Steve Carrier on May 14, 2018
Edge and Christian welcome Renee Young to the show.
Young mentions that she developed interest in acting after she graduated high school. Instead of attending post secondary school she asked her mom for $250 so she could attend an 8-week program at an acting school. After that she took some additional acting classes and then started applying for commercial roles. While she was waiting to hear back from those applications she decided that she’d also like to try hosting her own shows.
Living in Toronto, Young went back and forth between The Score (a Canadian sports Network) and Much Music trying to get hired. She recalls literally knocking on the door of The Score’s building multiple times, and finally she got hired there and started covering local Toronto sports teams. After some time they asked her if she’d like to start hosting a wrestling show, and she jumped at the opportunity even though she didn’t really watch the product at the time.
She watched wrestling as a child but had fallen away from the product, so she had to do a lot of research to ensure she knew what she was talking about before the show started. She knew that wrestling fans demand knowledge from the people who get paid to talk about the product, so she made sure she had everything figured out by the time the show started.
That show began 8 years ago, and after a short stint hosting the show WWE came calling. She then made the transition to working for WWE and it has been a fantastic ride ever since. She’s been accepted into WWE’s world by the fans, and she’s not really sure why fans have welcomed her with open arms the way they have but she’s very grateful for their support.
Young talks about the process of being hired by WWE. She mentions that she was looking to take the next step from The Score, and she wanted to do something in the United States. She had an audition with ESPN that went great, and an audition with WWE which wasn’t quite as good. During her WWE audition Young was asked to do commentary, and she was also asked to sell a battery to WWE officials. She was put through the ringer, but luckily she got the job.
She admits that when she found out that she’d have to change her name she was thrown for a loop. She didn’t know that was going to be part of the deal and she wasn’t really comfortable with it. She adds that her reservations weren’t met with a great response when she brought them up with a WWE official. She notes that this official no longer works for the company.
Young says that when she first moved to the United States it was a “true kick in the dick”. Her credit from Canada didn’t carry over to the United States so it was a nightmare trying to get an apartment and a cell phone. From that point it was a pretty quick adjustment for her and she loved living in New York. She admits that she still misses a lot of things about living in Canada, even though her life in the United States is great.
Christian points out that the first time he interacted with Dean Ambrose he thought Ambrose was a bit of a strange character. He started talking to Ambrose more and more, and he soon realized that he was a very funny guy and now he really enjoys talking to him. Young notes that Ambrose keeps to himself a lot but he has a lot of different sides to his personality that other people don’t see.
Young mentions that she wants to bring back Talking Smack. She says that she loved working with Daniel Bryan, and she thought they had a very spontaneous, entertaining show with Talking Smack. She was dissapointed when it was cancelled, especially since Unfiltered was cancelled around the same time, but she hopes the show can make a return at some point in the future.
Young fears that being a host has pigeon-holed her into that position, because people consider her a host and that’s it. She knows she can do so much more, and she thinks she’s shortchanged herself thus far by not pushing to do more. She hopes to change that moving forward as well.
That sums up this week’s episode of E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!
May 14, 2018 2:33 pm
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