it easier.

- Bro, even your face, you got like a mean guy face

all of a sudden.

It's like you look at a different person.

That was interesting.

- I was having a bad day.

(laughing)

- Well, this is also when you'd already

done a bunch of acting.

- Oh, yes.

This is this year.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- This is a February this year.

Yeah.

- How much of the creative control do you have

over the aspects of that heel turn?

For example, one thing that I thought was the coolest.

- I did.

- I was in the front row of WrestleMania

behind the Spanish announce table.

So I'm directly across from the entrance,

the giant resumes of football stadium in Las Vegas.

And there was no music.

And it was a black background.

Normally, he's the most color with the most iconic,

loud, wild music, no music, black background.

And in white letters, it just said, "Cena."

And you just walked out with literally,

the statement was, "I'm not here to entertain you people."

Basically is what it felt like.

And I loved it.

I mean, this is the main event of Mania.

- You were so entertained.

- I mean, I wanted to entertain you.

Fuck, I fucked up.

- I have a, I have a degree in pro wrestling,

but my masters is in heeled them.

Like it's like the bad, I just love a bad guy.

And even ever since that bad guy turned,

I feel like most bad guy fans do,

now newly connected with the back to the return

of the good guy, "Cena."

- Yeah, there it is.

- Oh, I mean, it was literally just.

- I used to come out like a Tasmanian devil.

- Yeah. - And it's just reversed it all.

- And it seems like nothing, but it's iconic.

Just cold as ice.

Everyone else for four hours coming out

with colorful music and pyro and all this stuff.

And there's the guy that normally did it the best

in the biggest, just really not giving a fuck.

- And WrestleMania, if you're gonna do it,

like you give your best entrance for WrestleMania.

And this was, I guess we were going for the shittiest one.

- Oh, but it just rang the opposite and simple and true.

Like, for example, even just the white letters,

the black entrance, is that?

How does that kind of come together?

- So I think that's,

and I've been lucky enough to kind of take this perspective

of not knowing everything,

and realizing that even with 23 years of fluency,

I'm not the smartest guy in the room.

I don't know the technology they have and what they can do.

Now granted a black LED board, I could probably come up with that,

but what I like to do is lean on my resources.

Like, hey, let's go to production

and see what production is thinking.

And I don't want to tell them what to do

'cause I want to hear their ideas first.

And production was like, what if we just went basic?

I'm like, how basic can you go?

- Yeah.

- What if we just blacked everything out?

Yeah, but I know from what you guys have said,

you also like to light the up.

No, no, what if we just black everything out?

You guys would do that?

Oh, that sucks.

Yeah, let's do that.

So it's not me with all of these things.

I don't have enough depth of field to touch all the bases,

but I will go to every department and say like, okay,

entrance is a big part of what we do.

What do we do for lighting?

What do we do for production?

Go to camera.

Like, how do you guys want to shoot it?

And then it trickles down when you talk to talent

you're working with.

How do we portray this message?

And then of course, it starts at the top with creatively,

I want to make you a bad guy.

So we're going to do that.

Okay, sure, we're going to do that.

How do you want to do that?

But it's, I think it's getting,

we have a lot of talented people

and just allowing them to do their job

and let you know, like, oh, I was kind of thinking this

and then telling them, yeah, that's a good idea.

Let's do that.

- Yeah.

- You know?

- That's amazing.

- 'Cause I don't know what I miss

if I'm making all the demands.

- To show you the contrast is opponent that night

came out to, I think it was 40 people

on red, white, and blue dirt bikes.

- Dirt bikes.

- All dressed like--

- American people that--

- Nitro circus.

- That ends up elevated from inside of the stage

wearing this super gaudy mask that he has to take off.

Fireworks, fireworks, fire, sparks, smoke,

all of these different things

and he just comes out blank face.

- I just got my bunks off on the back, just yeah.

- Rhino, there you go.

- It's so funny here in Tony talk about this

because for people who don't know,

the way Tony runs, kill Tony,

is basically a version of a WWE event.

I mean, it really is.

Like when he does the arena shows,

he has everything set up like a WWE event.

- Yeah.

- I mean, even the thing we did with Shane,

with Shane was playing, with Shane was playing Trump,

with Trump and I were supposedly feuding online,

Trump had said something about me online

and then Trump's talking, like as Shane's talking shit

and then the music plays and I show up behind him,

it's pure pro wrestling.

- Oh yeah.

- It's pure pro wrestling.

- And MSG's on their feet shocked, you know,

you're surprising this crowd

that thinks they're just there for a comedy show.

And well, there's the panel.

I guess that's what we're gonna have tonight,

but the surprises, the ups, the downs

and then he brings up Joe E. Diaz.

So it's like boom, boom, kind of like

that big finish at Mania that I was talking about.

Superstar bringing up a superstar music, music, smoke, fire.

- Yes.

- All these little things.

- The more you make it important,

the more important it becomes.

- Yeah, as what he's saying is like when Trump was there,

as Trump was running for president and Trump thought

that I was endorsing RFK, so he got mad at me.

So I said, I am here to endorse someone

and I brought out Joe E. Diaz, I'm in jail.

- Which is great because he's gonna get a review,

but you get a different review and it's like,

and everybody went nuts.

And but it's like the audience,

they're into it like they're into pro wrestling.

They want all the heel turns.

They want all the chaos.

They want all the pageantry and the fire

and the explosions and all the shit.

- Mania, you get any live audience.

They're into all that.

Like watch a college football game.

- Right.

- Watch a soccer game overseas or a football as they would say.

Like the fans, it's like a group think of energy

that's fucking nuts.

Like audiences wanted.

It doesn't matter where you're at.

Like what?

Man would come and just go out and light up a stage

and they have that fucking stage presence

and they just slay a set.

The fucking audiences rollin' in the aisles.

Like they, you let them in.

And they can help make a joke that might not hit the night

before slay.

Like it's all about the moment.

It's all about being there and reading the people.

And the fun thing about WWE is you can go out there

with an idea and I can only imagine this as kind of like

stand up where if you got your set

and you tell the first joke to crickets,

you may try another joke and if that's crickets,

you got a fucking pivot.

- Yeah.

- So we go out and do something.

And oh man, they're into it.

Great.

- Right, we have them.

We just got to maintain their attention

until we get to act three essentially.

But if you hear fucking crickets,

you're like all right, we're switching it up.

Fucking pivot right now.

And that's the beauty, that's one of the things

that I love the most is the,

it's not just me and the other person out there.

Like the audience is the act.

Like that moment only means something.

If you put a blue screen behind the people,

it is super fucked up.

Like what the fuck are they doing?

And why does that mean anything?

So when you let the level of the audience

and everybody's on their feet, they're like no!

Like it's fucking everything, it's everything.

- That's why Tony's so interested

in the coordination of it all.

The setting and the sabotage and all the chaos

that's involved in all of it.

- These are human emotions that are universal.

Everyone understands betrayal, jealousy, anger,

disappointment, failure, excitement.

Like these are universal things

that if we don't speak the same language,

you still have felt these things.

And you could watch that, no one spoke in that clip.

But you could watch that anywhere in the world,

and they're like, that kid just got fucked over.

- Right.

- Oh, what's gonna happen next?

Like that's the beautiful appeal of it.

You know, it's, we don't hit too far above our weight class.

Like we try to send large scale universal messages

based on true real human emotion that we all know.

- Yeah, and up to that day, that moment.

Like even that thing that we were just telling you

about me bringing him coming out, that being a reveal.

Him bringing up Diaz was coordinated.

Literally, I think 15 minutes before.

- Which is great.

- Yeah, literally me with a big piece of paper going,

"Hey, Joe, what if we did this?"

He confirms it.

So I go to hair and makeup where they're finishing up,

Shane has trump, which in itself is just hysterical.

I pitch it to him, he loves it.

I go to Diaz, I say, "Rogan's gonna bring you up."

And the thing happens quick.

Whereas with all my, you know,

every form of entertainment that we're used to,

other than wrestling and like kind of, you know,

Kiltoni in this instance, everything's so pre-planned.

- Sure.

- That if we over pre-planned it,

we wouldn't have had the topical RFK endorsement

'cause it was like news that day.

- Yeah, sure.

- And so again, that inspiration, you know,

totally comes from there.

'Cause what else is doing that?

- At MSG, 10 minutes before the show,

reorganizing things, so now we have to go to production

and go, "Have Rogan's LED ready?"

And then Diaz in that order, you know?

- It literally comes from that.

- And when it goes right,

there's not a better feeling in the world.

- Exactly.

- I just get to sit back and watch.

- Yeah.

- But it's so funny that connection with pro wrestling

is really why you've made Kiltoni the way it is.

- Yeah.

- Without your love of pro wrestling,

it would be such a different show.

Like if it was just Ron, like a traditional standup show,

it's so much else going on that makes it the biggest show.

- Yeah, well, it's long-term storytelling.

We had a guy on on Monday that had been doing it 14 years.

And man, he just, it's timing was off.

He struggled even after the minute.

I go, "You've been doing it 14 years."

He goes, "Yeah, man."

I go, "What do you, how do you make money?"

He goes, "I do this."

I go, "You do this for a living."

He goes, "Yeah."

I go, "You must have better material."

I'm going to give you another shot.

Do another minute.

Here we go, ladies and gentlemen,

and I introduce them again, and he bombs again.

And literally, I was talking with it,

about it with Stephanie after the show,

'cause she just happened to be at Kiltoni on Monday.

And she goes, "Kah, a guy like that."

What happens next?

I go, "Hopefully, hopefully."

The guy gets pulled out of the bucket in a month or two,

has a great set, puts it together,

realizes how his timing was off.

He wasn't taking a breath.

He wasn't connecting with the crowd.

He was just memorizing his stuff.

And the story begins to be told about this guy.

And sometimes it happens in reverse.

Sometimes somebody starts off, fire hot.

Rockets strap to the back.

Yup.

And then, boom.

And that's kind of the sadder thing, right?

He's starting hot and then never being able to touch that again.

Have a moment like your first time.

It's like we were talking about people with talent.

We all know someone who killed during open mic days

that we're like, "Wow, this guy's gonna be huge."

They have like undeniable talent,

and they just can't manage it.

They can't figure it out.

They self-sabotage.

They get addicted to drugs or alcohol.

Or whatever it is.

There are so many things.

It's not just the ability to go out and do the task well.

There's so many variables that will fuck you up.

Yeah.

Dude, you're right.

So many gifted people have just that roadblock in front of me.

Which is why I think conversations with successful people

are so important.

Because you get to hear those stories.

You get to hear like with Jens in the other day,

he was talking about how Nvidia was basically bankrupt.

They were on their way out and someone gave him a chance.

Like some one guy that was an investor gave him a chance.

And then they wound up becoming successful.

And then there was these moments.

And people need to know that you're gonna have those hurdles.

You're gonna have those roadblocks.

You're gonna have to figure out how to adjust.

It's not easy.

None at no one who has been successful at anything

will tell you the whole ride was easy.

Yeah, but a lot of the time, sometimes, man, sometimes

they'll be in it.

So I've been through like three generations of knowledge

and learning 23 years in the business

of operating at a high level.

I have seen thousands.

And like it is the, man, if you're a stud in PB Football League,

then you go to this junior high school.

And then you're the number one player in college.

And then you're the number one player in high school.

And the number one player in college

eke out a spot in the NFL.

And then a year later you're gone.

Because the funnel just gets so thin.

Like WWE has like 200 personnel

in their NXT development program right now.

Maybe 10 will make it.

Maybe and of those 10, like really honestly,

maybe one will make it.

And what the hope is is over a six year period

of those classes of 200 that get matriculated probably

every four months.

So we're talking 6,000 people.

I'm hoping one makes it.

Wow.

In five or six years, I need one.

Because my top guy right now,

my Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes and the Charlotte Flares

and Becky Lynch's of the world,

like they'll last half a decade to draw.

Maybe if we're lucky, maybe we'll get it more.

They can maybe parlay it into a decade or two.

But that's an anomaly.

You got to play the legit math of like after five years,

I better have somebody in the index circle.

So out of like five, 6,000, I just need one.

But it's still everybody's biting their fingernails

of like, we don't have the person yet.

It's so many folks just don't make it.

Just don't make it.

Yeah, that's the parallel to stand up.

Yeah, it's man.

So there's so many people that we were talking last night

in the ring room.

Thousands.

And when I see them like in the ring, do stuff,

I'm like, I could never do that.

But they just won't, they just don't make it.

It's just there's so many things that fuck people up.

So much self sabotage.

Dude.

So much inability to stay the course.

In our own worst enemy.

You know, I don't know.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Happy accidents though.

Fuck it.

Well, yeah, happy accidents, but not just that.

It's you being able to stay on course.

And you being able to recognize that, you know,

okay, this didn't work.

What do I do?

You want me to rap?

Okay, I'll fucking rap.

Like a lot of people would have been like,

I'm not fucking rapping.

That's beneath me.

Yeah.

I'm here to be a wrestler.

I'm not a gimmick.

I'm not going to be a buffoon.

Yeah.

Cause it beats working a real job.

But it's not like that.

It's part of the entertainment of it all.

Even the cringe aspect of it for people like,

what is going on here?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's great.

He loves that shit.

Oh, it's the best.

The best.

You know who my guy is right now?

Dominic Mysterio.

Love dog.

Oh my god.

So he's.

Do you know you're here?

I was going to, you weren't at Peco, were you?

No.

Oh gosh.

We had fun over there.

I bet.

I've got a lot of it.

Yeah.

Man.

I kids good too.

Like good human beings.

I happen to be in Salt Lake City doing a gig.

I was doing stand up in one arena and the WWE happen to be in the other arena in Salt Lake

City just a few weeks ago.

And I'm like, oh darn, but I look it up and it's a 5 p.m. taping of WWE.

So I hit up my friends at WWE, I go, I'm coming in, I'm bringing my openers, right?

Anyway, Dominic Mysterio's in a triple threat match.

And his whole thing is he's wrestling royalties, Rey Mysterio's son, but he claims that he

might be Eddie Guerrero's son because his father's, you know, one of the ultimate good guys

of all time.

So basically he takes on the traits of Eddie Guerrero, whose whole thing was cheating and

lying and stealing, breaking the rules in original ways all the time.

And he's doing a triple threat match, which means there's three guys at once, right?

But if someone beats anybody, you could lose your belt.

And his Intercontinental Champion, I think it's Intercontinental, right, is on the line.

And he gets thrown outside the ring.

And I'm having fun, right?

I go, Dominic, cheat, do something, right?

And he's kind of on the other side of the thing and he lifts up his head and looks at me and

goes like that.

He gives a big one and then he goes back down again.

And I'm cracking up.

I go, do you see that?

I'm next to Paulie Shore.

I go, do you just see him wing?

He goes, yeah, man.

What's he going to do, bro?

But these two guys in the ring are wrestling and one of them has the other one in a submission

hold.

The camel clutch.

I can't remember who it was, but anyway, and I literally, even me watching since I was

a kid and even though he just winked at me, it was just enough time.

I forgot that Dominic was over there because this action in the ring is really happening.

Something's about to happen and you hear the bell ring.

And I look over and there's Dominic with the hammer in his hand ringing the bell.

And the guy, let's go with the submission and the referee goes, what the hell?

And something I hadn't seen in 35 years of watching this thing, he was, he's innovative

enough to find a brand new way to cheat in this.

Less wise.

Yeah.

A brand new way to cheat and the crowd, everybody's cracking up.

It's a whole new right when you think you've seen it all.

This guy, who you would love, he's literally like built like me.

He flexes like Nate Diaz without flexing.

And he's just braggadocious.

Oh, yeah, he thinks he thinks he won, but the refs like, no, and I got to Dominic.

He just loves it.

Yep, there's our guy, dirty, dumb, yeah, and the crowd just loves them.

That's all of us right there.

Just Maddie Edgar, Joe DeRosa, Paulie Shore, me.

It was DeRosa's first real wrestling of any other time of his life, childlike wonder.

I love getting people in their life for the first time.

Yes.

There's something funny about a pro wrestler that's not built too.

Oh, oh, yeah.

And he's the champ.

Oh, yeah.

And all these other guys.

That guy penned it.

Man, he just went my ass.

Dirty dumb.

He just went my ass.

Yeah.

For real, I just lost the intercontinental championship to this side of a bitch.

Look at him.

Covered in gold.

Yeah.

Probably, what, five, nine, hundred...

No, he's tall drinking water.

He's taller than me, but he's 170 pounds soaking wet.

Yeah, exactly.

He's such a uniquely American form of art.

Yeah.

It really is.

It's weird because in pockets of the world, like it's, Japan has their own style of doing

it.

Latin America has their own style of doing it, though UK has their own style of doing it.

But this.

Yeah.

Like, the Japanese is very strong style with respect to martial art.

The English style is very, like, catches, catches can, a real, like, technical exposé,

the Latin American style, the Mexican style is high-flying.

Mm-hmm.

The American offering of, like, steak, sizzle, apple pie, ice cream, fourth of July, everything,

like, huge.

And that's all Vince, right?

A lot of it.

So is it all ever one person?

Right.

It's not.

A lot of it is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's also a fucking thing where it's, a lot of it is not televised because you're just traveling

around the country doing these shows.

Yeah.

So that, the business model has kind of changed where media content is king now.

So from what I understand from TKO, and I know their executives will correct me, but from

my perspective, we have scaled back on the live event only offerings, which helps, you

know, lick the wounds.

It's weird.

It, like, you don't bump enough or you don't bump as much, but you kind of need to get

in there and bump to get your callus and to get your wind in timing.

So it's, it's kind of, you get your signals crossed, but anyhow, the content that is provided

is always available for media or, or 99% where it used to be the opposite.

We used to do, like, four live shows, one TV taping.

So you'd have four live shows under your match, you know, you do, you do, like, laugh yet,

little rock, Pensacola, and then TV in Orlando, you know, and that would be the end of

the run.

And you'd do it again of, like, Bangor, Port Smith, Providence, TV, and Boston, you

know, like, and then you'd go for another week and go somewhere else, but it's different

now.

It's like, every piece is televised for the media, which is great because we get a lot

out to our fans across the world, but like, I learned, I learned how to fail in those

non-televised events.

I could take big swings because it's like, man, if I'm on the middle of a card in, in

the Alparezo, and I kind of fuck up in a gymnasium with 3500 people, they might, they might

tell me to fuck off, but there's also the last match that's going to send them home happy.

So let's try this new, weird thing.

And that's where, like, me being invisible starts, you know, it's just like, "Ah, I can

try it.

Who cares?"

It's an environment where you don't want to fail.

And now it's, we, there's way more advantage on getting our content out there, but production

is super slick, it's like, really precise, everyone's really good, and I don't know how

many people go out there and just like, like, dumb, like, that was an example of swinging

big.

I'm going to fake ring the bell.

Right.

Well, people even get that.

Who cares?

Let's try it.

Like, he's, he's the only one of those guys who will, or very few of those guys will stand

on an ideal like that, where the other guys are like, "No, I want to have a good choreographed

performance because I want my stuff to look good because it's on television and going

around the world."

You know, I love the non-televised events, but there's just, there's not, there's not,

it's not a good business model.

So how does a young person coming up now learn how to fail?

That is, I think, a conundrum that we're facing, because you're failing in front of the world.

You know, it's, it's weird.

You can have, you can, it's like you work out your set, but you can't do it on small

clubs before you go to arena.

It's like you would, you would work out your set at home, and then you just play the

into it, don't, or you play Barclays Center.

Like, you don't have a small room to be like, "All right, landed, man, I'm going to rework

that one.

You don't ever have that.

You just have this, you put it together in your head, you think it's okay, and then

you're out there."

So I, I don't know, I'm not saying it can't work.

I think it can, because analytics show that it does work, and we, we have a lot of people

watching now, but from my perspective, I really enjoyed the carefree nature of just going

out and being ready for anything, and, and it being okay if I, I fucked up, and I failed.

If I told some bad jokes, I could come back and be like, "That didn't work, that didn't

work."

And then you have a partner to be like, "Oh, and this didn't work, but this slayed.

Why don't you do this again?"

Like, literally, that's where this came from, just fucking around at live events.

And oh my God, there's noise.

I'll do it tomorrow night.

That's a different town.

Let's see if they can.

How did you come up with that?

It was a dare.

My brother, a happy fucking accident.

My brother dared me to do it.

Like when we, when I was in the middle of the, the wrapping wormhole, I made, I'm a platinum

rapper.

I made my own album.

So like, in, in making, in, yes, it's, it's, it's amazing.

Drink it in, drink it in, in, in making the album, we would bring home all the tracks.

And like, my little brother was our test audience, and he would do this dance where he was like,

shake his head and keep his hand in front of him.

And I'm like, that is, man, look at you, he's like, you won't do that on TV.

And again, I was on the programs that no one was watching.

So it's like, no one's watching anyway.

Yeah, fuck you.

I will do it on TV.

And I did it on some meaningless Saturday show, and there's a little bit of noise.

So I took it with me on the road for the next week and did it on the live events that

want to televised this a little bit of noise.

Okay, like, this is my thing now.

This is my thing.

And I just, you can't see me in my guests.

Now it's a thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's, I did it on a dare.

Wow.

But like, I also had, I was in a place to be able to tell my brother, okay, I can waste

two seconds on an inside joke between you and I.

That's the dare.

It's not going to ruin the match.

But if you're watching, if you're the only one person watching velocity that night, you'll

be like, inside joke, got it.

All right.

Let's like shout out your gaming group.

Like seven people get the joke, but this is one of those things where it kind of fit and

it's stuck.

Wow.

It's just so many of those things in your life.

So many of those like fortuitous moments.

Well, you know, admittedly, I have an optimism bias.

I will admit that.

Life will deal opportunity.

It's a matter of understanding that it's happening.

You know, don't get in your own way.

Yeah.

Like, say, yeah, come here, sit with you guys.

This is a new experience for me.

Like, yeah, let's do it.

Okay, great.

Man, first wrestler to ever retire.

Yes, that's a good idea.

We're just going to do it.

Yeah, but you'll never be able to come back, yes, but let's just do this thing.

Like life is throwing me an opportunity to create a year's worth of programming narrative

that I think will be interesting.

The alternative is to do what everybody else has done and maybe hang on too long.

People are like, man, you should have left a few years ago.

Now let's let's do this rap.

Let's do this.

Do you want to train?

It involves you working at this shitty job where you're probably going to try to be a cop

and failed.

That was going to go down, join the Marines.

That's lifelong employment.

I'm really good with structure.

I dig uniform, like I give me what to do and like a code of conduct live by, I have a feeling

I would have fit in there.

Great.

I love being in shape.

They feed you over there.

Like, I think I would have done okay, but life put an opportunity in front of me and

I was stupid enough to say yes.

Going out naked in the Oscars, I was just on Jimmy Kimmel last night.

He's like, man, you want to do this bit?

Like, dude, I am super tired.

I'm on a different coast.

He's like, let me send you the bit.

And I read it and I'm like, yeah, fuck.

All right, I'm going to do it.

What'd you do?

I shuffled out there with an index card over my dick.

Oh, that, that thing.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah.

But like, man, in a room full of not even peers or contemporaries, like the pantheon of

the professional goal that you try to read, I don't know any of these fucking people.

I don't belong in that room.

Right.

He's like, yeah, man, it's kind of walk out their naked.

It'll be a fun bit.

And he's right.

It'll be a funny bit.

In my own way of like, now I got to fly, I'm exhausted.

I'm going to make a fool of myself.

I don't know any of these people.

It's my first impression.

I can, I can sit on the couch.

Like, that's the easy part.

The tough part is like, life has dealt you this opportunity.

Fucking say yes.

15 minutes before the show when you get a good idea.

The easy thing to do is be like, do the show.

The hard thing to do is be like, yo, let's, let's fucking swing.

Let's go for it.

Yeah.

It's not like, I think those moments happen to a lot of us.

And it doesn't have to be a lottery ticket, a granted holy hell.

I've been given a lot of lottery tickets.

But it could be something as simple as like, yo, you're in a crummy mood.

Find a way to be kind.

Like life just gave you an opportunity.

The person getting your coffee was like, yo, have a nice day.

You could stay crummy or you could be like, fuck, thank you very much.

Appreciate that.

Appreciate your time.

Like, that's an opportunity.

You know, life is just a matter of like us reacting to what life throws at.

Avital decisions.

And it doesn't need to be a world changing decision.

I think now, I don't want to say nowadays.

I think we always think that like, the decision needs to change the world.

No, it's, you just need to fucking commit and do something.

As a 12 year old, I want to start working out.

And I liked it.

And I just fucking keep working out.

And now it, now I can't live without it.

It's part of my life.

It's a fabric of my life.

But in working out, I've learned.

I've learned structure and discipline, accountability, essentially budget.

If you take in too much and you don't spend enough, you're going to have some excess.

Like, these lessons that opportunity can teach you.

If you allow it, me fucking up, the thing I spoke about at the beginning, like the easiest

thing to do is your fault.

But if I take it as an opportunity of like, all right, you missed.

What do we learn?

Where's the game?

Yeah.

You can move forward.

And I can move forward and wholeheartedly apologize to those I've hurt along the way.

And they don't need to forgive me.

That's on their terms.

I can't control that.

But man, the sleep is a little more sound at night.

No one like in learning this lesson or having this opportunity, fuck dude, I kind of trampled

on your shit.

I'm so sorry.

Like I had such a shitty relationship with my dad.

And just recently, we've mended fences and these 80s, so I'm glad I've done this because

I mean, we don't last forever, we're all going to the dirt soon, you know?

But I just wanted him to be something else.

I always wanted that motherfucker to change.

I wanted him to be something else.

And finally, I got out of my own way.

The hard thing is meeting that guy where he's at.

The hard thing is allowing him to be who he is.

Take the weight off my backpack and say like, yo, I might have needed you to be this

in my life.

But because you weren't, man, because of your absence in being the dad that I had in my

mind, I got all these fucking cool male mentors who gave me a key to the gym at 15 and said,

you better fucking be here in the morning.

And like, dude, I still can feel a key in my hand from Dave Nock.

The dean of students, a coaching academy who bet on me.

He was like, man, if you get your grades from seized a's and you play two varsity sports,

this place costs in 94, this place costs 35 grand a year.

We will give you aid and you will have a place to learn.

And that allowed me to become an adult and allow me to the opportunity of being in a diverse

group of students who, man, there's like royalty that goes to that school.

And then there's fucking poor kids.

My roommate was a basketball player from Compton and then we got kids with generational

wealth who their name and buildings after.

But when it's just like 450 kids in a social experiment, money goes away and you just, you,

you just kick it.

So I learned to be friends with everybody.

But I wouldn't have learned that in West Newbury where it's 99.9% white, 1200 people in

the small town, no stoplights.

You either leave or you never leave like just little little things like that.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, man, I should do this and decide to meet my dad where he's at and be like, dude,

whatever I thought you were, you're not.

You're just you.

I love you for you.

And man, what we said, there's some shit that he'll say that's all fucked up.

You know, he said some shit yesterday that like, I don't think John's last opponent should

be there.

And people listen to him because he's a wrestling fan.

He's like in the kind of like the weird subcultures I guys.

And I want to call my dad, man, what the fuck are you doing?

But then like, no, he's doing what he does.

This is him.

This is the dad.

This is the John Cena.

I love this is this is the guy I can sit down with and and and part of that is being able

to process all that but the opportunity I get from that I've learned about my father's

story.

I've learned about what he what he wants to do with his life while he does what he does.

Maybe what he wanted to do dreams he didn't have so I can gain wisdom from there.

But it's just that's the hard part is like getting out of your own fucking way.

To do the thing you really want to do.

The easy thing to do is a hole that grudge against my dad.

What I really wanted to do is tell my dad I love him and sit down with him and be like,

yo, let's fucking break bread, talk about whatever you want.

And now we do that.

And it's great.

But that's like a that's a small example of the easy thing to do is sit in the couch and

say, fuck it, somebody else's fault.

The tough thing to do is like life is handing me a moment right now.

And dude, I don't bet a thousand.

I mean, it's more like Major League Baseball.

I'm hoping 300 gets me in the hall of fame.

If I can capitalize on 30% of the moments that life gives me and squander the other 70%,

I believe I will go into the ground being like, man, I earned life.

If you can capitalize on 30% of the moments, you are in the 1% of human beings that have

ever lived.

Earned life.

Yeah.

So I'm just trying to get that make it to Cooper's town.

Yeah, that's the reality.

And also the reality is if someone doesn't give you what you need, it gives you a desire

to get what you need.

Sometimes it's a gift to not have like doding parents.

Yeah.

Oh my goodness.

Like I said, I would never have gotten those, the beautiful guidance I got in life.

I always had father figures because I was searching for it and they found me.

And I was also savvy enough to be like, this guy needs to stick in my life for a little

bit.

It sucks and he fucking pushes me.

But I got to keep this guy around, like just weird stuff like that.

I hear a lot of wrestlers a lot of times.

What do you want to do here?

I want to be champion.

Okay.

The math of that's really slim.

I never wanted to be a fucking champion.

I just wanted to wrestle.

And if you're good, it'll take you places where one day you can hold one of those.

But if you start with the goal of I want to hold one of those, man, am I pigeonholing

my goal?

What the fuck do you really want to do?

I just wanted to wrestle.

And if I got fired by WWE, I want to try to go to Japan, I want to try to go to Mexico,

I want to try to go to the UK, fuck it.

Because I just wanted to do it.

But that also meant I would put my best foot forward and I wasn't shackled to, I need

to be champion or I'm not validated, I'm not successful.

You know what I'm saying?

Just give me a chance to go out there and get the noise and whatever else falls into

place.

Fuck it.

Cool.

Because what I want to do is just go out there and be in the arena.

It's funny because they talk about the noise the way we talk about the laughs.

Yeah.

It's the same thing.

Yeah.

You know, and I don't need to be the most decorated person.

But it's weird because they're not even trying.

I have a resume that people will now measure up against, like, oh, you got to win X amount

to pass the hurdle.

So it's weird.

Like, I didn't even try to do any of that.

All I tried to do is like, you'll just get me out there.

And when you look at what I've done and you've followed a bit, like, it was weird.

I was in the main event of WrestleMania this year.

And to talk to people, they were like, oh, man, that's crazy.

The last main event of WrestleMania I was in was 2012.

So you'd think that, like, oh, John Cena, this guy, everything handed to him is always

at the top.

That was my first main event WrestleMania appearance as an attraction in, like, 13 years.

And in that span, I worked new wrestlers.

I worked for lower-level titles.

I sat ringside and crushed three beers and then got fucking squashed by the undertaker

as a fan.

Like, I did all sorts of shit, you know, because it was never about, like, I'm not a success

and less time in the main event of WrestleMania.

No, that's just a position where the ton of stress just fucking get me out of the course,

just get me in the arena.

Have me in section one, shaking hands with people from Australia and I'll make it the

best fucking time they ever had.

It doesn't matter.

I just get me out there, what I don't want to do is sit on the bench, you know.

So how did you go from that into acting?

Like, what was your first?

So originally, it was a business choice, Vince opened WWE Studios and with the idea of

if we make these guys movie stars, more people come to the arena.

Now as a young 20-something on the road, people chant your name every night, I'm like, more

people in the arena, that sounds fucking great.

And his first movie was supposed to be with Steve Austin and it fell through.

They're about to shoot in two weeks, so movie pre-production is way longer than that.

But he was like, you're going to Australia to film this movie The Marine.

And it was tough.

It was tough.

I went from a rive in a town at noon, workout, get a good meal in, crush the show, have

some beers on the ride to the next town, fall asleep, do it all again.

And it's like this whirlwind of electricity to, okay, you're in here and make up at six

o'clock, we're doing an explosion today.

So the lights are going to be weird and we probably will get to you around 5.30pm.

You just said it's six in the morning.

Yeah.

So what the fuck you want me to do from here until 5.30?

Just hang out, and I couldn't, like as a young 20-something, I wanted to be in the electricity.

I couldn't handle the nature of the business.

And therefore my passion wasn't in it.

I wasn't fully invested in it.

I am fucking here with you guys right now.

We are talking about this.

My mind isn't elsewhere on other shit.

I want this to be what I want to give you all I got.

So I'm here with you.

I was never there in those movies.

I was always back in, fuck maybe if I had the feud with this guy or if I could have done

this, I was never there and you could see it in the performance.

So I kind of got run out of the movie business.

I did so many shitty movies in like 2009, 10, my best friend, agent, Dan Bame at the

time.

I was like, man, we're never doing movies again, right?

And as an agent, he's supposed to be the guy to pick you up.

He looks to be dead.

He goes, nope.

We will find another way though.

He was honest.

We are never, we are run out of town, but we'll find another way.

So we did.

We did host some live shows, hosted some game shows, did little appearances here and there,

and then Judd Apatow and Amy Schumer gave me a chance on God's train work.

And it was a very small part, but again, just get out in the arena and do your best.

And look, I was in a fucking room with comics, like funny people.

I don't belong there, but they created an environment where I wasn't judged.

They only showed the good jokes that didn't show the fucking 20 takes or I tried to tell

jokes that sucked.

The only ones that made the final cut, the ones that made people laugh.

So they provided an opportunity for failure.

And at that point, I've been playing the same character as the 2014-15.

I've been playing the same character on TV for 15 fucking years.

And now I'm like, yo, I get to do something different.

I can do this for 12 hours.

You want me to sit?

I'll go fucking read a book.

I don't care.

I'm in.

So I accepted the patient process of movies.

And then after that, I got a little bit of noise and train wreck.

And then Judd sent word to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler who were filming up the road and

I'm like, I don't like, if you got a spot, you should hire the kid.

And they made me a drug dealer and their thing.

And then things started to roll downhill, but it's very, very small parts at a time.

And here I am.

That was 2015 here.

I am a decade later.

And I'm still trying to advance to fluency.

By no means am I like, I'm the 17-time champ of the acting community.

Those are the motherfuckers I was looking at when I was naked.

You know?

Right.

I was hiring to try to be that.

But it's basically the pivot happened when I was like, yo, if you just invest in this,

the hustle and patience you put into wrestling, at least you know you gave it your all.

You know, be coachable, be professional, be reliable, be interested, and see where the

chips fly.

And fucking say yes.

Well, it's also you had the objectivity, like the introspective objectivity to look at

your past performances and say, I wasn't really in there.

It wasn't.

And I got right out of town.

Yeah.

I lost the job.

So like, here's that Mulligan.

What?

Fuck, I'll never work in this town again.

I will.

All right, let's go.

Let's try.

What else could go wrong?

They've already fired me.

You know?

There's been an environment and no one does it alone.

The people I was around, Tina and Amy are the same way.

Like only show the funny shit, but try whatever you want.

Like, fail.

It's okay.

And just because you're around people who do comedy for a living, all we need is three

seconds, and we'll be patient enough to give you what you need to give us that three

seconds.

Hmm.