This is a Jeff Townsend Media Production
What's you gonna do? Brother? When Jeff Townsend Media runs wild on you? I am the Kings when you gotta alright, alright, alright, I am Jeff Townsend from Jeff Townsend Media, and I am super excited about this new podcast, The Austin Airies Show. Yes, Austin Aries, the one and only, but we're gonna go digging in deeper than that. The character, you know, it's Austin Aris. We're gonna learn a whole lot more about him. With that being said, man, I'm super excited to do this podcast with you. You said you're super excited, but you did sound super excited. What's the energy, Jeff? I know, I know it's been a long day. Has been a long day. I've had a busy day. You got what three kids? I've got three kids? Yet three kids probably tuckered you out. But yeah, since the Austin Arias Show, Austin airis my, uh, the man that's running the traffic for me, Jeff Townsend, the podcast godfather, if you will, is that right? Right? Sure, I'll take it. Yeah, sure, I'm kind of that guiding light to some people. Maybe I don't know. I'm Austin airis I mean, I'm not really Austin Airies. That's a that's a fictional wrestling character, right, my real name is Daniel and Uh. On this show, while it's gonna be called the Austin Area Show, we're gonna get a glimpse into the man behind Austin Areas, which is me, and we're gonna have a lot of fun. And yeah, I'm excited, and I actually sound excited, not like you, who's sounded like he just drank a bottle of better Drill and then said, I'm really excited for this. Here's my friend, Austin Airis never is dust Man. Now, I'm just kidding. We've been talking about doing this podcast for a while, But why was it important for you to do it? Man? Like? Is it just to kind of like express your feelings on things or people to get to know you more of all the above? Well, you know, Jeff, funny thing is is I've been talking about doing a podcast or been having discussions around doing a podcast for probably about five years now. You know, after I left WWE, I went into Chris Jericho's podcast, And after I did that, actually Chris called me and asked if I wanted to do a podcast on what was going to be a network, right, So I actually went to LA and I filmed a few pilots, but it just didn't feel right, and we had some logistical issues as far as where I was living at the time, and my head just wasn't in it, you know, and so I kind of tabled it for the time being. And yeah, you know, something I thought about. Obviously, the podcast space is huge, and what it does it really it provides us a platform to speak, to have our voice be heard. And you know, for me, a lot of things have been said about me, a lot of things have been written about me over the my career, but nobody's really got to hear much from the man himself. So here's an opportunity for me to have a platform sort of level the playing field, if you will, so that I have an equal voice and people can hear authentically from from Dan and what he's about, you know, maybe along the way to dispel some of these rumors and myths or things that have been perpetuated through the other sources. So, yeah, it just felt like time it was right. You reached out to me, and you obviously have a long history in the podcast space. You know you've been doing this what fourteen years if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, yeah, yeah, in the podcast world. And so we had a good conversation and I thought you you'd be a good man, because you know, the one thing for me, I can talk, but I can't do all the technical stuff right, and that's sort that was always for me. The difficulty of doing my own podcast was doing all the back end stuff and obviously having someone of your caliber who's got the experience doing this, and uh, you know, I think it would be a good compliment. And you're wrestling fan also, so you know, we'll definitely be talking about some wrestling on the podcast, but we're gonna be talking about a lot of other things too, so it should be fun. Yeah. Like you said, I've been podcasting for quite a while. Just quick introduction. I started out doing it in my college dorm as a freshman with my roommate. And now and now you're in your closet, and now I'm now I'm in homemade studio closet. Yes, yes, yes, yeah, it's a much Jeffersons, you're moving on up, I'm moving on up. Yeah. I used to start out with them a little like do you remember them, like stick Mike's used to come with the computer like real, like yeah yeah, real skinny, yeah, awful equipment. It's amazing how much podcasting's grown. And obviously I've been into a lot of different podcasts, but wrestling podcasts really for quite a while. Now, I going back to really. Jim Cornett started his so, then Bruce Pritchard Conrad Thompson's So, I'm Cornette. He's a great guy. I love Jim Cornette. He loves you too. Uh yep, big love fest there between me and Jim. What did he say that you're a miserable person and you didn't deny that either? Professional malcontent miserable person? Uh TD tiny turn up eating man. I think it's my favorite though. Oh man. Yeah, wow, I'm actually to my recollection. I don't think I've ever actually had turnips, but it's almost it almost pushed me to try something just to see if I like him. Maybe I would. Yeah, I know what I'm doing when I get off this recording here. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, Jim said that about me, and you know, to be fair and hey, I'm pretty transparent at that at that period of time in my life and in my career when when me and Jim were working together, wasn't wasn't the best time in my life right there some you know, personal stuff going on that bled over into the professional stuff, and yeah, probably wasn't at my all time happiest. Unfortunately that was that was the case, and that was the experience Jim had with me. But yeah, that's okay. Well, we're all allowed our opinions. I always say, you know, other people's opinion of me, that's their problem, it's not mine. I can't. I can't control that, and nor am I trying to. I gotta be who I am. Sometimes my filter is a little bit lacking, and uh, I say things out loud you shouldn't say. But I'll take the good with the bad. And at the end of the day, everybody can decide for themselves what their opinion is of me, and and that's that's their opinion and they're allowed to have it. Actually, by the time this would this comes out, just a little disclosure for you, I guess we're gonna I'm gonna release in the trailer form that first five minutes of the conversation we'd recorded about what you've been up to since you've been out of the wrestling scene as far as on television. So the beaut under a trailer, the podcast trailer, So that's and I'll make sure to get it on YouTube as well. That will kind of be a quick recap of what you've been doing. Obviously we're doing this, kind of go into depth more why we're doing this and various other things. But yeah, in the to be episode trailer, I do share that conversation with what you've been doing over the last couple of years. Yeah, and that would be actually the next episode that comes out right, Yeah, from from a timeline standpoint, Yeah, but I'm going to release some of it and a trailer. Just sure to call a tease tea tea a teaser. But man, you've been cutting back a little bit, but obviously that's still how you make a living wrestling. But you've been like Mexico man, you've been traveled Mexico. You're overseased for quite a while when I first spoke to you, So you've kind of been on this journey of finding out who you really are post wrestling, and you're kind of a to me, it seems like you're a different person than you were two or three years ago. Yeah, well, maybe a different perspective. I guess that's a better way to word it. Yeah, I mean I definitely, I definitely feel different than I was three or four years ago. Yeah, I've I've done a lot of traveling. I was in Mexico for a year living down there. I went recently to Saudi Arabian Wrestle. That was an interesting experience. Spent some time in Spain. I enjoyed my time there. Yeah. Now back here in Florida for the time being. I head to Canada in February seventeenth to the twenty first to do some wrestling for Danny Duggan, a guy that I've known for over twenty years now. Winnipeg was one of the first places I went to wrestle outside of Minnesota. So I'd be fun to get back there and put the tights back on for a few days and have some fun. Are they going to fit? Oh? Yeah, they'll fit. I got some new ones I'm looking forward to. It might be singlet time, though, I've been telling myself, as I'm creeping close to forty five here, it might be time for the singlet. You know, that's the transition for a lot of us wrestlers. As we get older, you start covering up more and more, you know, when you get out to the rink. So we'll see. I've been thinking about the singlet might have to get me one made whoever's doing them for you. I would like to record every podcast I do and a single it, So we'll talk about that later. I'll get a reference from you. I mean, I think we're gonna You're gonna have to do this now that you brought it up. We're gonna actually make this, make this surreality. Yeah, I think so I would do it. You're going to do it. Yeah, I'm gonna do it now. I just signed up for it. Or write that, and we're gonna write that in the contract. I yeah, I know you have a hinhandy it all time, so I'm sure you're knitting that down. So man, you creative controls. Obviously a lot of other podcasts I do kind of write an outline and stuff. But the ball is completely in your hands and the court is yours and we're going at it here, so I'll let you lead us off. Yeah. Well, I thought for this first episode it would just be kind of fun to talk about again. You know who I am a little bit my background. I imagine most people listening to this are gonna come from the world of wrestling, but some, but some of you know, my fans and some people have connected with over the years come from outside the world of pro wrestling. So I think I'll be interesting to just kind of talk about that a little bit and then just talk about you, you know again, your background. You know, why did you get in the podcasting? Why a podcast? And what's this podcast going to be about? Right? And so that was really I thought a good way to kind of leave this off. And you know, I also think that you know, I so I did a Chris van Vleet interview once. It's like two hours. Man, I've watched yep, yep, I'm familiar. Two hours whoo. And that's hard to go back and watch because I was going through a lot of stuff at that time. You're an angry, angry son of a bitch man. I had a lot a lot of pent up frustration and anger in me at that time that I was looking for a place to release it, and it just happened to be all over Chris van Vleet. So but the point of that is I don't want to make these episodes two hours long or even an hour long. I think I think that forty five minutes, you know, thirty to forty five minutes at sweet Spot, right to keep people engaged and just get enough and keep them looking forward to the next episode. So I have a lot of different interests, right. I don't actively watch professional wrestling week in a week out. It's, um, you know, it's something I've done for twenty years, but I wouldn't necessarily classify myself as a huge fan of it, if that makes sense. As far as what I do in my spare time. Obviously, I keep up enough to be informed what's going on in my industry. But I don't I don't hire an f cable, I don't have a television, so I don't really watch wrestling on TV. Yeah, the rest of I do watch tends to be the stuff I grew up watching, Like the rest of I like, which is the old Crockett stuff from the eighties. If I'm going to go watch some wrestling, but you know, I'm into sports. I grew up. I grew up an athlete, you know, a baseball player, went to college for that. Um, you know, so I do follow football and baseball and basketball from Wisconsin originally, so account Wisconsin if he couldn't hear it in the accent. So we'll probably talk a little bit about wiscons sports here and there. And then I've got a lot of just you know, obviously a lot of interesting friends in the resting industry, which in and of itself is just this weird community of people. But I made a lot of cool and interesting friends outside of wrestling that comes from a lot of different backgrounds, and you know, I hope to to kind of have a revolving door of frequent guests to come on here and just you know, talk about different stuff mental health, right, spirituality, you know, medicine, current events, just all sorts of different things like that. So as we get into this, we won't have a guest necessarily every week, but a lot a lot of times we're going to try to bring a third party on here and have some you know, some interesting conversations. Right. I like to stimulate thought. I like to make people think about things. I don't like to tell people what to think. I just like to post questions that makes them think, because you know, a lot of times we go through life just kind of taking the things that are fed to us at face value without really contemplating them. Or also, you know, we spend a lot of our life being up I called an unconscious consumer. Right. We live in this world of consumerism, but a lot of times we're on autopilot and we're consuming things, whether it's the food we eat, whether it's what we listen to, what we watch, who we listen to, and we don't really do it consciously, right, We're not really super aware of why we're consuming that things we're consuming. So I just like to, you know, pose the type of questions that makes us think a little bit, right, Yeah, And I think it's for people that have just associated you through wrestling. It's this whole fact that you're a whole person behind you, the real person behind you, and you do have these thoughts that are beyond wrestling, beyond pro wrestling. You have these things that you're passionate about that aren't justest wrestling. So I think it's exciting that people will get to hear about some of them. Yeah. And some people call controversial, right, because in this day and age, if you don't subscribe to a lot of times one of two different perspectives, then somehow that's controversial. Right, it's you're either pro or anti, you're blue or your red. You know, everything's black and white, and if you try to settle in some type of shade of gray, a lot of people have a problem with that. Then I hope for this podcast as we can bring different opinions out here, We can have civil discourse even with people who don't think like us or have a different opinion. Um. You know, we don't have to feel like we need to be censored. We don't have to necessarily feel like we need to be you know, politically correct. Don't worry about being canceled, right, you can't cancel. You can't be canceled if you don't play along. Right. I want people to be all to come on here and be free to speak their mind, to tell their story, you know, to ask questions, maybe uncomfortable questions, and and try to get to some some answers, even if they're uncomfortable answers too. So you know, it should be an interesting right and hopefully you know, people will will come on the journey and feel like they're getting a little something out of this time we spend together. We'll go ahead and knock some of my stuff out because nobody cares about that. But I know you want me to do it. Yeah, who are you? Jeff talented? So I actually started podcasting because it was a school project. Okay, we did in podcast form, and then I just kind of kept doing it there and I started doing a bunch of local stuff. I still do a lot of local stuff. I work for a local media company wish to you say locale, where's local for you? Well, it's Indiana now, So I work for an Indianapolis news company, Wish TV Circle City Broadcasting. I do a bunch of different stuff. I formed a media company of my own, and I have about seven different podcasts that I'm involved in. So I have a pretty busy podcasts about podcasts. If I'm not mistaken, I have Yeah, you're right, Yeah, I'm on Twitter at podcast underscore Father. But no, I'm pretty involved in the podcasting community and I have a lot of different things that I do to try to help new podcasters out. Isn't that crazy when you think about it, Like podcasting has become such a thing that you have a podcast about podcasting. Yeah, and it's successful because there's so many people trying to get in the podcast world that a podcast about how to become a good podcaster. There's some value there and people are going to listen to that. It's it's amazing to me talk to a guy another guy that was talking about, you know, asking me about doing a podcast, and he did podcasts about frisbee golf. You never played frisbee golf. I played frisbee golf up there, Yeah, And I was like, really, there's a podcast about frisbee golf. Like how many episodes can you have? Right? Like what do you talk about? But that's the crazy world of podcasting. There's so many different niches they're all being filled in with this with this medium, and I think it's really cool, you know, I mean it's really cool. So you're in Indiana now, right. I'm in Indiana now, Uh have three kids keeping busy and basically podcasting all night like we are right now. Disclosure Right, it's late, it's eleven PM Eastern. I stay up and kids go to bed. Yeah, I go to the kids go to bed, I stay up night and I podcast. So I have a couple of wrestling things going on now. Obviously launching this one with you first. Then also Bill Dumont, former trainer for to B Yeah, Hugh Morris. Hugh Morris general general direction. He actually brought up. Yes, of course that was discussed, you know that was But yeah, so, like you said, longtime wrestling fan, don't really have a lot of people that I can talk to wrestling about. They don't sure, I don't know anybody that necessarily cares about it that much. Yeah, that was my whole childhood. Basically, anyone who grew up watching wrestling in the eighties before like the Monday Night Wars and the Attitude era, when it really took became part of pop culture to be a wrestling fan. You found the one other guy that liked wrestling in your school and that was it. There wasn't many people you could talk wrestling about, right, So I remember actually in college. I was in college when wrestling got super hot Monday Night Wars and Suck It and DX ye know your role. And so I was working at a liquor store and we did deliveries. Oh wow, right, college liquor store that delivers and we even out of trucks, so we'd delivered kegs. I didn't even know you could house parties. It's crazy, right, So I remember a few a few nights Monday night and I'm delivering kegs to some house party where they've got wrestling on and everyone's just acting a fool and crots chop it and suck it and this I was so salty, right because I'm like, these are like such bandwagon jumper fans, Like, yeah, you know, I'll bet you if I threw some names in them, they wouldn't have a clue. Like do they know who Don Cronodle is? I'll bet you they don't. You know, they don't know who? Yeah, I bet they don't know who who Ernie Ladd is or Jimmy Valiot, right, Like I said, you know, I was like, oh, yeah, they all know that, you know, they know the Rock and they know Stone Cold, but they're not real wrestling fans like I am so but that was it growing up, you know, before it became popular. But yeah, well here here's hopefully going to be an outlet for you to talk a little bit of wrestling and we'll bring some good guests on where you can talk a little bit about wrestling and you can share your uninformed opinion yeah as a fan, and maybe you could even start a newsletter and share your uninformed opinion and people pay you for it. Who knows? Can I call it journalism? You sure can? Sure? Sweet Yeah. Yeah, for those wonders referring to Dave Meltzer has me blocked on Twitter? He did not like my key demo jokes, I guess blocked me. Oh well really, Dave Meltzer as you blocked on Twitter? Yeah, I think? Well, okay, So there were two tweets, right. The first one was and I don't remember what the match was, but I said, if it was in the Tokyo Dome, it would have been seven stars. I can see what that was. Kind of like a stinger, I get it. Then I tweeted Dave Meltzer says I'm in the Key demo and that got me blocked. So wow, no going back now, right? Oh yeah, it's just you didn't see anything like disrespectful or I mean, you didn't call him a name or weren't rude. I mean, yeah, you know so, But that's all right. You know what, Dave, if you're out there listening for some reason, which I'm sure Austin Aris here would say, don't continue to pay Dave Meltzer. But I still I still pay for your newsletter. Dave. Wait, so you you pay, you pay for the news he blocked you, but you still pay for his newsletter. Yeah, I know right. This is like a life This is like a life changing moment here. I got to think about the way I'm living. You did disclose this before we made this agreement to do this podcast together, because if I had known that, I might have had a different opinion about doing this podcast with you. Jeff Townsend. Well, see, I like wrestling so much. I would read any anything, even if I agree with it or not. That's pretty bad, huh. I don't have a strong opinion on Dave militz Er one way or the other. Um, to be honest, and and and I certainly don't hate on the hustle, right, I mean, you know, think what you want. And there's many different opinions, but one thing I'll always say is he is He has dedicated his life and an enormous amount of time and energy into covering the thing that I do for a living. And you know, without without people like that, um, you know, there would there would be a void, there would be something missing in this in this you know, pro wrestling community. So you know, we all play important roles, and me and Dave's relationship kind of got off on the wrong foot initially back when I was with TENA. The first time, he just he misreported something and I'm sure it was fed to him by the company, so he reported, but it wasn't factually correct and it painted it painted the picture differently than reality. And I was pretty upset about that because I'd never spoken to him before. So I remember I got his phone number from Gabe Zapolski. I was actually in the ring of our office when I read this, and I called him up, and you know, as as I had a tendency to do in my younger years, I was pretty fired up and pretty fiery and probably cursed him out a little bit. And I'm sure you did well. I just said, listen, if you want to report shit about me, like, call me. I'll tell you that. Good to the source. That's journalism. Go to this and at least at least give the at least give the source the opportunity to give you the other version of the stories so you can figure out what it was. And basically the story was this, right, So I got suspended the first time I got suspended at T and A at the time was I was working for Ring of Hotter full time. They wanted us to come down on a Friday. I actually had a Saturday. They wanted us to come down a day early for the pay per view because they were worried about a snowstorm. Right, And so I got the call at two in the afternoon from from T and A to say, hey, we watched you all to come down for this because of the snowstorm. And I just said, hey, like, I'm on my way the Ring of Honor show, Right, I did Friday night. Now I got the show Saturday, and I'll fly down tomorrow. And for that was who was paying my bills. And I was just kind of a part time per appearance guy for T and A at the time, but Ring of Hotter I was running the school like that was my full time gig. And it's just also not how I do business. I don't I don't know show shows. I don't you know, last a minute. And so it was two in the afternoon the day of the show that we were told to basically skip the Ring of Honor show and come down to Florida. And I declined and I stayed and did do it. Which was the first show, was called unscripted because half the guys got pulled from the card, so Gabe had to come up with something on the fly, and that was called unscripted. Anyway, long story short. When Dave reported it, he said that we were told the day before. We were told on Friday that TEENA wanted us to come down, which to me is a big difference. If you tell somebody on a Friday that we watched it to come down Saturday, and Gabe has twenty four hours notice to rework the card, maybe I consider it. I probably still want it done. It I was, I was not going to screw over a ring of otter. But the reality was I was told literally at two o'clock on Saturday that they wanted me to catch a flight in three hours and be down there, and I just felt like it just painted a different picture right like that we were given advanced notice when there was no advanced notice. Nobody was given advanced notice. Anyway. That was a story, not a big deal, you know, and at that time still learning how the pro wrestling media words and understanding that whole landscape. So it's all good. Um, I think the nicest thing Dave Meltzer has ever said about me was if I was six feet tall, people would talk about me like I was Shaun Michaels, which is a nice backhanded compliment. Yeah, well because I'm not. I'm not six feet tall. If anybody's wondering, Yeah, that's like a it's like an add a boy with a bad boy with it. But anyways, yeah, no, I know what you're saying. But Uncle Dave and I hope they we can rekindle our relationship one day. Yeah, because I really, I really, I've always supported him. I mean, I don't have a problem with ye, but maybe a couple of tweets, maybe the key demo offended him, you know, I mean it should do. But you know what, so there's different philosophies when it comes to Twitter and blocking people, right, And I don't know that I've really settled on what philosophy that I believe in firmly. You know. One philosophy is just, hey, this is my my Twitter feed, this is my energy, and if it's not providing something of positive value, then I just get rid of it and I don't have to see it, right, and I don't worry about it, and I move on and you know, out of sight, out of mind, you know. And then there's other people who feel like, well, the minute you block someone, you're giving them what they wanted a lot of times because they just wanted attention. So now they know that they got to you, and somehow that makes them the winner of the of the whole fiasco. So I can see, I can see both sides. For me, I've I've had periods where I've kind of gone both ways. I've had periods where if I just didn't want to see it and I didn't want to see it, I just blocked it. But now what recently, like I just don't really give a shit, and I don't spend enough time on Twitter to really care what people are saying. And I do believe that for a lot of the people on there, I'd rather just not give them any of my energy blocking them, responding to them, liking there whatever, you know, just you know, it's it's the old if if the you know, if the tree falls and then in the middle of the forest and no one's there to hear it didn't make a sound, right, like, you know, did it happen? And so I feel like just sometimes just ignore him, don't even don't even give him the don't even give him the energy whatsoever. Just just move on with your day. Yeah, I don't think I've ever blocked anybody, because I'm with you there, that's the acknowledging that I paid attention to them or acknowledging them, which typically I don't let me ask you a question, So please, what do you talk to the most? Still from the who you worked with in the wrestling industry? Um, who do I talk to the most? Probably Kenny King? I talked to Kenny King quite a bit, you know, I consider him a friend, you know, outside the wrestling business. Tough enough, tough enough, Kenny, tough enough, Kenny. Yeah. I talked to a few of the guys I trained, um like Rhet Titus, Bernio Cyrus, you know, Grizzly Redwood, some guys I trained at the ring about our school we keep up. I talked to Prince Nana from time to time. Talked to Roderick Roderick Strong, you know, here and there. It's funny, so when you say talked to, it's like de mean, like on the phone or just even passing messages back and forth, because yeah, there's there's guys your message here and there randomly, but yeah, those those were, those were Those are the guys that you know, I probably keep up with the most. And I will say too, And I guess we'll just touch on this because obviously we had a big loss in the wrestling world, um recently with the passing a Jay Brisco, which was tragic, um and obviously unexpected. And I just got back not that long ago from the funeral I went, I went up to Delaware and just to pay my respects. Man, it was it was fucking amazing, right. It was the strength and resolve of the Pugh family. Jayme and Pugh's is his real name, right, Jay Brisco's stage name mom Mom, and Papa Brisco, Mark is brother, just this whole family. It amazed me to see the strength and resolved that they all showed while we were there. They're so committed to their faith and their belief. They're very religious people. Their conviction is so strong that it's allowed them to really take this tragedy and stride and really believe that God has a plan and that you can't change God's plans. And it gave them a level of peace and strength that was remarkable, and it seemed like they were in some ways more concerned how everybody else was holding up as opposed to how they were. And you know, obviously it was one of those situations and I heard it a lot that day where we all hated why we were there, but what we were a part of was so beautiful, the impact that Jay had on people, not just within the wrestling community, but within his community, Laurel. The whole family's pretty big in the community, right, I mean they're pretty well known and very involved. Yeah, very involved. You know. The the gymnasium where where they had the service is named after his grandfather, right, I mean, so they've been they've been, um, you know, cornerstones of that community for a long time. And I'm telling you, they completely filled the gymnasium and had two overflow rooms because they it was literally a sellout, right like Jay Brisko sold out Laurel, like you know, um, And it was just it was just an amazing experience. I saw so many people, um, that I haven't seen for five ten years within the wrestling community, and that was the one thing was like you realize, like you know, what a big, dysfunctional family we really are, and how special that is and uh, and yeah, we all hated why we were there, but we were so you know, so grateful to be there and to see so many people and give people hugs and and and tell them we loved them and kind of share that and so um, yeah, just a lot of emotions and again, not where we wanted to be for the reason we were there, but but it was. It was an amazing, beautiful experience and uh, you know, just sending my love to to the whole Pew family and and also just a tip of my cap to just the amazing strength and resolve that they showed through this and continue to show moving forward. So sort of touch on that a little bit. So it was, Yeah, such a underrat I mean, wrestling wise, such an underrated tag team, so freaking good. Easily one of the best teams I've ever seen. I mean that they're incredible. Yeah, I mean if you don't, if if they're not in the top five of all time, then then I have to question, Yeah, your opinion when it comes to pro wrestling. And I think that the you know, just from a wrestling standpoint, was here here they're brothers, like so identical in so many ways. Yeah, Yeah, completely different, like different styles in the ring, different styles when it came to cutting promos, you know, and each of them could stand on their own, you know. Obviously Jay showed that by by winning you know, a couple of world championships as a singles wrestler. Yeah, I mean, just a bond of connection and longevity. To me, they're up there in that top five of all time, no doubt, No doubt. Is a feel good moment. Here do you do you have? Is is there like a story you can share that that that's awesome from? I'm sure because you were guys are around each other quit a bit. Yeah, so here here was the Here was one of the funny things that we also said this weekend, as we all shared stories amongst each other, we all said, man, we could never tell these stories publicly, right, Like, yeah, we could listen. First of all, a lot of current day wrestling fans need to understand that twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, the wrestling world was different. The world as a whole was different, and was acceptable and not acceptable was different, right, And so you know a lot of the Shenanigans and you know, things that we got ourselves into, um, fifteen plus years ago as as younger as younger gentlemen before we had families, you know, like you know, before we had kids and families and matured. Are things that quite frankly, I wouldn't dare repeat here because in this cancel culture, it's just it'd be opening up a can of worms that that that doesn't need to be opened up. So the funny part was, as we shared a lot of these stories, we realized that we could only share them amongst each other, but we couldn't necessarily like share them in a public forum. So yeah, I think that that is a story in and of itself. Was was you know, was kind of funny. But listen, I've been in the ring with those guys as partners, um, you know, as competitors, and you know, one thing about one thing about them was passion. Passion and intensity, you know, and uh, and they're gonna they're gonna bring that out of you. And that's something I've always tried to do in the ring, right, like bring a level of passion and intensity that would force my opponent to have to step his game up if he wanted to survive, if he wanted to thrive. And those guys, you know, we were were the ultimate measuring stick when it came to tag teams to see exactly where you stood. But the thing about the thing about Jay was, and this was said, you know, he was a man's man, you know, which is a man that other men look up to and respect. And you know he had this hard, rough exterior, but man, when you when you got to the inside, he had a huge heart. You know, he really did and loved everybody, loved everybody no matter they're their differences, where they came from, what they were about, and that really, you know, that's a reflection of again their faith, you know, and how they try to do as Jesus would, do as they would say, you know, and that's to love unconditionally and meet people where they're at, not not where you want them to be. Yeah, and they're obviously in need. If possible, people should help if they can. And I'll try to get a link up in the description, but yeah, yeah, I wanted to make sure that and obviously thoughts and prayers with his family is there is more than just him impacted. Yeah, it was. Yeah, his two daughters who you know, for all things considered, we're we're in good spirits and Yeah, you could donate money. I think it's I'm not sure what platform the years and go give send or something I I'm not familiar with these, or you go to pro wrestling teas in order one of the reach for the sky Jay Brisco t shirts. All the proceeds for that to the family, one hundred percent of the proceeds. So that's cool because it's a cool shirt and obviously going to a good cause. Yeah, I got mine ordered yesterday actually, so it was important for me to bring that up as well. So a Ring of Honor seems like it's just been such a huge part for your cell and all the stories you hear from individuals just it seems like that community there had something special that you probably didn't experience in your time in TNA, in any independent scene or in WWE. Yeah, well, you know, I think that it was just may talk about like catching lightning in a bottle, right, and if you go back and look, the whole idea of Ring of Honor was kind of like this indie all star show. Right, We're gonna pluck the best independent talent from all over and we're going to have them on this card, and then we're going to see out of those guys who rises to the top. And so, you know, you had a collection of guys that were all in similar parts of their career, like trying to be discovered, trying to trying to take that next step, trying to make this a full time career, wanting to be the best, wanting to get noticed. But we also had, like, you know, built this spot of this camaraderie because we were all working kind of as as the underdogs, you know, worth the wwwe you know, we we were an independent company, you know, and so we've always said in wrestling, the guys that we love and respect the most, so the guys we hit the hardest, you know, those are the guys that we can go out there and put on the best show with because we know there's no ill will behind it, right and so and that's been true in my career, right The guys I'm closest with outside the ring are the guys that I know that when I get in there, you can take it to that next level because we're just trying to put on a good show. You know, there's there's no maliciousness, there's there's no ill intent. You know, I think we kind of had that across the board and Ring of Honor. We were all out there trying to high tides rise all boats, right, and so the bigger we can make Ring of Honor, the better we could all be, right, the bigger we would all be. So I think it did create that family vibe and atmosphere for a lot of us. And we're all, you know, we're all in our twenties and we're all young and growing up. You know, that's the thing too, you know, going back to you know, to Jay and Mark. You know, it's like I've known these guys for your twenty years and you watch people literally grow up and become men. You know, as we're doing this, you know, we all we all were kids and you know boys too. Men. What a great band that was, huh So yeah, yeah, I think I think that plays in part of of that camaraderie, right, and we're only going to go as far as we went collectively a lot of times. Yeah, Like the helping hand and the dedication to helping each other, it was incredible. I still own like fifteen DVDs, but I was actually lucky enough to have it on a satellite channel, so nice obviously, like you, I sent you that video if you win in the title, and it's it's crazy to see, like you said, just physically even the development, but I can't even imagine that you're sharing socially mentally, people have families now we will traveled, right. Yeah, It's like that was the beginning of a lot of our careers and a lot of us are starting to see the kind of end you know, in front of us, right, and not not too distant. Huge. Um So, yeah, it's it's hard to believe sometimes, you know, for me personally twenty three years now, been on this this crazy pro wrestling path. Be gonna ring about our DVDs. My collection is amazing. I might have probably about eighty percent of all the DVDs from my time I was there, right, And so a lot of these are out of print and out of stock. He can't get anymore. Yeah, but I'm gonna be looking to sell them. I'm gonna I'm gonna look to move them to someone who probably appreciates them a little more than me. There's maybe a handful of ones that I'd probably keep for nostalgia, you know. But but I've got probably one hundred and fifty of these things. Sitting in the storage that that at some point I'm gonna move, I'm gonna I'm gonna put up for sales. So maybe we'll do it here on one of these weeks, one of these episodes, we'll we'll do some auction or something. Maybe'll do like a live auction for my ring about our DVD collection. Right, maybe it'll be like if you have them, will be a prize or something. Right, we can get creative, we can do we can go crazy here, can could do something like that too. I like everyone likes prizes, Yeah for sure. Yeah, definitely going to give away a few copies in my book for some prizes there you go. Yeah, yeah, I gotta get rid of some of those. So we touched up on wrestling, and like we said earlier, there is another episode that will follow this, and we're not trying to step on the exact same things that we did because just a little bit of a glimpse into the next episode. We talk a lot about identity, and you give a lot of different examples of how that lined up in the timeline of your wrestling career. But we talked a little bit about the things that you're doing outside of wrestling, now because obviously that's running through your head a lot. That's something that you're really focusing on now. So yeah, I mean obviously I know you're huge into the diet that you do. You're Yeah, well, you know, anybody who knows me, I'm your annoying vegan friend, right. That was so. Yeah. So I've been I've been plant based for over twenty years vegan now for the last eleven years. I wrote a book about my journey called Food Fight. You can also find that at Pro Wrestling Tease if you're interested. But I you know, I started speaking about it at different events because I realized that there was some real impact that I could have and helping my fans change their life for the better by just sharing the things that have worked for me. Right, And so yeah, coming up here February fifth, which trying to think we're gonna drop this. We're gonna drop this the seventh, So this will actually that'll be seven before. So so two days before this, I spoke at Vegfest in Fort Myers and then next Sunday I'll be speaking On the twelfth, I'll be speaking at veg Fest in Gainesville, Florida. Yeah, I just like to get out there and just talk about again being a plant based athlete. Eating animals is in a necessity. It's a choice we make, you know, and I think for a lot of us, we think it's a necessity, like we have to do this to live or to thrive. And you know, over twenty years now, I'm living proof that that's not the case. We become what we consume. And you know, one of the things that we absolutely control is what we put in our mouth, what we eat, and a lot of times it's one of the things that we think the least about. Right. We just were very unconscious in our consumption of food. So yeah, you know that's something I'm pretty passionate about just because I've I've seen the power it can have and helping change people's lives. Just tonight, before we hopped on here, I did a I did a teaching for something called Altar Call with Ryan Blair, and you know, it's a bunch of masterminds who are trying to level up business world and their spirituality, right and their enlightenment, and so we talked about you know, this component of it, right, and so one of the guys on there came and told his story about he was diagnosed type two diabetic thirties, mid thirties, early forties, and he felt kind of ashamed and embarrassed that he kind of let himself get to this place to where he now had to start taking insulin every day. But he converted himself to a plant based diet. And he actually reported tonight that he went to the doctor and his markers, markers and levels are solo. They told him that they can no longer give him insulin. He basically reverses type two diabetes just by change in his diet to a plant based diet. And that's just one example of many, right. You know, from a physical health standpoint, there's benefits. I also like to talk about from the mental and the spiritual health, how that's all interconnected. Right, And again, our gut health is directly correlated to our mental health. So we talk a lot about mental health, and we're going to talk a lot about mental health in the coming weeks. And it's become a big topic of conversation and it seems like man, a lot of people are suffering and dealing with some form of mental health. Yeah, well, again, we need we need to start looking at well, that's tied directly to our gut health. So for not eating the right things, that's going to affect our mental health, you know. And then I talk about vibration and energy, right, everything's energy. Emotion is energy, right, So there's high vibrational emotions and there's low vibrational emotions, right, And so things like love and happiness and laughter, joy like these these are all high vibrational emotions. But then we talk about things like stress and depression and fear and anger and resentment and jealousy. Well, these are all low vibrational emotions. So I always asked a question, if you really think about the animals that most of most of our society consumes, they spend their very short life in these factory farms and nothing but low vibrational emotion. They're they're sad, they're depressed, they're angry, they're stressed, they're fearful. Right, that's what you're consumed. I mean, if you're taking, if you're trapping that emotional energy in that in that you know, flesh of that animal, and then you're consuming that and eating that, you're transferent energy onto you. So how are you going to be vibrate and a high vibrational energy if you're consuming and your and your nurse in your body with this low negative vibrational emotion and energy. Right, So you know, there's different ways to think about health. There's a physical way, but there's also the mental and the emotional way, the spiritual way. You are what you eat and are you Are you eating the light right like fruit vegetables, or are you eating the death the taco bell, so taco bell, which I used to love me some taco Bell. I'm not gonna lie to you, Jeff. When I moved when I when I moved to Philadelphia, when I got my opportunity for a ring about or I moved to Philadelphia just to make it easy. And at the time, I was a vegetarian and I was still learning in the process of learning, right, and we're always learning. We never stopped that process. But I was a new into that journey. And so I ate a lot of Taco Bell, the seven layer burrito, you know, which didn't have any meat in it, but it had you know, cheese and sour cream and guacamole. So I remember when I didn't have a lot of money, so I was finally trying to find like a cheap apartment. And I remember I found this spot and it had my bank and had my Jim and it had Taco Bell, all within five minutes, and I said, oh, that's the place for me. That was Yeah, I used to eat myself a lot of Taco Bell, but not not so much anymore. I've learned to do a little better, leveled up seven layers of Jeff. Yeah, yeah, you're taking you're Taco Bell guy. Huh. Yeah, I mean I'm I'm victim. And that's the way I'm so intrigued with its discussion, right, I'm I find myself victimizing myself of time constraint, is what I would say. Sure, obviously an excuse, but so yeah, I mean, yeah, it's just not Taco Bell, but I fall, I fall convenience foods. Right. Yeah. The thing is is, Jeff, like, if you don't make time for it now, at some point, unforced, your body will force you to make time for it. It's not going to give you the choice. But by that it's usually too late. You know, a lot of us wait to our behind the eight ball before we make the change. Right, just like the gentleman the night he had to wait till until he got type two diabetes before he started to change his diet in lifestyle, and for a lot of us, that's what we do. And so, you know, my hope is that hopefully provide some encouragement and some tidbits of knowledge and how to start that transition before your body forces you to do it right and not wait till it's too late. You know, we got to invest in our health. We have to invest and put again, we always say we have we have three. We have three major resources our time, our money, and our energy. And for all of us that is divided up differently. Some of us have more money and less time. Some of us have a ton of energy and time but no money, right, so everyone everyone's breakdown of our resources is a little different. But you have to be willing to allocate some of your resources to the foods you eat if you expect to get anything of value back. You can't invest nothing and get something of value back. That's just not how anything in life works. So, whether it's you invest more time to pay somebody else to make the food for you right convenient foods, whether you invest your own energy to do it yourself by start cooking yourself. You know, you invest the money to buy higher quality foods. You have to invest something when it comes to the foods you eat. You know. We'll talk more about this in future episodes where we can talk about how you can be efficient in allocating time and still eating well, still eating right, you know. And it's just a matter of changing our perspective a little bit. And then also where do we put it on our our list of priorities? Right? And so for most of us, whether it's the money or just our time, the food ends up being the last of our priorities. Right. I pay all the bills for the month, and whatever money I've left over is what I buy food with. Right, I do everything else on my list of to do is for the day, and then if I got time, that's what I do. Then I try to find some food. And it's just it's backwards to me mad, because if you don't have your health, what do you really have? What are you gonna have time to do if you don't have your health? And what are you gonna be solely focused on the minute you're sick getting healthy? Yeah? Right, So try to get ahead of the curve a little bit. And again, small incremental changes is the way to go, you know, and and and a bunch of small positive changes over time adds up to big changes that make a real difference. I'm no longer cruiser weight, so I got it. Yeah, I got a two six though I'm two to six now, so I gotta get back down under two of five. I think, I literally, I literally am two at six, though I think it's literally my way. When I went to the doctor last week, that's funny. It's not funny that I'm two of six. But yeah, well, we're gonna, I'm gonna take this as a personal mission, and we're gonna if we're gonna be spending time together every week, I say, within four weeks, you're gonna you're gonna be guilted into giving up some of these bad habits. You're just gonna you're you're not gonna want to hear me preaching and ranting and raven t about it. So but ultimately, it's got to be your decision. It's gotta be you gotta put the work in, You got to you gotta make the effort, and hey, you got you got you know, three kids to do it for. If anything else right, you want to you want to live a healthy, long life to see them grow up to be healthy and long living too. Right, it's all about what motivates us. Got to find the motivation. What's going to be the motivational factor to make you just you know, put that time in. Never could be too busy to nourish yourself correctly. Gotta gotta find that time. This is a great example that just going to throw it out there. This isn't like a wrestling shoot podcast, even though you will be sharing your honest opinion on things evolving wrestling. But thought, that's not what this all is. I'd be obviously, it's way more beyond that. And I look forward to continue to learn because you're right, it is important that we really try to continue to learn every day. And and and I'm here to learn too, I said, I've I'm never afraid to be wrong because it means I just learned something new. Right. I think a lot of people we can fall victim to our egos, don't allow us to admit when we were fooled. For us to admit when we were wrong about something, so we can do to double down, remove the goalposts, right, and we don't want to admit that maybe we were wrong, or maybe somebody along the way fooled us with bad information, and that's never been a concern of mine. I'm glad to be wrong because it means that I learned something new and then I'm better for it. So, you know, forever a student, right, Like, we're always just due. There's no finish line to this. None of us are going to become the perfect human being and do everything right and eat just the right things and say just the right things and do just the right things. That's not what it's about. It's about I'm a big believer, constantly trying to level up, small, little incremental level leveling up in all these different facets of our life. And yeah, I hope as we continue this journey, I'm able to bring some cool guests on that have helped me level up in different areas of my life right, and hopefully they can share their knowledge with the listeners and help them do the same. So I think, I think this feels like a good place to end this first week. Where do you think? Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, and I have about five T shirt ideas now that I can corporate onto my website jeff tshirts dot com. Continue to level ups might be one of them. I'm being inspired here, so yeah, no, but nigger right, this is a good break and I think it's also a big thing for us will be we want to hear the engagement. We want to be able to also answer or questions or suggestions or even just read people's opinions. So one hundred percent, we have an email we set up. It's Austin Area Show at gmail dot com. I'm still working on Austin Areyshow dot com and they'll have a contact form on there. But yeah, anything that if Austin wants to do, if Daniel wants to, he will touch up on it. If not, then he won't. But no, we definitely want to hear that interaction, have the interaction with people that are listening to this. So I think that's important. I didn't want to bring that up. That's, you know, one hundred percent, one hundred percent like I'm not I'm not doing this for me ultimately, right, I don't. I don't really enjoy hearing myself talk. I've always had a problem watching my my my matches back or watching my promos. I don't like to hear myself talk. I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing this in hopes then it will help somebody else, help inspire somebody else, and and through that it'll help me right and help me grow and help me learn. So, if we're not getting feedback and we're not listening to the people that are listening to the show, that we're not doing it right. Because ultimately, we want to hear what people want to hear, right, I want to know, like what topics interest people. I want to know what helps them, you know, And so yeah, going you and go to Austin Areas Show at gmail dot com. Send your questions, send your comments, and your concerns. Hey, tell me to fuck off, tell me I'm a terrible human being within me the first time, right, would be the first time. You're not going to hurt my feelings. If it makes you feel better to vent out and some of that negativity, hey, I'll gladly absorb it all good, No worries here, cool man. Well, this has been fun. It's been fun. Yeah, this is a great jumping off point. And we'll see you again next week, right, Yeah, we'll be back with another episode next week. You absolutely we'll deep dive into this conversation a little bit more. That's what we'll be sharing. So I'm excited for the journeyman. Yeah, we'll talk about identity next week, right, yeah, right, we talked it be good. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. But yeah, it'll be an awesome episode. And I'm so freaking excited man, to learn more about the things and the things that you believe in. So thanks again, man, I appreciate it. Thank you, all right til next week. I'm the world, time, the wolf now never when you can't no more time, the change that is lies in the place. I'm just saying this, your baby. I have the world and I'm yours. Jeff counting Media bat