Speaker 1: It's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast with Jack and Carnes,
e O and JP sorrows he's a lapsed fan in
all my.
Speaker 2: Years and wristlin, I never seen anything like.
Speaker 3: It's the laps Fan name number one in the ring.
Begin about Slada were the real king of swing. When
the bell goes, hey, you want to kick like me
from in the corner, whets rash like stick.
Speaker 4: Even Jerry King could say go off the crowd nodded.
Speaker 2: In his head like stee low Brown? Would you get
low down?
Speaker 4: Were we go?
Speaker 5: Even high up?
Speaker 2: Flipp you on your head?
Speaker 3: But you know cool drive speaking mona dragon, slits fire
eve you more shock than the edge retires, dropping more
truth than the con of sniper unless you would a
coconut Roddy pipper, Jack and JP you a j wad
drop a cupcakes and gold and the brain Bobs.
Speaker 2: The best podcast from start the close five of you.
It's a plassic at polls. You know, JP. It's not
often that we have guests on the Lapsed Fan. It's
just kind of not what we do.
Speaker 5: In a lot of place. But it's true.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they come with the heavy artillery. These folks, they
find us. They say what about Londa fucking Rousey, And
then we have to say, wait a minute, let's revisit said.
Speaker 6: Policy to step back a moment and kind of like
exactly like kind of re examine what the fuck we're
doing here.
Speaker 2: Because she keeps it real in a fake world and
in a fake business. And so we're very excited to
have Ronda hear. She's here to talk first and foremost
about her graphic novel project, which you may have heard about.
She's done interviews about it, There's been a lot of
publicity about it. It's called Expecting the Unexpected, available here
with Amazon fre sale. Ronda, thank you so much for
joining us on the show, first of all, and tell
us all about this project.
Speaker 4: Thanks for letting me intrude on the two Dude love
best here, so I watch I'm close to truth diversity.
But yeah, I'm actually here to talk about the comic,
which is crazy enough. It was inspired by Paul Hayman
during the go Home to My Second WrestleMania when we
headlines and it was one of those particularly crazy days,
which is really saying something considering, you know, the Vince
mcman era. I don't really know how it is now,
but it was like doors were opening and like we're
already open or something like that. And we were about
to go out in the ring in like an hour,
and Vince had completely torn up the script and we
had no idea what the hell was going on. And
I was like just sweating bullets, freaking out, being like,
why is that to be so stressful? This is this
is the best thing ever. Why do we why do
we have to make it not? And so Paul Hayman
was always the best at like centering my sheet when
I'm in a panic, and he was he you know
what I mean, And he was like, what kind of
movie would you want to star in? I'm like, what
do you mean? He was like, if you could be
in any kind of movie, what would it be? And
I never thought of that. I had been sitting around
a little entitled, spoiled brat waiting for someone to hand
me my greenlit dream project, and I hadn't put any
thought into it. Also, i'd been, you know, trying to
survive in my first year of the ww's. I had
been thinking about much about anything else. And so I
wrote a short little log line for this after I
put some thought into it, and that was all that
I thought about it until after I shattered my pinky
knuckle on Becky's elbow in the match and went straight
to get surgery on my hand. My doctor said they
did a shishkabab principle.
Speaker 2: They just kind of put u.
Speaker 4: Pin and put everything back together. And I couldn't even
go to bed that night because I had to jump
on a plane and go straight to New York to
film Late Night with Stephen Colbert because I was voicing
Sonya Blade im Mortal Combat eleven, and after pretending I
wasn't in excruciating pain for an interview and going to
finally a bed to finally be able to lay down
for the first time in forty eight hours, it's getting surgery.
I had the idea for the for a scene in
what is now this book? And you ever just have
something in your head where you're like, oh, you keep
repeating it over and over in bed so you don't
forget it in the morning, and you're like, you know what,
I'm just going to write it down, Yeah, so I
could stop. And so five hours of thumb typing on
my phone in a cast later, it was time to
get on the It was time to get the car. Yeah,
and then two hours of the car still typing, and
by the time I was in buying over Arizona or something,
I typed the end and I'd been thumb typing for
eleven hours straight and wrote my first draft of this,
which was got awful. So I think that people forget
that that they put so much pressure on it has
to be perfect. It never gets done.
Speaker 6: It just needs to be like you just got to
get it out, get it out, and then go back
and make it better.
Speaker 4: The vomit draft. So, after I was done vomiting letters,
I took it to my agent and was like, it
wasn't even formatted. It was like sixty pages of block text.
I'm like, do you have a writer you could bring
me to to help me work with this? And he
was just kind of like, what do you want what?
So yeah, So I spent the next couple of years
just obsessing over like screenwriting and how to actually format
it and how to like the guy that craft itself.
I started an internship at the w W Story Department,
writing coverage for screenplays. So yeah, a bunch of movies
that came out, I like, I read them before before
they actually came out. So Blink Twice was one of
my scripts that I gave a recommend to, which I
hold that a lot to. I don't just recommend everything.
But it was called Pussy Island then, so I really,
you know, maybe that was a big part of it.
It was a great script, but after years of learning,
I got it to a level that I was really
proud of. But no one's ever going to produce the
script that some fighter wrote, you know. So being a
fan of graphic novels, I'd like to you, this would
be such a cool graphic novel. It'd be really tough
to do the fight scenes, but I think that's something
I could bring to the medium that isn't just you know, plagiarism.
So then I found uh a w A Studios are
publishing or whatever, artist writers and artisans is what it
stands for. I was called a WA like it's a
wrestling promotion and they don't like it. But but yeah,
I found some believers there in Axel Alonso, who was
a formal chief editor whatever his name title was at
Marvel Marvel and yeah, and then he got Mike to
be the artist for it. And I mean, years later,
this is just something I'm just so obsessed with I
couldn't stop with. And now it's it's actually it actually exists,
So I don't know. I'm gonna grab it because I
just got I just got my first hard covey.
Speaker 2: That's a small deal. Did you know that she interned
at wm E Boss I did not.
Speaker 5: I did not.
Speaker 2: She also, I believe, wrote the netflix Bioky cleanand on
her life, so we'll get to that here. Collusion comes.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I know this is just this is just fine.
Speaker 2: I mean I've seen the assets.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but this is the living edition. Let's cover from
a Kickstarter owner.
Speaker 2: So you're pregnanty and a motherfucker in the face.
Speaker 4: I like that beating a whole bathroom full of people.
I really love the raid. So like the Raid too.
I just love the bathroom fight. But a lot of
the inspiration for it's a romantic comedy martial arts story and.
Speaker 5: It's so fine. Problem with that that sounds wise, but.
Speaker 4: I was thinking, like, what's a character that no one
could play better than me? I'm not Meryl Street, but
with in my very near range, I can fucking I'm like,
I could shoot a bullet in that tiny little range.
And so basically It's like John Wick has no bodily
functions that can never go to the bathroom. He's been
on the run for how long, you know, So this
is like this chick's going through something similar, but she's pregnant,
so it's just all bodily functions, you know, like die
Hard came out after a while and like die Hard
in a bus, die Hard on a boat, you know,
die Hard. This is like John Wick if he was
pregnant on his way to abortion clinic and every time
he tried to go to the bathroom he got attacked
by even more people. So yeah, a lot of that
kind of tongue in cheek pregnancy comedy.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, there's a lot of cool ankles in there,
So definitely check the book out. It's it's something that
we're rooting for you because you know, sometimes some people
come out of the wrestling business, they have a very
hard time finding things to do that are just waiting
for Damper to call again. Okay, So this this is
this sounds like a real passion project that you can
bring across the finish line. And I mean the business
is in the rearview mirror, right ron, I mean not to.
Speaker 4: I mean pretty much, I'd say. So I got into
WWE because I wanted to be able to wrestle with
my girls, you know, the four Horsewomen, and be able
to the rest of my friends. And they kind of
dangled that carrot for my whole run and never let
it happen. And then the second run they kept dailing it,
and then by the end I was like, I'm fucking
leaving unless I can wrestle with Shana. And that's how
I was able to do it at all. And now.
Speaker 6: The most underused talent on the woman roster, I thank you.
I was not familiar with her before I saw her,
and she was just like I just we watched the
show one time and I was just like, who is
this Who is this person? And like I was completely
enthralled by her, and I was. I was always rooting
for Shana all the time.
Speaker 4: All the time.
Speaker 6: I wanted to say, the two of you collide and
to each other's asses. That was my dream, but I
pretty much did. Yeah, right, what was a.
Speaker 4: Sport match at a WWE show, So it kind of
it didn't really fit in, but we were kind of like,
fuck all you people, We're doing our dream match. You
just happen to be here.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you said that because one of the
biggest pet peeves we always talk about on laps fan
is this this ubm of like we're real that wouldn't happen.
What if the fuck are you talked about? If it
were real, it would look like Rond de Vershena, and
nobody seems to want to spotlight that and make matches
look like honest attempts at replicating what a fight looks like.
We all know what a fight looks like now and
it's not grab a headlock, tackle, over the top, lead frog.
But yet a wrestling insists on on that architecture, which
is great, we all love it, but I wonder how
you felt knowing what a real fight looks and feels like,
unlike few on the roster trying to bring that to
the table.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I love that match because it's funny.
It was super over with all the wrestlers of the back.
We've never had more conflidence for more people. Yeah, that
was more at the point where I'm like, oh, this
is for us, like screen you guys kind of a thing.
And I love pro wrestling because I mean I got
into it because I love fight choreography for film, and
I feel like it's the purest form of fight choreography,
and it's more of like at being a fight not
just a fighter, but an entertainer. You know, I don't
it's not the Olympics. I want to fight in a
way that's like really exciting and really gets people into it.
And so with fight choreography, it's like, how do I,
if I have two people fighting, how do I make
this fight as exciting as possible? Everything went exactly the
way that he wanted to go, because you're always like
working on these things in training camp that is probably
not going to happen, but like, wouldn't it be really
cool if I did like a so does serve a
kupagoshi off of this for the cage, Like it's never
going to happen, you know, But in fight korak, you
can make it happen. And you can be like, and
there's a vase there, and you know, and I'll smash
them in the face and that so you can you
can make it so much more than you ever could
in an actual fight when the other person is not
participating with you. And it's also I think the purest
form in that you have to do it live, you
have to do it all in one go, and everything
has to sell from three hundred and sixty degrees, you know,
and when you're filming for a movie, you're just trying
to sell it, you know, for the camera, punching yourself,
you know, punching across the lens and not even touching
the person, and you take a break after every like
little sequence and stuff like that usually unless you're doing
on one take, which is those are my favorite kind
of fights. But I digress. So I feel like it's
because I had been doing fight choreography and film. I
start watching pro wrestling, was like, oh my god, this
is incredible. The kind of matches as you are doing.
People in film would we would practice this for six
weeks and do it in several takes, and so that
kind of that that level of the art was really
really cool to me. And then also the storytelling aspect
being in the fight itself, and a lot of times
in movies will they'll be like, look and we're going
to take a break from the story for this really
cool fight, you know, and it's basically they're just spot
fests and it doesn't really add to the story itself.
Usually there's some some films there are exceptions, of course,
but that's what I really loved about Progressing really drew
me to it as a storytelling is happening in the
fight itself a lot of time nonverbally, and so it's
just such a clash of everything crammed in the one
that I was like, if I could learn this, I
would be better at everything, you know. And so I
took a lot of that and applied it to this
comic where I wanted to make sure the fights in
it were of the storytelling and it wasn't just you know,
a break from it. And there's a lot of like
pro wrestling kind of sequences and callbacks. I did like
a little a little heart attack and the the final
like fight sequence if you could, if you could spot it.
And actually had a couple of friends of mine. I
choreographed all of this like just writing it down, which
to somebody else probably just looks like gibberish. So I
filmed a bunch of the mockups of the fight scenes
with a couple of friends of mine at Santino Brothers,
and you can actually, I don't know if it's going
to be in the paperback that's coming out October like seven.
But I know this is just voice and podcasts, but
you can see the bath we have like the little
making of of how we put the fight scenes together
in those little QR codes. You can like see us,
like you know, dicking around and coming up with these,
and the cells are not as good as it would
be in front of a live audience because it was
just for reference with the artists. I'm not really going
to punch somebody in the face, you know what I mean,
they're like pun I mean you could, I'm not actually
going to roll on the bathroom floor, you know. But yeah,
it was. It was very much the action. This is
very pro wrestling and inspired and so I hope people good,
yeah that that are fans of that art see it
in this other this other medium.
Speaker 2: Perfect when we we think back in your w run
to me like the epitome of that thing we're talking
about about trying to make a real fight look like
at WWE natural vice versa is. But they made you
mend the girl's arm in the arm bar. Oh yeah,
what was that? You know how to lock out an
arm bar? We saw you do it in UFC. Why
did you have to bend the arm like that?
Speaker 4: That was actually triple h that came up with as
sing the mock arm bar finisher. But it's also like
you can see people like laying back and arching on
the arm and they're holding it straight and they're holding
it away from the box like if you actually did,
it would break. You can't.
Speaker 2: I don't want no, I don't want you to break
anybody's arm, right, Yeah, you couldn't work. There is a
little clothes on business is picking up.
Speaker 4: Hey, get out of your kid. This is yeah, this
is a good thing. This is only audio called Kitchen Naked.
Speaker 2: But on here, where's Travis Att? You should be taking
care of business jobs.
Speaker 4: In the kitchen? He's is that a first? Well, this
is kind of like our whole our little like battle
station faces the kitchen so that I don't become an
entirely introvert person facing.
Speaker 2: The walls forth. Thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're we're interacting, so get out here.
Speaker 5: Listen.
Speaker 6: There have been many times my daughter has walked in
or my dog has walked in. It's always it's always
been a thing we've heard. We hear voices all the time.
Speaker 4: Well, COVID kind of made it cool, you know. I
mean it's like you're waiting for the distraction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. So all right, so the bent arm we
blame Triple H got it. It was just like you.
Speaker 4: Really, how do you really do it? Like the one
time I did do it, but I leaned back on
it straight was uh. Me and Becky were we're I
think it was like my heel turn or whatever, and
I felt like it had like much more impact then.
But freaking Vince liked it so much. It was like
arm bar armor, Rgan armor armor again, and I'm like,
smashed the arm bar. I don't. And I had Jackson
all pissed out of me afterwards. She was like, we
spent all year selling the hell this armor and you
just did three of them to Becky like I was
out there, I'm like, dude, I'm like, I'm on Avatar
for a fucking eighty year old, fucking pervert on the phone.
All right, I have no I have no say in this.
What are supposed to do?
Speaker 2: What I got?
Speaker 4: Stake that on between your legs and grind it, grind
it down.
Speaker 2: I don't want it, among other things, so what what?
Notwithstanding that's exactly correct and then from there, my god,
there's I mean, I've heard you talk very straightforward about it,
and I respect that. I don't think you spent a
lot of time that ww A triple H should be
able to compare what it's like working there with him
in Vince control.
Speaker 4: But no, I didn't really at all. You get any
of the Triple AH era. I just got the death
throes of vincepect man clinging to power.
Speaker 2: That's great, I mean, what epitomizes it? Can you help
us understand what it was like to work for him
at that point? Like, is there a story you could tell?
Speaker 4: Show Man? Like? There was no like collaboration. It was
basically like you would spend so much time and effort
thinking about the story and how you can make it better,
and they wouldn't talk to you at all, and they
would spend like five minutes thinking about it the night
before and then throw you a version of it that
was a complete shit show. And then it was it
wasn't a collaboration. It was like a negotiation to try
and get it to not suck as much as possible.
And then you go out there and it's like the
final iteration of you trying to be like can this
be changed? How can I make this not absolutely fucking suck?
And then you will be there and you do something
that you have not even been able to practice and
you don't even really believe in, and then that's what's
coming across. And so they were like only like spending
a little bit of time on the Bloodline because Hayman
was the head of all of that and he was
like the Vince whisper of being able to get shitped through.
And it shows, it shows that like, oh, we're going
to spend some time and effort on this and fuck
everybody else and we're just gonna find the seat of
our pants. And that's why they're just doing the same
rehash shit over and over and over again, because that
was just like what Vince came up with the night before,
you know, and it was just all bottlenecked through there
and just really took the funnest thing that is such
a great time when you're out there with your friends
and you know you're doing something that you really believe in,
you like, you know, there were some flashes in the pan.
He had some some flashes of brilliance, and there were
some days that we'd be able to like hammer through
something good and somehow be able to pull it off
with no time to rehearse it. Like me and Charlotte's
I quit match. We didn't come up. We didn't like
to have the match agreed upon what it was until
thirty minutes before, and I had thirty minutes to memorize
it without even being able to be out there to
practice it.
Speaker 2: And like it was a replacement deal, right, What wasn't
it supposed to be some you and somebody else?
Speaker 4: It was me, It was me and Charlotte. I mean,
whatever it was, whatever another day it was. It's on
my other book, read the memoir.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: That could have been great, and it was still it
was good, But imagine what we could have done with
like my my w W debut, where we had six
weeks to put it together with the best minds of
the business, and we had it figured out one hundred
percent like two weeks before. Then we had two weeks
to rehearse it and it shows, it shows it was
fucking brilliant. And then when we main event in WrestleMania,
it was some ship that we threw together the night before.
We were still trying to figure it out. The day
off and it shows.
Speaker 2: And you've got these these fans that think it's like
this high art with all this like deep intricate planning,
if they only knew JP. I want to flip it
to you. I'm sure you have a question, but I
just when Ron is talking, I thought about how you know,
we did the pay per views all through her entire run,
her debut, all the way to her last match, and
you had you had an idea, this is how you
at Ronda, right, Oh, what does Ronda need to be
doing in WW in the ring from day one? That
that optimized?
Speaker 5: It was simple. You needed to be a killer, like
you need to go in there.
Speaker 6: I mean that one of the things that I've always
kind of thought is is sucks about modern wrestling, is
that is that fans come to expect a match. They
want to have a whole performance where it's like, to me,
I'm looking at you and you're from legit fighting. I
want to see you come in and wipe the floor
with the majority of these women, I want to see
you beat them in thirty seconds. I mean I when
you won the title, it was as close as I
thought could would be the case. When you beat Alexa Bliss.
It was Lexa Bliss, right, Blis.
Speaker 4: It all was fucking ridiculous. But I know why they
had me against them Lexa Bliss, Yes, because she had
the most merged cells at the time on that side.
Like what the fuck? And're your decision making process?
Speaker 6: Like you should have gone in there and and arm
bar in the first thing and it's done, and you
beat that and you just beat her like that to me,
like you should have been just crushing people.
Speaker 4: And it's not talking sense in a nonsensical world, because
that's how you end up going crazy. That's how you
end up leaving after your second run and being like,
bop this, I'm writing a comic book.
Speaker 2: It's exactly, that's right. That's the talking sense in a
nonsensical world. Is why we're lap while we talk about
lapsed like they talk about lapsed fans and getting them back.
It's simple. Everybody knew why you were money coming in,
why not recreate that? And then eventually right somebody stops you,
someone counters the arm bar. Now we're in business, but
it's just for the beginning. It was like, we got
to find a way to make sure rod It can
do twenty five minute matches, like.
Speaker 4: That's what everybody wanted about long term booking. No, we
only think about this to night of bar. Sorry, it's
so brilliant, not how we do things here. That's the
thing is so crazy, how much they succeed despite themselves.
Like if it was actually like run functional, I mean
maybe it is now who fucking knows, But I mean
it's just the wasted potential. There is a crime.
Speaker 6: I'm saying that for god what twenty plus years we've
been saying that to each other. I wanted to ask
you about, speaking of WrestleMania, we were there, we were
we were in at MetLife and one of the things
that I just thought about, and it's actually always been
on my mind when we were there and it's getting
late and we're talking, what you guys didn't go in until.
Speaker 5: Eleventh thirty or something stuff like that, Like how do
you did you know?
Speaker 6: I mean, obviously you knew you were going to be last,
and you're going to be somewhere around that time period.
How do you prepare to basically go to work at
eleven thirty at night? Because I like to go in
there and be intense and to like put on a
major show because I'm sitting there like that's like I
wanted to be in bed.
Speaker 5: I wanted to be in bed.
Speaker 6: While I was there, I was exhausted, I was tired,
you know, and so like I just as a performer
as as as an athlete. I mean, I know you
gotta be ready at all times, but it just especially
in a you know, choreographed world of wrestling, like how
do you how did that? What was going through your
mind like leading up to that, like preparing to wrestle
at fucking almost the next day.
Speaker 4: I mean, I was honestly exhausted, tired. My leg had
been cut open from the go home kicking through the window,
and it would kind of remind me of being on
SNL though, where I was just so exhausted and I
hadn't slept like twenty four hours by the time they
were about to play to come out, but when they
play you to come out, like there's some sort of
Pavlovian thing and Joan Jet, but god damn it, she
was out there.
Speaker 5: Definitely ELPs.
Speaker 4: I would rise from the dead for Joan Jet playing
me live. I mean, that was That's the answer to everything.
If I've ever like if you're like if they pulled
me out of the surf like like a like a
life guard, and I'm like not breathing and they're doing
chess palpitations on me, and I'm not Just go get
jone Jet and I will wake up immediately. I will
fucking get up and I will whoop somebody's ass out
from almost being dead on the beach. I will go
back in there and I will fuck up that shart,
you know, if jone Jet's there. So that's all, that's
all I needed, just a little jone Jet love it.
Speaker 6: Did it mean as much to you as they were
proclaiming that it meant to the rest of the world
that I thought it was important that that you were
a part of the first women main event at WrestleMania.
Did it feel that way to you? Did it feel
like it was it was something special or did it
feel like we're just throwing this thing together like you've
been saying.
Speaker 4: I mean, it felt really special and that it was
a crime that they put so little effort into it. Yeah,
but it was also you know, you break that glass,
the only ones it's his glass. Right after that, everybody's
going through it. It's not a big deal. And so
it's like the first person to crack the four minute
mile or the five hundred pound fucking clean or whatever
the fuck the record was. You know, someone just needs
to do it once and then it's not a big deal.
So that's that's basically all I needed to do. I
just needed to loosen up that pickle jar lit.
Speaker 5: Love it it.
Speaker 2: I thought finish might be Becky taps you with an
arm bar sow much as that probably makes your skin crawl,
Was that ever proposed to you? Would you be against that?
Speaker 4: It was proposed that I tap out to her arm
bar at Survivor series, Okay, And I said, my mother
would disown me. Anytime anyone's actually ever arm barred me
in my real life, I've just let them dislocate it
and I went barm out. That's why I have I like,
amnrel fucked on this arm right, So I'm not going
to do it. I'm not anytime anyone ever choked me
out and competition choked me in competition, I just went out,
I don't know, tap, I know, tap the fucker.
Speaker 2: That's that's to be like the biggest leap of faith
you would have to take as a real fighter in
MMA and Crow Wrestling. It's like, is that is it
a bridge too far to actually say, I know this
is a performance. I'm gonna let somebody else look like
they actually are a better fighter than I am.
Speaker 4: The only person I said I would ever allow to
submit me with Shana, and that's why I wanted to
go out. So that's how I went out. But I
didn't let her chuck me out.
Speaker 2: That's what I thought.
Speaker 4: Letter checked me out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was yep, that's what it was.
Speaker 5: I don't even know there actually was a match, did
I missed? We watch it.
Speaker 2: We watched it. It was on the SummerSlam with big,
hard knee lifts and hard strikes, and just like she's saying,
it was kind of like these these these women are
actually beating the ship out of each other and the
fans don't know how to take it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I should have been a blood sport match, because
that's like the venue for that kind of a match
in like WW, especially like a stadium, which is different
than an arena. They wanted. They need participation to be
invited of like one, two, three, four, you know, like
all this stuff, and that just wasn't didn't make sense
for us. So I was like okay, and like us
being walking out there and be like fuck you and
fuck the fans and fuck this match, and we're just
here to beat the show show. That's what made sense
to the story. And so I wanted to stay true
to us and true to our story. And we why
we got into this in the first place is we
wanted to beat the show out of each other, and
I wanted to put Shana over and so we we
we did it our way.
Speaker 6: Yeah, given, let's say given that again, given that we
focused mostly on on shows of the past, and we
do watch current pay per views usually, that's that's my
like when we watch current pay per views, that's my
drinking night, and that's the way I get through the show.
So that might have happened, and I apologize.
Speaker 4: Because I And also there was like it was kind
of like an MMA nerds match. There's a lot of
like rollbacks to iconic moments in MMA, which that just
wasn't the crowd they wouldn't recognize any of those things.
But for us, like, oh remember that one time when
fucking the two guys were like at each other's legs
and they just started punching each other out, like you know,
what I mean. And remember this one match, remember you know,
so that that was it was us nerding out for
each other and like combining the two. It was it
was like we were kind of playing for ourselves, if
that makes sense. It was it. Actually, it really comes
up in this comic a lot going back to it,
that making references that nobody else gets, and like that's
a big thing that, like, you know, the mom character
is constantly making all of these like action film movie
references awesome, and nobody's ever getting them, and until she
meets her match and in the love of her life,
the guy that finally gets all the references. Ah, So
like that match was basically us just making all of
these having like our own little language of making all
of these obscure references to each other, which is basically
you know, a calm mom and HOPU is obviously based
off of me and my husband, but that's like their
love languages. They are just constantly making obscure movie references
to each other. And that was like me and Shana's
love languages. We're gonna make some really obscure mma references
to each other in this progressing match, which is really
like the most me and Shana thing. Ever, I'm like,
nobody else is gonna get there. I'm like, who does?
It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: It's for us that listen.
Speaker 6: That's the stuff. That's the shit that sells the most
honest to God, at least over time.
Speaker 2: They invite people into you invite people into that. I
mean the inside jokes. That's what we started doing on
God and people were like, that's fucking funny. I definitely
do the same thing in my head or have those
weird thoughts. Yeah, find yourself someone that gets the references.
That's I think the takeaway. Wait, I wanted to ask
you one more thing. Run about the Becking match and
the Charlotte match at Wrestling thirty five finish. It looked
like this don't work for me. Brother, I'm gonna have
that shoulder up. I'm gonna have that shoulder up, whether
they wanted or not.
Speaker 4: Oh no, it was I didn't know that they were down.
I felt like they weren't down, and so I was
scooting to try and get them down, and but I
was like, oh, well, fuck if it went down that way,
which is what happens when you don't fucking rehearse something
that you just came up with.
Speaker 1: He's a Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast with Jack and Carnio
m jpisio.
Speaker 2: Lapsed Fan Wrestling Podcast.
Speaker 4: It's not Oh, it didn't look as smooth and perfect
because we didn't actually practice it. We're like, yeah, at
that's the point, I'm gonna do this thing and then
you're gonna be doing a cover about it.
Speaker 2: I'm stressed out hearing your described I can't imagine after that, Kurt,
with the luxury of a business that is predetermined right,
you can be able to use.
Speaker 6: But do you think, I mean, do you think you
might have been better off of it had been if
you had kind of been trained a little more old
school style where you can kind of figure it out
in the ring. Do you think that would have benefited
you better? Uh, in a situation like that, because I mean,
we talk There's another thing we talk about all the
time on the Labs fan is is how you see
people who get out there and they've been they've been
trained in the in the current WWE fashion and uh
and the style, and it's like they can't think for
themselves when shit kind of gets sucked up.
Speaker 4: And I mean, when would I've possibly had time for that?
Literally my first.
Speaker 6: John Cena would say, you make time, no matter where
it is. He would say, you make kids.
Speaker 2: That's definitely what we say. Yes, I just believe she
said that. Oh we just finished. We just finished making
that joke about it. Of course he knows mandarin and
can play the piano. The guy doesn't have any kids.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm lucky. I could eat.
Speaker 2: Dude.
Speaker 4: I'm walking around fucking one forty one right now, and
my kids like, not only they do not give me
time to eat, but I actually do have food. They
steal it from me and they eat it. So when
are you for some classical training? Kidding call it in
the ring and you're like, what do you mean? You
wrote a comic? I'm like, I wrote this at eleven
hours though. That's literally something I had to stay up
late at night. This is how I wrote this. I
was after I put the kid like babies down or
all that I would stay up late and do that. Nobody,
nobody is coming to my house at eleven o'clock at
night to do some classical pro wrestling training. You know,
Well it was that crazy.
Speaker 2: I mean, they get jelly roll ready and the in
a week and a half, so you know, it's that's
the business we're in now. It's no one's calling it
in the ring. It's not necessary or even advisable in
some cases. So here we are, like you said, the
glass ceiling was broken. There are women main eventing all
the time. We've had two Evolution pay per views, one
of which you were on. All women pay per views.
There's ww lore about why the women are on pedestal
they are now and who the Trailblazers were and all that.
I sat there it all as a huge fan of
MMA and wrestling. It's because you drew on pay per view,
but they tried it, and I don't know if you're
going to be part of that story. When they talk
about women are main inventors now in ten years, do
you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: I'm good. Fuck, women are going to be main inventors
in ten years.
Speaker 5: Awesome?
Speaker 4: You know, Like I realize at one point that, like, man,
I do so much badass, fucking gangster shit that no
one's ever going to know about. And I realized that,
you know, I do it because they really get a
kick out of doing bad askings for shit. It's not
so like people see it and appreciate it. I'm just
popping myself. Oh you know, I'm like, ah, it would
be a real fucking bad, asking shit thing to do
right now, you know, And then I go do that
and it's not for there's so much people will never know.
My legend is just especially me actually experiencing it. Oh guys,
you have no fucking idea the most badest gangs to
bitch I'll ever fucking exist. But you know, well everyone
appreciate it. Probably not, But will everybody benefit from it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: They fucking will.
Speaker 2: They will. They'll keep it because you know, as talented
as Charlotte is, as talented as Becky as, they're not
closing the show without you.
Speaker 4: And they weren't gonna main event Charlotte versus Becky nine thousand.
You know, they've already done it so many times before,
and even though it's a great every single time to
do it, they have to do something to make it
different and risk at first, company is only going to
go with what has been proven to work. And up
until that point, h the only woman that could sell
like a pay per view and sell out, you know, Arenas,
and so they needed that assurance of something that's already
improven and once I've done that all every combat sport
it had been, they'd seen it done, and so it
wasn't a far stretch to do it. And so it
reverberated across pro wrestling and boxing and you know, jiu
jitsu and grappling and everything like that. And am I
going to get a parade? No? Do I want to parade? No,
I'd rather be home trying to eat.
Speaker 2: Now, let us hold you up. If you need to
take a bite, please actually.
Speaker 4: Just ate, like mainline from Aosta right before this. But
then my baby was.
Speaker 2: Like posta, I just I just ordered two things. Now
that's what I do. I just get a version. They're
going to take it.
Speaker 4: Smart, that's smart. Yeah, I even then it's just we
have so much food in this house because I live
with giants. My husband's six seven, My sons are six. Crazy.
My three year old is the size of an eight
year old. What is the baby?
Speaker 2: What you're going by?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: You want me to say bye? Listen mama, and mama's
gotta talk to people that aren't toddlers. For a little bit,
I thought, I if I will remember how unless I
do it, and then she gets a little but cheeks
go there.
Speaker 2: I don't know what you are You gonna go home?
Signal from your own daughter. That's what she was doing.
Speaker 4: She do me to go home.
Speaker 2: She's gonna be really confused. She came over.
Speaker 4: She was like, more bars, do it again?
Speaker 2: What did Vice ever say anything to you? That was
just like, what the fuck was that? Like? Does he
have phrases? I mean people talk about a sneezing thing,
his sneezing phobia. Do you observe any behaviors like that?
Speaker 4: M No. I just kind of didn't give a fuck.
It was like stick to my face, you know. He
was just like a roundabout dick. But yeah, I think
he actually like said some ship to my face. He
would he would have got something back, and I think
he was aware of that. So it was more like
shisty Carney shit, which I was used to, like working
with Dana, who was like the most straightforward person ever,
and then like Vince would just say whatever he had
to say to get me out of the room and
then do some shisty, corny shit after that, and I'm like,
oh fuck, I can't. I just it just got off whin.
I'm like, I can't work with people that aren't straightforward.
I can't.
Speaker 2: I can't. They call him reality Challenge challenge. Yeah, that
was a Kim with there. So what was you help
our listeners kind of understand, Ronda? What's an example of
like that kind of shisty stuff. I think I get
what you mean, but I'd love to Oh god.
Speaker 4: I mean I cannot remember anything specific right now, but
I like just saying I need some lead up time.
I need to be able to rehearse things. I need
to be able to whatever, and like, yeah, we're gonna
do whatever we can, and then the next exactly the same.
Definitely the change. It would be all promise to you
the moon and then like, you know, hand to some
cheete you.
Speaker 2: For the rest of my thirty five match shit of vlog.
You're getting your hair done, you're drinking water, and you'd say,
this is a fucking promo. This is not an act.
I'm not going out there and doing their fucking act anymore.
They can say it is, do whatever the hell they want,
explain it away anyway they want. Fuck them. Don't rate
kfabe Wrestling's fake script, that it's made up. It's not real.
None of these bitches could fucking touch me. The end.
Great promo, what was it a promo? I got to
ask you this.
Speaker 4: I gotta tell you that this soon is that thing cut?
I'd burst out fucking laughing.
Speaker 2: Right before what.
Speaker 4: I think Maddie was there too, and she was laughing
in the background too, But yeah, that was as long
as I could hold it until I ended up busting
up laughing. But that's what I felt like was the
new way to work in this kind of like information
is to blame that line between you know, reality and
what was part of the performance. And if I could
do half of a sentence in character, half of it genuine,
and just kind of make it fluid and go back
and forth, no one knows who that line is, you know,
and so the performance leaks over into the rest of
the time. And that's what I was trying to do,
was to kind of carry on the performance away from
the cameras, because when I wasn't part of the w
W show, I could actually do whatever I want. I
can say whatever promo I want. I can say fuck
as much as I want, you know. And so that
was the kind of promo that I would like to
say that they wouldn't let me say that. I could
just do well you know, getting my braids out at
the end of the day, which is one of the
most remembered promos. But yeah, most people have no idea
was a promo which you know makes me proud of it.
Speaker 6: That's that's Those are the winners right there, honestly good
and when we can't tell that's that's fucking money.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And the thing is, I think a lot of people
are they want to still be the cool guy, you know,
They're like, yeah, I'll say all this stuff up. Really,
I was just in character. Really, I was just kidding
and uh chill sonon who. You know. There's a lot
of things that got Man has said that I do
not agree with. But one thing that he advised me
on way in the early days back in like Strike Force,
he was like, never tell them it was just to
promote the fight. All these guys be like they get
out of the mic afterward, Oh, you know, not sorry
about everything. We're just trying to like, never let them
know that you were working them because they'll never believe
you again.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 4: And so you know, now that I'm done, I'm gonna
be like with you, are you kidding?
Speaker 2: That's great? That's what I was hoping for because that,
to be was the heart of how to use Ronda Rousing.
And she goes into your product, she goes exactly and
that was the promo to me sold that WrestleMania, but
on a different level of intrigue. And she's going out
there and she's saying like, I'm gonna fuck somebody up,
like and you know, you can't do anything about it.
Maybe I won't, maybe I won't, but I can. That's
what that That's what a shooter in wrestling should mean
to me. I don't know, it just and then the
match didn't match that energy, you know, the way it was,
the way it was formatted. I'm not saying effort involved.
I'm saying it didn't have that kind of that theme
of like Ron is gonna, you know, go off right.
That could have been great.
Speaker 4: You know, No, I don't know. That's that's what had
Like maybe that's what made me have to step away
because it got to the point where I'm just like,
they're never going to allow me to make it as
good as it can be, and like meeting them halfway
in this range of mediocrity is like crushing my soul.
So I can but I can't continue to do that,
So I'm gonna go fucking be awesome and doing other things.
I'll take everything that I learned from pro wrestling and
apply it elsewhere and to my other passions, you know,
and in comics and fight choreography and film and screenwriting
and all of these things. You know, Like if anything,
it was like I was like doing like a what
was it called sabbatical when you go off and you
study something for years and come back and utilize what
you learned. You know, that was my my wrestling sabbatical.
I will take everything that I learned from that and
apply it to all the other spaces that are bringing
me joy.
Speaker 2: Wrapping up with you here, we're in the midst of those,
you know, going a nostalgia based wrestling podcast, trying to
go through hul Cogan's whole life and coole career, his
life and times. And we were Hulk maniacs, and you
were a whole maniac. You had the wrestling buddy, what
do you call him, balderin? I think it was, yeah,
beat the ship out of that thing, just like we
did the Hull Cogan wrestling buddy. And well, first of all,
what do you how you've been of all on screenwriting.
How do you summarize his legacy? You know, complicated guy,
the racism, all that stuff. Yet we want to celebrate
him upon his death for the in fact he had
in his childhood. How do you some of the best
summarize what it all came down to him, why he
was such a big deal.
Speaker 4: Oh, man, I think a lot of people forget that.
You can, you can love the art and not the artist.
And people are complicated. You know, if you're going to
find a perfect person to to like respect their art,
it's like there there's not gonna be much art out
there for you. There's a lot of exactly, there's a
lot of art is a form of expression, and sometimes
people are expressing things that aren't pleasant, and the point
is like what does it make you feel? And how
does it affect you? And how does it affect the medium?
Speaker 2: And you.
Speaker 4: You have to respect the work that he's done because
of how it has affected all of those after him,
and that he's lifted the tide that has lifted everyone
else's boats. And yeah, he might not have been the
perfect person, but a bunch of kids took their fucking
vitamins because of that.
Speaker 5: Guy needles in the ass, right, and.
Speaker 2: That was the bigger problem. Later, the problem is he
was selling the vitamins at the same time that he was.
I was coming up thing.
Speaker 4: He was like, take your vitamins, kits.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, absolutely actually showing on children's vitamins. There
was a Coken vitamin. H Yeah.
Speaker 4: He did a lot of positive things and he was
a very comcapers I mean, Vince McMahon man, piece of
shit human being. Pro wrestling is where it is today
because of him. It could have gone farther without him,
but it couldn't got this far with him. So it's
kind of like, ah, well, thank you.
Speaker 2: For your contribution. Having done pro wrestling at the highest level.
What did hulped do in that ring that stands out
to you? Presses you because he was word.
Speaker 4: Of advice he gave me was he's like, keep your
boots on the ground, kid, really wow, Yeah, which he was.
You know, he's basically telling me, like, don't go out
there and do a bunch of crazy ship because you
need to preserve your body. And I think he was
more of that, like, how do I tell a story
by doing as little physically as possible? And Brian Kendry
gave me a match between him and Undertaker to study
how he basically did nothing but to be able to
get Undertaker to be able to like take a knee,
you know what, I mean, to be knocked down for
the first time ever. That was he didn't have to
do like a crazy high spot for that. But I
also I was like, well, I respect that very much,
but I'm also not that person. I want to do
the cool athletic ship, become an athlete, and I want
to like push what is possible athletically in this because
that's something that I am really hugely into. I want
to come up with it a spot, what's a you know,
maneuver or whatever that hasn't been done before. That's that's
where my creativity lies. But he, I think, was story
above everything, and because he'd been doing that leg drop
and destroyed his back and all of that, he was,
I think, trying to to spare me from doing that
kind of damage to my body. But I was also like,
longevity ate my goal, man, That's not the idea. You
came in, you know, with plenty of dough too. So
that's so if I'm thinking about you tweeting good night
rowdy ones and your brodi marks without a life that
don't know what to work when you work or work
and you work yourself into shoot marks. Do you remember
that tweet he put out there? And why did you
why did you pay tribute to that legendary Holster tweet?
I mean it just really fit.
Speaker 2: What does it say to you? I think some people
that even know what the hell had means? What does
that sweet say to you?
Speaker 4: Oh God, I mean it's it's supposed to be like
like a lot of the pro wrestlers are working themselves,
and somebody was told me. It was like, I can't
really say who told me. He was so at the
end of the day, everybody doing this throw a bunch
of fucking nerds AND's. And it used to be that
there were a bunch of guys that were working the crowd,
conning them and now the people that were conned have
taken over and they're conning themselves. And so it was
basically like a nod at that that the inmates have
taken over the asylum and it's about you know, everybody
that's out there, well not everybody, but you know, the
tweet was saying, are they they've convinced themselves that this
is real and are taking it all way too seriously.
And this is supposed to be you know, fun and
games and you know, just whatever. We're supposed to be
working the crowd, and they end up working themselves. But
that's what happens when you spend more days on the
week in character than being yourself. So they know it's
a weird situation to be in. Like, so it's like
socially that everybody else is calling you by his fictional
name and talking to about in character and all of that,
and then only on Tuesday thirty, you know, like Monday Tuesday,
you're Ben. It's like it's kind of a mind fuck.
So yeah, I think it was just the culture. It
could could get pretty there. There's a mob mind fuck
going on sometimes.
Speaker 6: Yeah, man, it's I mean, when you when you when
you have to lie to you know, protect your job
for basically twenty four to seven, you know, you probably
lose you lose track of whether where the truth is
and what the truth is.
Speaker 4: But that's what I saw motherfuckers out there too, you know,
like there's just but yeah, I I'll never forget that. Uh.
Bray Wyatt told me that he'd been faking this. Actually
there's a reference to him saying this in this comic,
that he's faking that accent that like Louisiana character for
so long that he couldn't go back to how he
actually spoke before. And yeah, there's a reference in Happa
in here was like, yeah, talking about faking an accent
so long they forgot how he used to talk well,
and that's just even if you are solid, it kind
of takes you away. And I think that tweet was
just trying to like remind everybody that, you know, this
is fun in games and grab ass. Okay, Like I've
done real fights before. This is you know, we're playing
picture pages here and everyone's like, oh, dare you say
fake fights for fun this? Uh you don't, dare I.
I mean it's great, I appreciate it, but uh, Wilson
here has been punched in the face for a living.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're terrified. I've always felt that people in the
business are terrified of someone that actually can shoot, like
because there's like they can never get Even Hogan was
like this, he was mortified by people who could who
could maybe you know, pull a hold. He hadn't heard
of before.
Speaker 4: It was so funny, like shit would always only go
down the locker room. But I wasn't there, and I
brought this up to Hayman before, and he was like, well, yeah,
if there's a pit bull in the room, you're not
going to make any sudden movements when the pit bulls there. Well,
when the pit bull's gone, you're gonna start rough brousing
with your friends, but you ain't gonna fucking rough house
and the nibbles in there, Like oh okay. So that's
how I ended up being a peacekeeper, Like why am
I the chick profits up of violence for a living
suddenly the peacekeeper of the locker room.
Speaker 2: But they all behaved differently. When someone can pull their trumpet,
when someone's around that can pull their trump card, they
all start behaving differently. I guess psoless.
Speaker 4: It was pretty cool Bayau when I was there, but
I don't know how much I had to do with that.
Speaker 2: Such good stuff. Well, we really thank you run it
for the time. This was really cool insight into what
you were able to observe. You have a unique perspective
because you were a main inventor from day one, already
a huge star and draw and you were able to
observe these these wrestlers in their natural habitat. And that's
a great way with just a crystal clear visionari of
human behavior.
Speaker 5: I should say.
Speaker 6: I should say too, I just remember something because you're
mentioned coming in from day one? Is that uh back
in the like I think six months that my daughter
was a wrestling fan. She used to watch that Royal
Rumble where you came out at the end all the time,
like that was on repeat, and it was like, yeah,
like she.
Speaker 4: Was so slow, I like just had a baby. I
really love that. She loved that.
Speaker 6: She loved it. She absolutely loved it. It was always
it was always a favorite.
Speaker 4: So tell her, I think that little coal where my
heart should be.
Speaker 2: When you when you come out with the scowl, right,
it was hard to recreate the scowl and fake environment.
Speaker 4: No, it is more of like just being like focused.
That's how it started doing judo and coming focus focus
on what you're doing. Yeah, so not performing is basically
what I think of it as if I'm just being
myself and being focused, that's how I would be.
Speaker 2: But it's about focused, not about doing harm.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not that hard to look through your eyebrows.
I can do it right now. You know you can't
see this, but anyone listening, he's working a worker.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm I'm running away right now.
Speaker 2: I can't. I what do you? What do you think
about Kayla? Quickly? I mean, here she is with the
judo kind of heritage now winning the titles and racking
up the claudits and the and the awards. I don't
know what your history is with her, but what do
you think? We used to be roommates and Wakefield Mass right,
Jimmy Prows for years.
Speaker 4: Oh we got some stories.
Speaker 2: I mean, you can tell as many of them as
you want. I just wondered what you thought about.
Speaker 4: I think that she's doing great, and you know that.
I think being an Olympian it's just a different kind
of mentality and you train differently as an Olympian, you
perform differently under pressure. Is an Olympian, and so like
anything athletically that she does, I think she's going to
be hugely successful at that's cool.
Speaker 2: They haven't reached out to you about the White House,
have they. I know you've got you're not going to
fight again? That sounds like the kind of show.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, after Mike Tyson being the biggest
fight of the year. You never say never, but I
ain't the fuck my house.
Speaker 2: Tell us tell us why because.
Speaker 4: Because what finished that sentence?
Speaker 2: So no, I want you to. I want you to
tell me why you aren't going to do it if
you would, even if offered.
Speaker 4: Even if offered, Yeah, I got better ship to do.
My kid needs pasta.
Speaker 2: Bonda needs pasta to so we got to let her go.
But expect Expecting the Unexpected is the debut graphic novel
from Bonda Rousey, former titleist in U F C n
W B. You know, you know her, and she was
kind enough to take on Amazon Amazon. All those.
Speaker 4: Gets based on Amazon pre orders, So help me out there.
And if you think about it, if it if you're
in the collecting ship, if it doesn't do well, and
this is the only print they ever do, then it's
going to be worth a lot to get the comics.
And it does do well, then you'll get the first edition,
so you know, think of it as an investment in
your future.
Speaker 6: I always like getting my daughter, uh uh, you know,
female empowering comics, so it's definitely the list even Yeah,
I love it.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah, definitely big thumbs up and uh yeah
LAPS approved. Definitely the expecting the unexpected. Thanks to Rona
joining us. Thanks so much, Thanks so much.
Speaker 4: Bye guys.
Speaker 6: If there was a succeeding proceeding no place of production
of the LAPS Entertainment Group.
Speaker 5: Its content is intended for reven use only.
Speaker 2: Philips I say we wanted to se