Speaker 1: Aero dot net. It's more than just a podcast. It's
a choice of podcasts. In other words, it is a
podcast network of choices. I don't know about you, but
when it comes to listening to a podcast, I'm not
always in the mood for the latest news. I need
something that's going to be fun, you know, like foody Paradise,
cooking food, being with chefs I can relate with, or
people that just really like to do the right thing
when it comes to putting protein inside of you. Foody
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Enjoy your exploration. How are you doing today, sir?
Speaker 2: How you doing it?
Speaker 3: Friend?
Speaker 1: Fantastic, good man. I'll tell you.
Speaker 2: Any party animal? Yes, I was party as a party
animal last night, my friend.
Speaker 1: Well were you doing last Sunner party animal?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: I was working on some videos and I to have
a couple of cocktails on working on videos.
Speaker 2: They're making more creative.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I like working at night because there's no phone calls,
There no distraction. This is no emails that are popping up,
so you can just focus on creativity.
Speaker 1: That's so funny you say that, because my time in
the studio, I will arrive in here you're at five
to six o'clock in the morning, because you're right, you're
all by yourself and your imagination is wide open and
it wants to play like a child.
Speaker 3: Yes, so it seems like you're a creative person as well.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're creative.
Speaker 3: You just want to be distracted once you're in that size.
Don't distractions take you right out of that?
Speaker 2: They do?
Speaker 1: Don't you think it's an addiction. We've got to feed
that monster. I mean, if we're gonna make it to lunch,
we've got to have something that said I did something today.
Speaker 2: Well it's that. Yes, I also like creating things, So
what are my problems if I don't.
Speaker 3: I'm the laptop after midnight and say I'm longer just
found like a half an hour working on a package.
I actually know it's five o'clock in the morning. Yeah,
because once I saw it, I can't stop. So it
is an addiction in that way, but it's a it's
a fun addiction. It's an adrenaline rush you becase you're
creating something, you don't want to stop, and time just
flies back so quickly at that time of night.
Speaker 1: Well, you were onto something when you came up with
with backstage pass. I mean, it's tales from beyond the
squared circle. The very fact that you said squared circle,
you took me back to Billings, Montana, when Brett Hart
was just a punk ass little teenager and we were
all sitting there just calling him the greatest wrestler on
the planet.
Speaker 3: He was a great wrestler. I don't like, I have
a question for you. Why do we call it the
square circle?
Speaker 1: You know, I want to know that. I just figured
it was just wrestling's wrestling's way of saying that, you know,
this was our place, our signature, our brand, and nobody's
ever told me that. So I hope you've got an answer.
Speaker 2: I think I do.
Speaker 3: It's a hypothesis, it's a theory, but I never knew
until recently.
Speaker 2: I work for a real American freestyle right now with Eric.
Speaker 3: Bischoff, Yes, who is my direct boss and collaborator. I
say collaborator because he likes to think of that way.
He's my boss, but he likes to think that we
know we work together. He's very respectful and in the
Olympic freestyle wrestling, it is a circle.
Speaker 2: The wrestling and when you get pushed outside that circle.
Speaker 3: You get points for that, you know, you get points
for takedowns and body signs as well. But that circle
is in a square box that's around it, So that
really is a circle inside the score. That really is
a square circle. So I think that came into be
from like the original solid wrestling back, you know, going
back thousands of years, and I think about that time
I was looking at the set, I'm like, wow, that's
a circle within a square, you know, real American freestyle
in the circle and the stars and there's a square.
I guess that's where it's came from. Nobody knows, but
we say it all the time. Yeah, because a wrestling
ring is like a boxing ring. It's four sides, it's ropes.
You know, why is that a circle? Why think it's
square up like that? So I really think it came
from freestyle wrestling way back in the diocee.
Speaker 1: I always thought it was hardly raised because there was
one time Harley came to town and they didn't have
the entire ring there. So Harley said, we're gonna put
this squared circle on the floor, and they did and
that and so from that point forward, in my mind,
it was always the squared circle.
Speaker 2: But it was still a square. There's a circle and
that square was there?
Speaker 1: So true? That is so damn true. What is this
gonna be?
Speaker 3: Way?
Speaker 2: You might have been a portion that brought out to
pro wrestling. Maybe the term came from him, Oh when
you said that.
Speaker 1: Wow? And see now, I would be so afraid to
go to a chat GPT to put that in there
or ask Alexa because everything that they do is bent
on somebody else's story. So I'm going with your word,
and I'm going with your book because I mean, you
give us such an inst First of all, I want
to know how you got permission to even do this book,
because you you are letting us see the wizard behind
the curtain.
Speaker 3: I think it's because it happened decades ago, you know,
watch it C and ASF hop recently.
Speaker 2: But I'm not doing anything that's like giving Way company secrets, okay.
Speaker 3: And the publisher made sure that nothing I said in
there is litigious because the already gets sued as well.
Because when I first showed him my five semple chapters
before they get a contract for the book, he goes,
are you sure you want to do this? And I said, why.
He goes, well, you need burning some bridges. I said,
can I get sued? He goes, never want let me
get suited, not know, liligious here because we'll get sued too.
But you're burning some bridges that you won't go to
cross back again. And I said, I don't care, because
the bridges I'm burning, I don't want to cross back.
I don't want to go back to w B. I
don't want to ever be friends at the walk again.
Because he was jerked to me and my father towards
end there. You know, Hollywood got to him and it
was sad to see that because some people had no success.
Well others don't. But yeah, there's you know, most people
don't write books of production.
Speaker 2: I think actually nobody has.
Speaker 3: I think I'm the first one to be honest with
you because they are afraid of losing their jobs.
Speaker 2: Yes, but I'm not afraid to lose my jobs. I
have security with Eric.
Speaker 3: I had security at TNA when I was writing this
book a year ago. So I wasn't afraid to lose
my job. Because when you're.
Speaker 2: When you're good, and I think I'm gonna get it
what I did.
Speaker 3: That sound egotistical, but you know, you have a certain
sense of creative freedom and liberty that you can say
certain things as long as you're not giving away finishes
and secrets and proprietary things that you shouldn't be saying there.
Speaker 2: And none of that is a book. It's all after
the fact, not before the fact.
Speaker 1: See, and I've always looked at it as being wrestling
is a transparency with their fans. That that's one of
the reasons why so many people, including myself, are so
connected to pro wrestling, because you're not afraid to tell
me the truth. And with a book like this, I'm going,
this is exactly what I wanted when I would be
watching Nip Bockwinkle or if I'd be watching vern Ganya.
But I'm getting it now when I've got wrestlers, and
it's like, then, I'm going, do these people even know
the early stages? And you know what they do when
I sit down and talk to these modern day wrestlers,
for the love of God, David, they know the history
of this sport.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they have my pride and the wrestlers they really
care about about the genre, about the sport before I
call that, about the performance, and about.
Speaker 2: The history of it. They all know the history of it.
Speaker 3: But here's one thing that I learned in the book,
because it doesn't talk much about that, just talks about
moments behind the cameras, you know, when nobody's really watching.
Speaker 2: But every superstory legend.
Speaker 3: And this is odd, but it's not up when we
hear it, they all share the same common fear, and
that's the fear becoming irrelevance.
Speaker 2: Yep, it's the even nature of it.
Speaker 3: Even the biggest stars fear that one day they will
no longer matter. And that's why they're going to capture
that book too.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like how there are stars that get a spotlight
and they handle it really well. Others, like you know,
the Rocket Lake gets through his head and he just says,
you know, he becomes you know, typical classical Hollywood guy
where he's too big for everybody else, he's too good
for everybody else. And then those guys, I'd never change
the spotlight. They never get it, you know, a glimpse
of that, and some handle it well and some don't,
but they're all into their emotional human side. So the
book is that really tell humanity as well, not just wrestling,
just played out through the lens of wrestling and myself
as well too. I learned a lot about myself as
I was writing this book, how it changed how much
I put into the business and how much of a
business took academy, because it really does take a toll
on you, on everybody on every level, especially production, because
the athletes is with their bodies, but production, it's with
the eighty hours a week that you're working and the
mental and the creative drain that you get. And a
lot of people don't realize that, but it really is
taxing on your mind.
Speaker 1: Not so much you value I love your connection to
basically putting us behind the scenes because many of us
that are in the radio industry, because every every town
has their own little wrestling community. And here's the thing.
Even even though Rick fl It has gone on to
big national and global fame, he still came into my
studio to produce commercials. And to this day I have
those sessions and it's like, but to sit down with
these wrestlers to see them as real fricking people. They're
fresh off the road. They were in their cars, they
were coming in to drop a track for for just
something that was very small, but it doesn't matter. It
was them in their real, honest to God and that
And that's that's what I love about your book, Backstage Past.
It is so authentic to those of us who love
the sport.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I'm authentic too, and I want to keep
it authentic. Is important thing to keep it authentic. Yeah,
you know, put hyping there, But just the reality of
the things I experienced that when we weren't on TV,
you know, that was not you know, tell lies that
fans and never saw in the reality of it was so compelling.
It was just amazing. It's like sometimes the stories behind
the scenes are more more fun and interests, and there's
nothing about wrestling in the production world and had the
actual wrestles themselves. It's one of the most political environments
I've ever worked in. And I've worked at NBC and
working at Real American Freestyle right now, and Real American
Freestyle is such a breath fresh hair. It's all these
athletes work with each other. Nobody's vying for somebody's spot.
They're trying to compete and beat them professionally to get
that spot, to get that RIF title or whatever.
Speaker 2: But when they're not competing, they're helping each other.
Speaker 3: It's such an authentic bleed of athlete and it's the
first company I've been in there where there's zero politics whatsoever.
Speaker 2: NBC had them, but there's nothing here in RIF.
Speaker 3: And it's like, this is to be true, but it
is true at least seven months and it's true. And
I think it's going to say that when a great
foundation for people who really care. We all feel as
over like a family in this together because we started something.
Speaker 2: That nobody thought would work and now did it work.
Speaker 3: But we're setting like record numbers right now for a
promotion that's only six months old.
Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with David Sahati coming
up next. The name of the book Backstage Pass Tales
from Beyond the Squared Circle with author and sports fanatic
David Sahati. Do you think I ain't that mean? Jean
Oakland and Tony Schiavanni, they were trying their absolute best
to give us that backstage action, but as the sport
continued to grow into the decades, it's like, no, it
needed to be more than just something that was set up.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's something about mean Gene.
Speaker 3: I liked because he's believable and he's a salesman and
I love the mean gene days. Yeah, I think it
was great when we went behind the curtains for the
first time, Jim the attachear because it was real, like
there were times when we hadn't fight that would be
happened backstage. And also it's going a cater and you'd
see baby faces, you know, sitting next to.
Speaker 2: Heels or whatever, and they didn't know what the hell
was going on. A lot of people don't know what
the hell was going on because K favoring a lot
of it.
Speaker 3: So I thought would beginning the attitude or in the
attear itself was fascinating because we were pushing beyond boundaries
and personally, I have an interesting thing. I was, you know,
inspired by both the man I was working for, Vince McMahon.
Speaker 2: He taught me everything's about emotion.
Speaker 3: And also my competitor, Eric Bischoff, I work with right
now because we're trying to beat him, and Vince hated Eric.
He wanted Abody in Troubles to hate Eric. Wwe you
want all the rest to hate Eric Bischoff and they
did because he was beating our asses at one point,
you know, for eighty three weeks, not eight three consecutive,
but eighty three weeks.
Speaker 2: And I didn't hate that Eric.
Speaker 3: I actually respected the guy. I'm like, damn, I wish
we were doing that stuff because he was a erent
before we were. In a lot of ways, you can
say he started the Attitude Era, not WWE. And actually
here's the story for you.
Speaker 2: It's in the book.
Speaker 3: There is no real person who started Attitude Era. It
wasn't like a plan, let's go this direction, let's do this,
and it's all with the.
Speaker 2: Spot that I did. And you might remember the spot
just by the opening lines.
Speaker 3: It goes, I know what you're thinking, I'm not really Natalte,
I'm just the wrestler.
Speaker 2: Well I did this, I did that, blah blah blah.
And I just tagged that spot with the word attitude
at the bottom of it. That's all.
Speaker 3: We're losing one and at Wars this time and that
world resonated with everybody attitude. It wasn't the Attitude Era.
I just put that word there, and it became the
Editude Era. Because production is cutting edge your packages, we
get the rights use commercial music like the Biscuit. The
creative team started running edge or storylines and then every
week we're just pushing you know, one another inside W
and pushing the companies of pushing each other too. So
it's a real legitimate war that was going on back then.
I think what happened once WCW got killed off is
that we kind of started to lose our edge because
we didn't have a competitor, so they have to try
so hard, and I loved trying hard. It's just like
to me, there was a time about a year after
where it became funt and pacete television.
Speaker 2: We were longly doing that, like you know, Shock TV.
Speaker 3: There was a moment for a wow that I've never
seen that before, and I think the lack of competition
during that time kind of hurt the product. And that's
where we started use interest in that because we were
also becoming PG since we were in corporate.
Speaker 2: And I love the edgy stuff, and when they were.
Speaker 3: Raining back my create motion, I can't, like, you know,
push things there and say all right, it's just like
I felt like I was back at NBC again, where
you see one of everything done in conservative and everything
did in Vanilla.
Speaker 2: And I'm sorry that I don't like Vanilla.
Speaker 3: Nothing wrong with it. But if I meet Vanilla, gon
be giving you a chocolate swirled vanilla. But I like flavors,
I like color, I like things that are spicy. I
don't like vanilla. And it sort of comes sanitized and
cleansed and like everything we were not during the Attitude there,
and that's what it became. And it's almost the point
where couldn't watch anymore. And actually I don't watch it
that much anymore. WWE that is, I like some of
the smaller promotions because when you're part of a.
Speaker 2: Legitimate revolution, when you're losing your butts.
Speaker 3: Of WCW and you start the app, you like to
fuse the Attitude era and the one that war was
beginning me and it's like that's a real pivotal time
when the entire industry changed, when the genre changed, how
you presented the characters, how do you do a television?
Everything changed, and we became number one on us and
them for ten years. There was a point, Rick said
a meeting last week at Real American Freestyle.
Speaker 2: Where we were a threat to money in a football.
Think about that on Monday nights.
Speaker 3: Combined, I think WCW and WWE, we're getting a better
rating than when that football was And that just tells
you how popular we were back then. When we were
red hot and losing that edge, we lost our competition.
I think really hurt the product for a while. Now
it's great. Now it's back, and now it's all glossy,
but you know, that edge is gone. I think even
today it looks great. It's great presentation, don't get me wrong,
but while it is, I think a million dollar budget
just produce that show every single week. And I'm just
talking about the production values, not the talent. But gee,
here's it interestingly for you, do you know what it's
called raw?
Speaker 1: I just assumed it was raw because we wanted to
see things live. We were addicted to live. We got
Monday night football live. So therefore, if it was going
to be raw, it was going to give us that
edge where you know, we were going to get hard
hits in football, but not like professional wrestling. It was raw.
It was gonna hit hard.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: I did the promotions for that. So those are the
words you said you brought into my promotions. But the
real reason is this.
Speaker 2: They had a.
Speaker 3: Sunday night show on for two hours on whatever network
around think as you was a network and they're getting
rid of that Sunday night show.
Speaker 2: It's like a live talk show or something. And raw
was a youth missum for low budgets. They couldn't afford
to do a live show really well, so we stripped down.
Speaker 3: You didn't have the entrances that you had on Superstars
at the time that was on the show or or challenge.
Speaker 2: It was just stripped down. It was raw.
Speaker 3: There were no special lighting effects, there was no great
entrances except the Undertaker.
Speaker 2: It was just raw. It was just wrestling.
Speaker 3: If you go back and look at the early year
in the Manhattan Center, there's no like lighting cues, there's
no pilot, there's nothing, just to come up a little
hallway with like, you know, the world raw around it,
not even neon lights or early DS.
Speaker 2: Yes, it was. It was a low budget.
Speaker 3: It was a youth mism for we're doing the show
cheap because we can't afford to do it right, and.
Speaker 2: So we spun it that way. It's like raw. I
think one of those lines I had that I think
I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 3: Was Marchman saying, it's raw, it's unedited on it's raw,
it's unedited on something uncooked and they're like uncooked.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's raw.
Speaker 3: So we were putting spin on it that you know,
this kura in your face, but it's just like a
high looking show like it is today.
Speaker 1: I got to tell you, I totally and I and
I apologize for this, but I totally swiped that idea
from one of my podcasts, unplugged and totally uncut, because
that's what I was trying to create, was that raw
effect that I could screw up. I could sit there
and I could give people that that that feeling of
oh my god, this must be what it's really like
to be in an interview. Yeah it's unplugged and totally uncut,
and you know darn good and well that's bullshit because
I I edit everything. But but I but I don't
want my listeners to know that.
Speaker 2: Though, But you better cut this pot out.
Speaker 1: I will. I'll put something in there.
Speaker 3: Shots that I do as well too. You know, you
have a lot of takes there, and you have some
takes that stings. So I do writing as well. Except
when you direct a lot to the then you are
live and when you call a camera and it's not
the camera, it's like the whole world sees.
Speaker 2: That you missed a spot, but you missed a shot.
So that happened early in my career, didn't happen later
in my career.
Speaker 3: But that's how you're learned. You learned by the mistakes. Wow,
and then you make those mistakes anymore.
Speaker 1: Well, you got to tell me who t TK is
because I don't want to assume. I mean, I mean,
I just I just because you dedicate the book. And
I'm one of those people. I'm a sucker for dedications
because I want to know who, what, where, why, when
and how? And man, let's give them the kudos they
deserve because they're in the book.
Speaker 2: Well, the dedications to my father. My father author authored
thirty one books, and uh, yeah, you didn't get me
a little sentimental right now, And I wrote five. I
won't say authored. My dad always had to say that
he authored thirty one books.
Speaker 3: They also published magazines like Pro Wrestling Illustrated, Pro Wrestling Scene,
Boxing Scene, Pro Football Scene. But you don't the thirty
one books. And you know, he was my best friend,
of my mentor. I loved them more than anybody in life.
Speaker 2: And it's tough to see him pass.
Speaker 3: And I was there for the last few months of
his life, and he died in my arms with my
sister you know there like that side.
Speaker 2: And it was just so sad. But yeah, give me
a con sid clogsent on. I do, but sure you
want me to cry. Uh So, It's like there are
two things he wanted.
Speaker 3: He wanted me to get one of my books officially published,
you know, and I finally did. And he wanted me
to get back into real sports, and I am with
a little American freestyle and I did write Popoline and
the book is dead. Kid Dune the greatest mayor ever lived,
in my opinion, the greatest father one could have.
Speaker 2: But he just couldn't make it long.
Speaker 3: Enough to see it happened to see suddenly have his
first book published, and his very personal for me for
that reason, more sudden than be a person inside stories.
Speaker 2: You know that you know Dad, yet I know you're.
Speaker 1: Proud of God. You could do an entire book just
on that man. And if you if you go to
Netflix or Hulu with his entire project Backstage Past, you've
got to do a story, one two hour episode on
just your dad, because there's a lot of us out
here that want to have that vibration that you had
and still they.
Speaker 2: Were talking about wrestling. Thank you, go ahead.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, but you've got we've got to do
a story on you, because obviously you're one of the
story makers as well, and that you are, I would
love to see your life behind scenes.
Speaker 3: Well, my life was inspired by my father. And my
father was a rock star. And I realize at the
time I'm growing up by his son. But I went
to like thirty Super Bowls with him, and everywhere he
went people would know him, you know, the the executives,
the players, I met so many celemnities.
Speaker 2: For to me, that was like normal life. But my
dad was a rock star. I mean, offering thirty.
Speaker 3: One books, publishing book the magazines for thirty years, four
different magazines a month, and writing five or six articles
in each of those magazines.
Speaker 2: I mean, he worked his butt off for his kids, and.
Speaker 3: That's the reason why he didn't like do excess on himself.
He was sitting for children.
Speaker 1: Wow and man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But to me it was just my dad.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize until I wrote my first book, which
I still published.
Speaker 2: My dad my dying son.
Speaker 3: So about the sue and what a start he was
and he was humble, and I carried myself that way
throughout my career as well. I think we had the
time cues up or something.
Speaker 1: Wow, man, I'll tell you what. We got to get
back together again, and let's talk. And I want to
please man, because I love where your heart is and
the world needs to know more about you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the world things well, good people like you as well,
and kindness is free sprinkled shit everywhere.
Speaker 2: Let's talk against a longer time. I'd love to anytime
you want to talk to you, that'd be great. Okay.
Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today?
Speaker 2: Okay, sir, I will, and you have a wonderful, blessed day.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you,