In your opinion, watching from outside the box.
What does this current landscape need to sort of, define itself.
>> It needs what I'm not sure it can produce, and
that's like a, just the state of where everything is now.
Which is weird because it kinda always corrects itself.
So we're in a day and age where it needs a front man or woman.
It needs one, maybe two, definable characters to absolutely be the reason.
And that's what we'll be able to define what the era is.
Because it takes on those personality traits of it's top star.
Like I've said it before, I don't know if, all things considered,
the crowd is so mixed.
That if the company puts it's faith behind an individual,
the knee-jerk reaction of the audience.
Even if they liked the guy last week,
is to say [BLEEP] you, you're not gonna tell me who I like.
So the audience is also tipping the scales of this not being able to happen.
Like there's, universal popularity will never happen,
because someone will see it and get onto it.
And be like, he seems to be getting popular, let's stop this right now.
Or she seems to be getting really popular, let's change this right now.
And I've seen it happen with guys who are really like darlings of that
underground crew, make it.
And then as soon as they make it, the rug's pulled out from under them.
>> It almost seems to become the norm these days, I mean,
you look at Seth Rollins.
Seth Rollins was the Indy darling, he, against all odds,
made it to the top of the card, wins the title.
And all of a sudden everyone kind of goes,
now we don't want him anymore, that's not our guy.
I mean you, you've experienced it first hand,
you kind of were the blueprint for it.
>> [LAUGH] >> John Cena sucks!
John Cena sucks!
>> It's difficult because it's like a super friends,
because the audience is so segmented.
Some people will embrace that underground dude,
some people will embrace the top person.
And some people will embrace the mid card,
some people will embrace the cruiser weights.
And then there's this split between, I like SmackDown, I like Raw, I like NXT.
It's just really difficult to get one definable figure to stand at the front,
and be like, okay, let's go.
I mean they're, I don't know, so I don't know, that's where the business is.
And usually if it pushed too far in one way,
the pendulum finds a way to come back.
But I really don't know, because the program is so socially active.
And your social emotions are not what they are in the arena,
I know that first hand dude.
When you're at the edge of your seat and you're lost in a championship fight and
something happens.
And you think maybe the title's gonna switch and it doesn't, you stand and
you catch yourself going, no.
And then you tweet like, that was BS or whatever.
Your keyboard emotions aren't necessarily the same as watching it live.
>> Looking at the landscape this day and age, between Raw, SmackDown, and NXT.
Does anybody in particular catch your eye, anybody you've-
>> No, a lot of folks do, I just,
I also understand that I look at this.
I look at sports entertainment different than everyone else.
So I think a lot of people and that's why when I say,
there's no one person at the front, that's also not bad.
I think the business can, it's reaching farther than ever,
it continues to reach farther than ever.
So although I'm comfortable in the environment I just explained.
Maybe we've gone into a different thing and
I just am romanticizing about those moments that I enjoy.
I think we're fine with a segmented group of performers.
Roman, Braun, Sheamus, New Day, like in the SmackDown roster,
the Raw roster, the NXT roster.
You don't have one person you go to see, if you go to an NXT show,
you go to see eight or nine people.
You go to a RAW, you go to see eight or nine people.
You go to a SmackDown, you go to see eight or nine people.
I don't think there's ever been more potential under one roof, than right now.
I think the best scenario, and take it from a guy whose done pretty well for
himself off of this scenario.
When they tell you,
I don't know what we want tonight, that's when the Rap Guy was born.
That's when things like the US Challenge were born,
when they don't know what they want.
They're giving you the freedom to create something.
>> To make it work.
>> That's, my God, it's the best, because you can now walk into imagination land and
do whatever you want.
But once again,
that takes being brave and doing stupid things and hoping they get over.
And maybe they will, and maybe you can wear wristbands when you're 43.
And actually have it seem comfortable.
>> [LAUGH] >> So that's, I don't know,
it's just like I said, I just have a different perception than everybody else.
But I do think there has never been more athletic talent
under one roof than right here right now.
>> I think history would show, I mean, if you look back to the days of Dusty and
Ric Flair.
The emotion is what translates to everybody, as opposed to the athleticism.
Do you think it's possible to get back there?
>> We're all human, man, to say there's a locker room of emotionless people there,
is ignorant.
All of us feel pain, all of us feel loathe,
all of us feel happiness, anger, shame, guilt.
You name it, the whole gambit, we all know.
It's just a matter of getting people to be brave enough to embrace that stuff.
Here's the thing, if we can get even just one or two.
Because everyone is so athletically gifted, it takes it to another level.
So I'm optimistic in thinking that hopefully
they will listen to this podcast and maybe be inspired.
But, if not, I just have a feeling that some one or
two people will achieve that self-awareness.
Combined with athletic ability I've never have in my entire life, and
a locker room full of it.
And then it's like another resurgence, another great period of growth,
another golden era.
It's just takes the right set of circumstances.
Keep in mind, I was about to be fired before I actually knew what was going on.
I failed tremendously the first opportunity I was given, so it's not like,
you gotta hit it out of the park immediately.
I didn't know what the hell I was doing, and then it took for me to be told.
You're probably not gonna be doing this anymore, to be like, okay,
I don't care anymore, I'm going for it.
Had I never been told that,
I would probably squandered in low-level mediocrity.
For as long as I'd had been around.
>> [LAUGH] >> Which wouldn't have been long, so
I think desperation also breeds creativity, and I wasn't kidding.
Back in my day, there were literally cuts twice a year,
they fired people in November.
And they fired people in May,
because we had just taken on a lot of talent with ECW and WCW.
And they just had to sift through it all, they still had a developmental class too.
So there were seasonal releases, and justified, we just had too many guys.
Not so much nowadays, so there is maybe, and
I don't know, I don't run, I don't know the business.
We all, armchair quarterback's the easiest spot in the field.
>> Sure. >> But I know,
I do know that desperation breeds creativity.
So maybe if there was,
I know also when I was passed to those cuts and actually had some success.
We really championed for SmackDown to be better than Raw, and
it was like a thing that the brand took pride in.
And I developed such a camaraderie and a friendship with the workers on SmackDown.
I remember it being an idle Monday, and it was the Monday I was drafted in St. Louis.
And they were all playing mini-golf, I'm like, I can't make it today,
I'm gonna workout.
I'm in St.
Louis getting drafted to Raw, and when I came out every one of them was watching.
My phone blew up, traitor, Benedict Arnold, you name it, everybody was so
pissed.
Because we genuinely had put our heart and
soul into making the brand better than Raw.
And we took pride in that, and
that was our desperation of like, we are the second tier show.
No, not anymore, and we're gonna change it, and in doing so,
it elevated all of us.
So once again, desperation spawned creativity,
the birth of Edge as single superstar, all the stuff like that.
It just, so I don't know today how much desperation is out there.
I think there's desperation to want to be in a main event spot,
like I'm being overlooked, I'm not getting pushed.
They're doing nothing with me, so what are you doing?
What are you doing to push your vehicle forward, have you exhausted all options?
If you have, then I'm willing to listen, if you haven't, go to work.
And that's, I just think it's, I don't know,
maybe that's why the state of things are the way they are.
>> I haven't heard it explained that well in quite some time.
[LAUGH] >> And by the way,
that's not the way it is, that's just my view from [CROSSTALK].
From a crazy bunker, 40 floors beneath the Earth's surface, in an
undisclosed location.
[LAUGH] >> Like what you hear?
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