Chris Van Vliet sent out the following:
In an interview with Chris Van Vliet as part of the INSIGHT With Chris Van Vliet podcast, former WWE Superstar Maven discussed several topics including the success of his YouTube channel, drinking with The Undertaker prior to eliminating him from the Royal Rumble, getting hit with a chair by The Undertaker afterwards, what he would change from his time in WWE and more.
Highlights of the interview are below:
On the success of his YouTube channel: “No one’s more shocked than I am. Literally, you met the guy who runs it with me [Zack]. When he came to me with the idea, I tried to talk him out of it. I was like, listen, I was like, There are bigger names out there, and he explained to me and he was right about one thing. He said wrestlers use YouTube wrong and it’s an underutilised platform. And basically, here’s the simple, simple process that we do. Most wrestlers make wrestling videos and put them on YouTube and then wonder why they don’t do well. Obviously, if you’re Steve Austin, your podcast is going to do great numbers. But for the most part, there are so many podcasts and stuff out there. He told me, we’re gonna make YouTube videos that deal with wrestling. And at that moment, that was our first Zoom, the light went off.”
On eliminating The Undertaker from the Royal Rumble: “I think it was just one of the things that at the time, everyone was just I don’t want to say in awe of, but just happy that the dropkick spot went as well as it did. Because think of it this way. What if I flopped the drop kick? What if I miss him? What if I don’t hit him hard enough to knock him over? Then what? It’s just me and him. It’s not like we’re gonna start a wrestling match. I mean, where’s that gonna go? And he still has to be eliminated for the next person to come in. So there was a lot riding on that spot. And I didn’t practice the drop kick at all throughout the day. And I was getting color that night. I’m allergic to aspirin. So I had taken a couple of shots at Jack backstage with Taker. So I was a little buzzed by the time we did it.”
On drinking with The Undertaker before the match: “Yeah, he told me he was like, kid, I’m gonna be giving you some color. And he’s like, why don’t you want to take some aspirin in your blood so it comes out? And I told him I’m like, I’m allergic. And he’s like, I got you. And he had some like aeroplane bottles of Jack. And I’m like luckily for me he bought it. Jack Daniels is like how most people drink beer for taste. Yeah, that’s me with Jack.”
On the chair shot that followed the elimination: “It wasn’t a butterfly kiss, I can tell you that. Listen, at that point. I was so just elated. My night was over at that point, hitting the drop kick. At that point, everything else was just gravy. And the chair shot I knew I was just gonna have to just, you see it in slow motion you see me like clench up to take it. But I was so concerned that the entire day, I was concerned with just my life revolved around hitting that one drop kick. And you know what? The following pay-per-view. I was on the next pay-per-view, WrestleMania. I was wrestling Goldust he was holding the gold trash can and I missed it. So if I would have missed that drop kick [on Undertaker], I don’t think I have a career. But the chair shot. It stung more than it hurt. But honestly, I was on top of the world just knowing because after I did the chair shot, I think Taker goes and he throws the camera guy down and they stayed on that shot. Normally they’ll change shot, but they stayed on that on purpose. He had to get the gig out to give me color. And he came over. And he told me great job, kid. And at that point, I just knew my night was all I had to do was sell and then get thrown into a popcorn machine.”
What would Maven change from his WWE run?: “It would probably be, wow, that’s a great question. Yeah, I do. It would probably be when they moved me when they did the draft and they split. And they moved me from SmackDown to Raw, that was when I felt like my training wheels were off. And like I just said, I wish I would have just stopped playing wrestler and let more of my personality come out. Because I really didn’t. I was just always terrified. I was scared, not to mess up everybody messes up. But I was just terrified, terrified to turn the volume up too much. If I could go back and when I debuted back on Raw after my broken leg. I should have come out literally and had them pulling me back. I was cutting promos with the words they gave me and I wish I would have done what Rocky does what you know, other great talkers do taking bullet points. Just put them in my words.”
The full interview is available at this link.
