AskCVV #4 - Has Anyone Ever No-Showed An Interview? Funniest Celebrity, Positivity & Pet Peeves

What's been your favorite interview so far this year? 

“We're only like three months into this right? So I guess that's a quarter of the way through the year. But my favorite so far has got to be The Undertaker. That's an interview that I knew might be possible but I was like man, when is this interview ever gonna happen? And if he checked it out, I hope that you enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. They told me it was going to be about 15 minutes, we ended up going a little longer than 20 minutes, and what a down to earth guy Mark Callaway is. And so great to just hear him telling stories about the legacy that he left. I mean, he is truly one of the greatest of all time. And to be able to sit down and share a bit of a conversation with him was so cool. So that for sure is the favorite episode of the year so far. So if you haven't checked that one out, it is available. It's just a few episodes ago, so you can go see that thing, it is episode number 452. So it's just 1,2,3,4 episodes ago, you can go check that one out. So thank you so much for that question.”

Have you ever interviewed a wrestler or a celebrity who was way way late for the interview? Or who just didn't show up, but was scheduled to show up? 

“Yes. And I think that when you do, I think last year we had like 120 episodes, you know, some stuff is gonna fall through the cracks. But there was one this year, and I'm not going to name any names. But there was one this year where we set it up, and we were going to do this in-person in LA. We set this one up, we agreed on the date, we agreed on the time. I gave them the directions, the instructions, everything. And I got to the studio now 15 minutes early, we're getting all set up. And I just messaged him and said, Hey, let me know when you're on the way. And usually, that gets you a response just a few minutes later, I'll have like, Oh, I'm on the way, see you in five, or, Hey, I'm running a little bit late, but I'll see you in 15-20, whatever it happens to be. I message them and I didn't hear anything back. And I went, Oh, this isn't good. And I looked at my audio engineer and I said this isn't, this isn't good. So the interview was scheduled for I think it was like one o'clock. And it was like 1:05. And I'm like I still haven't heard from them. And then it turned into 1:10. And then it turned into 1:15. Then it turned into 1:20, and I'm standing outside the building like looking around. I'm like, maybe they're lost, like, and they're just not responding to me. But I don't know what's going on. And I finally turned to him, the audio engineer, and I said I don't think that's what's happening. I just, I I've got a bad feeling about this. I feel like I would have heard back from them in some sort of way. And then finally, after like 45 minutes, they were like, Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I was double scheduled during this time, and it just, it didn't happen, let's reschedule for another time. But that's okay, like stuff comes up. It was just so strange that we had this schedule that locked in and it didn't end up happening. It still hasn't happened, we haven't rescheduled them. So don't, don't go like looking through the previous episodes trying to figure out who it was. I will tell you right now, the episode has not been rescheduled yet. And when it does get rescheduled, perhaps we'll make a joke about this. And you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. But yeah, that was one.” 

“I did another one, actually, not that long ago either, where this one was gonna be over Zoom. And I sent them the Zoom link, and I was dealing with like, their people. I wasn't dealing directly with the person, I was dealing with their people who scheduled this. They gave me the date, they gave me the time. I said, Yep, that works, let's do it. I sent them the Zoom link, and I thought we were good to go. And I logged into the Zoom room a little bit early. And I think this is the thing, especially with the Zoom interviews, if a Zoom interview is scheduled for like, let's call it 10. And that person is not there and hasn't messaged you by like 10:05. It's not looking good. So it was like it was 10:05. And I messaged them, and I was like, hey, yeah, I'm in the Zoom room, ready when you are, and there was no response. And then I got an email from their people. And they said, Hey, can you give us a quick call? I was like, this isn't gonna be good. So I called and they said, Oh, we are so sorry, we scheduled this with you, but it didn't get put onto their calendar. So we're so sorry, let's reschedule it. So we ended up rescheduling that, you'll end up seeing it at some time in the next few months. But all of this is to say that this is the communications business. And I think the most important part about this is not just the communication that happens when the camera is turned on or the microphone is turned on, it's all of the communication that happens before and afterwards too. And it's just so funny how, I get it, some things slip through the cracks, and it sucks, but that's just the way it goes. So if you have a podcast, or you have a YouTube channel, or you're doing any sort of interviews, you know what I'm talking about. And you just can't take it personally, that's the biggest thing I've realized none of this is personal at all. They just, it just happens. It just happens.”

You are seemingly genuinely positive person most of the time, which is really refreshing, by the way, out of curiosity, what is something that someone does or says that immediately annoys you? Or upsets you? 

“That's such an interesting question about pet peeves. And I travel a bunch, right? And this is so silly, and it's so petty. But my biggest pet peeve is people in airports, who like, have no sense of the space around them. So here's what I'm talking about. Everybody's kind of walking at like a similar pace. And this is the same thing you know, when you're going anywhere, a train station will be a similar thing to so in the airport, you know, you're going from point A to point B, and it's fascinating that when you're keeping up with the pace of the person walking in front of you, and they'll just stop dead in their tracks, they'll just stop. And you have to do everything in your power to not crash into them with your suitcase. And it's just amazing to me how someone can be so unaware of their surroundings. If you got to stop to, you know, check the signage, or you want to stop to go Oh, does that store serve Fiji Water, have Fiji Water? Or oh my gosh, are those Skittles there? I think you need to like, kind of like you're on a highway, you can like pull over to the side and look? Like, it's just amazing. The next time you're in an airport, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about if you aren't already with me on this ride here. But it's this idea of like, walk, walk, walk, and they just stop. And then you're like, woah, oh my gosh. So that's it. It's so small. It's so petty. And I think, you know, kind of tying into the last thing that we talked about just lack of communication in general. Not just talking professionally, but personally to like, when someone, you ask someone a question, I think that, you know, response is, like, when you're talking to a friend, a family member or someone you like, have an ongoing relationship with, and you send them a message and they don't respond. I get that people get busy. But I think that that's another one for me is just like, oh, man, come on, like, we were, we were going back and forth, we were ping ponging with these messages. And then you're like, hey, so whatever the question happens to be, and then there's no response. And then you know, you follow up a few days later, and then they go, Oh, my gosh, I can't believe I missed this. I'm so sorry. So I think that that's, that's it for me. I know, the airport one is so silly. If you ever see me in an airport, you'll know I mean, doesn't happen all the time. It doesn't happen in every airport trip. But when it does, it's like I just kind of wish, just kind of wish you knew you knew there were you know, dozens of other people walking behind you.” 

What’s the funniest interview you've ever done? 

“Wow, I'll give you two. I'll give you two, and they're just hilariously funny people. One is Will Ferrell, who is just a naturally hilarious person. And the way that he says things and his delivery. It's so funny. I've had the good fortune of interviewing him a few times. And it's just something you always look forward to because I mean, you want to talk about someone who's always positive, geez, he's great. And he just yeah, really naturally funny. And the second one is Kevin Hart. And he like brings it every single time you talk to him, I think I've talked to Kevin Hart, I think I've interviewed him like, seven or eight times. In fact, there was a point when I was living in Miami, and working for the Fox station in Miami, where he had just so many movies coming out, it was back to back to back to back. And there was a point when I interviewed him for like, the fourth time in six months or something like that. And I said, this is gonna sound crazy, but I've actually seen you more than I've seen my family over the last six months, and it was true. I hadn't seen my, I think I'd seen my family like once, and I'd seen him like on four different occasions. And he's like, Well, I guess that I guess that makes us family. So those two people are just effortless, effortlessly funny. And I feel like they're the type of people that were put on this earth to do what they're doing, and they are living in their passion and he just loved to see that. Yeah, just love to see it.”

What do you do when you have trouble sleeping? 

“Well, first of all, I love sleep, like so much. And I think that that old thing of like the old mantra of like I’ll sleep when I'm dead. I think that we're starting to realize now, like this generation is starting to realize now that no, like sleep is so important for like, the rest of you know, restoring your body and like being at your peak. So I'm a big fan of sleep. And I know that sometimes your mind just races and you lay down and that's like when all those thoughts enter your head. So for me, I try my best to just like think of like nothing, and I physically like picture it in my mind of like, I am looking at a black space, I’ve actually closed my eyes right now as I'm saying this I'm like just looking at a black space. And my focus then becomes on like, just looking and thinking about just darkness and nothingness and really focusing on my breathing, in through my nose and also out through my nose. And that's been it for me. And it's been difficult because my wife is almost eight months pregnant right now and our baby is due very soon, as I'm recording this due in May. And she's obviously for you know, very obvious reasons having trouble sleeping right now. So me talking about how much I love sleep and here's what I do to get to fall asleep makes me feel bad because she's got a baby kicking her at all hours of the night and pushing on her bladder and making her go to the bathroom. So I get that's not, I get that that's not a you know, there's a real dichotomy there. Between the two but that's it for me.”

Where do you stand on cinematic matches? It still feels like it can be spun off into something original to me, especially given the number of sci-fi crossovers. 

“Really great question. And I think that cinematic matches serve an amazing place in time. And I think for a lot of us, that will be, those will be some of the best matches that will remember from what I'll call the pandemic era of wrestling. And I think that the matches that we saw before and the matches that we may see after, are matches that are going to serve a real specific purpose. Like when Matt Hardy did The Ultimate Deletion, it made a lot of sense. You know, like that was kind of the world that he lived in, or Bray Wyatt doing something like that, that was the world that he lived in, and it made sense for that match to happen. And I think that when there were arenas that had you know, they were having WrestleMania with no crowd and they were doing all those shows with no crowd. ThunderDome was a really great way to kind of like, make the best of a bad situation. But nothing, nothing is better than having a live crowd at a wrestling show. So I think that they were really good at during that time going, man, if we can't have a live show, let's do the best that we can with what's in front of us. So, I think that they were a great thing in 2020 and into 2021. And I think that if we're gonna see another one beyond that, it just has to make sense. Like it just can't be two people for the sake of having a cinematic match doing it. And I also think that if you were to have a, you know, if this was a pay-per-view match, I'm sorry, Premium Live Event match. It wouldn't make sense to, you know, have a match in-person. And then basically be like, tell everyone like, we want to draw your attention now to the jumbotron to the TitanTron, to watch a match, it just wouldn't make a lot of sense to have an arena full of 15,000 20,000 Maybe if it's a WrestleMania 80,000 people just watching a screen for 15-20 minutes. So I think that was very much a product of that era and did a really good job. Like the boneyard match. So, so good. And it also allowed Undertaker to do some things that maybe he wasn't able to do in front of a live crowd. So if I, to answer your question where do I stand on them? I liked them. I just think that they serve a certain purpose and a certain time.” 

Can you describe the feeling of having your own action figure? 

“This is pretty cool. If you follow me on Instagram, or you follow me on Twitter, Rush Collectibles, announced that I have a figure coming out later this year, and it's so cool. It's like me wearing a suit, I've got a microphone there, and it's, man, it’s hard to describe the feeling. Because I grew up collecting action figures. I was a big Triple H fan, of course a Rock fan, had their action figures, so to be able to have one of my own is pretty cool. So you can see the prototype right now; it's unpainted, but we're working on it. You can see that on my Instagram. And once I have all of the details, I will get them to you. As soon as I get them on how you can buy them, we're going to do I think two editions, we're going to do just like the action figure in the very cool packaging that we've been working on, and then we're also going to have one that's an autographed version of that. So two different versions. And as soon as I get the details, you'll be hearing about it here and of course on all social media. So yeah. Oh, really, really cool. Like, super cool to have that be a thing.” 

What's the first match You'll show your child? And at what age will I show my child this match? 

“So our baby girl will be with us in less than two months, it's coming up real quick. I don't know, I think that my favorite match of all time has got to be a match that I show someone, or show my daughter, Rock versus Hogan WrestleMania 18. Just because that crowd tells the whole story. It's the way that the crowd gets into it. And look, if you've listened to the show for a long time, this should come as no surprise to you how much I love that match and just that I love the storytelling in that match. So that's got to be up there. And I think that if I were to show my daughter or just a non-wrestling fan a match to say look how good these wrestlers are, like, look at how good the athleticism is, look how good the storytelling is. I would show them my second favorite match or I guess my favorite like in-ring like wrestling. Like if we're talking in terms of like athleticism. It's the TNA match. With Christopher Daniels, AJ Styles and Samoa Joe. And that match is just so so good. And I always go back to that one too, just because the athleticism in that match is crazy. It's the epitome of what TNA was all about. That match is so so great.” 

I noticed the Batista interview, your time is cut, but Batista asked for one more question. Do you know how much time you're allowed during celebrity and movie interviews? And how do you deal with a celebrity that is either unresponsive or disinterested in your time? 

“So yeah, that was a really cool one. If you want to check that out It's on my YouTube channel. It's fun when Dave Bautista was in the James Bond movie Spectre. And I went to ask him a question. And I knew that it was being wrapped up, but I want to squeeze in a wrestling question. And he said to the person who was doing the timing in the room, like oh, no, it's okay, let's do one more question. It was like, Oh, my gosh, thank you so much, Dave. Like, I appreciate that. So yeah, you do usually know how much time you're gonna have. And for those celebrity junket interviews, as they call them, you're usually given four to five minutes. And not only do you know how much time you have, when you're walking into it, there's someone that's standing right by the camera that's over the shoulder of the celebrity, and they're giving you time cues. So the interview starts, you do your thing. So there's a camera over their shoulder and a camera over my shoulder. And you'll see someone they have cards, and they will hold up a card for two minutes left. They'll hold up a card for one minute left, and then they'll start doing the wrap sign, you know, like the waving the finger, the wrap sign. So yes, you walk into it knowing exactly how much time you're, you're gonna have. So if it's a four minute interview, I would usually prepare four to five questions and hope if the conversation goes well that you can get to all of them. But that's also not to say that if something that you ask springs off into another conversation that you can't follow it down that path. So that's just always something you got to keep in mind so it's an actual, like, true conversation. And how do you deal with a celebrity that's either unresponsive or disinterested in your time? I think the thing is, you just got to try to build rapport from the second that you walk in the room. And I think that a big mistake that a lot of interviewers make when they're just getting started, is they think that the interview begins the second that they say, Okay, we're rolling, or the you know, the second that red light turns on or the second that you hit record on your recorder, the audio recorder. The interview really begins the second that you walk into that room, or the second, that Zoom window pops up if it happens to be a virtual interview. And I think it's important to set the tone, set the mood, try to build rapport, as much as you can, attempt to find some sort of common ground. My friend Kevin McCarthy, who is blowing up right now on TikTok, give him a follow if you have TikTok, he's @KevinMcCarthyTV, he's so good at talking to actors or directors and like, his enthusiasm for film is just off the charts. And I love the way that he will talk to a director about their use of a certain lens. Or they'll he'll talk about how much he loved the score and a movie or like, the cinematographer doing something. And I think that that brings the person that he's talking to, it brings the connection in a different way. So, you know, obviously, you know, the same things are not going to work for different people. But if you could find something, find some sort of way to just win them over a little bit. That's how I find the conversation will flow that much better. So that's what I always attempt to do.”

Top three airports?

“Oh, probably should have thought about this before I answered this question. Man, top three airports, I can give you a few of my least favorite airports. And we'll start with Atlanta. It's nothing against the city of Atlanta. But everything is so far away there, and very rarely running on time, so Atlanta is a tough one. And like, there's nothing that's more frustrating to me than having to take a train to get to another terminal, and that's Atlanta, that's also Dallas, where it's like, you land on one side of the airport and you're like, Oh, sure, I'll just walk there and you're like, Oh, I can't, I can't actually walk there. Even if I wanted to walk there, I have to take a train there. So that's always a frustrating one. Toronto is a favorite airport of mine for obvious reasons. That's my hometown, that was the airport that I flew out of as a kid and as a teenager and in my 20s and when I go back, like I did this past weekend, I was at the awesome toy show in Mississauga, Ontario and had such a great time there hanging out with everybody at the show and just such a great, so much fun. Can't wait to go back there for another awesome toy show. But there's just something cool about especially going back home after being away for a few months. Or in the case of 2020 and 2021. I hadn't flown back in like a year and a half just because of all the silly travel restrictions that were going on at that time. And there's something great about going back and seeing the Canadian flag for the first time. It's just so exciting. So top three airports, I don’t know and I'll give you my favorite and my least favorite right there.”

WarGames? Elimination Chamber or Hell in a Cell? 

“I think for that, boy I like them all for different reasons and I disliked them all for different reasons. So my favorite there is WarGames just because of how unique the setup is and how many different possibilities there are, so I'm gonna go WarGames. Hell in a Cell, out of those three is actually going to be my least favorite. I guess it's my, or at least one of my least favorite pay-per-views. I don't like the fact that there's a Hell in a Cell match, just because the pay-per-view or Premium Live Event is called Hell in a Cell. Like I like when it serves a purpose. Like when it's WrestleMania, Finn Balor and Edge, like I love that it's like, this has gotten so out of hand that a regular match can't contain this. We've got to put it inside Hell in a Cell. So just having a Hell in a Cell pay-per-view, it's like, hey, let's throw these two people in Hell in a Cell and see what happens. I've never been a fan of that. I like, I like storytelling a lot. So yeah, and I think Elimination Chamber is really interesting. I prefer the old setup of Elimination Chamber, and you know what I'm talking about here.”