Steve Carrier on April 10, 2018
Jericho welcomes Teddy Hart to the show.
Hart informs that he’s had a rough few months. He spent 7 and a half months in jail after being involved in a police chase that lasted an hour and a half. He was tasered multiple times by police and he thinks he was drugged that night which led to this whole mess. He says he smokes a lot of marijuana, but he’s never really been that messed up. He was in such an altered state that the taser could not keep him down, and that’s why the police had to taser him multiple times.
This was a terrible incident for him because he was just starting to get his life back in order after his divorce from 3 years ago. He was dating a beautiful woman and was enjoying life, and this incident resulted in him losing everything.
He points out that he was facing 7-10 years in jail for this incident and in an attempt to impress the judge he entered WWE’s rehab program. WWE doesn’t enter people into that program due to marijuana consumption, so even though he doesn’t really drink he claimed to have alcohol issues in order to enter the program.
While awaiting trial in he says he lost faith and didn’t even want to train or work out. Although everyone in jail treated him well because they recognized him from the wrestling business, he was very depressed and lost hope of ever reclaiming the life he knew.
Out of the blue one day his lawyer approached him and said that the Judge offered him 7 years probation and Hart couldn’t wait to sign the deal. He has no idea how that happened and it has restored his faith in God. Ever since being released he’s received an incredible amount of booking requests and now he’s booked basically every weekend.
He does admit that life as a professional wrestler is not easy. He has never relied solely on professional wrestling for a living in the past like he is now, and he’s beginning to realize that less is more as a professional wrestler. It’s a hard life driving around the country wrestling every weekend, and life can become pretty lonely at times.
Jericho welcomes Joey Janela to the show.
Janela’s Game Changer Wrestling put on “Joey Janela’s Spring Break 2” in New Orleans this past weekend, and they had a good crowd of over 1000 people. Janela informs that he’s working for basically every indie promotion right now.
Janela talks about the infamous stunt that catapulted him into indie notoriety. He was wrestling Zandig, who threw him off of the top of a barn through a flaming wooden structure into the back of a truck. He informs that he mangled his thumb on the landing, but other than that it wasn’t too bad. On the other hand, Zandig broke his back on the landing and has rarely wrestled since.
Jericho asks Janela why he’d ever consider performing a stunt like that, and Janela points out that he was simply trying to stand out. He realizes that he could have very easily died during that spot, but in an indie environment where it’s very difficult to get recognized, he felt he had to do something drastic in order to stand out.
Hart talks about how much he respects Jericho as a performer, pointing out that a lot of performers from Jericho’s generation are either dead or can no longer work. Guys like Davey Boy Smith, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit have been dead for years and others like Bret Hart and Dean Malenko no longer work, yet Jericho remains at the top of his game. He really respects Jericho for that.
Jericho talks about getting blown up (out of breath) during matches. He mentions that Fozzy shows are far more gruelling physically for him at this point. At least in a wrestling match he can take a break on the outside or grab a rest hold. Those options don’t exist during a Fozzy show. Janela mentions that he smokes a pack of cigarettes a day and he could cut that out if he needed to, but he’s generally okay while working. Hart mentions that pacing is very important when working a match.
Hart mentions that he’d love to have one more opportunity with WWE. He spent a period of time getting himself into ridiculous shape with the goal of presenting himself to Vince McMahon, but every time he’d get to the size he wanted something bad would happen and he’d never have the chance to prove himself to McMahon. With a new outlook on life, he now hopes to get that chance once and for all.
That sums up today’s episode of Talk is Jericho. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya tomorrow for another recap!
April 10, 2018 9:12 am
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