The episode features an interview with former WWE star Enzo Amore, now known as Real One, discussing his career, his time in the WWE, and his current wrestling promotion, Fourth Rope. He talks about his unique style and personality that made him a fan favorite, his controversial departure from the WWE, and his new music career. He also discusses the upcoming Halloween event at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey, where he will be wrestling against a former WWE legend. [Automatically generated summary]
LSAWF Well, you may or may not remember those days from the WWE.
It's hard to believe that that was 10 years ago.
It probably feels different to you since you lived it.
You were in the ring.
One of the greatest hype mans in recent WWE history, former WWE superstar Enzo Omare.
You just saw him in the room there with his former partner, Big Cass.
So I think you guys may have had a reunion recently.
We can get all caught up on that.
So here's the story.
Here's a little background for the audience joining us right now.
In my opinion, Enzo, when you guys were doing this stuff, it was kind of like the last great original age of the WWE.
They kind of brought back the rock and these new guys to try to bring back some of that nostalgia.
But ever since they went PC and tried to get on network cable, things went south and personalities like you were kind of disappearing from the stage that were a little bit edgy.
But the story is you were one of the up-and-comers in WWE.
I ran into you at an airport.
It was probably like 5 a.m.
This was 2016, 5 a.m.
Austin Airport, and you're sitting across this breakfast bar and you ordered a yogurt parfait.
I'm sorry to do this.
It's just true.
You ordered a yogurt parfait and I knew who you were.
And I go, yogurt parfait.
And you kind of look up and I go, that's awfully soft.
And you didn't really, we were both like, you know, bloodshot eyes, like barely even awake.
And you kind of looked at me like, is this, is this guy talking shit at the airport at 5 a.m.
And I was like, and I was like, no, you know, S-A-W-F-T soft.
And then you were like, oh, oh, it's the WWE gag.
And we just had a bit of a gag over that.
But you were very nice.
You were very personal.
We were sitting there at 5 a.m. in the morning, barely even awake of having a laugh about that.
But anyway, so I saw that you followed me.
I reached out.
I said, hey, I want to get you on the show and introduce you to my audience, learn a little bit more about you.
People that follow WWE back there will definitely remember when that was one of the funnest.
That was one of the funnest things on the ticket was when you would go into the ring and do the hype man thing and get the crowd all fired up.
So basically, I got back into swinging things here with pro wrestling, but what you alluded to was a time in pro wrestling where, you know, to be honest with you, man, I got into the business.
And when I got into the business, I never wrestled before the WWE.
I just, I played college football.
Triple H, who's, you know, the guy who runs the show to this day now, with Vince stepping down, his son-in-law, Stephanie McMahon's husband, and more notably, a 15-time world champion.
He knows the business.
And the business is in good hands, if you ask me.
But to that point, I never wrestled before.
I get into the business, and I felt like I was what it was lacking.
So when I got into it, I thought the show was fucking boring.
I thought the wrestlers were boring me to death.
And I loved pro wrestling when I was a kid growing up.
And, you know, me and Big Cass, that's who you saw in that.
I mean, it's funny, people pull that video up anytime.
And that's probably a good thing.
You know what I'm saying?
But I haven't seen it in a while, man.
But that big guy right there, I owe him a lot.
I couldn't have done it without him.
We were a tag team, Enzo and Cass.
And, you know, he was seven feet tall, which made it really easy for me to talk shit with this guy standing behind me, dude.
I was going to leave it up to you because I saw some of the rumors.
And I know how stuff, I know some of the stuff behind the scenes, not like the people that have actually been there.
Some of it gets out.
And now that a bunch of these former wrestlers have podcasts, you get a little bit more of the behind the scenes stuff.
It gives a little bit more transparency.
And it seems like your story might not be a totally unique one.
And yet it seems to happen all the time.
No matter how much talent and how much upside you have to your character and your performances, it's like one thing goes wrong and they just totally cut you out.
Yeah, yeah, no, that's how it went down back in the day.
But, you know, dude, it's a different time now than it was back then.
And I was at the height of that shit, dude.
I mean, you're talking about a tweet.
I never got a phone call from police.
I never got a fucking, you know, nothing, dude.
I just, you know, at the time, you know, I can understand why I had to go at that time because what are you going to do when you go out there and the fans are chanting and shit?
And, you know, I was a heel.
I was a bad guy.
And I had the title.
I was the cruiserweight champion.
We were in the main event with the cruiserweight title.
And dude, it was crazy.
And my family had to go through a whole lot of bullshit.
And, you know, I got, like I said, unceremoniously shit canned.
But, bro, honestly, the biggest blessing at the time, a curse, because it's a blessing and a curse when you go through something and you persevere through it and you say, I'm not apologizing either.
So that was the thing.
Look, I got a fucking cues of something online that never took any, any, any, any of my time in a courtroom.
No phone calls with fucking cops.
No, nothing.
It was just a tweet.
Some bitch said some crazy shit and she ended up in rehab.
And I probably wouldn't wouldn't doubt if she fucking was dead.
So, I mean, she was a drug addict, fucking loser.
And then we put our credibility in that person when at the time, you know, you get to know me.
You see me on TV every week.
You know, I work with children.
I'm in and out of children's hospitals.
We do make a wish.
We do a lot of great things.
And honestly, at that time, in the WWE, bro, they don't let it at that PG era, they don't let shit slip through the cracks.
You don't get to the top of an industry unless you belong there, really, you know?
So, yeah, it sucked for me and my family.
But at the end of the day, bro, I persevered through it.
I launched myself into music with a song called Phoenix that addressed this shit.
It was the only time I really ever addressed it.
I was like, here, I'm not apologizing.
I made a song where I'm like, the fucking, you know, basically airing out the bullshit and taking shots at the people who would have the nerve to believe the bullshit.
So it launched me into music.
I got millions of streams from the song.
And to this day, I made a song called Grace that touched a lot of people's lives.
If you're a Catholic, you know, it would really speak to you.
Anybody who believes in, you know, Jesus.
So, you know, I was raised in a church and by a good family.
And luckily, my family helped me through that process when I, you know, the only place I ever wanted to go and wrestle was the WWE.
So once you get there, and then all of a sudden that shit gets taken away from you.
You're like, what do I do now?
Like, what's next?
And for a long time there, there was nowhere for me to go.
WWE had a monopoly on the industry.
So where the fuck am I going to go wrestle, right?
So there was nowhere to go.
So luckily, I got into music and it provided me some opportunities.
But now the WWE has a trickle-down effect because the business is booming.
WrestleMania is still the biggest dance in the business, but now you see other promotions coming into the fray, right?
When I got fired, there was nowhere to go.
Now there's an AEW.
TNA blows up.
So there's places to go.
Tony Khan, you know, son of the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, has a company now with Ted Turner that's on TNT called AEW.
That sounds like the Hardy Boys right now are breaking a bunch of these walls for guys that are trying to make a name for themselves, guys that are trying to get in a ring anywhere they can.
And there's been all these different barriers.
Sounds like the Hardy Boys are carrying a lot of the weight for some guys that are trying to get recognition right now.
You know, Jeff's another guy who fought through adversity in his career, persevered.
His brother Matt has children and a wife, and they're legends in this business.
So they get respect and different strokes for different folks.
You know, different people are going to get treated differently.
You know, I've yet to make a return to television, but I did represent Forth Rope with my title on their biggest pay-per-view for TNA called Slamiversary.
So I showed up in a WWE galaxy, so to say, Smack Talker Skywalker from a galaxy far, far away showed back up and got much love.
That's a more, man.
I couldn't tell you how gracious I was when I came out and I said, my name is, and I held the microphone out and everybody said Enzo Amore because I don't fucking own that name, bro.
So it was funny.
It was cool.
And it was a blessing.
We went out there.
We won our match.
We represented Forth Rope, the company I work for.
And now, Forth Rope, we are taking over Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, New Jersey, shutting down the theme park from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., curating it with Westside Gun Music, Haunted Houses, Fright Fest, and having a wrestling show from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the Batman action arena, right?
So in Gotham City, a costume contest for a Halloween costume contest.
We got a bus driving fans, two buses from New York City taking people down.
We're doing a huge show.
It seats 4,000 people.
We've already sold 1,000 tickets, and there's going to be a big walk up and people that want to go.
Hardy Boys are doing a meet and greet.
I'm doing a meet and greet.
Zillafa 2, our heavyweight champions, doing a meet and greet.
And for the first time outside of the WWE, Braun Strowman, former WWE champion, is going to make his appearance for the first time outside of the WWE.
He'll be doing a meet and greet.
That's a major announcement made right here on Owen Schroeder.
So I'm really excited to have my buddy in town, have him at the wrestling show.
He belongs in the business.
He belongs around it.
And, you know, he was also, you know, released by the WWE not that long ago, but, you know, he made millions in this business and did well for himself.
So I know that he's doing well.
And he has a television show called Everything on the Menu that he's actually doing as Braun Strowman that comes out October 24th on USA Network.
So it's kind of fucking weird where he's in this world where he's a WWE character on USA Network with a show called Everything on the Menu, where he literally walks into a restaurant and he orders everything on the menu and eats it all.
And I've seen the guy do this shit.
It's unbelievable.
I mean, these superhumans that I fucking work with, dude, you know, 400-pound men that can lift a fucking, you know, a shit brick house.
And he literally sits down in a restaurant, orders everything on the menu and eats it.
So that comes out October 24th.
And to parlay that with his first ever WWE non-WWE appearance at our show, we're excited to have him.
At fourth rope, I work as a producer.
So I'm blessed to be able to write a television show, take the knowledge I gained in the WWE.
He's a fucking freak athlete, and I hope to get to see him in a ring one day.
Hopefully one of our rings, a fourth rope ring.
He's there scheduled to do a meet and greet, but I just need him around the boys because he has a wealth of knowledge also.
You know, we got some young guys that are coming up that he could be, you know, helping out.
And, you know, wrestling is a business where you only get better as you get older.
And you see the best get John Cena, right?
He didn't hit his stride to become the best until his mid to late 30s.
You know what I'm saying?
And now he's like 50 years old.
He's having his last run.
He's going out on top.
It's a business where when you're in the ring and you first start, they just tell you, slow down, slow down, slow down.
And you don't realize what that even fucking means until you get out there with a veteran who can go.
Like I was out there in the ring with all these guys in NXT.
We were producing our matches, memorizing these spots and doing all this shit.
And the first time I get into a ring with the Dudley boys, you know, I walk up to Bubble Ray Dudley and I'm like, before our match, I'm like, what do you want to do?
And he's like, I'll see you out there.
It's like, oh, what?
You know, like, okay.
We get out to the ring.
I'm in the ring and Bubble goes and grabs a sign.
And me and Cass are white hot and there's kids wearing my wig and they're wearing our t-shirt.
He rolls out of the ring, ding, ding, ding, and I'm standing in the ring.
Like, what the fuck is going on?
Like, what's he doing?
He walks to the floor.
He grabs a sign that a kid had said Enzo and he rips it.
I'm like, oh, shit.
Then he grabs another sign that says Enzo.
And he's standing there holding it, but he's by the ring.
And his partner, D-Von, looks at me and goes, grab the sign and give it back to the kid, you fucking idiot.
I'm like, oh, I fucking grabbed the sign and I give it to the kid in the front row that he took it from the second time.
And the place goes apeshit buck wild.
We haven't touched each other for five fucking minutes.
And it's such an interesting story for people that don't understand a little bit of the context when you were probably, I mean, you could argue the most popular promoter in the WWE at that time, because you had a lot of the big guys that were still having the big draws, right?
They were still at the top of the ticket.
You still had Mark Henry, Sheamus, you know, John Cena, Ryback.
Like you still had the big guys that people wanted to go see beat each other up, but nobody got the crowd hype like Enzo.
Especially if you're fucking talking like I was talking, you know what I mean?
Because, you know, I'm not the rock.
I'm not built like him.
He could get away with talking shit and then taking everything in the ring.
But, bro, if I'm fucking talking that shit in the ring, I got to give it back when I get in the ring.
So I got to make the guy, you know, I got to take the receipt, right?
And I had the easiest story of all time to tell to a point where, to your point, like bloodshot eyes in the airport, me and Big Cass ripped America a new asshole.
We fucking hit every city for the first time, went and hit every bar, met all the women, got all the free drinks, and we were the most popular act in the company that you alluded to.
We were the number one merchandise sellers as rookies, right?
And nobody can tell you how to handle that.
People don't understand what fame is until you're on TV every week, and then you walk outside, and you're not ready for it.
You're a kid, and you're coming up in this business, and you're famous overnight.
Because me and Cass, we went viral before viral was the thing on our debut.
And that changed our lives, and we had more fucking fun than anyone.
So fuck whatever you heard, like, you only live once, and you're only famous for the first time once.
And nobody had more fun than Enzo and Cass.
To our detriment later in life, but we ended up getting our shit together, the both of us.
Nonetheless, we were having a blast, and it's an easy story to tell.
We're a tag team.
He's the big dog, and I'm the little dog that barks.
You've seen the cartoon.
That's what we were, right?
I get my ass kicked, and the only thing I got to do is tag that guy in.
We opened every single WWE show, which also provides you the opportunity, like I said, to go rip the bar a new asshole every night.
Because, you know, I could have done that job standing on my fucking head, you know?
It's not like being in the main event where I would watch Roman Reigns and AJ Styles at the time going through fucking tables, going 25 minutes wrestling.
It was like Enzo and Cash came out with the mic.
We wrestled for 10 to 15 minutes.
Whoever we were in the ring with was usually a veteran who was fucking great at their job, let us through it.
And we just got backstage and started getting drunk, dude, and having a blast and meeting more.
You know what I'm saying?
It was a good fucking time.
And I'll never apologize for it.
You know, you only live once.
You only learn.
And in my life, I had to play with fire to get burned.
The toughest thing that I ever had to do and the highest compliment that I could ever get paid was my mentor was Dusty Rhodes.
As for everybody in NXT, he was the godfather of NXT.
You know, at a time when Triple H started the promotion and was off on the road and was still wrestling some and booking and producing, doing all that shit.
Dusty Rhodes was with us every day.
In Tampa, and then we went to Orlando, we created the WWE Performance Center.
So the highest compliment that you could get was, you know, I would cut a promo back then, and, you know, we'd have promo class every week, which was like acting class.
You go up there, you got 30 seconds, 90 seconds, go cut a promo on your opponent.
And we're all sitting there, we're all doing it.
And, you know, Dusty Rhodes would look at me when I was done cutting a promo.
And oftentimes, and I don't know how many other people he said it to, because I'm not going to pretend that I was the only one, but I don't know that anybody else.
But he used to go, that was some John Wayne shit.
So I'd get fucking done talking shit.
unidentified
I will sell it.
I am not.
But he was 10 men are the Geth, do you are the champion?
And Dusty Rhodes would be like, that was some John Wayne shit.
Sit down.
And I would just, that was it.
I got no, I got no critique, no feedback.
What should I change?
What should I do?
There was always times where it was, shut the fuck up.
You said too much.
But the John Wayne shit was the highest compliment I could get paid.
And to that point, I owe Dusty Rhodes my career because he was the one who put a microphone in my hand and threw me out there on TV to get killed.
And on the same night that that happened, John Cena was in the house in NXT and he was there the night I debuted.
And it just so happened that when he was there, it was to draw the house.
We're brand new promotion, NXT.
John Cena is going to be out there.
We don't tell you he's not coming out until the fucking fourth show is done filming.
You know, we keep everybody in the crowd thinking that John Cena's coming out, but we save him for the main event, right?
The dark segment, as we would call it, after it goes off air.
And John Cena came up to me the night I debuted.
Dusty Rhodes sent me out there with a microphone.
I said, bada boom, realest guy in a room.
And John Cena apparently was backstage.
He repeated it.
And then he came up to me when I came backstage and he's like, hey, man, I've been watching this show for three hours.
You're the only thing that's caught my attention.
Would you like to come to the ring with me and cut a promo when the show's over?
And I said to him at that moment, that guy's my tag team partner.
Can he come with me?
That was a lie.
Big Cass was not my tag team partner, right?
Next thing you know, we're in Gorilla where you go out through the curtain and Triple H and our coach at the time built the model, like, what the fuck are you guys doing here?
And John Cena's like, I asked them to come out with me.
Next thing you know, I'm in the ring with John Cena at NXT in a small audience in Orlando that comes to every NXT show.
And me and Cass were out there and I said, you know, this guy's seven feet tall and you can't teach that.
And I said, you know, this guy's, you know, how many dimples are there on a golf ball?
You don't know there's 168 dipples on a golf ball.
And John Cena was like, what the fuck did you just say?
And I was like, he's soft.
And John Cena went, he's soft.
Next thing you know, John Cena gives you that blessing.
He repeats that catchphrase, soft, lightning in a bottle.
My whole life changed that night thanks to John fucking Cena.
He gave me and Cass what we call in the business the rub, where, you know, you're standing next to him.
You look good.
So the next time we go out there, Ryback, who was feuding with John Cena, was the next dark segment.
And about 10 minutes before that show, the whole crowd's chanting soft.
And we're backstage and we're not booked on the show.
Even though we just did a thing with John Cena like two weeks ago.
Now the whole crowd is chanting soft.
They expecting to see us.
They come tap us on the shoulder like, get in your shit and get out there.
Ryback's gimmick at the time was feed me more.
So we just rattled shit off on the buffet line at Golden Corral.
I was like, hey, ladies, you like meatheads?
You got a real cheap date in the ring.
All you got to do is take them to Golden Corral.
Hey, Cass, what are we having?
And Cass just said everything on the fucking menu from Golden Corral.
And in between, I went, how you doing?
How you doing?
Hey, don't.
Hey, don't.
And as I'm saying it, the crowd starts coming with us.
How you doing?
How you doing?
Now, in two times, we've never been on TV yet.
I've been killed on one episode.
They've never seen Big Cass before until he came out there with Cena.
And now we're out there with Ryback.
So we did soft and how you doing?
And those two catchphrases caught fire in the NXT crowd.
So if you don't understand, we shoot a TV program at NXT.
That crowd has the ability to get something off to the world, right?
To the masses.
And they're at the time showing our show NXT in the UK on TV.
When we showed up with NXT to the first time to the UK, we were fucking stars and we had no idea.
And we sold out the O2 Arena.
We were selling out everywhere we went in Europe.
And every word that came out of my mouth, I'd say, my name is hold the microphone up.
They said every fucking word of our catchphrases.
And we owed it to that crowd in Orlando because they're the ones who are repeating our catchphrases every time we come out to a point now where you think we're fucking stars.
Unbeknownst to you, we're making like $750 a week.
And I'm fucking, you know, wearing, you know, fucking fake Jordans and shit.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like crazy how the shit just took off.
But credit to everybody who was involved there.
We were a part of a very special time.
Timing is everything in my career.
And my timing is on again right now.
It's my time and it's at fourth rope.
The new company I work for, we're not corporate and we got love.
We got AEW talent.
We have TNA talent and the NXT Tag Team Champions on our show.
So it's very unique.
It's very different.
And we opened the show with rap first 10 minutes as a new artist spotlight.
And then the last show that we did, we had Bun B and Jadakiss, Styles P. The Lock.
So we had, you know, Killer Mike in the front row at our show in Atlanta.
We're getting the celebrities out.
And it's not that fucking plaquemouth pro wrestling fan who's talking shit on the internet.
It's like the average person who likes hip-hop and watches WWE and flip it through the channels that know who the Hardy Boys are, that maybe know who Enzo and Cass were, that come to see us.
So we're spoon feeding audiences entertainment and we give them that high, you know, velocity pro wrestling in a mix on the card.
But fourth rope is more WWE than it is AEW, you know, more than it is that new Japan flavor, that TNA flavor where it lacks storytelling, if you ask me.
You know, this business was built on storytelling.
In the 90s, it was him and Brett Hart that had that long, outstanding rivalry.
And it was, you know, Brett was a bigger guy.
Michael's obviously a big guy and an athlete too, but it was like the first time where the WWE felt like, hey, we can market these athletic guys as the main events now.
We don't have to have a six foot seven massive 300 pound man.
If we have Sean Michaels and Bret Hart selling out arenas, mainlining events, and they're out there, strong technicians, Brett Hart known as one of the best technicians.
Sean Michaels, one of the best athletes.
It was like it opened up an entire, an entire new world for a guy to come in here like yourself.
You say, hey, I was a football player.
I'm a great athlete.
I can get in there and fly around.
And they say, okay.
And of course, but I am curious.
So you were into wrestling.
Did they bring you in because you're an athlete or did they know that you had promotional capabilities?
Because I mean, that was the, I mean, you did that as good as anybody.
So I was managing Hooters and I'm working out at this gym and I make this video that goes viral.
And then I have this video of me talking shit about the Jersey Shore people.
Like after that video goes viral, I put another video up on YouTube of me working out and then like lifting weights.
And at the time, I could do a 56-inch box jump, which I could dunk a basketball, but that was like my, that was like my trick in the gym.
Like watch me jump, you know, 56 inches onto a box.
And that was enough for them to say, okay, this guy's an athlete and he can talk shit.
And the guy who was training me at the time, Joe DeFranco, who started training Triple H, showed him the video and he gave me a tryout.
When I had my tryout, I cut my promo.
Dusty Rhodes was there.
He heard my promo and Dusty Rhodes pulled me in a room and he said, you could be good, you could be bad, or you could be different and you're fucking different.
So that was the, bro, I never stopped dancing with the girl that bought me to the dance, bro.
I was just different, right?
Started wearing the sneakers, the leopard print, dying shit in my hair.
You know, I had to do anything I could to stand out because I never wrestled before.
And I was never going to get the respect of the wrestlers in the ring.
So I had to let them beat the shit out of me.
And it was a part of the coming of age of a pro wrestler.
It's like, it's, it's paying your dues.
So I never won.
I always lost.
I got my ass kicked.
I didn't get paid a lot of money, but fuck did I have fun, you know?
You knew your role, but you always had a big mouth.
But it was actually kind of the perfect dynamic, I think, for that time, like I was saying, because they were always headlining events with the big guys, right?
The big guys, the 300-pounders, the six-foot-fivers, but you, they'd start the show with you, the guy who could come out there, get the crowd fired up, get everybody on their feet, have everybody screaming.
And then, you know, the big guy tosses you around like a rag doll.
And it's kind of funny, you know, you hang around.
In this business, we have psychologies to what it is that we do.
And if you're a babyface, a good guy, and you're a heel, the bad guy, the babyface is the better wrestler.
The babyface wild, smart the heel, and the heel has to use bad guy tactics, you know, get the referee to in between you and, you know, low blow a guy or, you know, get into the ropes and then go cheat to take the hold or pull the tights to win.
We've all seen that bullshit.
If you've watched wrestling, well, I was a babyface that could get away with fucking anything, right?
So I would in the ring, imagine you're a babyface and you want to protect yourself, your image, and the fact that you're the guy, right?
So you would never just let a heel standing across from you as Enzo would do.
I'll do a dance, right?
I have this dance that I do that's funny.
Bro, I would do my dance and I'd have a wig on my head that I took because they made a wig of my hair.
And I would go out into the crowd, get the wig of my hair from a child, put it on my head, get into the ring, and I would do my dance straight up to a bad guy.
And he would super kick me in the face.
And I would throw my hair in the air and fall down.
And the whole crowd, you know, that's like babyfaces should never let you just hit them and outsmart them, but I could get away with that.
You know what I'm saying?
And make you laugh.
And then it didn't matter.
It just didn't matter.
So I got really lucky to the notion that, bro, like, it doesn't fucking matter what I do in here.
The people are going to laugh.
So I had that little comedy, you know, bit there.
And then it got to a point where I became a heel.
I was a bad guy.
They turned me heel in a segment with The Miz where I was told by Vince McMahon or Triple H actually that if I rebuttal on the microphone, I'm going to get fired.
So they knew no matter who's out there with me, I could save face.
I can grab the microphone.
And no matter what you say about me, I can make it so that these people cheer for me by the time I'm done talking.
And they were like, they didn't tell me right then and there that they're turning you heel, but they did everything to make me a bad guy.
They had a guy in The Miz go out there, air out all this bullshit.
And then his wife, who was pregnant at the time, I said, you shouldn't be asking, you shouldn't be saying, how you doing to his wife.
Nowadays, I wonder if you'd even be allowed to do it.
And I think, you know, the lack of personality was probably as it's called the PG era and they wanted to be on, you know, they wanted to be on the network.
They figured it would be the best for the having the biggest audience.
And I think they were trying to sell a bunch of merchandise to kids, whatever was going on behind the scenes.
But it's like, I feel like they were lacking that personality.
And Roman Reigns, who was the champion for whatever many years, he really didn't have a personality.
There wasn't much of a personality there.
The guys that were wrestling, I mean, Cody Rhodes is great, but it's just like, there's not, you know, so I felt like they had to bring The Rock back.
They had to have The Rock start, you know, being the final boss bad guy.
They had to have Cena come back because there were no personalities.
There was no, I mean, even a guy like Fandango, who was a nothing.
I mean, he was literally a nothing.
He was a fan favorite because it was a funny personality.
It was like the same thing with you.
It was like, hey, I know I'm probably going to see you get tossed around the ring and exit with your head down.
And then you're going to be on the show the next day and you're going to get the crowd just as hyped.
And they don't really have those personalities anymore.
Do you ever think that they would try to inject that back into the WWE?
Well, I think now because they're on Netflix, they can do more than they were doing on cable network, you know, because now Raw is the rawer brand out of SmackDown and NXT and Raw.
Raw, you can get away with more.
And on NX, I mean, on Netflix, they can curse and they can do things and they can be edgier and they can bring in Travis Scott to, you know, and play his music and shit like that.
So I think they can get edgier.
If you really look at the landscape of pro wrestling, I would be sufficient to say that I'm not the last threat left on these streets.
Meaning, if you brought me back and you put a microphone in my hand and put me out there with Paul Heyman or Roman Reigns or Cody Rhodes, you are guaranteeing eyes on your show to a point where it would fucking probably be one of the biggest things that they've done in years.
And I know it.
I'm not rushing it.
I'm not saying it'll ever happen again.
And if they called me tomorrow, there would be a conversation.
But I'm not calling them tomorrow either to ask for a job back because at fourth rope right now, I'm having incredible experiences where I can write the show, be a part of it backstage, and I get to wrestle.
I wrestled and I won this title in Vegas on a show called Heels Have Eyes that's available on YouTube.
And this beautiful title, I had to beat half the TNA roster in a battle royal with 20 men.
And I entered number one and I won the whole thing.
I mean, I don't see myself walking into WWE, entering the Royal Rumble number one and winning the whole fucking thing, right?
Like, what world does that happen in?
You know, it's a Sinatra song right now.
It's life and it's my way right now.
So it's the combination of a few things where I'm blessed to do what I'm doing and I'm not so eager to jump ship to an AEW or a TNA, you know, and I've had conversations with companies in the past where it's like, where do I fit in?
What are you going to do with me?
Like, how do you see it happening?
If you're not going to give me the respect I deserve or put the microphone in my hand every night, like I'm not coming in to just be a fucking doormat and make somebody else a star.
I've put in enough equity in my career to where I earned and I deserve the respect.
So if you don't believe that the guy who writes the jokes has a rational mind, you know, if you can get people that lit like John Cena did with the microphone, like The Rock did with the microphone, Dusty Rhodes did with the microphone, Ric Flair did with a microphone.
I'm in that fucking same conversation in that same vein with a microphone.
When people mention my name, they say I'm one of the best promos, right?
So if you're not going to let me say, how you doing?
And you're going to tell me to say, how are you?
I'm going to be like, you know, like, what the fuck, dude?
So I've never been presented with opportunities in other companies that I've wanted to sink my teeth into until I found my opportunity with fourth rope.
And there's very few jobs in my business.
And Sean Michaels has one of them at NXT.
Triple H has one of them at Monday Night Raw and SmackDown.
Tony Khan has Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks at AEW that are vice presidents that help write TV and booking.
And they're wrestlers.
And then you have Tommy Dreamer at TNA who writes television there.
The only other big company right now that's we're an underground company that is the new kids on the block and we're fucking hot right now and we're only going up and we make a different noise.
This isn't the same shit that you're used to seeing.
And we want, we're not saying that we're PG and we're not saying that we're rated R. We're just a pro wrestling show that has rappers on it and rappers curse.
So, I mean, it doesn't mean I have to go out there and curse.
I know how to, I always say in wrestling, when you call somebody a bitch or you say fuck, that's what we call a cheap pop.
It's built in.
They're going to be like, oh my God.
You know what I'm saying?
You break out a table and somebody goes through a table.
It's a cheap pop.
The hardest thing to do is make them interested in just a pure wrestling match.
And how do you do that?
You do it with a microphone and talking shit.
And I could do that with the best of them.
And I did not need to curse because that you alluded to, I was in a PG era and I couldn't comprehend when I got hired that we're not allowed to curse.
I was like, bro, I watched The Attitude Era.
I watched Middle Fingers in the Air.
Hell yeah, beer, all that shit.
I grew up on that shit.
I'm like, what the fuck?
I can't curse.
And you want to give me a microphone?
I'm like, I'm handicapped.
Then I realized, holy shit, I'm better than all these motherfuckers have ever been on a microphone because I didn't have to curse.
I did it without cursing.
I reinvented the fucking wheel.
I called people soft.
I didn't call them a bitch.
When I wanted to say, I'll whoop your ass, I'd say, I'll whoop you took, I'll beat you hind end.
You know, I made it sound to a point where my producers and people would be like, Edzo, don't curse.
End zone, don't curse.
I'm like, bro, I've never cursed once, but okay.
You know what I mean?
Like, I never have.
And I was a role model to the children, which was one of those things where when they're flipping me healed, I had already kind of done that in the media because at that time, you know, I was shrouded in controversy just from being an enigmatic star and that happening so fast.
You know, when you go like this, they're going to tear you down.
You can't go all the way.
You know, it happens.
It's the nature of the business.
And the same people who lift you up try to tear you down.
And the people who have plaque in their mouths, who live in their mother's basement, who fucking write wrestling dirt sheet bullshit that think they know what's going on backstage or whatever, the parallels of real life, that's what makes wrestling so interesting, you know, is it is real to life.
So it's, it's a dirty business.
It's a crazy game.
And you know what?
I was always one of those people that like I came in and when I came in, the Undertaker was the head of the locker room.
He's not a dead man in real life, right?
But there was that nostalgia that we kept to like, we don't reveal who the Undertaker is, Mark Calloway.
We don't give that away.
We keep it real.
And we don't want you to think that this is, you know what I'm saying, right?
You know, the people on the internet will make you.
One of my favorite quotes, right?
Jake the Snake Roberts said, the people will put you in places that you've never been.
Like, and that means situations.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, just imagining that they will always come up with something and/or say this, that, and the third.
And for me, bro, I'm so lucky and blessed that I came up in the Vince McMahon era of WWE because now it's a corporate entity.
It's TKO.
And I don't know that the people aren't so big for the bridges anymore.
But there was that humble pie that we were constantly served.
We got our own rental cars.
We found our own hotels.
We drove with each other to save money.
We fucking rubbed elbows with each other.
And, you know, there was life was all consuming and you were on the road.
And those days are done.
And I'm probably the last guy to do a 300-uh-day schedule in the WWE because COVID hits in 2020.
And when I was cruiserweight champion, we were the only people that did Monday Night Raw and SmackDown.
That was the cruiserweight division.
So I was wrestling on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.
Everybody flies home for Raw and I would go on to SmackDown.
So if you wrestled on SmackDown, you did Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and then SmackDown on Tuesday.
So when I'm working that Raw SmackDown schedule and you're the cruiserweight champion, and then you fast forward to 2020 and COVID happens, and then the live events stop happening as much as they do, and/or they stop completely, and then the schedule changes.
And now Netflix puts a billion dollars in your hands and says, We don't want any of these guys getting hurt on non-televised TV live events.
It's like the business has changed, you know, and there's a lot of money being, you know, put into the broadcasting on different streaming services.
So those people, they want to get their stars out there and they don't want them getting hurt, right?
Bro, when I was there working for Vince, that guy was a fucking lunatic.
And I was literally competing with him in my own brain to get less sleep and do more work.
I was like, I don't want to sleep.
I want to work.
I want to party every night until three.
I want to wake up at seven and fucking with a new girl and then go to the next town.
And I was living that Ric Flair life, dude.
And it was crazy, burning the candle on both ends, probably going to kill myself without even realizing it.
And I felt like God had a plan for me, bro.
Like humble you, take you out of the equation, make you look in the mirror, and then also make you love wrestling again, you know, because I'm at a point where probably I was hating it, you know, like, you know, you're in there.
And then when God takes something away that you love, you know, you know how that works.
You know, you don't, you never know what you have until it's gone.
So I hated wrestling when I got fired.
I was so mad at the world that built me up to tear me down.
And then I fucking found myself in this position that I'm in now where I'm working on the indies, right?
In little bingo halls and fucking gyms and high school gyms and humbling myself to the thing that I love, pro wrestling.
And I'd be lying if I said, like, when I needed money, that I was willing to wrestle.
It was I hit a lick as the consultant on the deal for Fight TV and Triller that had Roy Jones versus Mike Tyson and Jake Paul's first fight.
So when I consulted on that deal, I hit a lick and I didn't need money.
Tony was a huge wrestling fan who was at the comedy store every Wednesday when I was in the WWE.
I was living in the Hollywood Hills with my best friends from high school, like fucking entourage.
I'm telling you, we were fucking lunatics.
And I would go to Wednesday night, every Wednesday, to go see Rogan, Dave Chappelle, and Tony Hinchcliffe.
And they were on Wednesdays at the comedy store every Wednesday rehearsing their material that they would do.
And I'd be in the green room smoking weed with Tony and Dave Chappelle and got to know Dave by name.
And it was just so fucking surreal because Dave, somebody tipped me off that he'd be popping up at the stand in New York City, right?
And I hadn't seen Dave since 2018.
And I show up with my girl.
The first time I ever took my girl, my girlfriend to this day on a date, I take her to the stand and Dave Chappelle is there and he sees me and he's like, hey, what's up, Enzo?
He's got the mullet and he fucking wears Canadian tuxedos.
He's a funny motherfucker.
This guy and I shot a music video together in Nashville like a few months back.
And that music video just came out.
The song's called Fell Off the Wagon, Wagon Out by Real One, R-E-A-L number one.
Wagon just dropped this past Friday.
I have another song called Mud Dogs that comes out this Friday.
Has me in the Bobby Boucher outfit.
And the point of this one was, right?
Like, I'm a rapper, right?
But I said, my favorite scene in a fucking movie, maybe error, is when Bobby Boucher shows up at halftime and the Mud Dogs won the bourbon ball, right?
You know, when they're like going over the scenes in Waterboy, when he's like, you know, remember when Bobby Boucher did this?
And then Bobby Boucher walks in the room.
unidentified
He's like, remember when Bob Boucher showed up head time in the Mud Dog won a bourbon bowl?