No-Contest Wrestling: "Queen Of The Ring" Producer Ash Avildsen

Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking all state first. The same way you know you've got to make sure your lucky jersey is clean on game day or your team might lose. Checking first is smart, so check all state first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Savings vary subject to terms, conditions, and availability.

All-State Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. Didn't Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the No Contest Wrestling Podcast. It's good to see you. We hope it's good to see us. I am the heel that you love.

Hey, O'Shea Jackson Jr., aka Petty Guerrero. Hey, yo, it's me. It's me. It's the T-O-O, J-I-G-G-2-J-G. And Jefferson.

We have a huge episode today. Yeah, we do. As you see, I'm in full Hollywood Shea form. That's how you do it. It's because we have the director of Queen of the Ring joining us, a man Ash.

Abelton. Abelton, yeah. Aviltson. He said it's Swedish. Yeah.

It's Swedish. You know, I'm trying. I'm just an American. But also a lot of huge moments in wrestling happen. I mean, Monday Night Raw, one of the best NXTs that we got for free, by the way.

That's right. It wasn't even just free. $3.99. Um, but yeah, TJ, what you want to run down, bro? What like you know, just really quickly, because I know we're we got about yeah, we got a lot of time with Ash.

We got a lot to talk about, but I was at AEW Revolution on Sunday. Oh, absolutely, great pay-per-view. Swerve Strickland, our guy defeated Ricochet. He's now the number one contender to the AEW World Championship. And he will save the day once again.

I'm just calling it Tony Storm and Mariah Way, man. The Hollywood street fight, they finally put an ending to that story. Bravo. Tony Storm, as you know, is one of my favorites. Mariah Mae is fantastic.

Those two took the whole. all about Eve. Hollywood thing. And man, they did such a great job. And this match was a bloody violent affair.

And they showed them proved, man.

So props to Tony. Absolutely. Props to Mariah for doing their thing. Kenny Omega, new international championship, defeated your boy DeKeshda. DeKesha is going to be the man one.

Bro, he might be the man now. He was boxing. There's no way around him. You know, Moxley defeated Cope and Christian Cage. I didn't love the end of that.

But Kyle Fletcher, Will Ospreay, still cage match. Again, you two men, I want to give you props. We don't have a lot of time to dive into it. But what an incredible match. These two did a Spanish fly off the top of the cage, amongst other things.

There were thumbtacks. There was a nice little Mick Foley. Homage by Osprey when he hit the bang bang. Check it out. If you guys have a lot of fun, it's a really cool picture, too.

I don't know if you've seen this. I did still love that. Just solid.

Well done. Revolution was fun. Congratulations and thank you. I have to say that to all the wrestlers for putting your bodies on the line for our entertainment because every night you guys go out there, you're risking, you know, life and limb for some Jabronis like us to sit and cheer and then go on the internet and argue about it amongst ourselves. We have to.

Yeah. That's what the internet's for. And then NXT Roadblock last night. Yeah, that was dope. Fraxium and the Hardy Boys.

Great match. Hardy Boys retained the TNA World Tag Team. And also Fraxium getting a nod from Bubba Ray. Yes, true. Bully Ray.

Excuse me. Moose and Oba Femi. Man, big meaty men slapping me, this biggie would say. That's not what I called it. Oba Oba.

He defended his NXT world title after. And you have no choice but defend your title when before you hit the ring, the Undertaker stops you and says, I don't need to tell you how important this is. Yeah. Defend your yard. Defend your yard.

Go get you some. When Undertaker goes, you got to get some. But shout out to Oba and Moose. They did the thing. And then Julia and Stephanie Vacare.

Yeah. Title versus title. Title versus title. Incredible match. Yeah.

These two women did their thing. I understand Julia may be injured, so that's why she, you know, taking a little time off, but her and Stephanie. There's also a lot of speculation with Julia because that hair is blue. Oh, so what's that mean? That hair is blue, man.

That's some video games out there. WC Whispers, bro. The hair being blue and the blue brand calling. Oh, who knows, man? You did give up your title.

Who knows, man? True, that's true.

So it's something to pay attention to. Congratulations to Stephanie Vacare. Obviously, you are always box office. Can we talk about that spot when she's off the top rope right into the yo? Come on, man.

The only person I've ever seen do something like that is Asuka. And you know, Asuka's the coach. But yeah, man, just.

Some a great 48 hours of wrestling or 72, I should say, between Sunday and Tuesday. And of course, Raw on Monday, we saw the steel cage match, our guy CM Punk against our guy Seth Rollins. Yeah. And then our guy. The tribal chief came through.

Recognize or step aside. Look, we all know that's going to be your triple threat, I think, for WrestleMania. Seth versus Roman versus Punk. Can't wait. I don't know if that's the main event.

I don't know what's going on. All I know is I want to see a living color play Punk to the ring. That's all I'm asking for. And then you had EO, Bianca, Rio. That might be our other triple threat.

I mean, that's obvious. That's written. You know, like the rude boy says, it's written all over your face. You don't got to say a word. That one's already written in stone.

The way EO reacted after slapping fire out of Rhea And Bianca's asses. You know, people say that they don't. You know, there could be a language barrier, but you don't need to speak her language. Her body language told you everything you needed to know. And her body language told us as she stood in that ring and stomped and pointed: I'm the champion, I'm going to WrestleMania.

This is my shit. Yeah, I'm not here to hear about a language barrier when she's fluent in hands. E.O. Sky, bro. Let everybody know I'm the goddamn champion of the world.

And you will respect me. Respect me like Pesci. And if rap was hockey, I'd be Gretzky. Bump, and that's some little lots type stuff. Just a side note: when TJ used to play pickleball, he would rap while he would score on you.

And I can think of anything more infuriating than that. Because I did buckets. I wasn't really a scorer either.

So when he scored, he butts a verse on you. Yeah, no, I'm going full above the rim. I said something like with the boom, ping, ping, baseline jumper like Bernard King. Yeah, that pissed me off. It would.

It would. But nothing pissed me off about the wrestling that we got. Nothing pissed me off about a couple of things in Queen of the Ring. There are some moments that are a little hard to watch as a man who's raising a young daughter. True, that.

But. Our guy, Ash Avelson, he was a writer-producer. Yeah, right. I forget the acronym he gave us, but the man wore many hats for this film. He gave us his time of the day with a passion project.

We are here to help promote a passion project as a filmmaker myself. When I see somebody passionate about their craft and it being an independent, if I could help and it also fits with no contest wrestling, how could we not have them?

So, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to get to our guests. This is no contest. Hey, Rich Eisen here. I hear from a lot of business owners like you about the work it takes to pursue your passions.

So I know how important it is to have the tools that can help keep you moving forward. And with access to world-class business and travel benefits, the American Express Business Platinum Card helps you take your business to the next level. It offers a flexible spending limit that adapts with your business. Plus, you'll have complementary access to more than 1,400 airport lounges worldwide, including the Centurion Lounge.

So you can keep running your business while you're on the go. See how the Amex Business Platinum Card gives business owners like you the tools and rewards to do more of what you love. Not all purchases will be approved. Terms apply. Learn more at AmericanExpress.com/slash Amex Business.

At the Hyundai Getaway Sales Event, get deals so right, it almost feels wrong.

Now's the best time to get that Hyundai car or SUV you've always wanted. Plus, every new Hyundai comes with America's best warranty and three years or 36,000 miles of limited complementary maintenance. Don't think you can get away with all that? Think again. But don't wait.

The Hyundai Getaway Sales Event is going on now.

So visit your local Hyundai dealer today. It's a great day for a new Hyundai. Ladies and gentlemen, Queen of the Ring is a 2024 American biographical sports drama about female professional wrestler Mildred Burke. The film stars Emily Bett Rickerts as Burke with Josh Lucas, Tyler Posey, and Walton Goggins in supporting roles. It also has a bunch of your favorite stars from AEW and WWE.

The film chronicles the life of revolutionary female wrestler Mildred Burke in a time when pro wrestling for women was illegal all over the country. A small-town single mother embraces the danger to change culture as she dominates America's most masculine sport to become the first million-dollar female athlete in history. And today on the No Contest Wrestling podcast, we have the director of the film, a whole lot of things of the film, our man. Ash Avilton. Good to see you, right?

Thanks for having me, guys. Thank you for having us the other night, man. That was that we had a really good time. Went in, not, of course, with any film. You never know what to expect, but it's a fun ride from beginning to end, dude.

You should be very proud. Uh, it means a lot coming from you, man. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for the kind words online. It everything helps get the word out.

It's so hard, as like small indie films competing with like huge studios for the same theater space. And so, all this stuff helps big time. Yeah, I know a few things about you know being in indie, so like I get it. What um, you know, just starting off the bat. Since we brought up it being an independent film.

The challenges that go into making a larger than life story. With that type of budget, what were some of the struggles that I feel like you pulled off, but as you know, somebody watching the film, you don't really know the drama behind making it, yeah. I mean, Independent films usually stray away from anything period because there's so many more moving pieces and just things that are bespoke to the time of the cars and the wardrobe and the location.

So it just makes it much, much harder. One of the biggest challenges from the production standpoint was just making sure we could get everything on the day. Because there's a lot of different characters, there's stunts. We shot in the summer of Louisville.

So, as you know, like when the sometimes you're supposed to be sweating and sometimes you're supposed to be not. And when you have all, you know, hair, makeup, and period done up, and then the sweat starts coming because you're in, you know, some 150-year-old building with no air conditioning and you got to move the cameras around. And so it was just a very. intense uh shoot Um in every aspect of it. But the luckily the The cast had such camaraderie.

Like, it really did feel like everyone was like on tour being like carny wrestlers, and there was just this bond of like, you know, trying to. Do the impossible of pulling it off as a small indie film. And I think that kind of spirit amongst the cast was really like our secret weapon to getting it done. You know, right off the bat though, what I want to jump in here with was I was at AEW Revolution this past Sunday. And something happened there that caused a ruckus online for the wrestling community.

We all know how the IWC is. And it was Daemaris Lewis who portrays Babs Wingo in the movie. She said something live at AEW, which. Certain group of people took the wrong way, absolutely the wrong way, when she said. Quote, y'all know you're going to win before everyone else does, so thank you for teaching me that.

For some reason, you know, like I said, a set of section of the Internet wrestling community. Yeah, the idea took this the wrong way. You know, me sitting there, I was like, well, that sounded a little odd, but. Also, having common sense, I knew that, okay. She meant this, not that.

So, with you being here, can we just put this to bed and you can clear this up for everybody so they can move on with their day? Yeah, she's talked about it prior to that happening on video, so anyone can go reference it. I think those videos are now online from the LA premiere. And also, even earlier that day on the AEW Pre-Show, she's talking about. Believing in yourself to be a winner.

Like I had, I'll put it right into this film. I had to believe. that I could pull off making this movie. And believe that I'm going to win, regardless of what the box office is, regardless of what the critics are, regardless of anything, being like, I believe I can do it. I'm going to win before anyone even sees the movie, before anyone even sees if I get any name cast, if I get, you know, the movie actually shot.

Damaris was saying is that wrestlers. They're putting themselves out there at such a level. And they may be someone that's going to constantly be booked to lose, but they're still a big draw. And it's not about. Winning or losing in the ring, she's not talking about the outcome of a literal wrestling match.

She's saying the belief in yourself that I know I'm a winner, regardless of what the world is telling me. I know it inside.

So when I go out there to pursue my dream. I'm not going to let the world knock me down. People took it in a very literal sense as if she's breaking Kayfei, but it's like, guys, come on, really? Do you think she came to AEW front row? To be like, oh, yeah, it's 1971 and I'm going to expose the business.

Like, you know, it's, it's. I mean, maybe the silver lining is a lot of people are talking about the movie now. I mean, it's like the irony. Of uh the no bad press, good press type.

Well, you know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of like WWE, like Netflix, like the first episode.

So there's all these things where people are like, what's going to be like the big moment? And the magic of pro wrestling is like, No matter what you think you're going to make sure the audience does or does not do, or feel or does not feel. At the end of the day, it's still like the carnival. It's still the theater. It's still the circus.

And when Hogan came out as a face and he got booed into oblivion, that was the headline on every single tree. That was the whole thing. It wasn't Rhea Ripley wins the belt. It wasn't viewership. It wasn't like the epic intro, which was my favorite part of that intro to the show when they were going through, you know, all the history.

It was like, Hulk Hogan came out as a face, and then he got booed. He's like, no, he's a heel, no matter how you wanted, to write him in LA and checkmate.

So. You know, anyway, that was a long-winded answer. No, no, no. We are no contests. We love a good answer.

And let me let you know right now, and anybody watching, I lost my voice. Booing Hulk Hogan. I'll do it again. I'll gladly do it again.

Now, and honestly, to go back to the K-Fabe thing, I mean. Wrestling fans of a certain age, we understand what we're watching. We understand what's happening. And In this uh With this film, what I've told people is, even if you aren't necessarily a hardcore wrestling fan, whatever. But, like, if you aren't a fan of wrestling and you're just interested, the film takes you along the ride with Mildred figuring out the business as well.

And I know a few of the actors weren't necessarily watching pro wrestling every week. Can you take us through some of the process of getting them to kind of understand what it is that they were getting involved in? Yeah, the fun thing about Emily is we have kind of like a little joke that's true. That's like she didn't know anything about pro wrestling, and I didn't know who she was prior to. finding out about her when I Yeah.

Offered her the role. Like, I had never seen Arrow, so I wasn't familiar with her. And I found her looking around online at different agents' rosters of someone that I thought had the right look and physique to at least put them on a short list of who could realistically, in a matter of months, Be physically believable, because we weren't going to get an actor to prepare for two years for the role. It's just not. Too small of a movie, I'm too small of a director.

It's like it's, we're kind of getting who's available, and then we can go from there. And so, um, I knew all about pro wrestling. Emily knew nothing. And sh I actually think it was good. That she didn't because she had more of like a blank slate to discover it as her character is discovering it, rather than having all these kind of preconceived, you know, emotions and feelings and understandings of what the business is or is not.

So that actually thing worked to our benefit, that she just didn't know anything about it. And a lot, I mean, Francesca Eastwood. Didn't really know either. And she's like, she's the other fan favorite in a lot of the reviews. It's like her is Mae Young.

So it just goes, you know, I think it's a testament to them as performers and actors that they were so believable and people. Whether they liked my directing or not, everyone really has loved Emily and Francesca. And They didn't they weren't wrestling fans. You know, they were they were just actors who fell in love with the story and wanted to help bring it to life, so But as you can see, there's Easter eggs, and I think it's obvious that the movie was made by someone passionate about pro wrestling that knows it. And I tried to tell it in the sense of.

keeping it true to the spirit of like a pro wrestling match and a pro wrestling feud and all of like the story building, but doing it in a way that, you know, hopefully you'll sit in a dark room for two hours and still be entertained. You know, so that was all by design. Yeah. You know, and getting back to what you were saying earlier about like, you know, these Actors respecting The business. Like, I'm friends with Adam, who portrayed Gorgeous George in the movie.

And I think I was telling you when we met, we had lunch back in September when he told me he was in this movie. And of course, I'm bugging out, like, oh, dude, you got to tell me everything about this, you know? And he was like, well, actually, another actor had the role. They kind of dropped out.

So they need someone quickly. And I kind of stepped in. And then he told me how he went to OVW, started to train with Al Snow. At OVW, and I was like, What was it like taking a bump? And he was like, Mate, because you know, he's like, Mate.

It's crazy, mate. Like, you know, just tell me how just like taking these back bumps. And he goes, and then he goes, the ropes, they're still cables. And, you know, so it's crazy to think that someone would put themselves through all that. to learn You know, the basic fundamentals of wrestling and then think that they would go out and disrespect it.

It's just crazy. But can we talk about Adam real quick, how he jumped in there and portrayed Gorgeous George? Because I was told, no, Shay, I felt like Gorgeous George is another performer who deserves a movie. 100%. His story is incredible.

It's actually. Uh a really Great. Tyler Posey's father has actually written, prior to me ever even meeting him, a fantastic, gorgeous George script that we're, you know. Trying to to get to the next level right now and um Yeah, gorgeous, gorgeous George stories. Truly phenomenal.

I mean, he was selling, they called him Georgie boxes. Like, he was one of the main reasons people were buying TVs when they first came out. Because that was the only way you could really see him is on television, unless you were at a match. But Adam was great. You know, he he came in right at the last minute.

Uh, Logan Marshall Green was originally uh playing George, and then his mother. Uh, fell very, very ill, and he called me like days before. He's like, I can't leave my mom's side right now. I'm so sorry. And, um, And Adam got submitted as someone who was available.

His agent also had someone else in the film, so they were immediately aware. And when I saw Adam, I was like, oh, he's great. Let me see if he can, you know, not sound Australian. And he could pull it off. And I thought he was terrific as it.

He tested really well. your own art, you get you start losing Like, okay. Is this still good? Is this not? And I was like.

Is Gorgeous George? Like, does he need to be in the movie? I could get it shorter. I could cut out his entire character. I can still tell the story without any Gorgeous George.

And then when we were doing audience tests, everyone was like. Everyone loves him. Like, they loved him in the movie. And I'm like, yeah, I'm insane. Why would I ever.

Want to get rid of him. I love Gwyn I Put them in there, I wrote it. You know, just everyone out there who's critical of your own work, just know it's easy to get too close to it, and then you start. Second guessing it, and then it goes back to like the Daemaris thing: like, you got to believe, like, no. I put them there for a reason.

I love... At all? Why am I getting all in my head? Because I'm worried about, you know, outside judgment, you know, and that's what Demaris was saying. It's like pro wrestlers have to be that because think about what you're doing.

Like, how easy is it to make fun of pro wrestling in general as a business, as a sport, as an industry, as a performer, the wardrobes, the mic work, all of it. But like, no, you're putting yourself out there to be completely judged because you know inside you're a winner, even if you're booked to lose time and time and again. How many times did Ric Flair fucking lose? He's Ric Flair. Yeah.

You know, like.

So that's what she was saying. It just came out wrong in the sense that. It was easy to take it the wrong way. But it's also like to the IWC, it's like, guys. Really?

Really? Like, like if we were gonna do, and she's standing next to the director, like, if I was gonna have her break K-Fabe, she would be doing a full-on heel turn in the arena, being like, all you silly little jabronis paid your heart on money. You know, they already told me what's gonna happen backstage. She wouldn't say it in this very profound, eloquent, fascinating way. Go hard, go hard or go home, huh?

Yeah, exactly. It sounds amazing. Yeah. So I'm glad I'm glad we were able to touch on that. Like I said, let's put that to bed.

Let's find something else to complain about and not just. And go see this movie, man. If you're a wrestling fan, definitely check this out. No, and just to speak on. George, yeah, I couldn't imagine watching that without George.

Like, there's a few. Like many arcs in the movie that are happening off screen. Like, you're. You're concerned about so many people, and George is one of those. You know, whether you're worried about obviously Wolf's son, I'm not giving nothing away, but like, man, whole movie, I'm like.

This poor man, he's not gonna hurt right. And then, but yeah, George is one of those, and he was such a staple. In Mildred, it was like every time I saw George, Mildred got to kind of recharge her battery a little. It's a feeling of like. This is the silver lining of all this BS I'm going through.

It's like, there's a guy like George. You know, there's somebody like George. And so, yeah, I couldn't imagine. This film without that, you know, it takes a lot for you to fight for your film. I, you know, we're going to get into how long this process really was, but you mentioned Australians.

And their accents, and I cannot go away from my favorite AEW star and swerve. You just got to understand. But Tony Storm, your favorite? That's bro. I love Timeless.

This shoe. I mean, I don't know. You told me on camera, too, bro. I mean, you know. You know.

You know, bro. Timeless Tony Storm. Tony Storm. You know, she, once again, without giving anything away, she shows off her chops. And she could just, she's a mimicker, bro.

She can copy any accent. You know, she does it flawlessly. Talk about Tony Storm a little bit and what she brought. She's the best. I mean, I don't want to get.

Yeah, I I I don't want to get uh you know anything That would be spun the wrong way or whatever, because AEW has been wonderful to us, TNA has been wonderful to us. As someone who. You know, determines lineups on music festivals and just in general, like. Her match in AEW, both the one in Australia and the one that was in LA. I mean, to me, those are heads, regardless of how it was booked.

That was a headline-worthy sold-out staple center, crypto arena. Like, regardless of where it was, that was. Headline-worthy performances, both from a wrestling standpoint and just a theatrical drama standpoint. Like it's so. She's so great at playing that character.

And what I've noticed, and I'm sure you guys know, because we're probably somewhere in the similar in our 30s or 40s, like there's people that used to watch it in the 80s and 90s, and now they're like casual fans. They don't tune in every week. We hear that a lot since we started doing this. And Tony, I could tell, like, she started cracking into the casual, like, pop culture, zeitgeist, wrestling fan, going, oh my God, I heard this girl's great. And they start going on YouTube and they're seeing the promos.

And so, like, To me, that's always the hardest thing. You know? Can you create For for a federation and for a performer, like Can you create your own Star. You know, Tony was great in WWE, but like, she has been created as a full-on star with Timeless Tony and AEW. And I think the biggest.

One of the big, I mean, you can make a laundry list of WCW mistakes, but like, I think one of the biggest mistakes, if not the biggest, when you look back outside of like, You know, the finger poke of death, and you know, Arquette winning the belt, and all these things that kind of took. took some of the magic away from it. I would say like on a cultural level. WCW's biggest mistake was that they didn't break enough of their own guys that were that were WCW stars. Who did you really have that stood the test of time?

And forgive me for people are going to judge me for this, but like Goldberg was probably the biggest one, right? And then maybe DDP, Booker T, Booker T was big. You know, then you had your Sting, who was already there. But he was already there prior to Bischoff and all that with the blonde hair.

So I'm going to say Booker T, DDP. And I'm talking specifically like the Monday Night War era, you know, because they were paying all these talents. I mean, the whole thing's really amazing when you think about it. Like, love or hate Vince. He was like, okay, they're going to overpay.

All of these talents that I've already built up, and now I'm going to make new talent that he has better rights to, and he. You know, I mean, The Rock, Stone Cold, Mankind, Taker, these guys were carrying the company when they almost lost the war. Yeah. You know, and, and, um, You know, one thing that breaks my heart. Just kind of watching what's going on right now is Kaylee, like.

And I think I'm assuming this is just because there's just too many There's too much great talent at AEW.

So they can't slot everyone in. But like, one of the main things people are like, dude, she's fantastic in the movie. She has more screen time than Tony. Um why isn't Kayleigh like Out and about. Kaylee, for those who don't know, is Camille Brickhouse, the wrestler.

Or Camille the Brickhouse, I guess. Yeah. Because AEW. And I'm assuming, again, it's just like a a bandwidth of like Plugging everyone's stories in. I have no idea, but she's so great.

It was her first time acting. First time acting, knocked it out of the park, you know. It's actually similar to what I read about Rocky IV. They needed someone that could just totally eclipse Stallone as the main opponent. And I think they saw, like, they remember, like, Stallone remember like Dolph Lundgren's like headshot from something else because Dolph didn't have a bunch of credits yet, and he was.

You know, he got the role because Just h his physical dominating his presence. Yeah, and that's how I felt with Kaylee, because we actually had some really named actors submit to play June. And it was tough because one side of me is like, oh, that's going to create a lot more eyeballs and awareness. It's just not believable. Do you want to share some of the names?

I probably wouldn't just because, but, but I can tell you they were, you know, they were name actors, but there was just no way they were going to put on the muscle mass in time. It was just impossible. You know, so we got, we really got lucky getting Kaylee. And I hope she continues acting because she's, you know. She's tested wonderfully.

I mean, it's not even testing anymore. The movie's out. She's like, people love her. Yeah. So.

Yeah, and her name's Brick House. I'm like, I know, when your name's Brick House, you got to be built a certain way. And she is. She looks the part. I said on Instagram, you know, she's got action movie star all over her.

Yeah, right. And super sweet. Very nice. Like, super nice. And that's one of the main things that you always want.

At the end of the day, like, when you're making a film. I want to hang out with your ass for a couple months. It's a huge plus when trying to get a job.

Now, I know from the director's standpoint, and I keep saying director, but you have many hats on this. Exactly how long? was the process of getting this from From pen to theater. Oh man. I mean, there were early, early drafts.

Um that were just me just trying to First, get the best, you know, what I felt were the best theatrical moments of the book onto page. Um But You know, I honestly, man, I got I got close. To getting it to where I thought it was ready to be shot, like right actually around COVID. And then once that hit, I was like, I'm not, I'm not. I'm not going to do this during all the COVID rules.

It's just way too dangerous for an indie film. I mean, especially with like the amount of sweat and physical it is. Like, forget it. Like, it's so that really set it back a lot, was just waiting until. We could not have our entire You know, production be at the fate of a no-swab.

In fact, the first week. That SAG got rid of the rules because I was in Louisville and I was like, we'll push a week. I'm not risking it all. I refuse to risk everything. It's too dangerous.

We're just not a studio, we don't have that kind of money. Um Our first day of principal photography was like that first week where you no longer had to do the nose swabs and the masks to shoot a movie. And so as soon as that was done, you know, luckily it lined up with us and we could go. But yeah, there was no way for an indie film to try and make Queen of the Ring with the testing. It's just, it's just.

you're playing Russian roulette, but there's way more than one bullet in the chamber. I I I I shot a um a T V series for Apple uh called Swagger. It was a basketball show and I play the coach and so we shot It was still during the no swallow time and it was One of the most difficult things ever because not only, like, yeah, we're testing multiple times a day, just, just, you know, and every now and then somebody on my team would just disappear. Like, yo, have we, where is he? Like, we're supposed to have five on the court, or there's four on the court right now.

And it's like, yeah, we're going to, we're writing new sites. And so, all right, dope. And we had to have, well, me in particular. I had two masks. It was the mask that I wear on set.

And then the hero mask that I have to wear during the show.

So I'm having 13, 15 hour days. Ears cut, like all of our just, it was the worst. And shout out to Virginia. Because I know I'll be giving y'all shit, and it's not your fault. But yeah, man, I can only imagine doing some wrestling, like that full-on contact and everything that goes into it.

We had to digitally put crowds in. It was rough.

So I could only imagine what you would have to go through through that. Yeah, so kudos to you, man. No, wrestling. It's man. The world of Pro Wrestling, man, is filled with such characters and such stories and and you know just larger than life figures.

What made you settle down on the the story of Mildred Burke and and what made you decide that This is the person that I want to put. put a spotlight on. I just thought this, I mean, I use the word enchanting. I was enchanted by the story in the book. I was just, I was mesmerized.

I was hypnotized. The whole thing feels like a fairy tale, but it's true. You know what I mean? The shoot matches, the fact that it was illegal. Which is insane.

That's crazy. And by the way, for New York to hold it till 72, I mean, think about that. We went through Woodstock in 1969. Right. And you still couldn't get two women in the ring until three years later.

Like, that's bad shit insanity.

So, so that I grew up with a single mom. The single mom and son element of it was a big part. You know, the shoot matches, the, I feel like she's like the Tina Turner of pro wrestling. There was a very Ike and Tina dynamic with Billy and Mildred.

So that was really blew me away. You know, another thing where some people are like, oh, you should cut it entirely out of the movie was the storyline with Billy's stepson. I remember with Mildred's stepson, Billy's biological son. Um but those were one of the things where I was like that's incredible because When have you seen a stepson? I mean, again, this is spoiler, but whatever.

Like, when have you seen a stepson? want to, you know, marry His stepmom, and you're actually rooting for them because you realize they're close in age, and he is like the best, you know, this loving man who's helping raise the kid and is always tending to her. And I'm like, that's unique. That's a scene I have not seen before. Like the son asking dad, hey, I want to marry.

You know, mom, but she's, she's, there's nothing romantic. It's just a business contract.

So, all those kind of nuanced, very unique, you know, twisted beef. Like, not everything is good and evil in light versus dark. You know, it's like. There's the nuance of the human experience. And those things in the book, I'm just like, this is just so.

Interesting, regardless if you care about pro wrestling at all, just the human elements of the drama between this, you know, what I called like the core four: Mildred, Billy, and their two kids, those four. And just the unorthodox family drama, I was so entertained by reading the book. Yeah, the When we were doing Straight Out of Compton, something that Gary Gray always expressed to us, and you know, a mixture of my father as well and the team that put that whole thing together, is that the music is the icing. You know, the pro wrestling in this is the icing, the cake. You're like, that the icing gets you, you buy the cake in the bakery because it looks nice.

But the cake, you know, is that human element that you were talking about, is those. And like I was talking about earlier, I didn't want to be the one to give the spoiler away, but yeah, man, you're looking at that arc of that poor of Billy's son, like, man, like, really rooting for this dude, yeah, from the jump. And, you know, it really does give you so many things to worry about, so many things on your mind in this film. I always talk about, this is going to go on a weird tandem, but I do always talk about this. The other Jurassic Parks are just like, yeah, I get there, I get to the island, and you want to get off the island.

That's the story. The first one, I'm worried about the kids. I'm worried about the security. I'm worried about the dude getting the DNA. I'm worried about, like, it's so much put together and it all comes together in the end.

And that's the same feeling that I got from this.

Now You've done that. You've accomplished your goal. Tell us what were some of the difficulties of making such a Which I'm sure is a very R-rated situation and making it PG-13.

So the the First and foremost, it was the Billy Wolf character. Both from a PG-13 standpoint and also from a standpoint of like, is the audience still going to relate to Millie and not go, What are you doing, girl? He's cheating on you. He's beating you. And you get out of there.

Like, give it up. That's what I was thinking. Get away from him. Yeah, man. Yeah.

And there really wasn't. Like, I give the analogy of, like, you know, imagine. You're an actress and Your dream is to be on screen, and there's only one producer, and his name is Harvey Weinstein, and that's the only one there is. There's nowhere else to go. And, you know, what I, and this is another thing that I loved about the book.

In the film, you know, she's beaten. Uh badly. She explains why she can't go to the cops. Mm. And for the audience to relate to that and to actually understand because she's a public figure, because she's this role model, to all these kids.

To then reveal that she stayed with her abuser all this time, it would just shatter. her entire legacy and there'd be this horrible stain and stigma on her and The same thing with not having the relationship with the son, because even though behind the scenes, we know why. It's a beautiful thing, but the public eye, it would be destroyed. Like, we actually, I think a lot of people agree with what Billy says, even though he's our villain to his son when he says it, like, oh, yeah, you know, million-dollar lady, a wrestling champion, leaves promoter husband for his own son. Yeah.

You know, like, how's that for family optics? Like, that's not good.

So it's, it's, again, it's these interesting human scenarios where it's not. Right or wrong. It's not good and evil. It's nuanced, especially because. You're a public.

Entertainer. And the other thing I draw to present day, going back to the Weinstein of it all, I'm not talking specifically about him, but just in general, In entertainment and in other careers, like there's people. That make it out the other side. And I'm sure there's people out there with Weinstein and with other monsters like that that like. They make it out the other side and they don't go, hey, guess what happened to me years ago?

Because they don't want. that stigma on their career and own their legacy. You know, think about it. If you already won Oscars or became, you know, an A-less box office draw and you went through some disgusting Hollywood stuff and nobody found out about it, yeah. Do you want to go and say, hey, guess what happened to me?

Or you might go, you know what? I hate that MF, but. I don't want the attention. I don't want the headlines. I don't want anything to do with it.

I made it out the other side. And so. When Mildred decides not to call the police after the beating, it's I'm hoping anyway, like the audience goes, I get it. I get why, even though we want Billy to go to jail. Fucking lock this motherfucker up.

We understand why Mildred doesn't call the police. And it's, you know, that's heavy. That's just a heavy emotional thing, again, outside of anything to do with pro wrestling. It's the icing, like you said. And it was the same with her mother, too, which made it even more like.

Yeah. You know, she's. dealing with this to her mom and it was just like, ooh. Yeah, like And then again, the mom the mom feels responsible because when she's she's like, hey, you know, look how far you got without your daddy, one day you won't need him. And she probably says, yeah, go back to the abuser because this is your one shot to achieve your dreams.

So It's, yeah, it's heavy stuff, man. If only I had 10 more hours to really dive into all of it. Yeah, yeah, man. Let's talk TurboTax, people. You might be sitting there going, wait a minute, Rich.

I don't get it. It's not April. Why am I thinking about my taxes now? Why should I? Because with TurboTax, you can have an expert file for you as soon as today.

You get a turbo tax expert's undivided attention when you use turbo tax, and they work on your return in real time. Once upon a time, taxes is all about waiting and wondering and worrying. That's three things any fellow football fan can relate to, right? But nowadays, it's all about a turbo tax expert giving your taxes their undivided attention, just like your fantasy league waiver wire. Experts file with 100% accuracy so you can get your best return guaranteed.

Know how it's all working for you right now, rather than finding out at the last second and wondering if the person who's doing it for you knows what they're doing. With TurboTax, they've got an expert who knows what they're doing all the time.

Now, this is taxes into a turbo tax. Get an expert now on turbo tax.com. This episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. At Navy Federal, our mission is to help members of the military, veterans, and their families achieve their financial goals. That's why we offer great savings and investing options like our certificates.

Certificates come with sky-high rates, and some even have the flexibility to add money anytime during your term. Whether you're saving for a home, a new car, or your future, our options can help you get there. And certificates are just the beginning. Navy Federal also provides financial advisors to help you manage your investment portfolio, along with online tools to guide your savings plan. With our support, you'll have everything you need to take charge of your finances.

So don't wait. The sooner you start building your financial future with Navy Federal's savings and investing options, the better off you could be in the long run. Sign up at NavyFederal.org. Navy Federal Credit Union, our members are the mission. Savings products insured by NCUA, investment products, are not insured, not obligations of Navy Federal, and may lose value.

And I want to give some flowers out. You know, we talked about everyone else. Let's talk about Emily. Record two power. Portrays Mildred Burke in this movie.

And I'm telling you, man, she is where's she's mesmerizing in this movie. Every second that this woman is on the screen, you're just, you can't take your eyes off of her. No. And I wanted to talk to you almost about a physical transformation, but I'm not familiar with her. Maybe she walks around daily built like that.

Something tells me she probably doesn't, which shows that she put in a tremendous amount of work to get her physique to the point. Than it is in the movie because she has, I don't know, maybe 13, 14 different bicep flexes during a film where you're just like, wow. Let's give Emily her props. Let's give her her flowers, man. How'd she get this done?

She was so committed from the first day that. That she basically signed on. It was like, here's who I'm training with. Here's the diet. She you know, in between s takes, she's chicken.

weights like every you know, she didn't sack she didn't waste any time. And you can see that pipe behind you right there. Yeah, in the shot. Look at her arms, like she's just ripped. Yeah, and that's all, that's like the real photo.

I mean, obviously, they like. polish it for a movie poster, but like there's no like augmentation or anything. That's the raw actual framing of of the of the body there. I I was so fortunate to to have her be the lead. And again, like the same way kind of Mildred was Doubted that a woman could headline over men and actually blend, you know.

glamorous, glitzy, feminine energy with muscles. It was the same thing when you know I would talk to people in Hollywood, and they're like, Oh, this isn't, you know, this is a period film, and you want box office and this and that, and Emily hasn't had that role yet, and I'm just like. Out of here with that, man. Like, I don't care. Like.

Take your foreign sales and this, that, and the other. And just, I just want to make a great movie. And I believe that if you, if. If you make a movie that people like, it will find an audience. You still have to get the word out and do everything.

But I just, you know, I bet the house on Emily. And I can't imagine anyone else being it. And that's been the biggest through line to every audience and critic review. You know, there's a lot of people that love the film and they're like, I love it. And there's obviously the people like, oh, too many things happen, or, you know, it's too old-fashioned, or it's not art house enough.

You know, the biopic feels, you know. to paint by numbers or whatever. That was by design to keep people on the ride and also appeal to a PG-13 audience, but the one-through line, man. Everyone's just like, I only knocked it out of the park. Yeah.

Yeah. Like. Like she and and it's exciting in the sense that she hasn't Had that moment yet. You know, there were two other. Record label guys, when I try and explain, like everyone's like, so what's your, you know.

Playing with Sumerian, you have a record label, but you're making films.

So, Robert Stigwood did it with a guy named John Travolta with Saturday Night Fever. He was a record label owner. Travolta was a TV actor at the time. Yeah, you know, there's people that was like crossing the Rubicon back then. Oh, TV actors can't be leading men in the movie theater.

And Stigwood was like, no, Travalta's a star, I'm signing him to a three-picture deal.

Okay. He makes Saturday Night Fever hit. Grease, hit. And David Geffen did it with Tom Cruise and Risky Business. Tom didn't have a bunch of big roles yet.

He had done taps, but he was early days, and Geffen was like, Yeah. I'll cruise in the end. He's like, I'll make the movie. Tom's the lead, but you gotta fix the ending because the original ending to Risky Business, he didn't get into college. He's like, everyone's gonna be bummed out.

The movie's not gonna work if all of a sudden he gets rejected and they said they listened to Geffen because he held the cards and You know, Tom Cruise's character gets into college at the end, and risky business is a smash. But it's happened before in the sense of like people taking a risk. I mean, doing a record label, like the whole thing is like finding someone that isn't already established at some huge level, and you risk in them. And so for Emily to just deliver, You know, look, we can talk about this. We all work in the business.

For as many fans and hit shows and episodes that the CW has, there's a lot of people in Hollywood that are like, oh, it's a CW thing. Just the reality. Oh, a CW actor. Yeah. That doesn't mean they're not capable of winning awards.

It just means that's what they're known for because that's been the most watched role they've had.

So for Emily to come from Arrow. To this. And I just mean that simply being like her perception with you know, the big agents and managers. Oh yeah, she was on that CW show. Oh, she's going to be the lead?

It's like, yeah, she's going to be the fucking lead. Watch this. And what happens?

So, to everyone out there, again, back to the Demaris thing. Emily knew she was a winner. She knew she was, oh, I was the one girl from a CW show, and now I'm going to fade away into TV obscurity. Fuck that. She just delivered.

Yeah. She did. She made me look much more experienced and talented than I am at this stage in my career.

So thank you, Emily. The next one's going to be even better if I can find someone as good as you to be my lead in the next movie. But uh You know, that's what uh It just was inspiring about it, man, because she was she was Mildred in her own right, you know, coming into it. The odds were against her in every in every aspect and there was so there was so much doubt. Which to me just makes it that much more vindicating and magical that she delivers and everyone's like, Regardless of what you think, of everything else going on in the movie.

Emily is Mildred Burke. was a fucking win. That was that was that was you know bottom of the ninth bases loaded killed you grand slam game over she really was she really was now She said she's on Arrow. Isn't that the second? Star from Arrow.

This is going off topic again. I'm sorry. The second star from Arrow to get into wrestling? Yeah. Yeah, dude.

What's the other show? He's a country pro wrestling. He's, you know, he was on Arrow. He went to Hills. He'd been in the ring with Cody Rhodes.

Yeah. Absolutely. So, one last thing, not last thing, but we talked about the AEW star in there. Let's talk about the WWE star in the movie. Yeah.

Naomi, Trinity. Trinity Fatu. And I love the way that you. Portrayed The black women wrestlers having a role in this movie. Like, obviously, you didn't have to put that in there, but you did.

And I know, you know, we appreciated it. How was it working with Trinity Naomi? She was wonderful. I mean, she was just so, you know, it's one of those scenarios where you're just like, I wish I could give the character more, you know? Um, She was just a pleasure.

She she was uh in I believe she was in TNA at the time. Yeah. Um And so it was easier to like get her to set and and all like the yellow tape because it wasn't WWE because it's just much more complicated. Um But sh she's just been so supportive and lovely and um And even though her, you know, she doesn't have a lot of lines, she doesn't have a lot of scenes, but to me, she just. In that hair makeup and wardrobe, it's so, it just feels so real, and she just like jumps off the screen and um.

And I thought she did a terrific job. And I hope she does more acting, too. With, as you said, Naomi or Trinity Fatu, she. Was with TNA at the time. Also, Mickey James, or I should believe she was with TNA at the time of you guys filming.

Both are with WWE right now. And this film is a unique time where. Both kind of evil sides of the IWC have to agree on something.

So I really think this is a cool gem of a project in that sense. Bring people together, man. Both y'all can just enjoy it. Have a good time. Yeah.

But yeah.

Now that we've talked about the film, we can't go any more without giving away a a really good piece of art.

So let's talk about you, man. We want to know when did you get bit by that wrestling bug? This is a question we ask everybody on NCW: when did you get bit by wrestling? At a very young age, I would watch WWF superstars. I was already completely invested by WrestleMania 6, so I think.

I think four. Four and five are the first toy watch in real time, and then I went back to three in Steamboat and Dragon after I was older. And then six was the big one because my brother was Hogan and I was Warrior and You know, the false finish and the ref was out. And we, I literally remember in our little bedroom, like, Cheering and going back. But I got it at a very young age.

And I think one of the reasons I gravitated so much to like these larger-than-life heroes was because I didn't have a dad at home.

So I grew up in a two-bedroom, one bath. It was me, my mom, and my brother in one bedroom, my aunt and my grandmother in the second, and then my uncle slept on the couch. We had one bathroom.

So we'd always like line up in the morning to go pee and stuff. And I came to the house for 10 people in one bathroom growing up.

So you know, it's a very like until you've experienced that, you don't realize how nice it is to have your own bathroom. It's like, wow. And I hate to even jump in there, but I got lucky when I moved out to LA. My roommate at the time was an actor, and he bought a house and he let me move in with him. And we were both like walking around the house one day.

He was like, yo, there's six bathrooms in this house, man. Like, we both grew up in a house with one bathroom, you know? And so, yeah. I don't know how to answer this question. Your dad would be a better representation.

So, so I fell in love with it because I saw. These heroes that were real-life superheroes, and so I found like positive male role models and the good guys and the babyfaces. And so I was into it at a very young age. The time that I got into behind the scenes, I remember I was in. New York.

With my mother. It was actually over a court thing before I'd ever met my dad, which we can go into if you wanna know about that trip specifically, because it's kinda symbolic to all this. But she comes in and she knew I was like sad just because, you know, it's a head fuck when you're that young and rejection by anyone, especially your dad. And uh And she goes, Hey, Undertaker and Ultimate Warrior are... Having a match in Madison Square Garden tomorrow.

And I'm like, she knew Warrior is my favorite as a kid. I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, that wasn't an angle on the television.

So I'm like, no, there's no Warrior Undertaker. She goes, look, it says right here, it's a body bag match. What does that mean? And she showed me the newspaper article and I was like, Oh my god, it's real. And I went from being like a sad little broken boy to like, oh my god, I'm gonna see the Ultimate Warrior in person.

Like, I'd never been to a match. And Um, you know, thanks, mom, for figuring out how to pay for that because I'd never been to a match because, you know, it was just a different time. Um and we went and sure enough it was a body bag match. Undertaker zipping them up, the arm comes out at the end. It was awesome.

But it was from that moment where I realized, wait, there's so much more to pro wrestling that's not on television. Yeah. And it was the house match of Taker and Warrior at MSG that that's when I started to realize: wait a second, there's way more to this than just like what I'm watching on the weekends on TV. And then from there, I just, you know, I tell all my like, I call my civilian friends that like aren't into pro wrestling. I'm like, you have to understand, like, Regardless of what happens in the ring, I get it.

If the scripted theater meets circus meets sports stunt part of it is not for you, like actual in-ring action. The behind the scenes is some of the most interesting, compelling drama. You will ever find in music, you still have like unions and all these companies, and in film, obviously, you have a lot more rules nearly, but like the wrestling business, still to this day, and if I offend people, it is what it is. It's still a carney business, period. And I don't mean that to be negative, I mean that to where.

There's no true rules. There's no unions. There's no. You can and can't do this. Like, there's.

Again, we shortened a lot of scenes to get the runtime down. But when Mildred asks Vince McMahon Sr., you know, how can I get a guarantee that my women can wrestle in the state of New York? He answers that at the end, and he goes, You know, Miss Burke, you are such a powerful force in nature, but the one guarantee I can. give you about pro wrestling is that there are none. There's just no guarantees in pro wrestling to anything.

Um You look at screw jobs. I always thought Montreal Screw Job was the only one that happened in the Monterey story. And then when I did research for Mildred's store, I found the Wendy Richter, the Spider Moolah screwjob. Which, by the way, Mickey James, she actually played Fabulous Moolah. We had to cut the scene out because it was a very quick kind of Easter egg, and she introduces herself.

I saw her real quick because I'm a huge Mickey James fan.

So I remember tapping her elbow. I was like, oh, there's Mickey James. And then she was gone. I didn't realize she played Moolah until this morning, as a matter of fact. Yeah, so she gives that suplex, and then.

Billy goes, like, oh, I think we found our ringer. And then he's like, what's your name? She goes, my friends call me Moolah. And then Billy goes, well, that's fabulous. And then Mildred goes, Do you trust her, Billy?

And Billy goes, I don't trust anyone. And then June Byers walks in. But the problem was, when we were going through it, we're like, it's going to be too confusing for the audience because there's already so many wrestlers in the movie. And we just introduced Gladys, and then Nell comes. And then the audience is going to go, wait, fabulous Moolah.

I need to pay attention to this person. And it's just like a one-and-done scene. Right. So. You know, that'll be on the DVD version.

But Mickey was awesome. She also helped train too. She was at OVW helping all the actors and. She's just great, man. She is just a true blue.

Super sweet lady of a hard-working all-American superstar woman, man. Yeah. I love Mickey James. Definitely. Shout out to my busted open family, man.

Mickey James. Definitely in my top five favorite women's wrestlers of all time. I do want to talk to you about that a little bit later on. You brought him up, but you mentioned the warrior and. Who?

Besides him, were your favorites as a kid? Macho Man Randy Savage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm talking to you, Ash, the guy with the big guns. He's, I mean, he was just so great, you know, and I think for a lot of people, too, as like.

you know, as so many decades have gone on, I think you could argue like who's aged the best as like a timeless pro wrestling character that just embodies all of the things that made pro wrestling so spectacularly famous and wonderful in pop culture? I would argue Macho Man Randy Savage. I would make a lot of money. You gotta argue back. Yeah, I actually would say I think Macho Man.

has become that wrestling character that everyone was like How are you not entertained by this person? You couldn't. There's no way. Come on, man. I mean, he had everything, right?

He had the voice, he had the look, like the outfits that he wore. You know, people always want to get on Seth Rollins now about the outfits he wears, but I'm kind of like, what do you want him to come out in some boot cut? Jeans in the tank top like these guys are larger than life and and and macho man personified everything he did what he was six foot one you couldn't tell me macho man wasn't six foot 13 when i was a kid because everything he did from the voice to the beard to just he was just larger than life man when i fell out of wrestling the hardest was when and again whoever i'm offending with this comment i'm just telling you my opinion you will always offend somebody yes one one there was a time um this was like 2000 i don't remember the year but it was it was after the attitude era and it was before like what we're in now but there was definitely like a window where All the wrestlers just started looking like guys that were working out at Equinox. I'm like, oh, I see this guy and what's going on? You're supposed to tell me this is like the pro wrestling guy.

I'm supposed to go, oh my God. And it just became way too like. These are just like dudes at the gym. Like it became too like, I don't want to call it reality TV, but it just cookie cutter almost.

Well, it just wasn't fantastical. I like the fantastical elements of the characters. And that's obviously like with Macho Man. And, you know, I like that Seth Rollins wears, you know, flamboyant. It's like, yeah.

If the gimmick is to not be flamboyant, fine. Like, that's the gimmick in and of itself. Like, you're like, I'm the real raw, you know, dude that doesn't have the bells and whistles. But once it felt like that was becoming the majority of the roster, that's when I was like, man. Yeah, no one's standing out.

Yeah, you gotta have the larger than life. facade of all of it like you know um Yeah, I I say that with like music, right? Like when I'm trying to talk to artists about like. creating who They are and what makes them unique. Because there's so many people that are good musicians, and there's so many good pro wrestlers out there.

But why do you need to exist? Why does everyone need to pay attention to you? And I always do the silhouette thing. Like, you can think of like, Slash from GNR. He could be 15.

Doors down from you. 15 aisles down from you at Ralph's at the grocery store, and you could see it, and you see a piece of the hat and the hair, you're like, That's fucking sly. Yeah. And again, I'm sorry, it's no shade to the artist, it's just how a lot of people feel. You could have, and who's a big rock fan now, Imagine Dragons?

You could have the fucking guitar player, the singer of Imagine Dragons buying a cardon of eggs right in front of you, and a lot of people wouldn't even know that it's him. And I think that's what's happened with with With wrestling, is that there was a time. Where you could just see the silhouette, the black outline of any character, and you know who it is. And once the silhouette outlines stopped being so defined, that's when for a while I stopped paying much attention because it just felt. Like it wasn't.

As Bespoke and magical enough. It started to feel. to normal. I don't want normal in pro wrestling. Yeah, that that's the same philosophy that they use.

I know they use it when it comes to video games as well. You know, you know the silhouette of Sonic. You know the silhouette of Mario, Crash Bandicoot. You're making a mascot. You don't know Crash Bandicoot?

I know Sonic. We're going to get you a PS5, bro. We're going to get you right. But yeah, the silhouette thing is a great way to look at it because it's what companies have been using to sell mascots. Forever.

So, I mean, that's a great way to look at things.

So, it sounds like, you know, that gap that you had. was a time when wrestling broke your heart. We're here at NCW. We have another question that we have to ask everybody. When is the first time, Ash?

That wrestling broke your heart. When I bring this question up, you know, people, we've had some people say when the Undertaker, his streak, You know, and it ended. And then Bailey said when uh Lita and Edge kissed, so like, when was a time where wrestling broke your heart? Uh, our guy, CM Punk. Our very first episode of this.

What do you say? WrestleMania 9? Yeah, WrestleMania 9 when Brett Hart to Yokozuna. Hogan comes down and Brett lets him go in. Yeah, I was Fougay, but I remember that.

I remember that the Caesars, the outdoor. I was with my cousins in Maine and we watched it in their game room. I remember that exact thing because we were like, oh, this is cool. It says Caesars is outside. And then all of a sudden, that came and it was like this weird, like, pseudo-squash moment.

It was like so. Yeah. Yeah, that one, but you know what? The one that I remember, I'll tell you. Probably the one that like broke, broke my heart, shattered my heart, like made me want to go throw up in the fucking back.

The Halloween Havoc Warrior Hogan rematch, man. Oh, but the fake trap door. Yeah, that's a lot going on. Yeah, that was. There's a lot.

That that was like To like draw it to like And again, this isn't my opinion.

Okay, my opinion is out of this. My opinion on Halloween Havoc is terrible. I'm removing my opinion from these films because I think there's I'm a huge fan of Joker 1, and I see why people didn't like Joker 2.

However, there's a lot of great in Joker 2 as well, but I see why people were so let down. Warrior Hogan 1 to Warrior Hogan 2 is like the Joker Joker 2 of Wrestling.

Okay, okay. Because WrestleMania 6 was like, that was one of the most, in my opinion, that was one of the most iconic matches because it was two faces against each other, which is what. Mildred Burke and Claire Mortensen was with Tony Storm's character and Emily. Like they just knew they had two big draws, and neither one of them was a bad guy. We got to put them together for the sake of the headlining business.

That Halloween Havoc match, man. What in the world? Yeah. And then some sparkle, like, what are they got? Like a firework thing?

And he gets it. Just a disaster. Yeah, because it had that buildup from WrestleMania 6.

So we're all like, oh, the Warriors back, Hogan's going. It's gone down. Yeah, it did not live up to expectations. No. You got two ways.

You got to be Halloween Havoc? Like, what? Yeah, yeah. That's not even like your WrestleMania. No, we got to sell these ticks, man.

It should have been Starcade or something. Like, come on, man. That's a solid one. Is that our first? Was that our first Debbie's?

It might be. It might be our first WCW moment that was used in there. You've made history at NCW, bro. Congratulations. Wow, so you guys don't even discuss the WCW episode.

No, we do, but you're the first one to mention a moment from WCW. Oh, at the heartbreak moment. That's the heartbreak moment.

Okay, that makes sense. I think we've done like this episode 23. I don't think anyone's done. Yeah, no. I can't think of any.

Maybe Bischoff. Let's hit him with the most popular question we got, right? Oh, yeah. Our number one question, okay?

Now. There's a situation. You're at a bar, okay? And there's 50 dudes in that bar. That don't want you in there.

They're part of the IWC that are mad at Queen of the Ring. They're mad at you for some reason.

So I need you to pick a team of you and four wrestlers. to make sure they get ass to the car. Let's give him five. Yeah, right. Let's give you five.

We'll give you five. Haku, right? All right, thanks for coming out. Yeah, good one. From what my understanding was, he was the most lethal out of everyone.

He rips throats out, apparently, bites off noses and gouges eyes and things. I'm going to take Junkyard Dog. JY Dick because I believe people are just the fact that he's called a Junkyard Dog and he looks the way he does, people are going to be like, maybe I shouldn't swing at this dude. Yeah, perhaps. Especially, have you seen like early mid-South JYD before he came?

Yes, because when I watched the Dark Side of the Ring up, I didn't realize so much of this story. He was looking like Shelton Benjamin Bobby Lashley. Yeah, JYD was. Yeah, he was on Swole. That's like one of my dad's favorites.

Yeah. Um Now I'm thinking like, okay, like... Maybe Shamrock because he's the one who's gimme shamrock in there. This is a great question. I don't know.

Yeah, thank you, man. Everybody loves to draft. Yeah. And then. And then honestly, man, I think I'm taking Mae Young in her prime.

Okay, cool. Because she would fight the dirty, and people are going to be like, oh, I can't hit this girl. And she's like, that's fine. I'll fucking rip your dick off right here. You know, I need a woman on it because that's going to make men go.

The three men, I hope, wouldn't attack the woman, but the woman's going to, Mae Young's going to get it done.

So that's four. Mark Henry's going to love that answer. Yeah. He's so highly going to have in there, too. But Mark speaks so highly of me.

All right, so we need one more. Yeah, one more. Who's the m I mean Are the 50 people in there? Are they drunk or sober? They're at a bar, so they're haters.

They've been drinking, hating on you.

So, yeah, they're a little buzzed. If you're hating sober, you're crazy. It's a genuine disgust. I mean, I'm trying to think who's the most. lethal in the fight would be And it's any decade.

Anytime. I mean, yeah, as long as you've been a fan, man. You've seen him with your eyes. Go ahead. I mean, I think I'd probably say, I mean, Brock Lesnar seems like a good solid response.

Give me Brock. I think you can go wrong with Mr. Lesnar. Yeah, I think Brock's good in there. And I love that you said May because, you know, I made our show's Instagram post about, you know, going to the premiere and everything.

And I wrote about May Young. Like, it was awesome to see. A young May Young. We all started to know Mae Young when she was older. And we're like, how is this old woman able to take you know power bombs from her with Dudley?

And then, as I personally started to research a lot more about wrestling, I realized that, like, Mae Young was the toughest dude in any room she walked into. Johnny Mae Young. Johnny Mae Young. So it was like amazing to see Francesca Eastwood bring her to the main screen, you know, Clint Eastwood's daughter, correct? Yeah.

And so that was awesome to see. And to see, like, you know, just a different side, a different age of Mae Young that we've all been accustomed to seeing. It was great to see that and to know that this was a tough, tough woman, man. Like she messed you up. Yeah, she really.

I mean, I in some Again, I hope we get to tell more period wrestling stories because some of the news articles I found, her arrest in Reno, Nevada, she really would, she'd beat up dudes at bars. Like, she, like, these women, like, again, this, and again, I guess this is the other thing that I had to. tone down and make it more of a PG-13 and if I do If I got to do a Gorgeous George movie, that's going to be, you know. much more R just 'cause Not necessarily just because of him, but just to show the more grittier nature of the times. These women were outlaws.

Like they were actual outlaws. I mean, because they had to be outlaws just to wrestle in a lot of the states because they were showing up to be like, yeah, it's illegal here, but we're going to do the show anyway. But they really were. They were gangsters. Like, not gangsters in the sense that they're like gangbanging, but gangsters in the sense that like.

They were real with it. Yeah. And they would, they would like, they'd fuck you up. Yeah. No problem doing it.

Yeah. And they're like, yeah, I'll go to jail tonight. I don't give a fuck. And I'll make bail and I'll make my match 10 hours down the road and I'll drive through the night. And then I'll see you again and do it all through.

Yeah. Yeah. They were, they really were like gangster women in a time where the world was saying it was illegal. And then they started drawing more than the men. Listen, there has been a resurgence.

Uh, lately, you know, the women's revolution in modern day times. And yeah, there's been a lot of situations where I'm more excited to see the women's rumble, I'm more excited to see the women's money in the bank match or anything. And then when you see over in AEW, you know, just some of the massacres that the women are putting on over there. The draw is there. The draw is there.

It's wrestling right now. And that Rhea Ripley-Charlotte Flair Mania match, that was a bang. Wow. I mean, that to me is one of the greatest women's matches of all time. I can agree with you.

What's that? That's 39? That was 30. The one here in SoFi. Yeah, Shea was there.

Yeah. That was there. That was 2023? Three, yeah, because 24 was Philly. Yeah, because it was in SoFi here, yeah.

Yeah. Philly, I'm sorry, you should never get a mania again. Why? It's freezing. It was right at night one.

Oh, my God. The home of the Eagles. It was. It hurts a clap. Crazy night one, yeah.

Oh man, outdoor stadium. Here's another thing. We talked about Mildred and May. What other wrestlers, and I don't know if you even want to answer this because maybe you're like, I have an idea and I don't want to say it, want somebody to steal it. But like, what other wrestlers do we feel are worthy of, you know, getting the big screen treatment?

I know there's a few I'd love to see. I feel like you, O'Shea, and I should produce one or two that I've got in my mind. Yes, let's go. Yeah, don't say them over there.

Well, definitely gorgeous, George. And also. George is George with Jim Mitchell being a big part of the story because their feud. Was just fascinating, including what happened at the Olympic Auditorium in LA when the riot broke out because George getting the dirty finish, and Jim was over as a babyface. Also, to my research, the first person to use Black Panther.

as a moniker or a stage name. in any type of entertainment. I could be wrong, but we did a good amount of research, and it was this Kentucky wrestler named Jim Mitchell, who's the Black Panther of the Mat. Um You know, I've looked into Savage. Savage is hard to find stuff on, there's not a lot of books.

or really anything out there, but just knowing what He Just yeah, I mean, the love story and the heartbreak, Miss Elizabeth, and then the luger of it all, and the OD. I mean, I actually do have a savage now that I think about it, someone sent me a savage script from I think from Lanny. No way. Yeah, I have to check my email. I know this was like five years ago.

But yeah, I definitely am sitting on one. A friend of mine had, and he goes, I know you like wrestling. And he sent me the script, and it was, you know, the Randy Savage story. I don't think anyone's doing anything with it. I'll tell you, too, another one just to see how it ended because the ending's so surreal.

Like, I actually managed Warrior for a while many, many years ago. Really? I have a lot of Wild Warrior stories. There's actually, we made a TV show. You can see it on YouTube.

It's called The Warrior Show, and it's like the ultimate warrior putting these rock bands through these crazy, like mental, physical boot camp from hell. workout regimes. Oh man. It's actually really entertaining. And then You know, uh I don't want to like Speak badly about someone that's passed, but like the sad thing is, we started actually getting a lot of interest.

Um And I think this is this is not This is not to like throw shade at Warrior. This is more so, I think, just the challenging nature because. Wrestlers for so long didn't have agents and managers. It was like them negotiating directly with the promoters, right? Warrior always had a sense that, like, someone was getting one over on him, or he wasn't getting what his value was because he knew his pop culture value, but he was still a wrestler and he was still in that box.

And so, once we started getting. All this momentum on the show. He was like, Well, I need a million dollars to do another episode. And I'm like, dude. You own the majority of the show.

I was like a minority partner. I was like such a fan. I'm like, you're entertaining outside of the ring, and you're so into. You know, physical health, let's do this show. And he, I asked him, I go, Well, how much money did you get to come back?

To fight Warrior and Hogan. He goes, Oh, I got it. It was a million-dollar deal. And I was like, for even more than just that match. I'm like, Warrior.

Yeah. To get a million dollars to do a reality show that was season one per episode, the same amount of money you were getting to fight Hulk Hogan, your biggest moment, like your biggest rematch. You know, that's like. I don't know. Think of the huge Tenpole movie and then they finally get the actor to do the sequel, right?

Like, how much money are they paying them to do the sequel?

So that was sad in the sense that. that all thing kind of fell off because um Warrior trying to represent himself with finances. But his story is pretty wild, I will say. And especially seeing as how he became this father to his daughters, him having to change his name. To own himself.

Like he literally called himself Warrior. His license had Mr. Warrior. Fascinating lawsuit with Vince. Jim Helwig, a warrior, also didn't have a dad growing up.

He found a father figure in Vince, which is why the whole thing was so sad when he would tell me these stories. He was very close to the family. And then to see how he. He He passes. I mean, that was the most unbelievable thing.

It really was. To get the speech off, too. To get the speech. And he's basically saying his own eulogy. That's what was the same.

And then the next day, you could not. Could anyone write a more unbelievable true ending? I mean, when I had text messages about that and went online, I was like, it was like nine in the morning when I, so it was early, and there was a guy who took a picture with him in the airport like hours before he passed. It's just devastating. And I think the lesson there.

with warriors' life Um You know, what would people take away from it? Like with with Queen of the Ring. Obviously, believe in your dreams, believe in yourself, fight, don't let the world tell you you can or you won't. But there's a big parent and child moment there, right? Like the family.

The family can go beyond blood, because May wasn't. Related by blood, but they were blood in the story. And then her own son, which is her blood.

So there's that element to it. But for Warrior, and I would say this is for Vince McMahon as well after watching the doc. It's remembering that the ego is not your fucking amigo. That's been my ego for years. The ego destroyed because Warrior's downfall was his ego.

He meant well, like he wanted to entertain and inspire people, but. His ego was what messed it all up because it became too much about money. It became too much about. Ego, probably. I mean, even though I thought it was great when he wore the shorts saying this means more than this, about the Warrior Savage retirement, it was before Slaughter Hogan, right?

Was that WrestleMania 7? WrestleMania 7, it was or 7 or 8 or 8, I think, was Warrior Savage. Wasn't that Warrior Savage, like retirement match, and then Hogan Slaughter was headlining. And Warrior wore the trunks that said, like, this means more than this.

So, like, basically, saying, talking about how their retirement match had more weight than the Hogan Slaughter headlining match. Yeah. But the ego. And then when I look at when I watch the Vince stock. And people can say whatever they want about Vince, but he's the reason.

You know It became the spectacle that it is, and it reached notoriety. And also, like, The WrestleMania MTV moment. I actually became really good friends with Les Garland, who was the co-creator of MTV, who was there during all that. And I have a script. I didn't write it, I hired a writer to write this for me that just spent you know, a year and a half researching everything, but it's You're see um Uh And by the way, this is going out there, so we might need to get on this one and actually get this made because it's a good idea.

You saw air, right? Of course.

So it's air, but the deal is MTV and WWF getting together to make WrestleMania one.

So the rock and wrestling connection with Cuz Lauper, yeah, and the MTV-WWF partnership and everything that went down, and the brawl to end it all, and all of the drama. Apparently, there was a scene where the MTV execs and the WWE Vince was arguing of like.

Well, we think what we just did, you know, uh MTV is like, well, we think, you know, we just gave you your biggest, you know. Draw and viewership, and we believe that we should own a piece of WWE.

Now, and Vince was like, Oh, that's funny. Vince was like, That's funny because I thought I was going to ask you to own a piece of MTV for what I just did for you. And they just had this big blowout, which is really sad because, like, If they would have figured out a deal, God knows where it all would be right now between MTV and WWF if they would have figured out how to be partners, if they could have found their. you know. I don't know.

What are the two when two companies get together? You know, like merge or like, yeah, because we see it now, right? There's like. Disney and ESPN are like one company. Yeah, and they're going to figure that out.

But it's a crazy. Story of how all that was coming together, and they made that deal, and all the personalities. But I just went on a tangent about that. What were we talking about right before that? There was that worry.

Oh, Vince. Yeah, so you know, the family of it all.

So when I watched Vince's. Docu Series All Shane wanted. Man. Dude. All he wanted was his father's acceptance and his father's love and approval.

And he always felt he had to overachieve. And we've never talked about this, and we obviously just, you know, became knowing each other, but like. Your dad's ice cube. My dad. Like, people are like, the fucking self-inflicted weight of like, my dad made Rocky and Karate Kid.

He had plenty of duds, but obviously, you know, he made two of the greatest of all time of an American sports underdog film. And here I am making this without a studio behind me, with way less experience. It's like the self-inflicted weight, and Shane put all this weight on himself with advanced.

So to see that Shane wanted to buy the UFC. Dad says no. Only for the UFC to end up buying You know, essentially, the UFC buying WWE, Vince is out, and all he had to do. was keep it a family business. All he had to do was tell Shane and Stephanie Hay.

This is my whole life. It's my existence. You're my kids. I have unconditional love for you. And you obviously love...

The family business, and it will be yours. But maybe he pulls to Hugh Hefner and the Playboy match, and he goes, Hey. You can buy it from me. You guys own it. But I'm living here till I die.

And once I die, then it's all yours. Instead of just keeping, reminding family, right? Keeping it family, what does he do? The ego. I needed to be bigger.

I needed more power. I need more of the wild and the unknown. And the greatest worker of all, Got worked. Yeah. Is Deep.

Out. The greatest worker of all got worked, and all he had to do. was just keep it a family business until His son and daughter you know what, kiddos? I'm still your dad, and we did this together, and one day it'll all be yours, but Can I hang out and keep doing it with you? Yeah, that's the way it is.

Dude, you have no idea. From the jump. I've always wanted to have a conversation. with Shane or with Stephanie of just like Number one, every second generation, our stories are different. Like, our stories are way different than each other's.

I talked to a lot of...

Sons and daughters that are second generation, and we all got different stories. You know, it's just, it is what it is. It's to get Shane or Stephanie's perspective on growing up in that and not just being like, because we've spoken to Carlito, who grew up in the business. On the wrestling side, his father ran a promotion. Running the WWE is like...

I need to know. I need to pick the brain. And it was never a situation where I'm there to necessarily talk about Vince, but just their perspective on things. And Shane was putting his body on the line in the craziest ways. Oh, my God.

That 32, where he jumps off the cage and take her moves, and that's the I love you. I'm there. I was there, dude. And like to be there, to see that, it's on my Instagram. And him, you know, I put him in slow motion, the fall, and everything.

And to know that that moment led to what we saw, you know, I just wanted to pick his brain on that. And I can only imagine much, much power to Shane McMahon. I mean, that would honestly be a movie, like the son constantly chasing his father. Shane O'Mac. You know what I mean?

Like, God. Yeah, man. I mean, the whole thing is. Regardless if it's, I mean, it's all subjective. Is WWE way better or not better with or without Vince?

Regardless, well, that's all just opinion. But, like, just the human. Element of it all to see you know, what what we've learned Even just with the Vince and Shane dynamic. And that I mean, k is sh is Shane involved in it anymore? Or is he I don't believe he is.

Yeah, i definitely not publicly. Yeah. We i it's nothing that you know fans uh have done as of late but speculate. You know, there was talk about him Being in an AEW storyline for months until that died down. You know, there's just.

The one thing about the IWC is we all think we're getting worked. We're all thinking like this is a lie, this isn't really happening. And like, that's just wrestling.

So, you know, we don't know. But anytime I hear here comes the money, I'm going to pop. I'm going to pop.

Now, You know, before we let you get out of here, I do want to talk about because I just brought up being second generation and things like that. What was it like knowing I'm going into film? You know, with who your dad is and things like that. What are some of the things going through your mind? What's the relationship like, if any?

Talk to us a little bit about that. Because we want to let people know your dad, John Abelson. Like you brought up. Directed Rocky, one an Oscar, the karate kid movies, you know, like, so you do have like this place in. The greatest, some of the greatest sports movies of our youth, growing up, man.

Yeah, you know, it's funny. I'd actually love to get your guys' take on this. We're trying to figure out how we can get like just some more awareness for Queen of the Ring in the theaters now. And technically, like if you go on Rotten Tomatoes and you look at like top movie sports, we're the number one sports movie in America, but we're like the only one in the theaters. Hey, the number one sports movie in America.

The only sports movie in America, right? You know how many times that's happened? Yeah. I don't give a damn. And then we, and then we, we saw in my marketing guy, I was like, you know what?

You could do the number one sports movie in America with the number two most interesting fight in America. You know, Blake and Justin, but here's Billy and Mildred. You know what I mean? That's crazy. That's crazy.

Because even if we have a new trailer, but I'm like. The stuff that works on social media, it's not even like the high-end trailers. It's like these like more raw, fun things that just end up what everyone shares.

So I'm like, I don't even know if we drop a new fancy trailer. We need to drop something that's clever and funny. Listen, Genethieves 2 came out January 10th. We said the best movie of 2025. Came out January the 10th, bro.

Use that. Use that. You got to use it, right? Yeah, you have to. Use what you got to get what you want.

I love it. I love it. Yeah, so my dad, so I was born with his last name. Mi I I never knew him as a kid. It was a headfuck because I loved his movies.

People knew who he was.

So I go to elementary school, hey, what's Mr. Miyagi like? Like, I don't know, I've never met him.

So there was that element. And then it was actually on that. um, New York trip where I saw a Taker Warrior, um It was the It was my first time seeing my dad in the flesh. How old are you? 12, I think it was.

I had been at, I started going to a co-ed military school in the seventh grade, even before I hit puberty. Because in the sixth grade, I started just getting into a lot of trouble. I was like a straight A student in elementary school. Sixth grade, I started hanging out with the eighth graders. I'm drinking Mickey's malt liquor.

I'm smoking cigarettes. I can't even inhale. I'm skipping school to do graffiti. I was growing up in DC. I was like totally, you know, off the rails as a young, I mean, this was before puberty.

I look at like 11, 12 year olds now. I can't imagine the shit I was doing back then. And um And so my family like put money together to get me sent to a military school because they're like, he needs like some positive male role models. Sadly, WWF superstars weren't going to get it done. Even though now it's like, we needed someone in person doing it.

So after the first year, my family ran out of money and my mom was in basically a New York family court case with my dad trying to get him to pay the tuition for the military school. And I had to go there and testify, basically, saying why I believe I should get the tuition paid and why it's important.

So my dad is he's about the distance you and I are, Sai, except we're both facing towards the courtroom door, and he's wearing He's reading a newspaper and I remember exactly what he was wearing. It's one of those, like, just exact memories, right? The color of his socks, the way his legs were crossed. He's reading a newspaper. I look at him, I'm a little kid.

I'm like, oh my god, this is my first time seeing my dad. Wow. looks over. goes into the court room. And I don't see him again for twenty something years.

Man. And my therapist says that was my moment of annihilation as a child. And With specifically boys that grow up without fathers. They're usually one of two things. They either overly compensate and try to overachieve, or a lot of times, I think the statistics are like 65-some percent, they end up in a life of crime, poverty, violence, or drugs, which is another thing that drew me to Mildred Burke's story because it was this single mom.

She didn't have a dad, her son didn't have a dad. And That moment was forever in me. And I went once I met my father and we became the best of friends on our first birthday together. He's like, I want you to ask me the hard questions. And I asked him about that if he remembered it.

What brought you two together? Actually never I I never said on on camera actually how the meet like, how it actually happened. Uh So he um my I mean, whatever. It's all true. I'll just I'll share it.

Um my my mother um had a I I love her to death and and a lot of this is from the trauma with the lawsuits and and everything with with my dad and you know, substance abuse. But she she was, um Manic depressive, bipolar, alcohol. Problems? She was also my millie mom, like always pushing me to believe in my dream. Again, this goes back to not everything's good and evil and light and dark.

It's like she was a big reason I became successful because she always fought for me. Yeah. Like, no matter what. Um And she, any insane idea, oh, I'm going to be a singer in a band, I'm going to move to LA and start a record, whatever it was, she was in the fight with me. But she had Her own demons.

And and, you know, um, I don't know how I didn't end up an alcoholic, but alcoholism is in a lot of my family genes on my mom's side. And so she. She was still battling very intense alcoholism. She was basically squatting at my house and getting drunk and driving me insane. And so I called.

Um She was just being completely neurotic and I called the cops and I said come to my house I go I don't want her arrested But I got her a home in Palm Desert or La Quinta, and I need she needs to leave here because my My girlfriend at the time, she was fighting with her. She was just being insane. She's getting drinking vodka at my house. I'm like, you got to leave. She doesn't live here.

I literally bought her her own house. Like, get her there.

So the cops come and. And they're like, look, she's too drunk to drive. What do you want us to do? I go, I mean, if we don't arrest her and she can't drive, like, where we, you know, you want to take her to? I was like, okay.

I'm going to leave tonight. I'm going to go stay at a friend's house. She can stay here. She has to leave in the morning and go to her house. In that night when I left, I think she continued to drink.

She calls my father's answering machine. And I think it leaves an Oscar worthy performance of just. My son resents me. He hates me. You have to acknowledge him.

You have to read the articles about him. He lives on Mulholland Drive. I'm in his house right now. He did it all on his own. All he wants to know is know you, please.

And just, and I think my dad's. They weren't married, but basically his wife, Chani, this amazing she was actually an Olympic Korean badminton player. She hears it and I think tells my dad, like, John, you you know, call. you're your son. And then I get home the next day And my mom's still there.

And I'm so I'm like, I can't believe you're still at my house after everything we just went through last night. And and in my head, I'm just like, How dare you still be here? And she goes, Your father called you. And I'm like, no, she's like, stop, just go to the desert. She goes, your father called you, Ashley.

And I and I go to my my iPhone and there's a Beverly Hills message. And I and I Hey, uh, Ashley, it's... John Avilson. I'd love to meet you, kiddo. You wanna you wanna go out and and get breakfast or a coffee sometime this week?

And I'm getting emotional, man. Pro wrestling, bro. Yeah. Um. And uh And he left me a message, and then my mom goes, I'm going to the desert now.

Okay. And she left, and it was the light and the darkness. It was it was me calling the cops and saying, Get the fuck away from me, and her being disinhibited enough from being drunk to call my dad and leave that voicemail. And then me and my dad went out to, I never know how to say it, the Le Pain Côte d'Idon, whatever the French breakfast place is. And we had this great.

Like meal, and then he was like, Yeah, you should come over to my house. I was, I was working on. Uh, this movie, this like fun little rock and roll Faustian devil movie, uh, American Satan. I had the script and I wanted to get his notes on it. And uh, he goes, Yeah, I want you to come over to my house.

Tomorrow. And I'll give you some n uh no, you know what he says? He goes. You guys will appreciate it. He goes, Yeah, this is my address.

So throw it over the fence, like the script. Yeah. He goes, He goes, throw it over. The fence. I go, this motherfucker, after all this, throw it over the fence.

But you know what I mean? Like, the artist and the businessman in me go, that's fine. I'm going to get notes. He's a fucking great filmmaker. Fuck this dude.

Whatever. Let me get the notes. Let's see what he had. The notes on my script. And so I pull up and I'm getting ready to throw the script over the fucking fence.

And sure enough, he starts opening the gate. Oh, wow. And he goes, Park right over there. Come on in. I made you something.

And we go in. And We have a a drink, we smoke a little uh pipe. Um I think he mixed like tobacco and pot a little bit. He was like the old school. Yeah.

And we just start hitting it off, and we just stayed up all night long, like two kids. And it was like. Like, you're totally my fucking dad. Like, I'm this weird hybrid of my mom and my dad, and here you are. And it was just like the most surreal thing.

And then the first gift he gave me, which I should digitize this and do something with it so the world can see it, was like the original Rocky script. And it was very different, it was much darker. Apollo Creed was like this Jamaican rude boy. There was like gambling in it. There was like all these, it was just a much darker, you know.

you know, raw, gritty. Story um uh before my dad started kind of doing all his notes to it but it was just like You know, I could tell he didn't have like 10 of these. He was like, I think he was trying to overcompensate, like, all right, like. I just met My son, and what the fuck do I do now? Like, here's the original Rocky script.

I love you and I'm sorry and let's be friends. I remember he said something, and then we can stop talking about all this if you want. I know I've been going forever, but he was like, he was just like. He goes. You know.

This is no this is no shade at like my half brothers, but like You know, they don't really talk to me for whatever reason. Like, when I became friends with my dad, I would come to Christmas dinner or some of his birthday, and it's like, Like, hey, here's the circus freak, like a strange bastard's son. Like, I'm here. Hi, everyone. My sister was great.

My little sister, who's got a different mom than my older half-brothers, she was great. But the other half-brothers, there was always this like, And I think it's because I Became very successful on my own, and I was the rejected one. And they. grew up with all the bells and whistles and Maybe they didn't get whatever level of success or monetary gain, whatever it was, but there was definitely always this. And I tried to figure it out, but there was always a thing and um My dad, I remember he says, you know.

Of course.

you know, my one son who's yeah living in the Hollywood Hills and did it all on his own and You know, you've sold all these records and you're making your own movies already, and all these things. He goes, Of course. I don't meet you until the third act of my life. He goes, it's just like it was written like this, and now we have such limited time. to even share together 'cause he was like eighty.

Yeah. And uh and it was just one I I'll never forget that when he's called it, Of course, I don't meet you till my third act of my life, you know. Um But yeah, like the like the to make it a little more light-hearted, I remember like my mom would like to show me, like as I, once I was like old enough to really understand what was going on, she would like show me these letters. She was like, writing my dad. And I remember there was one, she was like, she was like, you know, John, this isn't a scene in one of your movies that you can just edit out.

He lives here. He exists. You need to, you know, when I was like a little kid, there's actually an episode of Larry King. I should just put this on the internet. Maybe it'll help.

Bring more awareness to the movie, but like she went on Larry King and they were talking about it. Like, should a father have to support or acknowledge or anything a child born out of wedlock? That's like clearly in a much different echelon, you know, of living standards and all that. And, um, I went back and watched it as an adult got emotional. My mom was like, I don't even care about the money.

If he would just be a dad to Ashley, that's all I really want. And then Larry King put me over. He held up a little headshot of me at like 10. He goes, even not for my own ego. Why wouldn't you want to acknowledge this kid?

Look how cute he is.

So that always stuck with me. But anyway, yeah, that's how I met my dad, man. Hopefully, we get a moment out of that. Dude, sell some fucking tickets this weekend. Yeah.

Yeah. That was a great story. That was awesome, dude. This is and you got to at least spend some time in that third act with them. We did.

We became very close. And we, uh, there's actually a photo, I think it's from 2016. Me, Jim Ross, and my dad, and then JR's manager, Barry Bloom, who reps a lot of impressive talent. We all went out to Soho House and Wes Hollywood and was basically like, hey, let's talk about this movie and this book. And I remember me and my dad both was reading it on her own and we were like I was like Let's read it independently of each other, underline all of our favorite lines and scenes and moments, and then let's compare and see if we're picking a lot of the same things.

And sure enough, it was like nine out of 10. We're like, yep, that scene's great. That scene's great. He loved the fact because my dad didn't know anything about pro-wresting. He's like, wait a second.

Sometimes the ref is in on it, sometimes they're not. And then, again, this is just everyone out there that's an artist that puts yourself out for judgment, just remember. There's always gonna be people that say mean things. There was this one reviewer, like the worst review the movie got was like, and this writing, he literally says, no bigger than a pint of piss. Like ridiculous from Avilson to even write that.

I'm like, that's literally a line word. For word from the book that, like, Billy Wolf was known to say. And I just thought it was interesting that he said, You're no bigger than a pineapple. You could just make that up. Yeah.

And my dad, I remember me and my dad goes, That's so funny, no bigger than a pineapple. He goes, That's gonna sound funny. And we both liked it. And of course, this reviewer tries to say, Josh wrote that. Like, that's a stupid saying.

I'm like, dude, I literally just took it from the book. That was me, like, paying homage to the dialogue that the author had found from research for Billy.

So, anyway. But yeah, we started, he was still alive when we started working on it. In fact, the two other people that the film is dedicated to at the end. is um Jim Ross's wife, who had the motorcycle or moped accident. Jan, right?

Yeah, Jan, she was amazing because she was there with JR when he first told me about the book, and we went out in Vegas together for this, had this great breakfast and spent all this time talking about it. And then Kelly. Wendy Cope and Kelly Cope. Mildred's great-granddaughter. Mildred's granddaughter came to the Newport Beach premiere.

I wish we had her on film. I mean, she was just so emotional, covered in tears. She was so, so appreciative and so happy with how it came out. But her daughter was who I was originally dealing with, and she was a teenager. I'm embarrassed that I don't remember the specific disease because it's a very, very unique, like.

bone disease where your where your bones can almost kind of like twist in your spine and stuff. And it's like literally like your body can like twist. I I'm gonna have to to call her mom and ask what it was called because I hate not Being able to reference it. But she had passed also when we were still developing. The the screenplay and she was the one I originally did the deal with and was so excited about it and she literally kinda had an accident where her like spine she kinda just like split.

As a young and it was really, really sad. And it just, it's one of those things where it's like, You know, my dad would always say anytime I was trying to get something done, and you know this with projects when you're trying to get something off the ground, no matter what you're trying to work on, you know, set the podcast show up, get the movie made, like, you know, build the garage, whatever it is you're like trying to do. It's like, He would always say, like, you know, we're not getting any younger, kiddo, as in, like, time's going by and One of the heaviest things for me with Queen of the Ring is just thinking about everything that's transpired from the day I read the book to say this should be a movie till now, including three people that were all so close. to the story all Dead. Yeah.

We're also kind of at the age now where like. Death is just all around us, man. Absolutely. You know, it's like there's people, always people just dying. That's why I try and just remind, you know, myself: like, every day you wake up.

And you got your health, and you get to do something cool like this. Like, this is nothing short of a miracle. I'm sitting here with you guys on a Wednesday talking about pro wrestling and getting emotional about my family. Like, this is like amazing. On a Wednesday.

And I got a little kid now, and he's popping in. And once he's old enough to understand, he'll find this on YouTube and he'll be like, wow.

So, Izzy. When you're out there, whenever you're old enough, I love you, buddy. You're the light of my life, and I am so proud to be your father. And I can't wait to see what happens with him, man. He actually plays a little baby.

Here's a fun little inside thing.

So, I shot a baby before on a TV show. And so, for everyone out there wondering, whenever you're shooting a baby, you normally have twins because you can only shoot a small child or a baby for so many minutes in a scene, and then you got to switch it out because there's actually rules, there's unions, not in wrestling. I don't, you know, right, same baby from Lesbia.

So, so, again, we're an indie film, and we're like, oh, if we get a real baby, or if we hire a baby, we're going to have twins, we're going to have to put up the parents, we're going to, it's going to be so much more money and time. I was like, we're going to use our kid. Absolutely. And we'll shoot him out. He's going to be great.

And the mom will be right, you know, side of the set. And so we shot him, and he was great. And Man, it's so funny, like... Seeing kids grow up. He, I don't even know who taught him this, but he lined up his trucks and he made like a set.

Like he had like his like truck and the garbage truck and the fire truck and he lines them all up and he goes, He goes, Daddy trucks. I go, Oh, that's really cool. And he set him up like a set, like a scene. He goes, I'm a movie star. And I'm just like, Where did this come from?

Who that taught you that phrase? You just watching, man. They just pick up everything. Did everything. My daughter, when she was two, the first time she like...

Started watching TV with me. It was a Macho Man versus Crush. And I was like, wow, look at her. Look at her sitting up, paying attention. You know, that was just a big thing for me.

And then later on in life, we're watching Bianca Belair versus Alexa Bliss. She goes Daddy, I want to do that. Oh, and I was like, shut the fuck up. Like, you're lying. Like, there's no way.

How old was she when she said that? This is probably about five or six. Oh, but I'm like, yo, listen.

Okay. We need to do this right now.

So, so we go into the living room. Like, my sister's there. Oh, my God. Yo, I know you heard that. And so, like, she.

She gets behind the curtain. I play the music. She comes out. She starts talking on her little karaoke machine. She fought her auntie for like 30 minutes.

Put on a 30-minute classic. It was a lot of pinfalls. She doesn't really get the ins and outs. But yeah, whenever she sees Bianca, when she loved seeing Alexa Bliss come back, she digs it. She naturally loves gymnastics.

So like, I'm like, all right, yeah, let's work on these tumbles today. Let's get these going. But yeah, bro, I'm going to have a future champion of the world. Oh, that is awesome. She just naturally gravitated towards that.

And because I've been trying to put a basketball in her hand since she was born. And she's like, yo, get this shit out of here. But they say you covet what you see, right? Your son, he's on set.

So that's what he's saying. Your daughter, she's watching wrestling with you.

So, you know, that's what you're seeing. Yeah. This has been amazing, man. Absolutely. This is one of my favorite interviews that we've done.

You are our. Our first non-wrestling interview ever.

So we appreciate it.

So it's normally just wrestlers. Yeah, like this is all we're doing. This is such an amazing opportunity. Like, there was no way that we. We saw the film, we enjoyed the film, we had to be involved in promoting it some kind of way.

To hear the journey and the process just makes us fall in love with it more. Anything you need from NCW, you know, we got you. And we didn't even mention that you were talking about Mildred talking to Vince McMahon Sr. I was watching the movie, and the guy playing Vince McMahon Sr. would look really familiar, but I couldn't place it.

He's about 20 pounds heavier in that scene, and it's all right on his, it's all that crafty and stress-eating. You know, it's funny about stress-eating.

So, that was him, by the way, folks. If you don't know, he portrayed Vince McMahon Sr. in the movie. I remember asking my guy, I'm like, hey, how come when I get really stressed out? I just gravitate towards like pizza and frozen yogurt.

It's not just you. And he goes, well, it's called comfort food for a reason. It literally creates serotonin in the brain.

So when you eat cheese and bread and sugar, it's literally making a chemical reaction in your brain that, like, Makes you feel better.

Now, after a little while, you don't feel so good, but that immediate hit, it's literally chemical reactions in the brain, which is like. You know, I've really resonated when Brady Corbett, I think I say, the director of the Brutalist. He was like drinking a beer and doing this interview and he looks much different than he did. A handful of years ago before he went full-on into directing and making these indie films. And he just.

He made me feel so much better. He was just like, you know, people don't realize when you're trying this big You know, ambitious movie to make, you know, as an indie, he goes. We gain weight, we lose hair, we do this. He's just like, you can see, like, he just went through the gauntlet of hell to get it made. And You know, he's obviously still a great-looking guy, but when you see the differences from when he started directing to when he was just, I forget what he did before, I don't know if he was acting or what, but like.

You really realize, like, it's grueling, man. Like, I have so much respect for anyone out there that's doing independent productions and putting their, you know, their heart and soul and their health on the line because it is. It is not. Easy. Oh, yeah.

It is. It is like you have to will these things into existence. Everything goes wrong constantly, and you just keep fighting and. You know, you have that spirit that we love. Back to DaMaris.

You have to believe you're a winner, and whatever inside, and whatever the world tells you, oh, nope, you're a loser, you're a loser, you're not going to get there. You go, nope, I already know I'm a winner. I don't care how they're booking the match. I don't care how they're booking my career. I'm a fucking winner.

Yep. And that's what I do. And That's what the Marist meant.

Well, dude, you obviously accomplished all of that with Queen of the Ring. Everybody out there, make sure you go see it. Wherever you can find it in theaters, man, support this film so we can get more wrestling in the world. We know that's what it's all about for us fans at the end of the day is getting more people to recognize this thing that we love, this business that we love. And Queen of the Ring does just that as dude.

Thank you for joining NCW. You're welcome anytime. TJ, can you do me a favor? Yeah, man. Can you tell them where to find me?

I'm going to let them know that.

So remember, guys, you can always follow us on all the socials. There's no contest on Twitter, no contest wrestling podcast on Instagram. And of course, all of our videos, including this one, will be on the Rich Eyes and Show YouTube page in the next few hours.

So Queen of the Ring, it's a great movie, great story. Check it out. Support our guy here. He's a friend of the show. He's our first non-wrestler that makes the Hall of Fame.

It's all good. Yeah. Oh, and a side note, I usually tell you guys that I'll see you next Wednesday. Uh-uh. We'll see you Monday.

That's right. That's good news. Changing our days for a little bit for quite a month, actually. A couple months.

So now you'll be able to catch No Contest Wrestling on Mondays. It's going to switch up the dynamic a little bit. Hopefully, not the Monday night. That's the wars. You can still get us, bro.

And next week, Raw will be at noon.

So we'll be able to watch a little bit of Raw before we start. I'm going to have it on with my lucky God. Won't he do it? He will be reacting live, I think, so next week.

So we're going to figure out something special for you guys. Mondays. Check us out. We'll see you guys in the beginning of the next week. Peace.

Check us out. No. Uh