December 26, 2024 • 35 mins
This week on Unsanctioned Thursday enjoy this blast from the past!
This week’s episode picks up where we left off last week in promo class. I talk about a heartwarming story involving Fred Rosser, formerly Darren Young in WWE/NXT, and I take you on a wild ride in the middle of an ice storm.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up everyone? Happy holidays to you. Here is another
unsanctioned favorite from the archives and Drew the show piece.
What's up, you guys, It's Freddy Brins Junior and we're
back with another episode of Wrestling with Freddy. Last week
we got pretty deep into the promo classes and some
(00:21):
of the cool exercises and the successes and failures of them.
So if you haven't heard that, please go back because
this is a continuation episode. But this episode we'll touch
a little bit more on what I thought is like
the most heartwarming moment I ever had in WWE. There
weren't many, but this time we're going into the ice Storm.
(00:42):
I have built this story up, so without further ado,
the Ice Storm, I Wrestling with Freddy. Wow. Stuffing up
to the mic. The host of Wrestling with Freddy Freddy
Price tune. All Right, you guys, I'm on the highway
with a makeup artist from Friday Night SmackDown back then,
(01:04):
even though we shot it on Tuesdays, and we're driving
I think from Memphis to Atlanta, and if that's about
a four hour drive then I'm right. If not, it
was another town. So we're on the freeway and we're
cruising down and it's late at night, probably probably about
ten thirty eleven o'clock at night. We're on the highway.
It's winter and there's snow on both sides of the road,
(01:27):
and there are no cars anywhere. We left much later
than everyone else. Usually you would like pass other wrestlers,
or wrestlers would pass you. This was before I was
on the jet. So we're cruising down. It's getting late,
we haven't seen anybody, and she's getting sleepy. Right. So
I'm cruising, but we have a map that remember there's
no map quest, there was no app on a phone
(01:48):
that told you I have We would print out maps
at the end of the show and that's how the
rookies like me you would get from town to town
before I was, thank god, on the Black and Red jet.
So we're cruising, I have my map. She's getting sleepy.
And as we're driving down the road, it's been about
twenty minutes, maybe thirty minutes. Like I said, there's snow everywhere.
(02:08):
I see some smoke down the highway. I'm like, what
the hell is that? Man? So I'm driving cruising down
this curve and now I see this like fire and
smoke and in the middle of the snow, and so
I slow the car down and I'm almost pulled over
at this point, and the loss of speed wakes up
(02:29):
the makeup artist and I go, what the hell is that?
And it's this gigantic tree that's fallen over. The roots
are uprooted, and it's on fire, straight, just burning in
the middle of nowhere. There's nobody around it. There's no cars,
there's no tire tracks anywhere. It's just a tree that
it looks like it's been struck by lightning. There's no lightning,
(02:51):
at least not to my knowledge, during a snowstorm in
the South. Maybe I'm wrong. Hit me up on social
So I'm slowing down and I've now I pulled the
car all the way over, and I go, what the
hell is that? And she goes, I don't know. And
I go, I'm gonna go check it out. She goes,
the hell you are? She goes, it's freezing outside. We're
going to Atlanta. I go, no, I just want to
see what it is. She goes, no, you're not going
(03:13):
over there. Get back in the car. I've opened the door.
Get back in the car. We're gone. I go Okay, okay, okay,
I go, but that's some crazy shit. She goes, yeah,
it's crazy shit. Let's go. It's freaky. Okay. So I
close the door. We're driving. She passes out. Nothing else
spooky or no polter guys, nothing like that. But the
road starts getting kind of sketchy, and I have the
(03:34):
radio on and I'm scanning the AM channels because I
mean when I mean sketchy, like there's ice now on
the roads, and we're getting we're in Georgia, we're getting
just outside Atlanta. And on the radio, I hear the
mayor of Atlanta, and you could check this out. You
can figure out what year it is, has just declared
a state of emergency and he's basically closed the city
(03:55):
because of an ice storm. The roads are unsafe to
drive on, and everybody is like, not quarantine, but it's
a curfew, like stay home, you go on the roads,
you go and die. So we're close to the airport.
Our hotel is at the airport, and I cruise up
there and I mean, we're sliding everywhere like I'm on
(04:15):
ice skates. We're not in a four wheel drive automobile.
I'm in like a little four door rental Sedan. It
wasn't built for the snow. So we're at the airport
because we know the hotel's close to there, and I
see one of those like rental car transport vans and
it's running and there's this black dude inside, and so
(04:38):
I go up to him and I go, hey, man,
I'm trying to get to my hotel. Can you help
me out? And he says, well, what's the name of it?
And I don't remember what it was, It's the Ice
Storm Hotel. Will call it the Ice Storm Hotel. And
he goes, oh, it's down that way. You're just going
to make a right and just keep going straight and
you'll see it. You'll see the big sign. It's down
(04:58):
a big driveway. I go, okay. So I drive down
there and we get to the driveway and yeah, the
driveway goes down, but it's steep and it goes straight
into the hotel lobby. If I take this car down
this hill, I'm not stopping. It's gonna go through the
front of the building. So I drive back to the
(05:21):
airport guy and I say, hey, man, is there is
there another hotel around here? Because we couldn't find any
other ones, or can I stay in the Can I
stay in the airport? I can't get down there. And
he's this Jamaican dude and he's like, you stay out, dear,
you're gonna dime on. You better find a way to
that hotel. And so I'm like, all right, the airport's closed.
They're not gonna let me in. So I drive back
(05:42):
and now we're parked at the top of this hotel's
driveway and the and the makeup artist is looking at me,
and I'm looking at her, and she goes, how the
hell are we going to get down there? She goes,
I can't walk down it. It's all it's all Ice.
I go, yeah, I don't. I don't know, but I'm
not going to have like a headline in the paper tomorrow.
Freddie Prinz Junior found with a makeup artist frozen dead
(06:03):
in a car. I was like, the stories they would
write would shame my family for the next generation. I said,
we're getting down this damn hill. So I'm looking around.
I don't see any way down outside of you know,
horrible accident, I get sued or dead or someone else dies. Right,
So finally, because I'm an idiot, all right, And I'll
(06:25):
preface this by saying, I've done a lot of dumb
stuff as a kid and slid down a lot of
hills I shouldn't have slid down. So I go to
the trunk. I'll freezing to death, y'all. I'm a California kid.
My blood is thin. I surf if the water's you know,
below seventy I'm wearing a wet suit, so I'm cold
as hell. I'm not dressed properly. I grab my suitcase.
(06:47):
I set it at the top of the thing, and
now I'm just staring down the hill at this hotel,
at the Ice Storm Hotel, and she comes up to me.
She gets out of the car. She goes, what are
you doing? And I don't even look at her. I say,
I'm a slide down this hill on my suitcase. She goes, what.
I go, i'mna slide down my hill and I'm gonna
slide down the hill on my suitcase, and so are you.
(07:07):
She goes, I'm not doing that. I said, you're going
to get your ass on your suitcase and you're sliding
down this hill with me. I'm not going to leave
you in the car to die. Is the only way down.
I'm sure it wasn't, but I'm not a genius, so
this was the best way I could think of. I said, So,
I'm going down with you, and you're not going to
get hurt. Don't worry. I'm certain of it in my head.
(07:29):
I'm certain of it. Sara, are you ready? She goes no.
I go, well, we're going. I said, I'm not going first,
We're going together. She's she doesn't want to. She gets
her suitcase. What are the I mean, we have an option,
get down this hill. That's the option. So she gets
her suitcase. Every word that I'm telling you in this
story is actual. Well I'm about to go Tilsa. It's
(07:52):
actual and factual everywhere. Sorry, every word I'm telling you
it is one hundred percent true, and every word I'm
I'm telling you you will not believe. And I'm okay
with that. So I get on my suitcase. I lay
it down and I'm sitting on it the way you
would have sled, and my feet are on the snow
so that I can have my heels to dig in
(08:13):
to slow me down. I tell her to do the
same thing. She sits on the suitcase. I think I
have like a Toomey. Right, it's like black travel to me,
that was big enough to get all your crap, but
small enough to get in an overhead bin one of those.
And she has like a hard case one because she
got like makeup and crap. Right, So she sits on
(08:33):
her suitcase. I said on mine. I say, are you ready?
She goes, oh, god, I guess so. So we kind
of do the scooch like our feet are in the
snow like a one and IT'SO and three and my
feet are in the snow instantly. The moment that it
gets steep, there's no more snow for my feet to
dig into. It is hard ice. It is a good
(08:58):
inch thick, and there probably not an inch thick, but
you get the point. Like it is there's no traction.
So I hit terminal velocity within about two and a
half seconds, and I'm I mean, I'm flying. I look
(09:21):
to my right because it's it's too fast for me.
I look to my right and she's bailing out. It's
too fast, okay, So she bails out to her left
toward me right. But now she has nothing. Now it's
just her body, so she's just gonna keep on sliding.
But it's not with any sort of control. So she's
going upside down, she's going horizontal, she's going to the left,
(09:44):
she's on her left hip, she's on her belly, she's
sliding everywhere. It looks like breaking to Electric Bugoloo, like
a deleted scene. Right, She's break dancing all the way
down this ice and I'm flying. Okay, So I get
down first. She kind of curved off to the side
into the snow drift by the curb, but she's okay.
She gets up, she's solid, make up, good to go,
(10:05):
case not destroyed. I slide all the way down to
basically where the valet is and onto the brick entryway
of this hotel, about four feet away from the double
sliding doors. The entire staff of the hotel that was
in that area had been watching us since we were
(10:26):
on top of the hill, wondering how we were going
to get down, And they're literally cheering for me because
I literally just did my evil canievil shit. It just
went like one hundred and twenty seven miles per hour
done his driveway, and they're cheering, and I get up
and I'm laughing, and she's laughing. Everybody's still in a
good mood, and the guy literally tells me, he goes, dude,
we didn't know how you were going to get down.
(10:47):
That was so sick. So we go to check in.
They don't have her room. So she gets my bed
and I crash out on the couch and then we
wake up and the ice they now salted and done
all this stuff. And the next day we got on
the plane and we flew back to well, I flew
to New York City and she flew to wherever, to
(11:08):
wherever she lived. But that is the ice storm, and
that's the fastest that I've ever gone in something that
wasn't a vehicle or a jet. Oh, by the way,
I flew in a jet. This isn't wrestling related, but
the like the debt commander at Nellis Air Force Base
in Las Vegas was a Puerto Rican dude, and he
loved my dad and my buddy who lives out there.
(11:28):
Ran a construction company and gave him like some equipment
to help him do his house and his off his
off base house. And there in Las Vegas, I think
it was Henderson, Nevada. And so he was like he
saw a picture of me and Brian, my buddy Brian,
and he goes, oh, you know Freddy Prince Junior man,
I loved his dad. And he goes, oh, yeah, he's
a good friend of mine. And he goes tell him
if he ever wants to fly in the jet, it's
(11:50):
on me. He goes, no cameras, nothing. I was like,
and so my buddy Brian calls me and I was like,
what do you mean like a jet jet? He goes yeah.
I go to oh, dude, I'm in. I drove from
La to Las Vegas at night at like eleven thirty
at night, drove as fast as I could, and uh,
we have the date and I get there and I
think I'm just gonna fly in a jet. No, it's
like an eight hour class on how to breathe because
(12:13):
you're going to be pulling so many g's. And I'm
in my twenties. I'm cocky. I'm like, yeh, whatever, man,
I'm half listening, right. So they put me in the
two seater and forgive me, this is over twenty years ago.
I don't remember. I think it was an F sixteen.
I don't know what the two seater was. It might've
even been like an F one oh something. I don't know,
but uh, we get in. I've done my my test
(12:35):
and they make you do this like like I don't
want to breathe in the mic because it'll sound weird,
but it's like labor breathing. Okay, So I get in
the jet, we take off, just the takeoff, I borderline
tap out. Okay, this dude, I tap out twice. And
this isn't even from tricks. Just turns where literally like
(12:56):
he goes, if it feels good, you're not breathing. I said,
what do you mean? He goes, if it starts to
feel good, if you feel high, you're not breathing, right,
I said, okay, And that basically like as in jiu jitsu,
like they say tap when you when it feels good,
that means you're about to go to sleep. Twice I
had to tap because I forgot to breathe, and the
breathing is the hardest part. At one point in the air,
(13:16):
I said how long would it take us to get
to LA? He said about fifteen minutes? And I literally
was just like, oh my god. So anyway, I like
going fast. We fly back, I go back and and
now I'm back ready to go to work, talking to
Vince about the promo class. Who I like, who I don't.
And the storyline going on at the time was the Nexus,
(13:38):
and this was Wade, Barrett and Michael something I can't
remember saying, but it was a big group that came
up to like take on kind of like how the
Shield took on, like the Current Stars. This was they
were taking on that eras current Stars. So they were
going after Randy who was a heel, and John who
was a babyface, and John sold big for him, like
(14:00):
horror movie sells, right, because they were really trying to
get this group over. They thought they had a couple
solid bangers in there. Right. So I'm doing my promo
class and I have a lot of these guys and
girls in there now, and we're getting to use like
really big rooms, like sometimes even the cafeteria because we'd
have so many people in there. And now I got
these Nexus cats, right, And there was this one dude
(14:24):
named Fred, and y'all, if you watch then they he
wrestled under the name Darren Young. His real name is
Fred Rosser, and he's now out of out of the closet,
and and everyone knows that that Fred is a gay wrestler,
and I think was the first one to come out
while under the employee of WWE, but certainly not the
(14:44):
first gay wrestler in the WWE. If you know about
Pat Patterson, everyone in the company knew Pat was. He
was very open about it and everyone embraced him. So
at this point in time, though Fred was not out
and he was a young wrestler, he was coming up
and U so now I think he's in New Japan
wrestling now. So if you're a big wrestling fan, he's
(15:05):
built from stone, looks great, solid user. And we used
to call him Black John Cena because he looked just
like John Cena. But if John was black, even his face,
it was crazy. You put him side by side and
it looked like the exact same dude. I think John
even cut a promo on it in like an actual
storyline where he's like, maybe we did have the same father,
but I hate you anyway. I'm fighting for justice. So
(15:26):
so we're doing the promo classes and it's a lot
of you you going against me because Vince likes that, right,
So it's we're going to have a fight and you're
going to give me a reason to watch Like that
if you remember the dog story, you're a dog, and
you're a dog. Now make me want to watch you fight.
So a more productive way to accomplish that is to
(15:50):
give them a reason to fight, like I did with
Kea Stevens and with Beth Phoenix if you remember from
last week's episode. So William also known as Stephenriegal is
and was one of the single most helpful human beings
(16:11):
while I worked at that company. He would warn me
about people. He would help show me what wrestler strengths
were and to write my promos to fit the type
of wrestler they were, because I was not doing that.
You don't want to write a luchador like a big man.
(16:32):
You don't want to write a big man like a
high flyer. There's a different attitude. When you're seven feet tall.
You don't have to say as much you're seven feet tall.
I kind of equate it to Darth Vader. You don't
have to give Darth Vader at a lot of dialogue.
And you notice he only moves when he has to.
There's no wasted movement with Darth Vader, which was the
(16:53):
same crap I would hear in the production. Not crap.
This is good crap, the same stuff I would hear
in the production meetings when they would talk about, you know,
tell these guys, the big guys, to slow down. Less
is more And there's something I know a lot of
people disagree with that, but I tend to agree with it.
It's more. It's what made Frankenstein so scary, right is
(17:14):
It's why pepe lepu we were amazed with him, Like
how can someone ask slow? Always catch always catch them right?
So it may be dated, but with the big guys,
they don't want them, you know, flying around everywhere. Vince
doesn't want his guys and his girls getting hurt, which
is why that WWE style is less exciting because he
feels it prevents injuries. So Steven has been getting me
(17:38):
hip to it, and he asks me if he can
come in and cut a promo and I'm like, yeah, man,
you want me to pick something for He goes, oh, no, no, no,
I have something. I said, all right, dude. So he
comes in and I it was either the Saint Crispin's
Day from Henry the Fifth, which is no joke, or
(18:00):
it was from Hamlet, and I feel like it was
from Hamlet. Otherwise I don't know why I remember this line,
but I feel like I remember Steven saying the world
is nothing more to me but a foul and pestilent
congregation of vapors, and that I know for sure is
from Hamlet, so I think it was Hamlet. So he
cuts this, and then he's trying to explain why he
(18:22):
chose this to all these young wrestlers, and he said
he was talking about the iambic pentameter, which is sort
of the rhythm and cadence required by Shakespeare. He's trying
to explain that you can tell a story whether you
speak English or not. There were a couple of Japanese
wrestlers in the room at the time. You can communis
(18:44):
Kate a story whether you speak Spanish better than English,
the same way he communed. Those communicated those feelings from
that monologue to everyone in there, and everyone knew exactly
what he was saying. When you say someone, this world
does nothing more to me but a foul and pestilent
congregation of vapors, I'm communicating a message to you with
a whole bunch of words that neither one of us
(19:05):
will ever use again in our entire life. But you
know exactly what I'm talking about. You go, whoa, Freddie
is a little depressed. Oh you do, and that message
has been communicated beautifully, right, So I think Funaki was
in there. And by the way, I got a great
Funaki story, kung should we do a Japanese side quest?
Should we do a side quest? All right, we're doing
(19:26):
a side quest? Okay. So it's a SmackDown. It's over
and Shane Hurricane Helms and some of the writers and
my buddy Angelo the writer, We're all having like a
beer at the hotel, and you know, after a couple in,
Shane goes, man, I wish we could get I wish
we'd get Funaki over again. And Angela is like, yeah, well,
let's let's think of something. He goes, oh, then it
(19:47):
wouldn't buy anything we'd do, and he goes, do we
can think of something? And this is all credit to Shane. Okay,
I think he even wrote the song that Artruth saying
to him later on. But uh, he goes, what about
what if it was kung Fu Naki? And all the
writers are drunk and they're like, wait what He goes, yeah,
like kung Fu? Hey, if we can sing the song
(20:08):
Everybody loves Kong Fu Naki. That dude can't drink some
socke and he had like this whole freestyle jam that
they all fell in love with. And I was in
the writer's room one day and they're pitching this and
I'm like, yo, wait what And Shane comes in and
they go, Shane, what about Kung Funaki? And Shane just
looks at the board and he sees how he booked
(20:30):
it and he goes, yeah, that's pretty fucking funny, and
he just walked out of the room. And that's when
we gave Funaki the Daniel song Crane Kick, and MVP
sold it better than Johnny Lawrence did in that movie
Are You Getting Man? Come Home Baby? Sound for the Wind.
So anyway, that's the Japanese side question. So we're back
in promo class and Sir William Regal is in there.
(20:51):
Gotta call him sir, even if he's not a real knight,
he should be Darren Young Fred gets up and he
wants to he wants to do a promo them cutting
on each other, and so Rego says, I'll start my friend,
and he says, I'll never forget this man. He says
you don't belong here, and you're going to quit. And
(21:16):
Rosser comes back and he goes and he does repetition.
He goes, I don't belong here. You think I'm gonna quit?
And Rigo just looks back at him and he goes,
I've seen this a million times before, my friend, You're
going to quit and you know you don't belong And
Fred gets this like emotion and cuts like the promo
(21:38):
of It's a shame I didn't film any of these.
He cuts like the promo of the Universe. And he's
straight up, his fist ball up and you can hear
his knuckles crack, and we've already established there's no there's
no punching, right, and Fred didn't come off the type
to do it. And there's his eyes start to well
(21:59):
up and I'm sitting there watching and Regal's so cool man.
He's like a gunslinger in the wild West. He's gonna
let you draw first and still be fast enough. Like
he doesn't even blink. Bro, this is the guy that
smashed on Goldberg to let people know like what time
it was back in the day, right, Like he does
not care. But he's a good giving man at this
(22:21):
point in his career. He probably was his whole career,
but in this moment especially, and Darren Young just screams
and tears come down his face. At the same time,
it's like the like Denzel Washington does the perfect tear
right like he'll hold it for a whole scene and
then drop it out right at the end, and everyone's like,
oh God, like that's next level technique. This was just
(22:42):
raw and came out and he screams, I do it
long and then there's like a ninety second promo of
the sacrifice, the fear that this that that, And while
he's saying this, I shit you not. I literally was like, Yo,
Fred's gay. You could just I mean, I've work in Hollywood, man,
(23:13):
I know a lot of people to this day that
aren't comfortable with who they are based on the reaction
that society is going to have. Right, So I'm not
trying to say this to like, oh, look how some
morn I knew, Like I was like, oh my gosh,
Fred Fred's gay. And I didn't say anything. I never did,
and he's out now, so it's not a secret. And
I don't think anyone else knew except maybe William who
(23:36):
kind of had this like glint in his eye and
as Darren Young. Although this was all Fred Rosser finished
his promo. You know how like British people, like when
you do something sick in America, we give you that
head nod, right, like people do memes of it, like
Robert Redford as Grizzly Adams or whatever. They're like nod
(23:58):
in his head. Well, British people do this smile and
it's like a half only half their face works, and
it's this ry sort of half smile. And Rego just
gives him this that smile A right, he hits him
with it and he goes and now, and Rosser finishes
his promo with I'll Never quit. And Rigo just looks
at him and he says, my mistake, lad, maybe you
(24:19):
do belong And everybody was, I mean balling man balling,
and Fred was too, and Regal gives him this big
hug man and you can see like Rosser squeeze him
hard like that there was hurt and pain in there.
And right after that we wrote this promo forim. And
you'll forgive me if I don't remember what show it
was for it, I believe it was NXT, like he
(24:41):
got moved down to NXT when it was like rookies
and someone maybe or maybe it was right before that,
and uh, and we gave him this promo where he
didn't feel like he should even been there. And I said,
do you remember when you screamed I do belong? He
said yeah. I said, I want you. It wasn't my promo,
someone else's, but he was struggling. I said, I want
(25:01):
you to feel that when you say I wrestled John
Cena and he goes, oh, yeah, okay, okay, And so
he did it and he hit it about like eighty
percent of where I'd hoped it got, but it still
got the point across and he's like, oh, I but
it was more of an arrogant take because it needed
to be. He's like, oh, I wrestled John scene and
he got kind of a little choked up on it
(25:22):
and he was able to kind of bring which was
a real honest moment to TV. Now. I could relate
to this because early in my acting class, my acting
coach gave me this scene. He used to let me
pick right, but I would always pick real easy stuff
and he really challenged me. And I don't remember the
(25:42):
name of this play, and I don't want to remember
the name of the play, So even if I say
words from it that you remember, do not hit me
up at at real FPJR. On Twitter, and do not
hit me up on Instagram, because I've deleted this shit
from my mind because it broke me in pieces. So
my butthole acting. I love my acting coach, but this
(26:04):
was just Oh he was right. I was wrong, but man,
I hated him for this. So he gives me this
scene and my character's crying right away, and that was
my biggest fear was I don't know if I can
do that. I don't know if I can cry. I
don't know if I can open up like that. Earlier
in my career, I manufactured every performance I did until
I was probably almost thirty years old, and it took
(26:26):
me that long to figure out acting. I didn't start
until I was eighteen, so I was learning on the
job and everything came real, real fast. I was not
ready and not prepared, so I withdrew and pulled back,
which is what I always do. And when I was thirty,
I finally like this actor Gil Bellow's just I was
gonna do this movie. This is another side quest Sorry, Alexis,
(26:47):
but I was doing a play in London and he
came to watch it because I was going to do
a movie that he wrote, and we went and had
dinner afterwards. My cousin was with me, and this dude
broke down my whole performance and nailed me on every
bad habit I had. And I'm sitting there like everything
this dude is saying is like dead on. My cousin
(27:08):
I can feel is like getting mad, like he's he's
getting pissed at the guy, but I'm kind of like
feeding off the energy. And we finally said our good nights,
and my cousin Joe was like, man, I thought you're
gonna knock him out. I was like, no, man, Like
I feel like this guy just kind of unlocks him.
The next night was the greatest performance that I ever
had in anything I ever did in my entire career.
(27:28):
It was a Kenneth Lonergan play called This Is Our Youth,
and it was the first time I ever like broke
down organically in a performance. So I knew exactly I
share that story because I knew exactly what Fred was
going through the scene was about my dad with a
character's dad, But I made it about my dad and
the moment I allowed myself to do that and allow
(27:50):
a real feeling that I hated at the time. I'm
forty five now I have kids, so it doesn't carry
that weight that it used to. Now it's just respect
and love, like on his birthday and stuff. I miss him.
But outside of that, like, I've adjusted well to it.
But then I applied so much real hurt and pain.
(28:12):
And my character is supposed to accidentally knock over this
dish full of cocaine and manitol and he freaks out,
and my choice was I got so mad at myself
because I was so stupid that I smashed the plate
on the table and the plate cracked open and it
split my left hand open, and I was bleeding everywhere
(28:33):
and I didn't even notice I was bleeding until the
end of the show. Like that's how into the moment
I was. And I have gil Bello's to think for that,
And so to see someone else let something reel out
like that, it just slap the holy hell out of me.
Now that's kind of deep and heavy. So we're gonna
(28:53):
end on a high note, and I'm going to talk
about one of the funniest promo classes that that we
ever had or not maybe scariest, and has to do
with Natty Knightheart and Harry Smith, who was the son
of a legend. So I loved him very much because
you have very big shoes to fill. I was the
son of a legend, so I had very big shoes
to fill, and so I connected with Harry a lot,
(29:15):
and I really wanted to get him and TJ over
and I worked. I worked hard to do it. But
we just you know, I have plenty of failures. We
can talk about those too, it's just the success success
ones are usually cooler and funnier stories. But I failed
those boys. I've never I never got over that I
failed the ussos to tag team wrestling is tough, man.
(29:36):
I remember Vince. I was working so hard on building
up a tag team division and Vin said, Freddie, I
got to pay four guys for one fucking match, and
I kind of went, oh, I had never looked at
it like that, and again, it's show business. And I
was in charge of the Cologne Brothers. I named Primo
(29:57):
for crying out loud, that was nam Primo Colon and
it kind of like changed my perspective on things and
changed the way I approached storylines. I couldn't pitch for
as much anymore. But anyway, or in promo class, sorry,
another side quest complete it. You just leveled up, and
(30:18):
if you make it through the whole podcast, you get
all kinds of experience. It's great. So we were in
promo class and you guys all remember the rules. There's
no makeout sessions allowed, and there's no beating each other up.
That seems These seemed like reasonable requests as far as
like an acting coach and the talent in that room go.
And I feel like everyone should be able to follow
(30:40):
those rules, but apparently not. And it was a little
Natty Knightheart who decided to break it. And so her
and Harry are in there, and I've already told you,
like what the state of women's wrestling was back then,
and we're going to get into the transition, which was
the Bellas. And I have no responsibility and take no
(31:02):
credit for the women's division, but I did help bring
those girls up. And it was those girls who really
opened Vince's eyes with their show Total Divas, which we'll
get into in another episode, and how they kind of
revolutionized and changed matches from five minutes to all of
a sudden having multiple commercial breaks, which is just so sick.
(31:23):
But anyway, we're still in the time where the ladies
got five minutes and if they had a pay per
view match, it usually got clipped to about seven to
give the boys more time. So, as Freebird would say,
So they're in there and it's a repetition and they're
going back and forth about you know, I don't even remember.
(31:44):
It was like you ain't shit, No, you ain't shit, whatever,
it was, right, They're going back and forth. Michael Tarvor
was the other Nexus guy. I was trying to think
of that early on. He had a sick promo where
he just wrapped and it was amazing. By the way,
there's another side quest. So they're in there and they're
going back and forth, but they're getting closer and closer,
(32:06):
and everyone knows that there's no chance of any like
smoochie smooch with those two because TJ's her man like forever.
So they're getting closer and closer, and I'm like, this
is this is weird. I don't know where this is going.
And at this point we were doing points. So if
you changed up the sentence the other person got a point,
but it wasn't over until someone got three points right,
(32:27):
so they change it up and he says something to
Naddy about like that's why you are where you are
and I am where I am and Naddy just I
mean it looked Richard Pryor had a joke where he
talks about he wanted to be a boxer and he
got hit with a hook and he said, I saw
(32:47):
his hands start down in Mississippi. It gains speed through Texas.
Now I'm watching Naddy throw this right hand and it's
like a John Woo movie. Man, it's full slow motion.
I'm pretty sure a bunch of doves like took flight
behind it as it traveled through the air. And Harry's
hands are down at his side and he's sticking his
(33:09):
chin out like what And Natty's hook comes all the
way through open hand hook right, like the way if
you saw the Godfather talk about how he used to
open hand slap people off of stools. It's like a
Godfather slap bah. And it sounds like two by fours
(33:30):
smashing together to simulate a gunshot. And everyone in the class,
including me, at the same time, goes and then I
jump out of my seat before I even let the
breath out, and instead of breathing out, I just go
what off? And I curse. Right, I'm trying to control myself,
but it was a big f bomb and I'm not mad.
(33:51):
I'm scared because I mean, it's the loudest shot I've
ever heard of my life. And Harry looks at me
with a freaking smile on his face. He goes, bro,
It's all good, like nothing happened. And you know, look,
I'm an actor. Actors are soft as hell, man. Like
I've seen dudes not be able to work for two
weeks just because their feelings got hurt. So this is
(34:14):
all new to me, man. But this dude took the
shot of I'm telling you, to this day, I've never
heard anyone get hit that hard in my life. I'm
including UFC kicks where you hear like an Edison Barbosa
foot slap on that one tall skinny dude's face. Back
in the day, it was like, what that ain't shit
(34:35):
compared to this Canadian right hand that literally game speed
through Alberta and then just made contact in whatever city
we were in. It was we gotta have Natty on
the show one day as a guess, I just gotta
know what she was thinking when he did that, because
in her eyes, he deserved it, and I ain't gonna
(34:56):
argue with the girl. So that said, guys made it
through like five side quists today, So you guys are
the real winners, and I'll speak with you guys all
on the next WWF Wrestling with Freddie. This has been
a production of iHeartRadio's Michael Tura podcast Network. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(35:18):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
What's up everyone? Happy holidays to you. Here is another
unsanctioned favorite from the archives and Drew the show piece.
What's up, you guys, It's Freddy Brins Junior and we're
back with another episode of Wrestling with Freddy. Last week
we got pretty deep into the promo classes and some
(00:21):
of the cool exercises and the successes and failures of them.
So if you haven't heard that, please go back because
this is a continuation episode. But this episode we'll touch
a little bit more on what I thought is like
the most heartwarming moment I ever had in WWE. There
weren't many, but this time we're going into the ice Storm.
(00:42):
I have built this story up, so without further ado,
the Ice Storm, I Wrestling with Freddy. Wow. Stuffing up
to the mic. The host of Wrestling with Freddy Freddy
Price tune. All Right, you guys, I'm on the highway
with a makeup artist from Friday Night SmackDown back then,
(01:04):
even though we shot it on Tuesdays, and we're driving
I think from Memphis to Atlanta, and if that's about
a four hour drive then I'm right. If not, it
was another town. So we're on the freeway and we're
cruising down and it's late at night, probably probably about
ten thirty eleven o'clock at night. We're on the highway.
It's winter and there's snow on both sides of the road,
(01:27):
and there are no cars anywhere. We left much later
than everyone else. Usually you would like pass other wrestlers,
or wrestlers would pass you. This was before I was
on the jet. So we're cruising down. It's getting late,
we haven't seen anybody, and she's getting sleepy. Right. So
I'm cruising, but we have a map that remember there's
no map quest, there was no app on a phone
(01:48):
that told you I have We would print out maps
at the end of the show and that's how the
rookies like me you would get from town to town
before I was, thank god, on the Black and Red jet.
So we're cruising, I have my map. She's getting sleepy.
And as we're driving down the road, it's been about
twenty minutes, maybe thirty minutes. Like I said, there's snow everywhere.
(02:08):
I see some smoke down the highway. I'm like, what
the hell is that? Man? So I'm driving cruising down
this curve and now I see this like fire and
smoke and in the middle of the snow, and so
I slow the car down and I'm almost pulled over
at this point, and the loss of speed wakes up
(02:29):
the makeup artist and I go, what the hell is that?
And it's this gigantic tree that's fallen over. The roots
are uprooted, and it's on fire, straight, just burning in
the middle of nowhere. There's nobody around it. There's no cars,
there's no tire tracks anywhere. It's just a tree that
it looks like it's been struck by lightning. There's no lightning,
(02:51):
at least not to my knowledge, during a snowstorm in
the South. Maybe I'm wrong. Hit me up on social
So I'm slowing down and I've now I pulled the
car all the way over, and I go, what the
hell is that? And she goes, I don't know. And
I go, I'm gonna go check it out. She goes,
the hell you are? She goes, it's freezing outside. We're
going to Atlanta. I go, no, I just want to
see what it is. She goes, no, you're not going
(03:13):
over there. Get back in the car. I've opened the door.
Get back in the car. We're gone. I go Okay, okay, okay,
I go, but that's some crazy shit. She goes, yeah,
it's crazy shit. Let's go. It's freaky. Okay. So I
close the door. We're driving. She passes out. Nothing else
spooky or no polter guys, nothing like that. But the
road starts getting kind of sketchy, and I have the
(03:34):
radio on and I'm scanning the AM channels because I
mean when I mean sketchy, like there's ice now on
the roads, and we're getting we're in Georgia, we're getting
just outside Atlanta. And on the radio, I hear the
mayor of Atlanta, and you could check this out. You
can figure out what year it is, has just declared
a state of emergency and he's basically closed the city
(03:55):
because of an ice storm. The roads are unsafe to
drive on, and everybody is like, not quarantine, but it's
a curfew, like stay home, you go on the roads,
you go and die. So we're close to the airport.
Our hotel is at the airport, and I cruise up
there and I mean, we're sliding everywhere like I'm on
(04:15):
ice skates. We're not in a four wheel drive automobile.
I'm in like a little four door rental Sedan. It
wasn't built for the snow. So we're at the airport
because we know the hotel's close to there, and I
see one of those like rental car transport vans and
it's running and there's this black dude inside, and so
(04:38):
I go up to him and I go, hey, man,
I'm trying to get to my hotel. Can you help
me out? And he says, well, what's the name of it?
And I don't remember what it was, It's the Ice
Storm Hotel. Will call it the Ice Storm Hotel. And
he goes, oh, it's down that way. You're just going
to make a right and just keep going straight and
you'll see it. You'll see the big sign. It's down
(04:58):
a big driveway. I go, okay. So I drive down
there and we get to the driveway and yeah, the
driveway goes down, but it's steep and it goes straight
into the hotel lobby. If I take this car down
this hill, I'm not stopping. It's gonna go through the
front of the building. So I drive back to the
(05:21):
airport guy and I say, hey, man, is there is
there another hotel around here? Because we couldn't find any
other ones, or can I stay in the Can I
stay in the airport? I can't get down there. And
he's this Jamaican dude and he's like, you stay out, dear,
you're gonna dime on. You better find a way to
that hotel. And so I'm like, all right, the airport's closed.
They're not gonna let me in. So I drive back
(05:42):
and now we're parked at the top of this hotel's
driveway and the and the makeup artist is looking at me,
and I'm looking at her, and she goes, how the
hell are we going to get down there? She goes,
I can't walk down it. It's all it's all Ice.
I go, yeah, I don't. I don't know, but I'm
not going to have like a headline in the paper tomorrow.
Freddie Prinz Junior found with a makeup artist frozen dead
(06:03):
in a car. I was like, the stories they would
write would shame my family for the next generation. I said,
we're getting down this damn hill. So I'm looking around.
I don't see any way down outside of you know,
horrible accident, I get sued or dead or someone else dies. Right,
So finally, because I'm an idiot, all right, And I'll
(06:25):
preface this by saying, I've done a lot of dumb
stuff as a kid and slid down a lot of
hills I shouldn't have slid down. So I go to
the trunk. I'll freezing to death, y'all. I'm a California kid.
My blood is thin. I surf if the water's you know,
below seventy I'm wearing a wet suit, so I'm cold
as hell. I'm not dressed properly. I grab my suitcase.
(06:47):
I set it at the top of the thing, and
now I'm just staring down the hill at this hotel,
at the Ice Storm Hotel, and she comes up to me.
She gets out of the car. She goes, what are
you doing? And I don't even look at her. I say,
I'm a slide down this hill on my suitcase. She goes, what.
I go, i'mna slide down my hill and I'm gonna
slide down the hill on my suitcase, and so are you.
(07:07):
She goes, I'm not doing that. I said, you're going
to get your ass on your suitcase and you're sliding
down this hill with me. I'm not going to leave
you in the car to die. Is the only way down.
I'm sure it wasn't, but I'm not a genius, so
this was the best way I could think of. I said, So,
I'm going down with you, and you're not going to
get hurt. Don't worry. I'm certain of it in my head.
(07:29):
I'm certain of it. Sara, are you ready? She goes no.
I go, well, we're going. I said, I'm not going first,
We're going together. She's she doesn't want to. She gets
her suitcase. What are the I mean, we have an option,
get down this hill. That's the option. So she gets
her suitcase. Every word that I'm telling you in this
story is actual. Well I'm about to go Tilsa. It's
(07:52):
actual and factual everywhere. Sorry, every word I'm telling you
it is one hundred percent true, and every word I'm
I'm telling you you will not believe. And I'm okay
with that. So I get on my suitcase. I lay
it down and I'm sitting on it the way you
would have sled, and my feet are on the snow
so that I can have my heels to dig in
(08:13):
to slow me down. I tell her to do the
same thing. She sits on the suitcase. I think I
have like a Toomey. Right, it's like black travel to me,
that was big enough to get all your crap, but
small enough to get in an overhead bin one of those.
And she has like a hard case one because she
got like makeup and crap. Right, So she sits on
(08:33):
her suitcase. I said on mine. I say, are you ready?
She goes, oh, god, I guess so. So we kind
of do the scooch like our feet are in the
snow like a one and IT'SO and three and my
feet are in the snow instantly. The moment that it
gets steep, there's no more snow for my feet to
dig into. It is hard ice. It is a good
(08:58):
inch thick, and there probably not an inch thick, but
you get the point. Like it is there's no traction.
So I hit terminal velocity within about two and a
half seconds, and I'm I mean, I'm flying. I look
(09:21):
to my right because it's it's too fast for me.
I look to my right and she's bailing out. It's
too fast, okay, So she bails out to her left
toward me right. But now she has nothing. Now it's
just her body, so she's just gonna keep on sliding.
But it's not with any sort of control. So she's
going upside down, she's going horizontal, she's going to the left,
(09:44):
she's on her left hip, she's on her belly, she's
sliding everywhere. It looks like breaking to Electric Bugoloo, like
a deleted scene. Right, She's break dancing all the way
down this ice and I'm flying. Okay, So I get
down first. She kind of curved off to the side
into the snow drift by the curb, but she's okay.
She gets up, she's solid, make up, good to go,
(10:05):
case not destroyed. I slide all the way down to
basically where the valet is and onto the brick entryway
of this hotel, about four feet away from the double
sliding doors. The entire staff of the hotel that was
in that area had been watching us since we were
(10:26):
on top of the hill, wondering how we were going
to get down, And they're literally cheering for me because
I literally just did my evil canievil shit. It just
went like one hundred and twenty seven miles per hour
done his driveway, and they're cheering, and I get up
and I'm laughing, and she's laughing. Everybody's still in a
good mood, and the guy literally tells me, he goes, dude,
we didn't know how you were going to get down.
(10:47):
That was so sick. So we go to check in.
They don't have her room. So she gets my bed
and I crash out on the couch and then we
wake up and the ice they now salted and done
all this stuff. And the next day we got on
the plane and we flew back to well, I flew
to New York City and she flew to wherever, to
(11:08):
wherever she lived. But that is the ice storm, and
that's the fastest that I've ever gone in something that
wasn't a vehicle or a jet. Oh, by the way,
I flew in a jet. This isn't wrestling related, but
the like the debt commander at Nellis Air Force Base
in Las Vegas was a Puerto Rican dude, and he
loved my dad and my buddy who lives out there.
(11:28):
Ran a construction company and gave him like some equipment
to help him do his house and his off his
off base house. And there in Las Vegas, I think
it was Henderson, Nevada. And so he was like he
saw a picture of me and Brian, my buddy Brian,
and he goes, oh, you know Freddy Prince Junior man,
I loved his dad. And he goes, oh, yeah, he's
a good friend of mine. And he goes tell him
if he ever wants to fly in the jet, it's
(11:50):
on me. He goes, no cameras, nothing. I was like,
and so my buddy Brian calls me and I was like,
what do you mean like a jet jet? He goes yeah.
I go to oh, dude, I'm in. I drove from
La to Las Vegas at night at like eleven thirty
at night, drove as fast as I could, and uh,
we have the date and I get there and I
think I'm just gonna fly in a jet. No, it's
like an eight hour class on how to breathe because
(12:13):
you're going to be pulling so many g's. And I'm
in my twenties. I'm cocky. I'm like, yeh, whatever, man,
I'm half listening, right. So they put me in the
two seater and forgive me, this is over twenty years ago.
I don't remember. I think it was an F sixteen.
I don't know what the two seater was. It might've
even been like an F one oh something. I don't know,
but uh, we get in. I've done my my test
(12:35):
and they make you do this like like I don't
want to breathe in the mic because it'll sound weird,
but it's like labor breathing. Okay, So I get in
the jet, we take off, just the takeoff, I borderline
tap out. Okay, this dude, I tap out twice. And
this isn't even from tricks. Just turns where literally like
(12:56):
he goes, if it feels good, you're not breathing. I said,
what do you mean? He goes, if it starts to
feel good, if you feel high, you're not breathing, right,
I said, okay, And that basically like as in jiu jitsu,
like they say tap when you when it feels good,
that means you're about to go to sleep. Twice I
had to tap because I forgot to breathe, and the
breathing is the hardest part. At one point in the air,
(13:16):
I said how long would it take us to get
to LA? He said about fifteen minutes? And I literally
was just like, oh my god. So anyway, I like
going fast. We fly back, I go back and and
now I'm back ready to go to work, talking to
Vince about the promo class. Who I like, who I don't.
And the storyline going on at the time was the Nexus,
(13:38):
and this was Wade, Barrett and Michael something I can't
remember saying, but it was a big group that came
up to like take on kind of like how the
Shield took on, like the Current Stars. This was they
were taking on that eras current Stars. So they were
going after Randy who was a heel, and John who
was a babyface, and John sold big for him, like
(14:00):
horror movie sells, right, because they were really trying to
get this group over. They thought they had a couple
solid bangers in there. Right. So I'm doing my promo
class and I have a lot of these guys and
girls in there now, and we're getting to use like
really big rooms, like sometimes even the cafeteria because we'd
have so many people in there. And now I got
these Nexus cats, right, And there was this one dude
(14:24):
named Fred, and y'all, if you watch then they he
wrestled under the name Darren Young. His real name is
Fred Rosser, and he's now out of out of the closet,
and and everyone knows that that Fred is a gay wrestler,
and I think was the first one to come out
while under the employee of WWE, but certainly not the
(14:44):
first gay wrestler in the WWE. If you know about
Pat Patterson, everyone in the company knew Pat was. He
was very open about it and everyone embraced him. So
at this point in time, though Fred was not out
and he was a young wrestler, he was coming up
and U so now I think he's in New Japan
wrestling now. So if you're a big wrestling fan, he's
(15:05):
built from stone, looks great, solid user. And we used
to call him Black John Cena because he looked just
like John Cena. But if John was black, even his face,
it was crazy. You put him side by side and
it looked like the exact same dude. I think John
even cut a promo on it in like an actual
storyline where he's like, maybe we did have the same father,
but I hate you anyway. I'm fighting for justice. So
(15:26):
so we're doing the promo classes and it's a lot
of you you going against me because Vince likes that, right,
So it's we're going to have a fight and you're
going to give me a reason to watch Like that
if you remember the dog story, you're a dog, and
you're a dog. Now make me want to watch you fight.
So a more productive way to accomplish that is to
(15:50):
give them a reason to fight, like I did with
Kea Stevens and with Beth Phoenix if you remember from
last week's episode. So William also known as Stephenriegal is
and was one of the single most helpful human beings
(16:11):
while I worked at that company. He would warn me
about people. He would help show me what wrestler strengths
were and to write my promos to fit the type
of wrestler they were, because I was not doing that.
You don't want to write a luchador like a big man.
(16:32):
You don't want to write a big man like a
high flyer. There's a different attitude. When you're seven feet tall.
You don't have to say as much you're seven feet tall.
I kind of equate it to Darth Vader. You don't
have to give Darth Vader at a lot of dialogue.
And you notice he only moves when he has to.
There's no wasted movement with Darth Vader, which was the
(16:53):
same crap I would hear in the production. Not crap.
This is good crap, the same stuff I would hear
in the production meetings when they would talk about, you know,
tell these guys, the big guys, to slow down. Less
is more And there's something I know a lot of
people disagree with that, but I tend to agree with it.
It's more. It's what made Frankenstein so scary, right is
(17:14):
It's why pepe lepu we were amazed with him, Like
how can someone ask slow? Always catch always catch them right?
So it may be dated, but with the big guys,
they don't want them, you know, flying around everywhere. Vince
doesn't want his guys and his girls getting hurt, which
is why that WWE style is less exciting because he
feels it prevents injuries. So Steven has been getting me
(17:38):
hip to it, and he asks me if he can
come in and cut a promo and I'm like, yeah, man,
you want me to pick something for He goes, oh, no, no, no,
I have something. I said, all right, dude. So he
comes in and I it was either the Saint Crispin's
Day from Henry the Fifth, which is no joke, or
(18:00):
it was from Hamlet, and I feel like it was
from Hamlet. Otherwise I don't know why I remember this line,
but I feel like I remember Steven saying the world
is nothing more to me but a foul and pestilent
congregation of vapors, and that I know for sure is
from Hamlet, so I think it was Hamlet. So he
cuts this, and then he's trying to explain why he
(18:22):
chose this to all these young wrestlers, and he said
he was talking about the iambic pentameter, which is sort
of the rhythm and cadence required by Shakespeare. He's trying
to explain that you can tell a story whether you
speak English or not. There were a couple of Japanese
wrestlers in the room at the time. You can communis
(18:44):
Kate a story whether you speak Spanish better than English,
the same way he communed. Those communicated those feelings from
that monologue to everyone in there, and everyone knew exactly
what he was saying. When you say someone, this world
does nothing more to me but a foul and pestilent
congregation of vapors, I'm communicating a message to you with
a whole bunch of words that neither one of us
(19:05):
will ever use again in our entire life. But you
know exactly what I'm talking about. You go, whoa, Freddie
is a little depressed. Oh you do, and that message
has been communicated beautifully, right, So I think Funaki was
in there. And by the way, I got a great
Funaki story, kung should we do a Japanese side quest?
Should we do a side quest? All right, we're doing
(19:26):
a side quest? Okay. So it's a SmackDown. It's over
and Shane Hurricane Helms and some of the writers and
my buddy Angelo the writer, We're all having like a
beer at the hotel, and you know, after a couple in,
Shane goes, man, I wish we could get I wish
we'd get Funaki over again. And Angela is like, yeah, well,
let's let's think of something. He goes, oh, then it
(19:47):
wouldn't buy anything we'd do, and he goes, do we
can think of something? And this is all credit to Shane. Okay,
I think he even wrote the song that Artruth saying
to him later on. But uh, he goes, what about
what if it was kung Fu Naki? And all the
writers are drunk and they're like, wait what He goes, yeah,
like kung Fu? Hey, if we can sing the song
(20:08):
Everybody loves Kong Fu Naki. That dude can't drink some
socke and he had like this whole freestyle jam that
they all fell in love with. And I was in
the writer's room one day and they're pitching this and
I'm like, yo, wait what And Shane comes in and
they go, Shane, what about Kung Funaki? And Shane just
looks at the board and he sees how he booked
(20:30):
it and he goes, yeah, that's pretty fucking funny, and
he just walked out of the room. And that's when
we gave Funaki the Daniel song Crane Kick, and MVP
sold it better than Johnny Lawrence did in that movie
Are You Getting Man? Come Home Baby? Sound for the Wind.
So anyway, that's the Japanese side question. So we're back
in promo class and Sir William Regal is in there.
(20:51):
Gotta call him sir, even if he's not a real knight,
he should be Darren Young Fred gets up and he
wants to he wants to do a promo them cutting
on each other, and so Rego says, I'll start my friend,
and he says, I'll never forget this man. He says
you don't belong here, and you're going to quit. And
(21:16):
Rosser comes back and he goes and he does repetition.
He goes, I don't belong here. You think I'm gonna quit?
And Rigo just looks back at him and he goes,
I've seen this a million times before, my friend, You're
going to quit and you know you don't belong And
Fred gets this like emotion and cuts like the promo
(21:38):
of It's a shame I didn't film any of these.
He cuts like the promo of the Universe. And he's
straight up, his fist ball up and you can hear
his knuckles crack, and we've already established there's no there's
no punching, right, and Fred didn't come off the type
to do it. And there's his eyes start to well
(21:59):
up and I'm sitting there watching and Regal's so cool man.
He's like a gunslinger in the wild West. He's gonna
let you draw first and still be fast enough. Like
he doesn't even blink. Bro, this is the guy that
smashed on Goldberg to let people know like what time
it was back in the day, right, Like he does
not care. But he's a good giving man at this
(22:21):
point in his career. He probably was his whole career,
but in this moment especially, and Darren Young just screams
and tears come down his face. At the same time,
it's like the like Denzel Washington does the perfect tear
right like he'll hold it for a whole scene and
then drop it out right at the end, and everyone's like,
oh God, like that's next level technique. This was just
(22:42):
raw and came out and he screams, I do it
long and then there's like a ninety second promo of
the sacrifice, the fear that this that that, And while
he's saying this, I shit you not. I literally was like, Yo,
Fred's gay. You could just I mean, I've work in Hollywood, man,
(23:13):
I know a lot of people to this day that
aren't comfortable with who they are based on the reaction
that society is going to have. Right, So I'm not
trying to say this to like, oh, look how some
morn I knew, Like I was like, oh my gosh,
Fred Fred's gay. And I didn't say anything. I never did,
and he's out now, so it's not a secret. And
I don't think anyone else knew except maybe William who
(23:36):
kind of had this like glint in his eye and
as Darren Young. Although this was all Fred Rosser finished
his promo. You know how like British people, like when
you do something sick in America, we give you that
head nod, right, like people do memes of it, like
Robert Redford as Grizzly Adams or whatever. They're like nod
(23:58):
in his head. Well, British people do this smile and
it's like a half only half their face works, and
it's this ry sort of half smile. And Rego just
gives him this that smile A right, he hits him
with it and he goes and now, and Rosser finishes
his promo with I'll Never quit. And Rigo just looks
at him and he says, my mistake, lad, maybe you
(24:19):
do belong And everybody was, I mean balling man balling,
and Fred was too, and Regal gives him this big
hug man and you can see like Rosser squeeze him
hard like that there was hurt and pain in there.
And right after that we wrote this promo forim. And
you'll forgive me if I don't remember what show it
was for it, I believe it was NXT, like he
(24:41):
got moved down to NXT when it was like rookies
and someone maybe or maybe it was right before that,
and uh, and we gave him this promo where he
didn't feel like he should even been there. And I said,
do you remember when you screamed I do belong? He
said yeah. I said, I want you. It wasn't my promo,
someone else's, but he was struggling. I said, I want
(25:01):
you to feel that when you say I wrestled John
Cena and he goes, oh, yeah, okay, okay, And so
he did it and he hit it about like eighty
percent of where I'd hoped it got, but it still
got the point across and he's like, oh, I but
it was more of an arrogant take because it needed
to be. He's like, oh, I wrestled John scene and
he got kind of a little choked up on it
(25:22):
and he was able to kind of bring which was
a real honest moment to TV. Now. I could relate
to this because early in my acting class, my acting
coach gave me this scene. He used to let me
pick right, but I would always pick real easy stuff
and he really challenged me. And I don't remember the
(25:42):
name of this play, and I don't want to remember
the name of the play, So even if I say
words from it that you remember, do not hit me
up at at real FPJR. On Twitter, and do not
hit me up on Instagram, because I've deleted this shit
from my mind because it broke me in pieces. So
my butthole acting. I love my acting coach, but this
(26:04):
was just Oh he was right. I was wrong, but man,
I hated him for this. So he gives me this
scene and my character's crying right away, and that was
my biggest fear was I don't know if I can
do that. I don't know if I can cry. I
don't know if I can open up like that. Earlier
in my career, I manufactured every performance I did until
I was probably almost thirty years old, and it took
(26:26):
me that long to figure out acting. I didn't start
until I was eighteen, so I was learning on the
job and everything came real, real fast. I was not
ready and not prepared, so I withdrew and pulled back,
which is what I always do. And when I was thirty,
I finally like this actor Gil Bellow's just I was
gonna do this movie. This is another side quest Sorry, Alexis,
(26:47):
but I was doing a play in London and he
came to watch it because I was going to do
a movie that he wrote, and we went and had
dinner afterwards. My cousin was with me, and this dude
broke down my whole performance and nailed me on every
bad habit I had. And I'm sitting there like everything
this dude is saying is like dead on. My cousin
(27:08):
I can feel is like getting mad, like he's he's
getting pissed at the guy, but I'm kind of like
feeding off the energy. And we finally said our good nights,
and my cousin Joe was like, man, I thought you're
gonna knock him out. I was like, no, man, Like
I feel like this guy just kind of unlocks him.
The next night was the greatest performance that I ever
had in anything I ever did in my entire career.
(27:28):
It was a Kenneth Lonergan play called This Is Our Youth,
and it was the first time I ever like broke
down organically in a performance. So I knew exactly I
share that story because I knew exactly what Fred was
going through the scene was about my dad with a
character's dad, But I made it about my dad and
the moment I allowed myself to do that and allow
(27:50):
a real feeling that I hated at the time. I'm
forty five now I have kids, so it doesn't carry
that weight that it used to. Now it's just respect
and love, like on his birthday and stuff. I miss him.
But outside of that, like, I've adjusted well to it.
But then I applied so much real hurt and pain.
(28:12):
And my character is supposed to accidentally knock over this
dish full of cocaine and manitol and he freaks out,
and my choice was I got so mad at myself
because I was so stupid that I smashed the plate
on the table and the plate cracked open and it
split my left hand open, and I was bleeding everywhere
(28:33):
and I didn't even notice I was bleeding until the
end of the show. Like that's how into the moment
I was. And I have gil Bello's to think for that,
And so to see someone else let something reel out
like that, it just slap the holy hell out of me.
Now that's kind of deep and heavy. So we're gonna
(28:53):
end on a high note, and I'm going to talk
about one of the funniest promo classes that that we
ever had or not maybe scariest, and has to do
with Natty Knightheart and Harry Smith, who was the son
of a legend. So I loved him very much because
you have very big shoes to fill. I was the
son of a legend, so I had very big shoes
to fill, and so I connected with Harry a lot,
(29:15):
and I really wanted to get him and TJ over
and I worked. I worked hard to do it. But
we just you know, I have plenty of failures. We
can talk about those too, it's just the success success
ones are usually cooler and funnier stories. But I failed
those boys. I've never I never got over that I
failed the ussos to tag team wrestling is tough, man.
(29:36):
I remember Vince. I was working so hard on building
up a tag team division and Vin said, Freddie, I
got to pay four guys for one fucking match, and
I kind of went, oh, I had never looked at
it like that, and again, it's show business. And I
was in charge of the Cologne Brothers. I named Primo
(29:57):
for crying out loud, that was nam Primo Colon and
it kind of like changed my perspective on things and
changed the way I approached storylines. I couldn't pitch for
as much anymore. But anyway, or in promo class, sorry,
another side quest complete it. You just leveled up, and
(30:18):
if you make it through the whole podcast, you get
all kinds of experience. It's great. So we were in
promo class and you guys all remember the rules. There's
no makeout sessions allowed, and there's no beating each other up.
That seems These seemed like reasonable requests as far as
like an acting coach and the talent in that room go.
And I feel like everyone should be able to follow
(30:40):
those rules, but apparently not. And it was a little
Natty Knightheart who decided to break it. And so her
and Harry are in there, and I've already told you,
like what the state of women's wrestling was back then,
and we're going to get into the transition, which was
the Bellas. And I have no responsibility and take no
(31:02):
credit for the women's division, but I did help bring
those girls up. And it was those girls who really
opened Vince's eyes with their show Total Divas, which we'll
get into in another episode, and how they kind of
revolutionized and changed matches from five minutes to all of
a sudden having multiple commercial breaks, which is just so sick.
(31:23):
But anyway, we're still in the time where the ladies
got five minutes and if they had a pay per
view match, it usually got clipped to about seven to
give the boys more time. So, as Freebird would say,
So they're in there and it's a repetition and they're
going back and forth about you know, I don't even remember.
(31:44):
It was like you ain't shit, No, you ain't shit, whatever,
it was, right, They're going back and forth. Michael Tarvor
was the other Nexus guy. I was trying to think
of that early on. He had a sick promo where
he just wrapped and it was amazing. By the way,
there's another side quest. So they're in there and they're
going back and forth, but they're getting closer and closer,
(32:06):
and everyone knows that there's no chance of any like
smoochie smooch with those two because TJ's her man like forever.
So they're getting closer and closer, and I'm like, this
is this is weird. I don't know where this is going.
And at this point we were doing points. So if
you changed up the sentence the other person got a point,
but it wasn't over until someone got three points right,
(32:27):
so they change it up and he says something to
Naddy about like that's why you are where you are
and I am where I am and Naddy just I
mean it looked Richard Pryor had a joke where he
talks about he wanted to be a boxer and he
got hit with a hook and he said, I saw
(32:47):
his hands start down in Mississippi. It gains speed through Texas.
Now I'm watching Naddy throw this right hand and it's
like a John Woo movie. Man, it's full slow motion.
I'm pretty sure a bunch of doves like took flight
behind it as it traveled through the air. And Harry's
hands are down at his side and he's sticking his
(33:09):
chin out like what And Natty's hook comes all the
way through open hand hook right, like the way if
you saw the Godfather talk about how he used to
open hand slap people off of stools. It's like a
Godfather slap bah. And it sounds like two by fours
(33:30):
smashing together to simulate a gunshot. And everyone in the class,
including me, at the same time, goes and then I
jump out of my seat before I even let the
breath out, and instead of breathing out, I just go
what off? And I curse. Right, I'm trying to control myself,
but it was a big f bomb and I'm not mad.
(33:51):
I'm scared because I mean, it's the loudest shot I've
ever heard of my life. And Harry looks at me
with a freaking smile on his face. He goes, bro,
It's all good, like nothing happened. And you know, look,
I'm an actor. Actors are soft as hell, man. Like
I've seen dudes not be able to work for two
weeks just because their feelings got hurt. So this is
(34:14):
all new to me, man. But this dude took the
shot of I'm telling you, to this day, I've never
heard anyone get hit that hard in my life. I'm
including UFC kicks where you hear like an Edison Barbosa
foot slap on that one tall skinny dude's face. Back
in the day, it was like, what that ain't shit
(34:35):
compared to this Canadian right hand that literally game speed
through Alberta and then just made contact in whatever city
we were in. It was we gotta have Natty on
the show one day as a guess, I just gotta
know what she was thinking when he did that, because
in her eyes, he deserved it, and I ain't gonna
(34:56):
argue with the girl. So that said, guys made it
through like five side quists today, So you guys are
the real winners, and I'll speak with you guys all
on the next WWF Wrestling with Freddie. This has been
a production of iHeartRadio's Michael Tura podcast Network. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(35:18):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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