Break It Down - Paul Wight, ALL IN, CM Punk & More
I'm gonna go to the next episode.
I'm gonna be a bit late.
I'll be back in a few days.
I'll see you guys next week.
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and say that it was a magazine that you write for and I write for, and we've changed the
paper quality on that magazine. And it's about a thinner, right? But it's because prices
are going up a postage, prices are going up a paper. There is no way round it. And we've
found this paper that although it's thinner, the color separations much better, the pages
look much better and it's sustainable paper for the environment, right? So that is what
we have done so that we can keep all the writers like yourself, like Finn Martin, like
over the days, so it's a really high quality publication for the long term, right? We
are not going to post that information on Twitter because you're just asking for troubles
instead. Every day's been mail-shotted, you know, people can discuss it, we can explain
the decisions, have days where it was happening, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whereas Denise's
thing was, she decided to put her full clip, which was like 10, 15 minutes or whatever,
but the teaser on Twitter was the very right thing. And I think she then got absolutely
pelted. I then didn't get pelted as much, but there was a lot of people going on. You're
going to be angry at Denise, you're going to be angry at Kenny Macintosh. And so, yeah,
I mean, you, I mean, you're a nice book afterwards and it's like, I mean, if you do this interview
in gig, whether you call yourself a journalist, whether you don't, I mean, anyone at worth
your soul had to ask the question. You had to. You had to. Let me, let me, let me say something.
When I was training to be a journalist, journalism gets a lot of fucking worse than that, right?
Like people, you know, families could lose children and press will be at their door, right?
To like get first reactions and stuff, which sounds terrible, but to believe me, it happens.
It does happen. Well, obviously, we're lucky. We're in the sporting round where that's not
so common or whatever, but yeah, there are a lot worse situations than what transpired
on Friday. I mean, I, I wasn't, I wasn't there in the end because I had something to do
at work. It was like a press conference day that I just couldn't avoid because we had
low staff. So, but if I was there, I would have asked the question, like, you have to be
anything. You know, I saw Denise, actually, while I'm there, I saw her on the Saturday
and I said to her that, you know, to be fair, she was actually having it quite well.
But I feel sorry for her. As I understand it, Paul White had been clued in by the PRs that
he was probably going to be asked the question to prepare for that question. So it was not
as if he was caught cold-footed, like a lot of people on Twitter were insisting that he
was. And yes, I know he got upset and it's never nice to see that. But I mean, I've totally
different circumstances. I've interviewed Lana and she starts crying, right? Over something
much more trivial than that, of course. But like, yeah, again, you don't really know what
to do because it's not something that you plan for. But it just happens. And I don't think
the Bray White question was unfair. It, you know, is it sad and uncomfortable and difficult?
Of course it is. Of course it is. But it's, but those same people were a lot of them anyway
that complained that, you know, it was unfair to do that. You think, well, like, what would
they have said? If you hadn't asked a question, it would have been like, oh, you know, just
respectful. I don't know. They would have complained that, you know, how could you ignore
something as big and as massive as this? So you can't win, particularly with Twitter
this is you can't win. But I think from a journalistic point of view, you absolutely did have
to ask the question, especially with Paul White's history with Bray White. And it's just
one of those standard, what's the thing? I think for Denise, and you've just said it there
for yourself, would you like to do over to ask it in a better way, you know, segue into
it better maybe, maybe, right? Like, I know I would have fucked it. I know I would have
fucked it. I would have been, I would have been thinking it in my head, oh, I need to
make this, yeah, I need to make sure this has a lot of feeling and whatever. And you just,
you know, it's very hard to do in the moment. But I do, I do think criticism of actually
asking the question is very, very, very harsh. And there's a lot of these people that
ask, you know, the journalism game, sadly. You know, we're meant to report news as of
interest, public interest, right? And then there was no story bigger than that within that
24 hours. So not sure what people were expected. You ordnance to do, what is it? I mean, to
your point of sight, the whole thing. So with me, you know, I don't want to speak for
Denise. Denise can't this up to her. What she, you know, and I spoke to her as well and
sort of said, look, you know, don't let people get to you. I mean, I said, what you, what
you can if you want to, which is what I do is just watch your stuff and go, am I happy
with the way I asked something? Yeah. That was right. That would be the only way I would
have approached that and said, maybe you want to change or tweak this. And again, not just
for Denise for anyone, even for myself, if I'd been in that position, I would have said,
am I happy with how that came out? Yeah. And like for me, that's what I said, I wasn't
happy with my segue after that. So that's the only thing that if I could go back and change,
I would have changed that. But, you know, like I say, I was, I was, I mean, because the
thing is, if you think of his bad way, it was my follow up that I was going to do, because
I didn't, I thought he was going to be getting this question from everybody and he was going
to be fairly prepared and all like that. He did get it from everybody. And he did. Yeah,
he did. Alisson, Alisson, I do us from the metric, I was doing as well. So like pretty
much of everyone who saw it in that day did it. But like you said, you put the clip on Twitter,
and unfortunately, you attract the worst people. But yeah, sorry, Karin. Yeah, no, no, but
the follow up that I was going to have to be lighthearted if he was in that space, right?
Yeah. I want to say, you know, speaking of you and Bray, there's this crazy story that
you were supposed to team with John Cena and Justin Bieber against the Wyatt family at
SummerSland 2014, because that might have been a story he wanted to share to kind of go,
you know, I wish that had happened. So, Bray and I could have, you know, reminisced about
it or whatever. You know, like that was kind of, but obviously once he started trying,
I was not going to fucking go, well, in that time, you and Justin Bieber were supposed
to get together. Like I wasn't going to go down that route at that point. But he thought
you were going to get him in the Bieber mood, did you? Well, no, because I could look,
I've, I've spoken to wrestlers before about people who have, who've passed away and stuff.
And like a lot of them, a lot of them do tend to be, you know, looking back fondly and
kind of, they put, you know, they played the game because they all know, I mean, he knew
that when he walked in, he was giving us the question, but it's funny. I was talking
to somebody over the weekend who also worked in journalism and they had said, you know,
in two years, but it was like, you know, there are, there are a lot worse ways that this
happens. And like one of the examples was, you know, some TV shows or some news shows
will have like a family member of somebody who's died and we'll sort of say things like,
you know, what would you say to them through, you know, like things to try and get them
to try? Yeah, specifically. It's like, and I mean, that's also a job that somebody
who does that takes it, that's their call. It's not something I want to do. But yeah,
it's funny because I, I initially read the comments at the beginning and then I was like,
it's, it's not worth it. I'm just not going to do it. And I spoke to enough people that
I trusted who said, you know, I think it's, like my other half actually said, you know,
in Barbara Walters, when they asked that question, she's speaking to a big show. Yeah. You're
right. So, but yeah, you'll hear at the end. You can, you know, tweet the story. Yeah, you can
pick the bones yourself. I mean, on that note, we were speaking to Paul Whitehead of all in.
Let's move along to the car that we were both at the weekend. The biggest car in wrestling
history, as Tony Car mentioned, some 300 times in the post, post match presser.
But he's not wrong. 8155 people, Wembley Stadium and for my money, the show of the year,
that's far dare I say. I enjoyed it from top to bottom. Kenny, what are your initial thoughts
coming out of this gargantuan show in England's capital? Yeah, I thought it was a great show.
I'm sure of the year maybe. I mean, it's definitely EW sure. It's in the conversation. Yeah,
but it's in the conversation. Yeah, for sure. What would we say is the outright winner if
otherwise? Um, I think backlash is very high up in the last week on, yeah, that's what we call
on. That's a great show. My money, the bank was great. But, you know, I don't know, I felt like this
had thought for a, how long was it in the end? It's like four and a bit out. I mean, with the
pre-check that five hours, right? Like, from top to bottom, I was entertained. I really was.
There wasn't really a match where I was like, oh, yeah, this isn't good. Yeah, I mean, to me,
it was the best past EW show they've ever done. Oh, by a mile. Um, no, obviously, you know,
the fact that they got the elite at the way in matches two and three was great for me.
Because then I could just like relax a little bit. But I mean, there was part of the thought,
you know, Kenny Omega on the Wembley Stadium show pinned in a multi-man match with a rope.
I mean, you can't make up. Um, but I mean, apart from that, I think that was the only match.
And it was good. It was still good as a match, but I didn't care about it. There was nothing
about that match that I cared about. But, um, you know, I know a lot of people did. So it's not all,
it's not all to cater to me specifically. But no, I thought this show built really well. I thought
the order of the card was spot on, but the women overdelivered, um, from what I think people
thought it was going to be. Yeah. Seria's mum taking the best bump of all time. We should get
hit by Tony Storm and actually, she'd been shot with a gun in the head. That was great. She was playing,
she was playing Bruce Hart. She knew, yeah, I was about to say she knew it was her moment, didn't she? She was
like singing a scene. Yeah. Um, and pumpkin Joe was a great opener. I thought pumpkin Joe was
really good. It was, I mean, it was 14 minutes and I flew by. It flew by. It seemed like a really quick
opener, I thought. Yeah. Um, but it was great. Like, obviously, their chemistry is, is so incredible.
But, um, you know, I know you're not the biggest youngbacks fan, but I thought the closing
five to ten minutes of that match were exceptionally good. Yeah, I thought it was the best.
It was my favorite boxing FTR match they'd done of the three. Me too. Me too. It felt like a,
I feel like this, people are like, oh, why you compared it? It felt like a WrestleMania match.
Like, it felt like, you know, you were getting like a stadium big fan view. Yeah. Yeah.
So yeah, I think I, I hope the box did great on that match. I didn't realize that their gear
was a Freddie Mercury inspired from when Freddie Mercury played Wembley, which was a great touch.
Yeah, that's very good. I actually watched BT this week. So there you go. Look at me. Look at you. Yeah.
I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm an elite snack. It's converted. I don't know if I'd go that far.
But, uh, no, but it was, it, it was funny because I was talking to Robert Duffin who I obviously
started ITR West and we do the collision podcast and Patreon together. And, um, and after the show,
he was just like, do you know what? I can't, I can't believe that people are, you know, saying that
this punk backstage thing overshadow it because he was like, what is better than a great wrestling show
with some juicy backstage drama to also sell it over? You know, it's like, it's a rough gift.
He's not wrong. Let's get into that. Um, let's, so the pre show, right, it has a better
than you, baby, Adam Khan MJ, if they, they win the ring of on the tag team titles, then hook,
defeats Jack Perry. And there's a spot in the beginning of that match because Jack Perry
arrives in like a limo, which, funnily enough, on my way out of the arena, I walked right past.
It had, and obviously the windscreen has like, done in from, from the, the bump.
And the history here is on collision a couple of weeks ago, CM Punk basically told Jack Perry that
he couldn't do a spot with real glass. Um, A, because it's dangerous and B, because he felt like
Jack Perry was just trying to get out coming to work the next week. When it turns out, Jack Perry
already had some pre-approved holiday, apparently. Um, so that's the whole thing. He takes the bump
here at Wembley, a real windscreen, apparently. Um, and then Jack Perry obviously can't help,
but make a comment about this in passing CM Punk backstage. So CM Punk, this, you know, this is the
thing. Jack Perry, last match on the pre show, CM Punk, Samojo, first match on the actual show.
So they are like passing each other. Um, and this is allegedly, you know, fight for the,
with the ones to really break this. And I saw Sean in the press boxes going off. It was, it was crazy.
And, uh, basically, as CM Punk is going out, right? Like, as he's about to go through the curve,
this altercation is going down on it. And, you know, I'm sure you've read Kenny, there's different
versions of what we see, but we, we, we, we should, I mean, the, the basically just as you know,
Perry decides to say on camera off script. Yes. Bill Glass, Crimea rubber. That's what he chose to do.
Now, can you imagine if any metal level Gibroni did this to the rock or Steve Austin or Hulk
Hogan, they'd be fired on the fucking spot. But this guy decided he could do this. And then
what Torin can actually done immediately was either him or somebody who's very close to him.
As soon as that piece of camera happens, go over to Punk and go, Jack Perry is going to be suspended
for this. He is going to be punished for this off script moment, but we need you to not do
anything. We just not engage in any way, shape or form. But that didn't happen again. So then,
obviously, he comes through and Punk tries to do a problem with me. And he said, I can't know
the exact word, but it's like a variation of like, I said what I said. So you've goaded punk at
that point to kind of, it's going to go further. And now we've got CM Punk not on the Chicago all
outcard suspended because Jack Perry was in a huff because he was told by a veteran that he shouldn't
use real glass because it's fucking dumb. Which by the way, not the end of there, sounds like it is
pretty dumb. If you can not do that, why would you? And it's like, I just, you know, I try very
hard to not take season stuff, but like, they're all this for Jack Perry going off script.
I really can't tell how you feel about Jack Perry. Like, just get rid of the game. My god, like, it's
just, it's the fact that he's able to get away with it, but get away with this. And then Tony
can. Is one of the pillars, though, Kenny? No, he's not. I'm just saying, I'm just saying,
from a Tony Khan perspective, right? One of his pillars, one of his shining lights. And you
got to remember, like, the table's kind of been set here. Like Tony never sorted out the CM Punk
Youngbuck's beef, right? So anybody that is by proxy or even remotely friendly with the youngbucks
may well have problems with CM Punk. Like, like, the battle lines have been drawn because Tony
has never sorted it out, right? And just put it back. And with that comes a lot of inherent
beefs or, you know, carry over problems, you know, it's like in school, like, you don't like
that person, like, I don't like him. I'm like, there's a lot of that. There's going to be.
And I get all that. But my point is CM Punk, one of the biggest stars in the company,
Chicago this week, yeah, a big week. A big week that they needed him. And he's now not there
because Jack Perry was allowed to go off script on TV in response to when he was told to not do
something which was correct. And it's like, what are we doing here? What like?
My one of my main things of CM Punk. And again, do not know CM Punk. Let me be very clear about that.
But I've been a big fan of his work, his whole career. It seems a difficult bloke, right?
Just just just outside the ring, just if we're going by what everyone else reports and says,
which is obviously something you shouldn't do verbatim. But, you know, we're out of smoke,
there's a lot of smoke behind it. It's a tricky thing, right? Where you're, he is named value
and ratings and stuff like that. Probably the biggest player, A.W. has,
but with his arrival in A.W., which we thought was like a save you's return. And we were all
delighted to see this fairy tale reunion of CM Punk and professional wrestling. It's just had
problems every step of the way. Now, why is that? You can't, I can't sit here and say it's all
down to CM Punk. But like, this is an endless river of problems now that Tony Khan doesn't seem to have
any firmer class on how to fix, right? It is just going and going. And every week we've got something
to do. The CM Punk sending people home to me was like, Jesus Christ, like, what is going on at this
point? Here is maybe the first time where I'm like, ah, it seems like Jack Perry has made the
problem. It's 100%. Like, this is the only time where every other one you could say Punk had a
hand. But like, but that's one it's like, so, so number one, Jack, so apparently according to
Fightful as well, I'm sure it was Fightful. And Jack Perry was was going around telling people
he was going to make this comment backstage. So he's Billy Big Boss for some strange reason
that thinks he can just do it once. And then they decide to like put him on, like put him on
then Punk straight after him, like before any of them happens. Then they don't do anything
with because I'll guarantee you, if this if this was 1999 and Val Venus made a comment about Steve
Austin, do you think Val Venus, do you think, and then backstage Val Venus said, I stand by Steve
Austin Pie face, I think Steve Austin will be sitting on the throne next week. And Val Venus,
no chance. Steve Austin will be bringing the hells down. Exactly. Because it's a fucking
business. My God. I mean, it's just wild. It's wild. And it's like, so now we're two days away
as we record this from what looks to be the least interest and impactful AWP of you ever.
Because the card is not as fun as Friday together, isn't it, Christ? And then the only thing that
was going to be good was Punk and Starks. And now Starks, you know, momentum is still,
because he's got a Ricky Steamboat. Ricky Steamboat. No, there's a part in my brain that's
hopeful. I don't think Ricky Steamboats have the strat match on Sunday. So I think somebody's
interfering to face Starks. I hope it's Punk. Yeah, to me it's just like, this would be the
equivalent of losing Steve Austin because of obvious. That is what messes. And it's, I mean,
I've got to assume you're right. And yes, like CM Punk will make the surprise, you know,
when his music hits in Chicago, it'd be crazy. I just have to, I have to hope that.
Because you look at the rest of the card. I mean, I may go into Kesko, it actually will be
Booby class. And Moxley and Cassidy will probably be class three fair. But like, the rest of it,
they really are just kind of going, well, you know, if this person wasn't on the, you know,
they're really, again, this person wasn't on the last show, this person. I'm looking at
Mirror Powerhouse Hobbs and thinking that can be quite cool. But again, they've only got one
women's matchup. Well, they've got Starlander and Soho for the TBS Championship.
They only had one or, you know, there's a four-way all out. I almost said his Monae was there
and that's kind of the big deal that Tony Cohen can't wait to unleash, but, you know, she's injured,
so, you know, you know, when that's going to happen. I see the criticisms of that from Twitter.
And I've got to say, some of it's quite valid. Like, one matchup. I know we're missing Jade
Cargill who I can't wait to come back, basically. But, oh, man, one matchup. And Starlander Soho to
me is not, you know, I know they beat each other up a little bit. It's not the hottest one, either.
Even like Omega to Keshta, terribly built. Yeah. Well, yeah, for this, you're really
expected to be just now, would you? Some more Joe Shane Taylor. What?
It's been chucked on there, right? Eight-man tag with FTR on the box. I mean, the only way
that that will be a source of Twitter suggestion as I've thoroughly stand by it. In fact,
if the box with that bell rings, super kick FTR and walk out, that'd be great. That will do
it to that. I mean, Adam Cohen, MGS, will be defending their tag team tag. Soho Koda. Dark Order.
I mean, no offense to Alex Reynolds and John Silver, but they've not been possession to be
in the spot. I love John Silver. And I honestly, I've barely seen him for the past like six
months. Don't know where he's been, what he's been doing. It's just such a wet, you know, wet
and better cardboard. But I think like with any rest, you know, WWE event, I'm not recently
to be fair, but this is going to cost people $50 or something about it. Oh, I don't know about that.
I don't know if I'd pay that. But I know that watching this show, there will be matches, like I
said, we mentioned them earlier. There's like three or four matches there, I think, yeah,
they'll be great. But I don't know if I'd part with $50 and four hours of my time.
Yeah, and you're talking what 20 quads, if it's in Europe. I think that's what it's like, you've
got to cost those 20 quads or $50. I mean, in the beginning to your point earlier,
all in was just this like amazing show that was like one of the shows of the year.
And we're following up with sort of no emotional grab. You know, the most emotional grab
is Cassidy and Moxley because they've done a really good job of building that up and Cassidy
got a really good promo on Wednesday. So there's that. But
Yeah, I felt all in had everything really. Like, like I said, I know there were people that said,
you know, maybe you should have done Omega and Takeshka there.
Do you know what that looks like? That's car looks like if EW presented an
selection over a billion. It would have been like the other way around, right? Like all in should
have been all out. Yeah. And like the car we're getting Sunday is the sort of one they would
have brought to the UK. I said, look, there you go. Be grateful. Well, I just thought, if this is
the plan of Conor Tony Khan said at the press or that he wants, or the scrum that he wants to.
I mean, you almost, you almost hope, if this is the car, you almost hope it does a fairly bad
by it as a message that like, this is not sure good enough. But with EW, whenever there's a
paper review that you think, ah, it's not as good, it still goes well. So I mean, it needs punk.
To be fair, I do understand the logic of I want to own two bank holiday weekends and
the two biggest markets like, okay, I get that. But I think what he will take from this is obviously
a lot of energy and, ah, I don't want to say a lot of time because I actually thought the
build for all it wasn't great. But, you know, eventually that show was awesome. The card was good.
He got there without really thinking, would I do the next week? And I think he'll have to take
lessons from that. I think the Tony Khan probably would be the first to say that. Like,
plotting two huge shows within two weeks. It's not really done in the wrestling business. And
we can see why, I think. Yeah. Well, you know, we'll see. I don't think there's a list to give
on it. I mean, it's just a hot punk's back tomorrow night, a collision. And yeah, I mean,
I'm sure. Yeah, let's fuck some up backstage. I'm not sure why he would be suspended.
Also, Tony cat likes the investigation. Then you were there. You saw it.
Yeah. The room happened in front of you. Where? Where? Where are you? Yeah. These are the times
where the scene nine in nine ways at a 10. I'm very glad that Tony Khan is not a Vince McMahon.
Very glad. Because he, you know, by all accounts, he's used to be a nice guy to work for. He's got
the best of intentions. He's done a lot of kind acts in a lot of ways. But like, I'd love to see
what Vince were done in that reaction, in that situation. I mean, it would have been sorted
in five minutes. You would not have needed anything else. Because there's no way of Jack Perry worked
for Vince McMahon. He'd have done that and got away. No chance. And I expected to do that. Let's
live. Basically, you know, P 45 before you can even get to your locker room would be there probably,
but yeah, I mean, you made a really good point earlier, but it's like unless they start sort of
making it a scenario where there's, there's consequences to doing something like this, then the only,
let me say something to the Jack Perry that's not as bad as what I have said about him. The only thing
I can sort of understand is that he is in a company where everybody tends to just take shots and
do stuff and get away with it. So his mind, he's maybe thinking, well, I'll just do the same.
Good business. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, Jack Perry could do an angle with CM Punk. Maybe that's
it. I don't know. Yeah, he's thinking he comes from real heat brother brother. I don't know,
he's going today. We have both. He's Christ. All right, enough of us rambling. Allow us to give you
the poor white interview that we so heavily foreshadowed at the beginning of this podcast.
You know, WWE Payback is this weekend. It's worth noting. So, you know, very interested to see
if Becky and Trish actually get to deliver what they were postponed from SummerSlam doing.
So very anyway, all eyes on that basically, but otherwise the card is, you know, Rollins and
Nakamura and, you know, by the by. Kenny, go anything you want to promote that's coming up,
people need to know about. You can pick up the new issue. The mag incident was magazine.com,
Mr McCarty is in there. I'm in there. I'm right about Dominic Mysterio. Get in there.
Get in there. Very dumb. Very dumb. I'm in there. I'm in there. I'm in Adam Cole. I've
been in before all in and it still stands as an interview. So I hope that you'll check that out.
Yeah, I would encourage people to check that out. And apart from that, just, you know,
people get enough to do this. We can't have them set more to more pay per views. So
I won't talk about anything else. I mean, you can find all of our interviews and the post
Matt scrum that we were talking about actually on inside the Robes YouTube channel that is on
YouTube inside the ropes. Make sure you check it out. Until then, I've been at some coffee,
he's Kenny Macintosh and please enjoy pool white. We're back here with the one and only
Mr. Paul White, large and in charge. Well, yeah, I'm definitely large and in charge with a small
furniture. I'm good. Obviously, we're over here for, you know, this massive show all in at Wembley
Stadium. Did you think that we'd get to a point where EW didn't Wembley Simpson? No, it's funny.
One of my first meetings with Tony Khan. Actually, we were talking about my contract and what I wanted to
do with AEW and what he wanted for me. I said, listen, one of the things we have to do, we have to
get into UK market. It's good for our younger talent to experience this environment. And I remember
at the time I was pushing for O2 Arena. Like, again, the O2 Arena, it's a different environment.
The guys in Gauss are going to learn so much about their characters that craft how to perform
just being in this crowd. And I remember Tony being very excited about it. But then again,
being a billionaire, instead of O2, he goes to Wembley Stadium. So it's like, all right, man,
I said that you came. Wow, okay. It's a just incredible achievement for AEW this early in the
game. I'm really proud of AEW, proud of what Tony Khan's done, proud of our talent. Because this
is a show that was sold out on brand alone in the beginning, pretty much most 85% of tickets were sold
just on brand alone. AEW is coming. Bam, tickets went out. So that's a hell of a hell of a draw.
You know, when you sang with AEW, you think a lot of people were surprised because they probably
saw you as a WWE lifer, rather than going to AEW. I guess, you know, people are very curious what
Vince McMahon's reaction would be to you when you came to AEW. What was that like? Was there a
conversation when you joined? Yeah, I actually got a phone call that day from Vince and Kevin
Dunn, who I have a great relationship with both of them and Vince. Wish me a lot of luck.
New for a fact that the experience that I've had and the things that I've been through,
I'd be a great asset for AEW and I will help the brand out a lot. And I've known Vince,
I mean, I grew up on Vince. I mean, Vince, my first media training was with Vince personally.
So I know that Vince is somebody that respects gumption. He respects people that take chances.
And I'm not one that was going to sit around on my ass where I was before and ride on my tenure
or any of that crap. Like, I'm hungry and I like to build and I like to create and I like to be
a part of something. That's the hunger and the energy. So I saw a great opportunity of what AEW
was doing to be involved and help build something. And I think that's what attracted me the most
about AEW. It was that opportunity to see something grow mainly from my love for the business.
I want the business, the industry to be better. I want more diversity of product for the fans
because competition is good for everyone. And I think the relationship I have with Vince and Kevin,
they understood what I was doing and why I was doing it. You know, I'm a hungry old timer.
Well, it's funny because Matt Hardy did interview recently and he talked about how if he'd stuck with WWE,
he'd probably have to be a producer about that, probably the role. Is that kind of what the role
was going to be for you, had you stayed? Well, yeah, like I know that they talked me about being a
producer and I told Vince if he wanted me to, you know, bash my head in with a hammer, make me a producer.
I don't consider myself a producer because I consider someone that can give some inside
advice, but I can't go out and tell a regular size talent what to do. It's not my thing. They
have to interpret their own character. Now, when it comes to giants, sure, I have a little bit more
insight on character presence and whatnot. You know, my thing that I wanted to do was more
stick my toes a little bit in the commentary. End of it was Tony Kong gave me that opportunity
and compete a little bit more. Find talents that I can work with and help with time in the ring.
I think I'm a better teacher in the ring working with someone. I'm not quite the teacher that
like a Billy Gunn is. Now, when you talk about teachers, Billy Gunn is one of the most incredible,
mechanically sound teachers I've ever been around in my life. Like this guy was, was born to
instruct people on how to do things properly. So, for me, it was just finding them where I was most
comfortable and felt like I could contribute the most. So, and I didn't want to roll into the
just the ambassador role or a producer. That's not my gig yet. Maybe later, with AEW, maybe I'll
roll into that producer role, but not right now. And you know, you know, Vince, maybe better than
any of you. You worked them for so long. What do you think he thinks about AEW selling, you know,
over 85,000 tickets at Wembley? Oh, well, I think he's pissed. I think he's absolutely pissed,
but he's pissed in a good way because he's the type that like, oh, okay, he likes competition.
He likes that challenge. Vince is very much
animal of the jungle type mentality. So, if I think Vince is a guy that thrives on competition,
thrives on doing new things, thrives on being the best in his mind at what he does.
So, when, you know, competition steps up, that fires Vince up more than anything. The worst
thing that can happen to Vincent Mann is to be bored monotonous. You know, if he's got competition,
it fires him up to be better. Which is a win for the fans because, you know, they'll get a better
product and it's good for us because we produce a better product, too. So, competition is good.
I do want to ask you, obviously, you know, the rest of the mode today is very side of it, the
Bray Wyatt situation from last time for hours. I know you worked with him quite a bit, you know,
can you give any sort of comment? It's a horrible situation, but can you give any kind of memories
of working with him that you could share, or, you know, some of the good times you had with him?
I'll be real.
Real honest about it. I'm still kind of numb from it.
When I think of Bray, all I think about is laugh and his smile and how,
no matter what we're doing, how excited he was to see me and give me a hug. And it doesn't feel real
right now. But, you know, it's, I've been around a long time and lost a lot of, a lot of good friends.
That's just, unfortunately, that's just part of that older.
I do want to kind of finish talking about you and talking about Wembley. We're here, obviously.
How important is it for you to be on the show this Sunday to, to kind of channel your energy
and wrestling? How do you feel? Well, she says that's an end around.
I've got a chance to be on the panel, a pre-show panel, which gives me a chance to lend some of my
expertise, so to speak, on the matches that people should really be excited about,
pay attention to. So, I mean, every match we have on this all-in-card is extremely important.
There's a lot of nuances that I can help point out, and that's my job for the panel. So,
that's part of being a professional and a pro wrestler. You have to, you have to go forward and
push through. I think, once I finally give back home to Tampa, I think a lot of this will settle
in. But to be a part of this Wembley show on the panel, to even be here to speak with you all,
I'm extremely proud that I can still do that at this stage of my career. Thank you very much.