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Simon Miller: Golden Ups, Johnny Sins, Positivity in Wrestling, His AEW & TNA Appearances
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Simon Miller (@SimonMiller316) is a professional wrestler and YouTuber. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studioin Hollywood, CA to discuss chasing his dream of becoming a professional wrestler no matter what, learning to wrestle at a later age, his first match in WCPW and what it led to, being on the pre-show for AEW All In, why he is so positive about professional wrestling, why he focused more on wrestling than fitness on his YouTube channel, being frequently mistaken for adult film star Johnny Sins and more!
Quote I'm thinking about: "Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant." - Robert Louis Stevenson
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“There’s a place called Milton Keynes. Shout out to Milton Keynes, which is just roundabouts. It’s a town, city, whatever that was built. And for some reason, I’m not kidding, you drive into the centre, you have to go through 30 roundabouts. And I’ve been because, What Culture Pro Wrestling back in the day, you used to do shows in Milton Keynes, and I used to do a lot of the driving for the talent that would come over for the US, and they would be like, What is this? Because you just roundabout, roundabout roundabout. Whereas America is very much forward, left, right, block. It’s much simpler. So that’s another thing I would say. It’s for us, apart from the right turn. Can’t do the right turn.”
“It’s both better and worse at the moment. We use the term content creators who I think actually have come up and gone, oh no, I’m going to enjoy wrestling again, to talk about it there. But then there’s also a real, huge contingent of people that use the buzz words toxic positivity. The one I get now is you’re the reason for bad ratings because you’re not calling out the product. I was like, dude, I’d love to have that much power. I’d be having a great time. But what I think is lost, it’s real. I’m not just saying things because I think it’s fun to say them. If I say I like a show, I like a show. It was Bad Blood a couple of weeks ago, as we’re recording this, the Nia Jax Bayley match, I had a great time with it. I thought it was awesome that Hurricanrana that went wrong, it made it for me. I never go on the internet till I’ve done a video, done a review, because it can get to your brain. Then I went on and listened to my podcast, and the loud voices were really loud about how awful that was, and I had a breakdown. Have I totally got this wrong? But no, I genuinely just enjoyed it. And you got people going you didn’t actually watch it and stuff. It’s like, Dude, my job is watching wrestling. It’s really easy, it’s a lot of hard work that goes into it, but the actual watching of the wrestling for someone to go, here’s some money. It’s not a problem, but it’s true. So some people actually now think you’re just being positive because it’s a marketing venture, or I don’t know, I find it crazy, but I just know from my end and from talking to people like you, it’s just not true. We just feel privileged to do what we do and we enjoy what’s on the TV.”
“That’s fair. I’m very good at downplaying things, probably because I’m British, self-deprecating humor, you’re just brought up with it. But no, you’re right. I think, given my own personality, I think I’ll always feel a little bit lucky, even though, when I actually sit down and think about it logically that’s not true, because, again, I know how much work I put into all of this.”
“Oh yeah. I remember flicking through TV channels when I was a kid. It was Bret Hart, the first guy that I saw. No idea what he was doing. I just looked at him and like that. Well, you’re interesting. So before I actually followed it through and in 2016 I tried twice to be a wrestler. First time, I came up against a very old-school wrestling coach who ripped me to shreds. I was like, if this is still the way, it’s just not for me. I was well aware of that. I don’t want to push it too hard, but I was quite emotionally scarred by then. I remember, I sort of, I say, put my back out, I don’t know what that means, but I remember not being able to stand up. He had me doing 619s in the ring, and he was just giggling about the whole thing and I was like, it’s just not fun. I stuck with it a while, because I’ve been blessed with tenacity, I’m very good at not quitting. But that did get to a point where it’s just like I can’t do this. Then second time round, I was going through a lot personally and again, emotionally I was like this isn’t the right time, but it all worked out great, because the third time’s a charm. I just started doing the What Culture stuff, and I was like, I just knew. Doesn’t matter how much this sucks, we’re going to see it through. We’ll do a match. It helped that I got to document it for YouTube too, that’s always a [plus]. It’s like having a personal trainer, right? I can’t stop now, they’ll get mad at me. It’s great to be accountable. But it all worked out the way it was meant to work out. I don’t think I would have been able to do what I’ve done now, sort of 10 years ago.”
“Oh yeah sure. I walked in there like, Dad’s here. Yes, and no, it’s weird. I knew that I was older than you should be, for lack of a better term, but I also knew that I didn’t care.”
“Because I had other things in my life, I almost had a safety blanket. Actually, sometimes not having a safety blanket is far better. But again, when you are in a certain stage of your career, it actually helped me, because it actually allowed me to throw myself more into it and deal with a lot of the nonsense that you always get when you start wrestling. Because I was like, well, just keep going. It’s awesome that you’ve built up this other thing over here. We’re now going to try and build this thing over here, but if it doesn’t work, again, I really do think sometimes you don’t need that because you need to feel the fear. ‘Do It Anyway’, which is my favorite quote ever. That’s an accidental segue, but that’s how I felt when I started wrestling. I remember walking to my first training session with all those thoughts, your early 30s. What are you doing? You’re going to be like the father of this place. But it’s a book. Actually, I read it when I was in my early 20s. It’s literally called, feel the fear and do it anyway. And I was like, well, nobody has made that book for an audience of five people. They probably made it because they thought there was a wider birth of people they could reach, which said to me, I’m 99% sure that adulthood is just being terrified of everything but going, you know what? I’ll persevere. And that’s what I did when I started wrestling. I was like, You are a little bit older. You probably should have done this a while ago. Another great proverb, The best time to do anything, is 10 years ago or right now, you can’t go back. It was almost like an epiphany again. I sort of, I was past 30, I changed. I became a different person. When I was past 30, I just accepted everything that maybe I’d been hung up on for so long, and been like, you know what? This is me. Let’s ride it. And that carried on into everything. And I just wasn’t afraid to fail. If it all went bad, I was like, who cares? I’ll go do something else.”
“Well, after my first training session I had to take the day off work because I couldn’t move, they thought I was lying. My first wrestling match, I am so blessed to be in the position, but again, hard work for sure, but I always feel like someone’s smiling down on me, because obviously WCPW, I debuted in 2018 was still around. It was called Defiant, but it was like in England especially, it was considered, how do we get on Defiant? They come to me. I know the people that run it, and they came to me and they said, Simon, we want you to be in the No Regrets Rumble. I turned them down at first, I was so scared. I mean, I would have done it, but I was like, what, me? No. And it couldn’t have been a better experience. Because, again, I really like the fact you pointed in the whole hard work thing, because there’s multiple ways to pay your dues. I have done it in other ways, maybe not in professional wrestling, but I think sometimes you pay your dues and what you get kind of comes in different forms. So there is footage of this somewhere. It was a behind-the-scenes Defiant documentary. They don’t exist anymore, so hopefully they’ve released it into the wild, but they filmed all my stuff sort of before my entrance number 15 in the Rumble. I remember that, I’ve never been so scared. In my mind, I was terrified because I got into my head that people were going to have a certain expectation of me because, they knew me from What Culture. I then decided that I had to cover up as much as my body as possible because people were going to judge me for that too. I mean, listen, I’ve done a bunch of videos. I’m the king of body dysmorphia. I take on that role with pride these days, let’s roll into battle. Then I walked out there, and it all happened in literally the space of eight seconds. I got such a cool reaction. People were so nice, my performance in the ring was atrocious, but it always is your first that’s why you’re meant to do it in an armory in front of 20 people. That’s a good thing, as opposed to technically live on pay-per-view. You could buy it. It was a streaming pay-per-view, and I was in there with a who’s who of the time of British Independent wrestlers. I was so worried about hurting them, I gave each and every single one of them the worst clotheslines ever. I won’t name drop them, because it’s not fair, but one of them, in a nice way, in a very productive sort of fatherly way, took me to one side, but it did phrase it this way. Simon, if you ever hit me with a clothesline that again, not only will I not sell it for you, I’ll punch you in the face. And he was right. It was he had to sell it, poor boy. And it was awful, but it was the best experience. And yeah, my brain just told me this is it now Simon, I don’t know how this works. I didn’t know about getting other bookings or how you grow your brand. But it was, I mean, really, it was top five experiences of my life. It really, really was, I remember driving back because I was in Newcastle to where I lived in London, was a six hour drive. And I remember driving back, it could have been 42 hours, I was elated. I was so happy, and I was like, That’s it. That’s the feeling that we chase. So now we keep on chasing it.”
“That was the coolest experience of my life. Because Wembley Stadium in England is hallowed turf. So we know as part of the extra crew, and you never know what you’re going to do that day, because things change. You’re there, you’re just in case which is fine with that.”
“So for that one, we were told to dress nice, obviously, which I would have done anyway, because I think you should be respectful. But they told us we needed a bunch of black clothing. I think it was a hoodie, a top, and some tracksuit bottoms or pants, whatever we call that in America, I don’t know. Because, originally, I think I can say this now, almost a year and a half removed, but Swerve was gonna have some big entrance, and we were gonna be dressed in black hoodies to create some sort of an effect. But then that got killed quite quickly, when all of a sudden they were like Miro and Powerhouse Hobbs are going to do something on the pre-show. We need you guys to be, the security. So I was like, This is all I need in my life for two reasons. I gotta tell this story, right? And he probably watches. But I don’t care, because I say it with all the love in the world. I want to make it very clear, this made me so happy. I was beaming ear to ear. So Powerhouse Hobbs and Miro are backstage. Now, this is cool anyway, because I was literally standing where England players come out to play soccer football. I was having the best time. And before that, I got to stand in the middle of Wembley Arena, just sort of taking an empty stadium. I was like, I don’t care what happens now, this is a win for football fan Simon. But then we get told we’re going to do this, Miro and Hobbs are coming together with their plan. Miro sees me, and he goes, he can’t wrestle, he makes videos. So I was just like, the fact you’ve even watched any of my content, you have no idea. But then I explained to him I’ve been wrestling for the last seven years, or whatever. Okay, no, sorry. Why should he know? But the fact I got that just, I don’t know. And then we walk out, and the stadium was probably half full. So let’s say there were 80,000 there. I don’t want to get into that ridiculous debate that people have. So you have 40,000 people in there. I did not understand how loud 40,000 people were. When we were stood in that ring it was like Godzilla, it was so loud. So that was excellent, too. And then, because I’m very lucky to have this contingent of people that will support me regardless, it may have worked against me in some ways too. You did have some people go Miller give it up, just ruining this segment. Then, yeah, they obviously get into their big fight and we had half the guys on Miro and half the guys on Hobbs. I said Hobbs can just throw me into the barricade, because I have stupid joke on ups and downs about Barry barricade. So he threw me into that. I think that got me in trouble too, because someone went ‘Barry barricade!’ They’re gonna think I’ve done this on purpose, and it was just, to be involved in a skit, whatever you want to call it, a segment in Wembley Stadium with people that were really into it, because I think they were the first two guys that have gone out. So you just have that, man, we just want to enjoy this, and then go backstage and have the sort of, I mean, to a lesser degree, with us, but there’s still a camaraderie there. We got to do it. And then that’s when they were doing the Anarchy in the Arena match. So they said we want to put you in a bar. And people are going to beat you up too. So I had Claudio punch me in the face, or whatever he did. I was just, it was awesome, like it was so, so cool. And as I continued to go on, is that throughout the day, wrestlers did come up and they said, really appreciate the positivity. Really appreciate how you approach wrestling. I’m sure some people go, you’re biased, but it’s more of I’m a big, big, big, big guy, whether right or wrong, about taking human emotion and sensitivity into all of my work. You can call me a pansy or wuss, whatever, I don’t care. So for people that I have always kept in my head of Do not forget they’re real humans. To come up to you and go you criticize things, but you just do it in a nice way. That meant the world to me. I won’t drop names, I think that is unfair. There was one conversation I had with one guy, and he was just, he was someone I didn’t even think would be into YouTube stuff, and he couldn’t have been nicer. So I left that event just feeling completely reinvigorated about this is a cool thing to do. And then after all that, I got to hang out and catering. So I did it, Simon Miller at catering at AEW, so it ticks so many boxes to me. Shawn Dean that sort of, you know, organized the extra. So I really do appreciate him sorting that out for me. I’ll never forget it. I had a really good day.”
“How stupid was that? I thought it was a joke. So shout out to Thunder Rosa, who put me in touch with the producer, Jeremiah, who’s also just a wonderful, nice human being. But, I mean, that’s what it was, literally what it was. So Matt Cardona had done it in 2022 when they did their testing, they had two big shows. Obviously, Matt Cardona is on his huge independent run, and we were literally going to be touring this for two and a half months, or whatever it was down the east coast of America. So understanding Matt was like no, I’ve got a career, he was still a producer, and he helped me load. So shout out to that guy, but Thunder Rosa and Jeremiah were having a chat. As far as I know, this story may have been blown up, but I’ll take it. Sounds great to me. I don’t know whether one of my videos came on or whatever, but Jeremiah said, I really enjoy this guy. I’ve been watching this guy for a while. Thunder was like I thought it was I know that guy Simon Miller, apparently he said something along the lines of maybe paraphrasing I think he’d be really good for the Alexander Swagger role, who is the villain of the piece. She said he’s been acting for a few years. So it’s sort of, as these things always do, a long while to sort of all the bits to come together. So literally after WrestleMania 40 I went from Philadelphia, drove down to New Jersey an hour and a half away, whatever it is, and we rocked up to rehearsal space for two months, and we worked it and then we and we took it on tour. So essentially, I would say, 75% of it was playing a role. And you had the big last match, obviously, at the end. I think if we are gonna start ranking my life experiences that could be in the top two. Let’s push it. Let’s push it right in there, because it’s exactly what you said. I never thought my first proper role where you’re getting paid and it goes on your IMDB, when you actually have a credit that you can use would be in something that is scary, but not too scary, because at least sort of a big chunk of this world, but yeah, we did Center Stage, obviously synonymous with WCW. We did the ECW Arena. We did the Hog Arena in New York. And those three shows, especially people came out, man, I remember during it was the very last show, was the Atlanta one, and I walked out, and it ironically ties into what we just talking about. The fans knew what the show was, and they knew who had been cast as what. So when I walked out, I didn’t even say anything, boo. But it’s wonderful because you can play with that. I’ve been told your character, you break the fourth wall, you know they’re there, you need to insult them, rag on them, drag them down. So I just got to be like a stand-up comic taking out hecklers the entire time. I still can’t believe I got to do it. But it was genuinely awesome and the amount of people that you bumped to. Matt Cardona was at a show, obviously, because he’s taking care of it. And then Heath Slater was at a show, we had Snitsky who kicked the baby, and that clip went viral. Mickie James was on the tour for the whole time. Talk about imposter syndrome. I was like, why am I here? What is going on? McKenzie Mitchell was there. I will forget someone, and I feel bad, but it’s just all these recognizable people that just kept coming through, like, why and how? It was amazing.”
“Thank you for this wonderful opportunity for me to plug this, because I am starting a brand new fitness channel in early 2025 okay, it actually already has about 15 to 20 videos on it, but I’m holding off on it. It’s completely hidden, but it will just be called Simon Miller Fitness, because why not? But it ties into what you just said. So the reason I changed tact was obviously WhatCulture Wrestling been doing that for, for eight years. Whatever it is, I’m their review guy, the ups and downs, Raw SmackDown etc. I’m not moaning about this, I love it. There’s a certain performative quality to it. It’s meant to be a show and we’re all meant to have a good time. Then randomly ties in, CM Punk comes back. I sat there and I thought, oh, man, I want to have a proper chat, more like we’re having a chat now about CM Punk. So I thought I just throw it on my YouTube channel, if I just sit down. I just want to talk about these thoughts in my head, and I talked about it on the Survivor Series, ups and downs. But that was more of, again, we’re up, we’re down, we’re making jokes. And I loved it. I don’t want that to go away, but I just want to talk about, as a wrestling fan, I just did. I just had this overwhelming desperation to do it. I could just throw it out my YouTube channel. It’s one wrestling video out of dozens of fitness ones. I mean, it happened with everyone. It did so well. I was like, Okay, I’ll just do one more wrestling video and see what happens. And it did really, really well. And I was like, okay, as a businessman, you can’t ignore this. This is a really silly idea. I get that having a 180 like that is not ideal in the world of YouTube. But at the same time, the fitness was doing good, this is doing great. I’m not very good at speaking myself in those terms, but it was. So sometimes you just have to go with it, right? So I just went with it, and I thought, this is going to become my [project]. You want the slightly over the top jokes, fun, maybe something more that you’d watch on TV that’s over here. If you want the more laid back chatting with a friend. Give me your opinions going on streams of consciousnesses kind of not being contradictory. But think, what about this? But what about that fantasy booking I suppose. I just thought, Oh, I’ll do that. I’ll do that on my channel. And yeah, there were a few people that left understandably, because if you’re not into wrestling. I didn’t realize and more fool me, I just thought everyone was like, oh, it’s the what culture guy doing fitness stuff. No, people that actually found me through the magic of the internet.”
“Yes [I get mistaken for him]. My favorite story, 2016 making the What Culture content. This is when What Culture and all wrestling was huge, another level. And on this video, Johnny Sins, Johnny Sins… I’m not kidding. I didn’t know who Johnny Sins was. I had wonderful proof. I’m still working in my office job at the time. I was doing 50% YouTube stuff, but it was for a company. So oh, who’s Johnny Sins? In an office, I typed in Johnny Sins images. I had to go to my boss, Hi Adam. I’m really sorry. I’ve just looked at porn at work. I explained it to him, and he was fine with it. But yeah, so it was WrestleMania in New York. I went to get my protein bars. We were going to Madison Square Garden, so maybe it was for the ROH and New Japan event. I went to GNC. I thought I haven’t got time for dinner. I’ll grab a protein bar. And the dude behind the counter went Johnny Sins! Now he wasn’t joking. He thought I was Johnny Sins. When I started talking, he was like, Oh no, you’re not Johnny Sins. He said I’d met Johnny Sins at a porn convention, so I was looking forward to catching up. So I was like, Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You’re not even insulting me. You actually think that I [was him]?! I mean, maybe he was being facetious. I don’t know, but dude, it’s crazy. Eight years has been going on. It’s never calmed down. All the best engagement posts I ever do is when I compare myself to him, it’s out of control!”
“My girlfriend Liz, the people who have watched my videos and wrestling.”
