SPEAKER_01 0:16

Welcome to Split the Corner. What can we get you?

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. This is Split the Corner podcast with Kaz and Kyle, or Kyle and Kaz, depending on whether you're going by height or age or alphabet. I always do it alphabetically. I think it goes both ways, man. And I that's kind of what I appreciate about it is we don't have to have this Rogers and Hammerstein discussion where like there was no way Hammerstein could have expected to go first in that one. Like you just say it back to him, right? Like, really? Hammerstein and Rogers. Like it's just not gonna, it's not gonna fly.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Does not fly.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Right. Kaz and Kyle, Kyle and Kaz. It's the alliteration and the fact that they're both one syllable things. Um is Kyle, I think Kyle's two syllables.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Well, it depends, it depends on if you're saying my name in a casual way or if you're saying it like and you're angry with me. Like, hey, Kyle, that's obviously two syllables.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Or yeah, Kyle! The more martial arts of it, right? Kaz, I'm excited to be here, bud. How are you feeling this morning? I'm great, dude. The Irish in me is excited because it is National Potato Day.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

All right. I had potatoes for breakfast this morning in honor of this illustrious day.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

All right, let's start there. Tell me about your breakfast potato. What is the shape? What is the cooking method? What are we doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

I have a very specific way that I do it. I take the potato, I cut it up real small so it cooks a little bit faster. I add some onions, I add some broccoli, I add some jalapenos if I've got them. And then I'll do three or four fried eggs over top of it. And that sets me up pretty well for the rest of the morning. So, like the full waffle house. Yeah, basically.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Kind of the grated, the the grated potato hash brown breakfast vibe. I cube them. I cube like the cubes. I I definitely like the cubes. I don't mind the the grated, I like it when it gets nice and crispy. Got to get that little extra done. What I don't like are the the slices when they've got like the Algratton style potato slices that they just manage kind of toss on the grill and heat up and send out with your omelet. Not a fan.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Okay. I also do a little paprika, a little cayenne, a little crushed red, some salt and pepper, and uh call that a day.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Spice it up in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Absolutely. I don't mind sometimes I'll sometimes I'll mix the eggs in with everything and kind of farmer's omelet up a little bit, but but this morning I went with the fried eggs. Are you uh are you a breakfast potato guy or are you saving your potato consumption for later in the day?

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Oh, I'm an all-time potato guy. Potatoes and bread. I I feel like every diet I've ever been on, every fad thing that's ever come my way, I've I've been carnivore, I've been keto, I've done Mediterranean. I the the hardest thing for me to give up are French fries. If if you've been out with me on a regular basis, you know that my go-to order is a chicken Caesar salad and a side of fries. And and no, they don't undo each other, so kick rocks. But I I am a I am a French fry. I'm a potato fan in all shapes. I don't know that there's a type of potato that I don't like. If you turn your nose up to right. I'll I'll do a baked potato. I like me a hassleback potato. I like it when you hassle back potato. That's that's when you cut it in like a spiral and you like spread the little layers open and you put like some butter and a little bit of cheese and then it all sinks into the cracks. Yeah, hassleback potatoes are cool.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

That sounds awesome, but it sounds like the prep work would be fantastic. Like a lot.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

It's it's like a twice baked potato, right? Where you're gonna bake it and then you're gonna mash it and then you're gonna put some stuff in it, and then you're gonna bake it again. Like it's not the easiest way to go about eating a potato, but damn, is it worth it? And especially if someone else is putting in that effort. You go to a restaurant, they got a side of hassle back potatoes? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Oh, if someone else is doing it for me, absolutely. But I feel as though I don't know if I have the patience nor the dexterity necessary to accomplish such a feat.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Well, and that's I think that's where I'm at with French fries, right? Like the air fryer does a hell of a job, and it gets you pretty close to restaurant quality, but it's it's just not quite there. And I can't bring myself to have like the pot of oil on the stove that I'm you know frying my own fries in. But but when I go out and someone else is making the fries for me, I'm it I'm a hundred percent in. There, there are very few. All right. What's the best fry shape? Seasoned curly, bud.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Ooh, there are a lot of children out there that would agree with you. Like Arby's, man. Arby's would be like seasoned curly fries? Absolutely, and you can get those at the grocery store now in in in bags to bring home for yourself. I mean, I'm a I'm a I'm a big fan of of the shoestring. The thinner, the better, I think, on French fries. I would I I don't like the crinkle fries as much. I feel as though it's it's too much. Because like I'm a I'm a I'm a guy that likes to do uh one fry at a time. I'm not a big fan of shoving my face full of French fries. I feel as though I'm I'm at least tricking myself into thinking that I'm not consuming vast quantities of fried food if I do one fry at a time. Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

It's the it's the nacho debate. Like if I called you up and said, hey, do you want to come eat four potatoes with me? You would probably be like, I have better things to do with my time. If I was like, yo, dude, fries are ready, then all of a sudden four potatoes goes down real fast, right? So it's it's the nacho thing. Like no one really wants to sit down and eat ten tortillas, but fry them, cut them into chips, a little bit of guac, a little bit of salsa, all of a sudden, yeah, I'll eat ten tortillas. Yep, I can put them away.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

That's a really interesting way to put it. But yeah, that is. It's four potatoes I've just consumed. Well, if we're gonna go that direction, who does the best French fries in the fast food world? And I'm gonna take I'm gonna take Arby's off the plate because we've already established that they're the greatest. I mean, I've established it, and I challenge anyone to say that I'm wrong. But out of the other fast food franchises, who's got the best fries? Chick-fil-A.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

I gotta go with the waffle cut. They're they're always the the right level of crispy. I I like I do crave a McDonald's fry from time to time. I know the the the stuff they're putting in there isn't the greatest, but McDonald's fries aren't particularly reliable, right? Same thing with same thing with Burger King and Wendy's. Like you'll get a good batch and you'll be like, wow, these are really good fries. But then the next time you go, they'll be kind of cold and droopy. And or uh like like my daughter says, uh, you'll get a batch of hot flops, which is the hot floppy fries that are that are wet potatoes coming out of the bottom of the container. But Chick-fil-A always seems to always seems to give you a good crispy golden brown batch of fries.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Yeah, yeah, they are good fries, man. I honestly don't dabble in Chick-fil-A too much for the simple fact that the lines are too damn long. And also, you know, they have some wacky ideas about the way people should live their lives. But I am a McDonald's guy, I think. My kids really like McDonald's. We go to McDonald's from time to time. And if I'm not trying to be sick for four days and eat burgers or chicken sandwiches, I'll just get some fries. And I mean, nine times out of ten, they're exactly what you want them to be. But that tenth time, you're you're not wrong. When you get a batch of hot flops, that's a wasted trip, man.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

Or or the oversalt. Yeah, McDonald's, uh, you get to the bottom of that bottom of that pan and they start scraping you up, and then the first couple bites are just I you gonna need to wash that down with something. You've got an entire eight-hour shift's worth of salt to go through. That being said, it what it goes with is important, right? Like you get you go to McDonald's, you get a McDonald's Coke, right? Or you get a milkshake and you get some fries. You go to Wendy's, you get the fries in that frosty. That's that's like a that's like a combination in itself, right? Like I'll stop at Wendy's just for fries and a frosty. My grandmother used to dunk the fries in the frosty.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

That's a thing. And I don't know where it came from or why. I mean, I understand that people dig on that salty sweet thing, but it's completely narrowed down to Wendy's. It's not like people go to McDonald's and get a McFlurry and they're dipping their fries into a McFlurry, but if you go to Wendy's, you're gonna see somebody dipping their fries in a frosty. And I don't know how it got to be completely synonymous with Wendy's and Wendy's alone.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Yeah, that's a good point. You don't see them doing it anywhere else. I mean, I did see Dairy Queen is trying to get you to do it with your buffalo chicken fingers. They want you, they're giving you a a dippy cup of vanilla soft serve so that so that you can like dip your buffalo chick. But the thing is, is it like you are frosty after the fry has been in it? I don't know that I'm eating vanilla ice cream with leftover buffalo sauce stirred in. I know the Franks people are real big on like I put that shit on everything, but there might we might have found that line. Like it might it might be Dairy Queen vanilla soft serve that like no everything but that.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

And if that isn't the line, I'm kind of hesitant to know what the line actually is.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

It's like a what would you do for a Klondike bar kind of thing, right? Like, what wouldn't you put Frank's red hot on for oh that's gross?

SPEAKER_01 10:56

I used to when I was a kid, I had a buddy who I'd go to his house uh to play, and his dad would eat raw potatoes like apples. Have you ever tried to eat a raw potato?

SPEAKER_02 11:09

I've taken a bite once. Uh for all of my love of potatoes, uh, I can't I can't get down with that.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

The thing is, that was damn near 30 years ago, and I remember it like it was yesterday. Him just walking around the house with a giant ass potato eating that bad boy like it was a Granny Smith. Maybe a sweet potato? See, I don't know, dude. I don't think no, but that's the thing. He wasn't eating a sweet potato. I know, just a just a regular old russet russet potato at a whole gold.

SPEAKER_02 11:49

Well, now that makes me wonder if he had preferences like apples. You know, like don't don't don't get me no little red potatoes. I'm not doing red potatoes. Damn skin on, nah.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Yeah, he didn't peel the skin off either. He just he would pick it up and he would wash the dirt off of it because potatoes have dirt, and then he would proceed to eat it.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

I feel like that's something you see in like a potato chip commercial where they're like lays, great, straight from the earth, and then some old guy on a farm with the sun going down in the background just bites a potato for no reason.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

He's got overalls, he's got a handkerchief in his hand, he wipes his brow, the sweat from a hard day's work, and he picks up his ripe harvest out of the ground. It's a freaking potato. Well, did you chomps on it?

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Did you see the commercial that they made where the little kid grows her own potato because she wants to contribute? And like the guy that that takes the potatoes away has this giant 18-wheeler full of potatoes, and the little girl's like, Wait, what about my potato? And the guy's like, Thank you for your potato, and then it like pans out, and you see this truck full of like a million potatoes, and all I'm thinking is, don't show her the truck, don't show her the truck. She's gonna feel so insignificant. She worked so hard on that potato, and now someone is going to turn it into French fries, and she's not even gonna get one because she lives all the way out here, and if there's obviously no restaurants around, look at them.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

What was that a commercial for? Lay's potato chips. Are you kidding me? It sounds like some sort of communist propaganda.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

It was it was very like, unless you're tired, you're hungry, and your potatoes. No, I it was one of those like, look, we support local farmers and everybody, you know, like we know the people that grow these, but like, don't take the girl's last potato. Like, I just I feel so bad. Plus, all right. Well, what's she gonna do with that potato? Later potato bags recently added a new logo that now says made with real potatoes. Oh man. And it really makes me wonder what they were made with before.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

Obviously, that little girl's potato. Pringles are like potato pulp, right? That's how they get that shape. They they you know, there's like a how it's made about it, and uh, you know, they form them up and do the whole thing. But if Lay's wasn't real potatoes, what were we eating? I'd I try not to ask that, but it it bold as day now says made with real potatoes on it, and I don't it I what did you guys get called out for?

SPEAKER_01 14:47

You ever had powdered potatoes or those boxed mashed potatoes that you just had water?

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Yep. Gross. They are their own they remind me of school lunches, they have a place in my heart. You know, like it it there are there are certain things goes goes real good with an artificial chicken patty sandwich.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

They called them chicken mix schools when I was in school. Wow, they tried to brand the brand chicken mix school. Did they name the pizza too? Pizza de school. I haven't thought about that in so long. And you said artificial chicken patty, and it just went, oh, chicken McSchool, and you were guaranteed to get some gristle in that son of a bitch.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Yeah, there was something in there that there would some sort of knot in the chicken meat or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Everybody had everybody when they took their trays up, but you had at least one little pile of like one little bottle.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Oh god. Oh, it's so gnarly. No, but the mashed potatoes that that they served with the ice cream scoop, right? Just as you walk down the line, that that's its own flavor for me. Same thing with like the mashed potatoes that come out of Mrs. T's pierogies. You know, like that's I don't think I could sit down and have a Thanksgiving dinner with Mrs. T's pierogi mashed potatoes. But dude, I love me some some potato pierogi. There that's what I'm saying. Like uh latkas, you want to make potato pancakes, you want to do colcannon, the the Irish potato and cabbage. Like, I'm there are very few forms of potatoes I'm I'm not down with. No, I agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

I it's one of the most versatile vegetables around, and I think it's potentially maybe the only truly universally loved and accepted vegetable. You know what I mean? Like if you have a picky child who won't eat their vegetables, they'll probably eat mashed potatoes. And I guarantee you they're eating French fries. But put some broccoli or asparagus or something in front of them, and they're not gonna they're not gonna enjoy that as much, but they will eat potatoes in some way, shape, or form. And I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a person who says no, just universally no to potatoes.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

All right, controversial question.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

What do you dip your fries in? Whatever you got, bud. I'm not a big ketchup guy. I would I would more than likely eat my French fries plain than with ketchup. I mean, if it's there, cool. Like I'll I'll dip one or two occasionally, but you want to go back to Frank's Red Hot. I mean, I'm putting that shit on everything. So yeah, I'm here for hot sauce, I'm here for ranch, I'm here for various types of habanero-based hot sauces. But yeah, basically anything. Wait, hold on. Were you ever that guy that did the whole mayo and ketchup together and dip your fries in that? Because that kid was gross.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Well, but that's a whole cultural thing, right? Like that's it's huge over in Europe. The the Netherlands sell it that way. I mean, we do now too. If you go to your grocery store section, you can find a craft bottle of mayo chuck. Um but yeah, that Netherlands that's like how they serve fries over there with with ketchup and mayo mixed on the side. I I realistically, uh I like whatever you serve it with. Again, I'm I'm not a big ketchup guy. I would sooner eat them plain. There are a couple of like a steak fry sometimes needs a little bit of ketchup. Um yeah, some A1, a little barbecue sauce. Uh, but yeah, for the most part, I'm a dipper. We're we're dipping, we're dipping everything and everything.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

I think it's interesting that ketchup is the dominant thing for French fries, and we have both just admitted to not being the biggest fan of ketchup. Like if you have something else, I'd probably prefer that to ketchup.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

Like a nice honey mustard.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Oh, hell yeah, dude. Or like a short rib gravy poutine. You're you're still out on cheese fries, huh? Still out on cheese fries, bud. We're gonna have to have it, we're gonna have a clip show of just me having to explain to you on uh numerous occasions that I'm not putting cheese on stuff.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

I I think it's becoming an underlying theme. I I think the river that's running through it is your distaste for cheese.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

Once we get to a spot where we can do merch, it's just gonna be a shirt that says Kyle doesn't do cheese. No, no cheese. With just with just a a credit to me saying it.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

No cheese, Kyle. All right. So I'm gonna I'm gonna turn a weird corner with this, and we're gonna we're gonna keep it sort of cheese related, right? Son of a could you I'm I heard an interesting story the other day. So my my question for you is you you have a theater background, right? You you at some point in time had considered acting in some way, shape, or form. I did. Could you play a character that loves cheese?

SPEAKER_01 20:33

I'd like to say that I consider myself a good enough performer that I think I could have pulled the wool over enough eyes and encapsulated that character to the point where I could have made you believe that I liked cheese. But I think that the uh the only way to answer that question truthfully is in this theater production, uh, hypothetically speaking, am I consuming cheese on stage? Because I was in a hundred uh I was in a play in school when I was in theater school, and I had to play a character who at one point eats an olive, and I find just plain olives to be rancid. And there is video of this thing somewhere, I don't know where it is, but you can see me on stage pop this olive because I didn't do it during rehearsal. Like I refused, I just outright refused to put an olive in my face during rehearsal. So the first time that I do it is on stage in front of an audience and I pop this thing and you can see me visibly wretch as I'm just trying to swallow it whole. And I feel like if if that was gonna be the thing on stage, if I had to eat cheese, like if it was a craft single, yeah, dude, I I don't think that's getting down my face. I mean, if it was like something off a charcuterie board, maybe we could maybe we could mess around with it and it was a nice mild cheese or something that I could consume with some pajut. But if it's a craft single and or or or I have to put cheeseways, here's a cube of Velveeta. Yeah. Oh God.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Oh. All right. So here's why here's why I bring this up, right? Because the ability to to control that, right? To to not retch on stage, to not, you know, to not let your your deep-seated personal beliefs play into the character is is something that that we would kind of atone to some of the better actors of the world, right? So that being said, I found out the other night about a little bit of acting that absolutely blew my mind. Okay. So I am a professional wrestling fan. You're also a professional wrestling fan. Loud and proud, baby. We uh we both came in right around the same time. Um kind of in the throes of Hulkemania when it was character driven and and you know lots of Kfabe and the good guys are the good guys and the bad guys are the bad guys, right? So what I found out is that a professional wrestler who whose real name is Aurelian Smith is deathly, deathly terrified of snakes. However, his wrestling character isn't. Um for those of you that don't know, Aurelian Smith is the real name of Jake the Snake Roberts. And Jake the Snake Roberts' entire gimmick is look at the giant python draped around my neck. And he has said in multiple interviews Jake the Snake Roberts is not afraid of snakes. Aurelian Smith is afraid of snakes. And if you can turn something like that on and off with a switch, then eat your heart out, Ed Norton. Like that just that's a level of respect for someone that, like, all right, cool. I I already respect pro wrestlers because of the ability to go into a ring and you know, follow the script, but pick people up and put people down and you know be super athletic and all of this stuff that they're doing, but you're also terrified of your own gimmick, and you just said, you know what, I got this, and and had it for 20 years, 20, 25 years, God knows how many years at this point. I don't I'm pretty sure he's not still carrying the snake around, but that man went nowhere without a snake. You never saw Jake without his snake, and he was terrified of it the whole time, never made a face.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

You just blew my mind right now because I am deathly afraid of snakes, and I can promise you that if Vince McMahon back in the day came to me and said, We're gonna make you a superstar, but you've got to be Python Kyle, and you've got to walk around with a fucking boa constrictor around your neck. I can tell you right now, I would have chosen a different profession. Cobra Kyle was right there, it was right there. I missed it.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

See, I'm too afraid of the conversation. Cobra Kyle. See, but that that's an insurance thing. I don't think he's coming to me with with a with a cobra. He could have been defanged. Whatever.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

The snake bit Randy. It did bite Randy. Um, I'm glad that we're bringing up professional wrestling because I'm at a time in my life where I've got two young sons who have discovered this and are now wholly obsessed with the WWE. And they are getting into it right around the same time that I did when I was a kid, and so I've now started to watch wrestling again over the last couple years, and you know, you and I were going to matches a few years ago with your daughter because she was real into it, and that kind of is what sparked my reinvigoration, as it were, into the world of professional wrestling. But having gone back now and started to maybe re-watch some stuff from from when we were kids and just kind of re-in uh reintroducing myself to sports entertainment as a whole, it is such a strange and one-of-a-kind uh thing that uh I don't think exists in any other medium or could exist in any other medium. I mean it is such at its core a weird, weird thing that everybody just kind of says, yeah, I'm into it.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

Well, and that's what makes it kind of perfect. And again, we're we're 12 episodes in at this point, and the fact that we haven't talked about wrestling yet is kind of surprising because the concept for this podcast kind of came about because we would constantly have these in-depth wrestling discussions that would branch off into so many different areas, but it's it's everything that you talk about at a bar all at the same time. Yeah, it's movies, it's music, it's theater, it's sport, it's travel, it's it's all of those things, and and you get to do it, you know, you get to have your sports moment of like my guy beat the the bad guy and let's all cheer for the big finish. And you you get to have the sports moment of like look at that play, did you see how awesome that was? But you get to have the conversation of that's not how I would like to have seen it play out, right? And then and then you get to you get to do the Monday morning quarterbacking, yeah, yeah, where where you play booker, right? And and you book the matches and you and you say, I I would have done it this way, or I I would have built this guy up that way, or I I wish they would have put this guy over. So so you get that that scripted aspect of like talking about your your favorite episodic show, right? I hate that they killed this guy off, and I wish they would bring this guy back, right? And it and it does, it makes it infinitely marketable, right? But it also makes it infinitely conversationable, and and like sports, dude, it's been around forever. It really has. You know, someone has some connection. Wrestling touched you in some way at some point in your life, whether whether you got into it or a family member was real into it, you know. I you I remember watching matches with my grandpa, like that sort of stuff. Or it, you know, or or you've got a kid that got into it, or it you know, or maybe when you were in school, you remember the whole NWO thing, because that took over the fashion world for a while. So like there are there are so many ways that wrestling kind of touches everybody's life. I my dad tells stories about gorilla monsoon living in the the apartment complexes by where he grew up and like seeing those guys, you know, lifting the old school weights out in the yard during the day. Like it it just it's always been there.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

If you ever told anyone to suck it and you were not a wrestling fan, you were using wrestling terminology. You were taking something that really became a thing because wrestling made it a thing, and maybe you didn't know it, but if you ever told someone to suck it, you were reping Degeneration X. And to to your grandfather, or your father, your your father, your grandfather's point, I will tell you this. My grandmother grew up in a very tiny town in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. And her family was one of the very first families in town to have a television set when they became a little bit more available. Uh, and she would tell me about people from town coming over to watch Bruno San Martino matches, like at her house, because there wasn't anybody else with a TV, but everybody wanted to see Bruno San Martino defend his world title, and and that's where you saw it at my grandma's house. And I think that's so cool. I think that's it's and because at the time, you know, I was you know 10, 11 years old. I didn't know who Brandon Bruno San Martino was, but I'm sitting there watching Hulk Hogan and and and Stone Cold Steve Austin and those kind of guys, and and there that's that there's a connection there, you know, it was a connection that my grandmother and I made. Now she's sitting there watching Stone Cold flip people the bird, and she's like, Well, this is just awful. This is this is terrible. But they're still doing scoop slams, they're still doing suplexes, and she knew what those were. And that's awesome. It's a it's a it's a generational connection that we probably would not have made otherwise.

SPEAKER_02 31:39

Well, just this morning I'm watching uh Galazzo Network, Paramount Plus, for for soccer highlights. I like getting caught up on all my soccer stuff. And to to show support, two of the hosts uh threw up a little wolf pack sign this morning. And the female host thought it was UNC Wolfpack. Is it UNC? Apparently, this has been adopted by NC State. There we go. Has has been adopted by a college program, and so there's an entire stadium of people that are that are throwing up a Wolfpack sign, probably without knowing that they're making a wrestling reference. Yeah.

unknown 32:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

And we live okay, so you could probably go further and say that some of these were other things culturally before they were wrestling, but when I see that wolf pack sign, I I hear I hear the NWO red and black music. Like I hear it in my head. Sure. These guys walking down to the ring. So like the the the cultural overlay and and the fact that it's become it's become such a such a smart sport to watch. Right? It it takes it takes the intellectual capacity to understand what it is that you're watching, how it plays out, what they're setting up for, right? Uh when they pulled the curtain back and and kayfabe kind of died, right? Kfabe is is the is the wrestling term for the fact that the fake world was the real world, right? So bad guys and good guys can't be seen with each other even though they're riding in the same car to the next town because you need to keep the appearance up of the bad guys being bad guys and the good guys being good guys. That dies. 90s, kind of early 2000s, puts it to rest. And and the the world we live in now is the world where you know we make documentaries about what happens backstage and and why this person got these matches and why things are set up the way they are. So in this age of kind of full view of the wrestling process, we've all become smarter wrestling fans, more opinionated, probably, and some of us probably suck, but for the most part, it's a more intellectual conversation than just saying, my guy's bigger and he picked up your guy. Like, there's more complex things happening in the wrestling universe than just that.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

And what fascinates me about that is yes, we all are now aware of how things are done. You know, there's no debate on about whether or not it's quote unquote real or quote unquote fake. We know that these matches are scripted, we know that the outcome is predetermined, we know all that, and it doesn't seem to have made it any less popular. You can make an argument that wrestling is more popular today than it's ever been. And the fact that grown ass adults, the two of us included, are willing to suspend our disbelief and kind of just get lost in it anyway, speaks to the power of what this is as an entertainment medium, as a as a form of entertainment. Because it's it's not like we found out it was fake and went, well, that's it for me, bud. I'm gonna go watch something else. No, we continue to tune in, we continue to follow along, we continue to know random facts about things that some dude in a room in Connecticut came up with, and we remember, and the these huge moments, and they're all you know manufactured, more or less, and we don't care. Like we just we don't care. I don't care. I'm still watching WrestleMania or the Royal Rumble with my kids, and somebody's music hits, or there's a run-in, or something crazy happens, and we all go, oh and I think that's awesome. I think it's great, man. And you know what? It it's a time now where I don't know about you, but I when I was younger, I did I hid my wrestling fandom from kids at school. I went home every Monday and I watched Monday Night Nitro or Monday Night Raw, but I didn't go to school and talk about it with people because I was a little bit embarrassed, I think. I don't know why, but I was because it you didn't see kids running around in in shirts and it wasn't the topic of conversation going around with the cool kids at school or whatever. But you know, nowadays you're hard pressed to go to a, you know, I go to my kids' school for a function or something, and somebody's got a John Cena shirt on, or somebody's got a Cody Rhodes shirt on, or or what have you, but it's become more socially acceptable, maybe, since we have removed this the stereotype of whether or not it's real or not. Now that we all know what's going on and we're all smartened up, I think it makes it a little less embarrassing, maybe, or maybe that's not the right word, but you understand what I'm trying to say? It's like we all are in on the joke now. We're all in on the secret, and we don't care.

SPEAKER_02 37:08

Well, and I think that had a lot to do with the pivot, right? Away from the the sort of cartoon era, because it it was real, it was real easy to look at the the Hulk Hogans and the Ultimate Warriors and and these these guys and go, you know, that this is this is ridiculous, this is over the top, you know, these guys are all roided up and and you know, like none of this is realistic. And and for some of us, that's what we wanted. We wanted larger than life. We want our superheroes to look like superheroes. But when we try and turn this into to something more legitimate, which is what I think they were going for, and what I think they've ultimately accomplished, you have to you have to make people more realistic, right? No one, yes, every once in a while someone still wants to see the blue blazer come in and save the day, right? Like we still want a little bit of mystery and a little bit of of outlandishness, but for the most part, you know, the the the matches of larger than life versus larger than life have have given way to you know athletic performances from from pretty uh some of them are pretty average looking dudes, you know, which which to me has made it easier to appreciate, right? Because you're not saying, well, I could do that if I looked like them anymore. You're saying, well, that guy looks just like me. He just threw himself off the top of a cage. That was crazy. Yeah, right. So it it we've pivoted, sure. Like you you you acknowledge the fact that when you watch you know Brett versus Sean for a half hour, that you know, maybe they're not beating the crap out of each other from a place of hatred like we thought we were when we watched it, you know, when it happened. But you can still watch that half hour masterpiece and go, that was a hell of a performance by two incredibly well-trained athletes. Right. You know, macho man steamboat, you know, like all right, macho man was a bit of a uh an over-the-top kind of guy, and Ricky Steamboat is your stereotypical karate man, right? And these two guys put on a match that made everybody just kind of go, Wow, that was damn.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

Okay, well, you've you've brought up an interesting thought process for me because I think you hit it on the head earlier. Is like we used we we have these Mount Rushmore type conversations about who's the greatest of all time in all this. But from where Kaz is sitting right now, who's the greatest of all time? Who's the best wrestler to ever lace up a pair of boots?

SPEAKER_02 39:57

See, and we've we've stumped our toes on on this one quite a few times. I'm a firm believer that you cannot have this conversation in one fell swoop, right? We're back to the 25 greatest sports movies of all time type thing, where all right, well, how do you define great? Like the greatest wrestler as an in-ring ability, the greatest wrestler in terms of in terms of drawing power, in terms of overall fame, in in terms of what?

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Okay, well then let's pivot. Let's pivot then, because you're absolutely right. You can't sit there and and and have that conversation without kind of categorizing it. You know, we hit it a couple weeks ago where we're you talk about the greatest baseball player of all time. Well, in what capacity, right? Except for third base, because the greatest third baseman of all time is Mike Schmidt. That's not debatable, that's that's a fact. But if you were to talk about other positions on the baseball field, you can you know come up with a whole plethora of different statistics to look at and things. I it's the same in wrestling. Who had the biggest drawing power, who had the best moveset, who had the biggest connection with the crowd, yada yada, yada, who has the most titles, blah, blah, blah. So let's pivot. And instead of getting ultra specific that way, how about we just say this? Kaz, who is your favorite wrestler of all time?

SPEAKER_02 41:26

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

I again, I it's too broad. I I have somebody, you gotta have somebody in there that you that that when their music hit, it was the greatest thing of all time.

SPEAKER_02 41:45

See, but that feels like a greatest music question. Like who had the who had the best theme song and got that? Cause because the early days of of you know of I'm a real American, that that Hogan pop was fantastic, but but the breaking glass, right? But but but the lights out and the bell ringing, right? Like there are so many iconic I just I I who did little Kaz like?

SPEAKER_01 42:17

Who was little Kaz's favorite wrestler?

SPEAKER_02 42:19

Little Kaz was a Hogan fan.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

Little Caz liked Hogan.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

Little Kaz was on board with that. I was also a huge Ultimate Warrior fan.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

I was an Ultimate Warrior guy when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

So that WrestleMania 6, uh that that main event, which you know, looking back as a smart mark, as as we're called in the wrestling world, uh that match is just trash. It's awesome. Like you you you said, you know three moves, you know three moves, just do them one after the other to each other. And and but at the time, at the time there was tension, there was drama, there was oh, anything you can do, I can do better. Like, I get it, I get why they wrote it the way they wrote it, but watching it back now, I'm just like, oh my god, I this is so boring.

SPEAKER_01 43:11

I'm firmly in the camp that Hulk Hogan is an overhyped, overrated wrestler. I think he was garbage from day one. I was never on board, he bored me to tears all the time. He was the antithesis of what was wrong with wrestling. Even as a kid, I thought his promos were over the top, his nonsense was was prevalent at all times. And then the NWO comes along and he makes this pivot, and that's the only time that in my life where I was like, okay, Hulk Hogan's all right, but his promos were still trash, he still couldn't wrestle. He had, like you said, three moves. And then you go to my guy, my favorite wrestler of all time. The greatest of all time, in my opinion, is the heartbreak kid Shawn Michaels, who did everything that Hulk Hogan did better. His moves were better, his promos were better, his look was better, his movement was better. Everything he did was the best I've ever seen. And you can make arguments nowadays that there are guys that are more athletic, there are guys that have these over-the-top movesets, they do crazy shit off the top rope and all of that, but that's not what it was all about. Shawn Michaels, when Shawn Michaels was in the ring, it was just about Shawn Michaels. You couldn't look away from him. The guy oozed charisma. He just had it all. He was the total package. If we want to go back to the baseball references, he was a five-tool player. The guy did nothing poorly. He did everything great. And now you go back and you listen to interviews and listen to him talk himself. He was kind of an asshole and was tough to work with and all these things. But I mean, when the lights were the brightest, they call him Mr. WrestleMania for a reason. Nobody did it better than the heartbreak kid, Shawn Michaels. Full stop. I think maybe the Undertaker should be Mr.

SPEAKER_02 45:15

WrestleMania.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

100%, but Sean hasn't. Sean already was called that.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

No, and I'll give you the I'll give you the in-ring stuff. I and again, it took it took years to to look back and and really kind of understand what he was doing and what he brought to the matches and and you know how much how much give and take is necessary between both people in the ring to make this look the way it looks, right? And and even some of the people that that you would argue could be above him, right? You you get the old timers that'll shout out to Rick Flair, you know, for his ring work or or Dusty. Those guys pointed to Sean. So you know, when the people that you're pointing at are pointing at someone else, maybe you should be pointing there as well. My takeaway is is exactly I didn't like Sean. I and and that counts for something. Childhood me uh was rooting for Brett in those matches. Um I was a Brett over Sean guy every time they faced off. And that that tarnishes my view of his legacy because I didn't like him. Yeah, and I didn't like him in a time when me liking the guy was real important. You know, I wasn't at an age where I was respecting him for the work he was putting in, I just didn't like him.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

I feel the same way about Bret Hart. That's funny because I didn't like Brett Hart. So as an adult, and as I've gone back and I've watched that 60 man or 60-minute Iron Man match between Brett and Sean, which, as you said earlier, was a freaking masterpiece. You know, I it was harder for me to respect what Brett was doing because I just didn't like him. He was boring to me. I liked the flash, I liked the the pizzazz of of a Shawn Michaels. I liked that that over-the-top sense of self, of, of self-confidence, all of that. I dug that man. And a guy like Bret Hart, who just kind of was he was wonderbred to me, just boring, which is why I thought Sean was great, you know, and and I think that that that point is what we were kind of talking about earlier about your your willingness to suspend your disbelief. Because you know, what those two dudes were doing were so climactically different from one another that it just worked, you know, it just worked so well. And I think that's something that missing is missing from the product today is you were talking about the over-the-top character-driven stuff. Shawn Michaels was a caricature from much of his, especially his earlier career, was a caricature of of a human being. He was turned up to 12. We went right past 11 and he hit 12. And today, you don't really have the character-driven uh wrestlers anymore. You have real guys with real names who go out there and and and they do things as a real guy would, oh, I've got a beef with you, and I've got a beef with you, and we're gonna settle it in in a hell in a cell or whatever, where you don't have the over-the-top guys so much anymore. And I think that that's something that's kind of missing. And I think why I maybe look back at the old days or old days, like our older days, with rose-colored glasses, is because I kind of miss some of that over-the-top stuff.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

And I don't think it's asking too much, right? Because they say that that's that that's what you do when you find your wrestling personas you find that that person in the inside of you and you turn them up to 12, right? Like that's that's what Stone Cold says in all of his interviews. That's what you know, pretty much everybody but The Undertaker, because he was given a specific character, and he played that role phenomenally for the rest of his life. He didn't play it, dude. He delivered it. He was that that's absolute perfection in a glass. Which is another another tip of the cap to the wrestling industry is you know, how many actors, you know, uh Tom Hanks has not been playing forest gump for 25 years.

SPEAKER_01 49:32

Yeah, good point. Excellent.

SPEAKER_02 49:34

Like he doesn't play Forest Gump when he goes to the airport. The Undertaker was still the Undertaker. If you saw him in the grocery store, uh he was in character. Buying potatoes. Right, exactly. But I think that suspension of disbelief and and just kind of the ability to to turn your personality up to 12 is is something that we should be taking away. And and and I've seen it in your boys when you know when when the little one needs a little boost of courage and and he pretends to be Cody Rhodes to you know to get a little bit of a little bit of toughness and a little bit of strength, and you know, he's gonna fall in the dirt and he's gonna get up and he's gonna brush it off, because that's what Cody would do. You know, and and and I don't think that's the worst thing in the world to be taken away from these things, right? There's become a lot of positive influence in the wrestling world that I think even as grown-ups, like we need that that release, that suspension of disbelief, that concept of you know, stone cold Steve Austin beating up his boss, right? This outlet of if it's all turned to 12, then we can fight over this, and I'm gonna put you through a table, and everybody's gonna feel better because of it. But I'm with you that I don't feel like it's turned up to 12 anymore. I mean, I I remember a recent storyline where two guys fought over a bracelet.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

Yeah. But to be fair, years ago there was a storyline that involved a mop. There was.

SPEAKER_02 51:15

There was also a custody battle.

SPEAKER_00 51:18

So yeah, it was like a ladder match for the custody battle.

SPEAKER_02 51:21

Yeah, there was the custody of Dominic Mysterio.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

Do you have a favorite match type? Like, is there a is there a particular match that that you are excited to see no matter when it is, or or that you wait all year for?

SPEAKER_02 51:38

See, and that's a phenomenal question because that circles it all back for me, because I am a Royal Rumble fan. I like the battle royal style. They come down one at a time, they go in, they go out, and and it brings it full circle for me because if you are not a wrestling fan, or you are looking for a way to get into wrestling, or you are wondering what the hell this has to do with bar conversations. Find a bar that does the rumble. Oh, yeah, dude. There are few bar events. I mean, I've I've watched World Cups at a bar, I've watched Stanley Cups, Super Bowls. I there are few crowds having more fun in a bar than the room watching the Royal Rumble.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

I never I wow, good call, dude. Because you don't have you don't really have a dog in that fight. You know, like if you're watching the Super Bowl at a bar in the city where a particular team is playing, that room is going to be devoid of energy or it's going to be real energetic the entire, you know, up and down based on the score. But at a Royal Rumble, people are just going to be psyched to see different dudes come down. Not to mention, now you get two Royal Rumbles in in one event because they've started doing the women's Royal Rumble a few years ago, and that's entertaining as hell, too. And it only takes one table.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

You get one table full of people that know who they're cheering for and why, and everyone else will follow suit because they just want to be part of the fun. And and people are gonna go nuts every 60 seconds, 30 seconds, 90 seconds? How many how many seconds between entrance and a Royal Rumble?

SPEAKER_01 53:24

I think it's 90. It might be actually, it might be two minutes, it might be one every two minutes. Because I think they're coming down, yeah, because it's 30 entrants, yeah. It should be an hour. Yeah, it's it's right around an hour because they talk about oh, well, the number one entrance, he's been in for 45 minutes at this point, and all of this. But dude, the Royal Rumble is probably the best match. I mean, I I think you'd be hard pressed to find a more fun match than the Royal Rumble.

SPEAKER_02 53:51

Regular intervals of either 90 seconds or two minutes. There you go. Although I will say, have you watched that?

SPEAKER_01 53:58

Have you ever seen a War Games match?

SPEAKER_02 54:00

I have seen a war games match. I was a big fan of the old war games matches when they were done on WCW.

SPEAKER_01 54:07

Would you like to explain to our audience what a war games match is?

SPEAKER_02 54:11

So a war games match is they push two rings together and then they encase the entire thing in a chain link fence with a steel cage roof. Like a steel cage. Well, but but steel cage to me is the old blue bar. Right.

SPEAKER_01 54:26

Right? That's steel cage. They still call it a steel cage, though, even though we all know that it's chain link fence.

SPEAKER_02 54:31

It's it's chain link fencing.

SPEAKER_01 54:33

But the cool thing about that match is it's two teams, right? Yeah, it's like five on five. So I do like a I do like a war games match. I because now they what do they do? Now they they have they have to wait of the first two guys in the match get five minutes, and then after that, every two minutes, they enter, they do uh a guy from each team. So for the next two minutes, it's gonna be two on one, and then for the next two minutes after that, it's gonna be two on two, and then you can't even pin anybody, nobody can win the match until all ten guys are in the ring, and then you got to figure out a way to pin somebody or submit somebody, and it's freaking chaos. And I think that's awesome. It's it it hits all those buttons, man. You know, it checks off all those boxes. You've got come from behind, you've got underdogs, you've got strategy involved, and people are hanging on every single thing, and and that's one that's one of my favorite. I think it goes Royal Rumble and then probably war games for me.

SPEAKER_02 55:54

I'd agree with that. I've I'm my head's gone in all sorts of different directions. I I'm I'm thinking about I'm thinking about how can you imagine if we put some of these rules into other sports, right? Because they started to have you seen this this soccer kings league thing? It's like indoor soccer, but it it's it's been it's been really modernized. There's like a dice that they roll, and then there's all sorts of different rules for like how the game starts and how it's played. Yeah. It has kind of a war games feel, right? Like it'll start one-on-one and then they'll add people in. And so it just like can you imagine any other sport allowing for a run-in? Like the Bulls are playing the Sixers and and Wemby's just gonna run in and help the Sixers because it's part of the storyline that everyone hates the Bulls. Like, I just that there are so many things that that happen in wrestling that that give you a great moment to cheer for. That like, can you imagine in the middle of a Patriot Packers game if the lights went out and Tom Brady's music hit and he was allowed to come in at halftime and finish out the game? Like, these are things that happen in wrestling, and we're super excited for them all the time. We don't get to see that in any other sport. I mean, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

It's two outs in the bottom of the ninth, it's a no-hitter. Somebody runs up and hits the pitcher with a chair. Right, and no one wins because double DQ.

SPEAKER_02 57:33

Gotta throw it out. You gotta throw that one out, guys. Sorry, double DQ.

SPEAKER_00 57:40

Oh my god. I think that that would lend it's it's like what the XFL wanted to be, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 57:49

And it was it just doesn't work unless there's unless you're in the squared circle. You can't make football more violent and expect people to be like, oh yeah, you know, it's just been my disbelief that these guys can actually play football. Or like, what if it was in an office environment?

SPEAKER_02 58:06

You were tanking a presentation and you got to tag somebody in, but you had to physically hit their hand, and then they could come in and finish up and hanging on, hanging on to the door jam. Arm out, calling for the tag. Come on, man, come on, you're killing us in there.

SPEAKER_00 58:27

Uh our numbers were down from from last year, and uh now then let me get into the nuts and bolts of this. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 58:37

Some office guy sitting in the back is like, was that a hot tag? Well, our and and wrestling is is famous for the enough of this attack, right? Like that that's essentially what it comes down to is I've I've let you talk for long enough, or I've let you dance with the crowd for long enough, or or something to that, right? And and if we don't as as people in this current society have enough of those moments throughout the day that we can't relate to wanting to put someone through a table, then then damn it, you're living a different life than I am. Because all day long I feel like I just had a Cody Rhodes moment where I'm like, enough, enough of this, you're going through the table.

SPEAKER_01 59:28

I agree, man. That's that's what it all boils down to. It's the things that we wish we could do in our real life that these dudes are doing at work. That guy's at work right now. He's painting his face and putting tassels around his arms and running to the ring in underwear. He's at work. He's at work.

SPEAKER_02 59:49

But wrestling, all right. So this is I I think this is good, right? Because we've opened the door and there will be more wrestling conversations. This will come up. I again, it's something that that we see as as a as an integral corner of entertainment for for both of us. Um, so it it will you know, it will come back around. There is a lot more to dig into. And if you're a wrestling fan as well, maybe maybe you've found a place to you know hang out, have a couple conversations.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:22

There's a lot more to talk about with wrestling, and I think that this is the scratching the surface of what we can eventually talk about. And if you want to hear more about wrestling, if you want to get involved in the wrestling conversation, we are happy to have you chime in, get a hold of us on social media, send us an email. Who's your favorite wrestler? What's your favorite match type? Who's your favorite actor who got their start in wrestling? And why is it Dwayne The Rock Johnson?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:52

Oh, it has to be. It has to be. We had that take the other day. Hogan didn't work as an actor because the character didn't work. The Rock worked as an actor because the character does work. John Cena is working as an actor because it's not the same character. Right. But that is for another episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:13

Get in touch with us. Let us know if we body slammed this episode or threw potatoes.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:23

Next round's on us.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:25

Cheers, guys.