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1:01

party. Unrestricted. Got

1:03

the house now. We gonna

1:06

turn it up. Bring

1:08

the house down. Got

1:10

the big space pumping. Make them

1:12

bounce now. Flossing like they're bossing in

1:14

the freaks are coming out now. Welcome

1:17

everyone to AEW unrestricted.

1:19

I'm Aubrey Edwards along with my co-host and

1:22

best friend, Will Washington. How are you doing

1:24

today, Will? I'm doing great, Aubrey. This

1:26

has been quite a great time

1:28

in pro wrestling just this last

1:30

month going from double or nothing

1:32

to forbidden door. Yes, oh

1:34

my god, forbidden door is right around the corner.

1:36

Yeah, it is all right around the corner. And

1:38

like having people show up and

1:41

getting to meet people for the first time is

1:43

always an exciting time for me. Like last year

1:45

forbidden door was my first experience with that of

1:47

getting to meet guys from New

1:49

Japan. And this year we've got stardom

1:51

talent coming in this time. We've got

1:53

CMLL involved. And so like, you

1:55

know, I got to meet Stephanie Vacker for the first time

1:58

last week, or not last week, but last month. that was

2:00

really cool. And just watching the

2:02

way that this card is shaping up and

2:04

coming together and seeing Forbidden Door kind of

2:06

take on a new meaning, like it's all

2:08

been really, really cool. It's so great to

2:10

think like five years ago before ADW that

2:13

this was never a possibility, but now you can

2:15

absolutely have people from different companies wrestling each other

2:18

on a pay-per-view. And now it's like a thing

2:20

that happens so frequently that we expect it. Like

2:22

never in a million years would I have thought

2:24

that I see Ta-Nehisi backstage and he goes, how

2:26

are you my friend? And he gives me a

2:29

hug. I'm like, this is the president of New Japan.

2:31

But like we've gotten to meet multiple times

2:33

because of this awesome association between New Japan,

2:36

between ADW, this amazing pay-per-view that happens. It's

2:38

just a great celebration of wrestling. And I'm

2:40

so excited we get to go to New

2:42

York. We actually have Rocky Romero coming on

2:44

the podcast next week to help us preview

2:47

the card as it comes up because Rocky

2:49

Romero has his fingers in freaking everything in

2:51

wrestling. Yeah, he does. I mean, like I

2:54

said before, he's the sixth most powerful man

2:56

in pro wrestling. Fifth, you

2:58

might be up there. Yeah, it's the thing

3:00

Tony Khan says very often. And the fact

3:02

that he has so many roles across the

3:04

industry, having him on our side is definitely

3:06

a very cool thing to have. So I

3:08

look forward to talking with him next week.

3:10

I work with Rocky a lot. So to

3:12

bring him on this show is gonna be

3:14

really cool. But today is

3:17

also really cool because we, this

3:20

is being released on a day that we're taping collision and

3:24

having just done Dynamite. The

3:26

back to back days, I actually like the back to back days

3:28

a lot. And I think

3:30

today is actually a very fitting day to have

3:33

the guests we have on. All right, all right.

3:35

So stop beating around the bush. Who's our guest

3:37

today, Will? Well, Aubrey, we're joined

3:39

by the one and only,

3:41

I won't say one and only, he's half

3:43

of the voices of Ring of Honor. He

3:45

is Ian Riccobini. Ian,

3:48

thanks for being here on AEW Unrestricted.

3:50

Oh, geez, thank you so much for

3:52

having me. And what a day, right?

3:55

Allentown tonight, as this is being released,

3:57

my hometown. I can't wait. I

4:00

mean, AWS is going crazy, forbidden door

4:02

all in, but to me, the

4:04

number one place in the world is

4:06

getting AEW at the day that this

4:09

is released. It's incredible. The timing of it couldn't

4:11

work better. I remember like Stacy, our producer sends

4:13

in a calendar invite and I was like,

4:15

Ian Riccobini, okay, well, when is this release? Okay. Six

4:17

to it. Oh, oh,

4:19

this could not be better. This

4:21

is literally coming out the day that

4:24

we are in Allentown, our own, our,

4:26

our homeboys hometown, like this is fantastic.

4:28

And I know how excited you are

4:30

because I've seen like, uh, you've been

4:32

doing some like marketing and promotion for

4:34

Allentown. Like, what does it mean to you to have? Yeah.

4:37

What does it mean to you to have AEW coming

4:39

to Allentown? It's crazy. Uh,

4:41

Allentown hasn't had a live

4:43

wrestling broadcast ever. Number one,

4:45

they haven't had a taped

4:47

cable broadcast. Ever.

4:50

Uh, the last time that we had taped

4:52

wrestling from Allentown was 1984. And

4:54

now our sister city, Bethlehem in the

4:56

Lehigh Valley has gotten all kinds

4:58

of wrestling over the years. So it's, it's

5:01

a little disingenuous to say the region hasn't

5:03

gotten any, but you know, Allentown, Bethlehem Easton,

5:05

it makes up the Lehigh Valley. My beloved

5:07

iron pigs and wearing the special Fosnott hat

5:09

today. There we go. Allentown specifically though, has

5:11

been kind of left in the cold and

5:13

it has such a rich wrestling history. Orville

5:15

Brown, the first ever NWA world champion. I was

5:18

going to say, I feel like

5:20

the name Allentown, Pennsylvania is burned in my

5:22

head for wrestling reasons. Is it really just

5:24

cause of Billy Kidman's entrance? Is that the

5:26

only reason that like, well,

5:29

it's Billy Kidman, the nasty boys

5:32

for eight years, the WWF

5:34

tape TV here and broadcast

5:36

from here from there.

5:38

We've had 11 tag team championship

5:41

changes in Allentown proper.

5:44

We've had infinite number of cards at

5:46

the Allentown fairgrounds over the years. And

5:48

again, it dates back to 1938 as far as I know. So

5:52

to have something come back to

5:54

Allentown where on the same street

5:57

that 1938 card happened,

5:59

like literally two. blocks away is

6:01

incredible. There's such a rich wrestling history here,

6:03

rich fan base. And now fans don't have

6:05

to drive to Philadelphia. They don't have to

6:07

drive to New York City to go see

6:09

something as high quality as AEW, something that's

6:11

worth their time, money, and energy. Something that's

6:13

bringing some of the best wrestlers in the

6:15

world. We're the best wrestle right here in

6:17

Allentown. And Allentown's going to be where the

6:19

best wrestle. Oh, hell yeah. It's also

6:21

going to be where some of our best commentators are commentating,

6:24

right? That's

6:26

true. I mean, I know

6:28

Tony and Nigel are excited. I've

6:30

made it clear that, hey, I'll be in Allentown that

6:33

day if you need me. Yeah,

6:35

just as a hint. You

6:38

know, and to the question earlier, from

6:40

Will, it's one of those things where

6:43

there's a possibility Ring of Honor may

6:45

tape some matches in Allentown. And

6:48

coming up on my 10th anniversary over seven and

6:50

a half years as the voice of Ring of

6:52

Honor, I never thought I'd see

6:54

the day where Ring of Honor would come down. We came close

6:56

in 2021 as the pandemic started

7:00

to kind of slow down as we started

7:02

to get the vaccine. We almost went to the fairgrounds.

7:05

There's a story that Gary

7:07

Jester, a longtime personal friend, reached

7:09

out and they couldn't

7:12

quite support the electronics

7:14

needed to honestly keep everything

7:16

on the grid and keep the TV show running.

7:19

But it was real

7:21

close, but now this is a reality. You

7:23

casually dropped in there. Like you've been in

7:25

the business now about 10 years, you said?

7:28

Yeah, I've been with Ring of Honor for 10

7:30

in wrestling for about 11. Yeah,

7:33

11. Okay. Wow. So how did you

7:35

initially get your start into wrestling? Loved

7:37

wrestling pretty much since the day I

7:39

was born. I used to get separation

7:42

anxiety from my parents when they would drop me

7:44

off at the babysitter. And we lived

7:46

in this trailer parking out in town and they would

7:48

just walk me across to the other trailer in this

7:50

wonderful older woman named Pat and

7:52

her husband Bob. And Bob always had

7:54

this stone face look on him. And

7:57

if you didn't know any better, you thought he was the

7:59

meanest, roughest, toughest guy you'd ever meet. But

8:01

he was the sweetest guy in the world. And I remember

8:04

this from being two and three years old. And the way

8:06

they'd settle me down was was putting on wrestling because I'd

8:08

get real upset when my mom dropped me off and walked

8:10

out the door. From

8:12

there, you know, we just started going to all

8:14

kinds of events over the years. My mom would

8:17

take me she loved ravishing Rick Rude, which

8:20

that my dad kind

8:22

of looks like Rick Rude. So that explains something.

8:24

But yeah, we just we had a lot of

8:26

fun together. My mom always supported it. My sister

8:29

used to paint me like demolition

8:31

and the road warriors growing up. And

8:33

then I went to school for

8:35

broadcasting and meeting communications. And

8:38

I just looked for opportunities

8:41

to do public access

8:43

TV. And so I did a

8:45

Phillies show. We did it was a web show in 2011.

8:47

It got picked up in 2012. We did public access for

8:50

a year got picked up by Comcast

8:55

Sportsnet in Philadelphia. I started

8:57

interviewing famous Phillies. It

8:59

was surreal. You know, I would talk to

9:01

Roy Holiday, I would talk to Jim Bunning,

9:04

I would talk to you, you know, just

9:06

these Hall of Fame pitchers and players and future Hall

9:08

of Famers. And then one day I

9:11

said, Well, what if I just interviewed famous

9:13

Phillies fans? And the first one was Mark

9:15

Summers. And it was super exciting. It was

9:17

super cool. Oh, my God. Yeah, he's a

9:19

huge Phillies fan, right? Because they taped double

9:21

dare in Philadelphia when it first started. So

9:23

he's just I didn't know that. No,

9:26

I would have assumed just like Orlando like everything else.

9:28

And from that time period. Yeah.

9:31

So when they first started, I think

9:33

it was 1986. The first place they

9:35

taped it was the PBS studios in

9:37

Philadelphia. And that was the syndicated version

9:40

before it was on Nickelodeon. And then it got on

9:42

Nick and then it became more popular on Nick. And

9:45

then in 1990, when the studios were built,

9:47

they moved it down there. But he's he's

9:50

maintained residence in Philly ever since. And that

9:53

was super cool, because he was one of my idols. I like

9:55

I have pictures of me and double dare shirts from when I

9:57

was a kid. Could you ever see yourself hoping? I was posting

9:59

double dare because I could. Oh, I could totally see that. Oh

10:01

God, I love it. I would, oh,

10:03

that would be, wrestling's my dream

10:05

job, but double dare would be so much fun, especially

10:08

now that I have kids and I coach sports and

10:11

just love being around kids

10:13

more than I knew. Because I was the baby of

10:15

the family, like the baby baby. So I was never

10:17

around kids until I became a dad. But

10:20

yeah, so that leads to that. I'm interviewing

10:22

famous Phillies fans, they interviewed the Blue Meanie

10:24

at the Monster Factory. And I kind

10:27

of pull him aside and Danny Cage, who runs the

10:29

Monster Factory, what if my

10:31

friend wanted to get involved in wrestling? And

10:33

they gave me very- My friend. Yeah.

10:37

They gave me super detailed instructions and

10:39

I followed them to a team. You

10:44

literally did the asking for a friend, this is

10:46

great. Yeah. Asking for a friend who is me.

10:48

Right, and Danny to this

10:50

day was like, I knew what you were doing.

10:53

Like I didn't. But it was cool because at

10:55

that point, YouTube

10:59

was starting to be a viable option for

11:01

independent wrestling and they wanted to

11:03

add commentary and the technology was becoming

11:05

more affordable and better quality. And

11:08

so I just got reps that way. Fast

11:10

forward to July 22nd, I'm

11:13

down in Laurel, Delaware with Mark and Jay

11:15

Briscoe, Future of Honor 2. And

11:17

that was when I started with Ring of Honor.

11:19

I'd gotten to know the executive producer at the

11:21

time, Delirious, and I'd started to come around the

11:24

ROH Dojo. And just

11:26

again, like folks are willing to

11:28

give you really good advice if you come in

11:31

with an open mind. And I was

11:33

very fortunate along the way to get

11:35

a whole bunch of really good advice really

11:37

quickly. But yeah, it was just a

11:39

series of just saying yes. I met Colin

11:41

Jost years ago, as weird as that sounds. He did

11:44

a standup gig. I was the house band that opened

11:46

for him. I played bass and

11:48

I just said, hey, I'm looking, I

11:51

do this baseball show. I'm looking to

11:53

do more stuff. You write for SNL, what should

11:55

I do? And he just said, say yes to

11:57

everything and figure it out later. Oh, I- I

12:00

want to know more about this house band. Yeah. Yeah.

12:03

So we were called the Green

12:05

Mountain Rebels because we are not

12:07

from Vermont and we are not rebels. But we saw

12:09

we were

12:11

coming home from a gig and

12:14

we had a really bad name. We were called Cutting

12:16

Edge. And nothing about us was Cutting Edge. And

12:18

we were coming home from a gig out in

12:21

Kutztown. And we saw this flag in front of

12:23

a Green Mountain Coffee sign. And we thought it'd

12:25

be really funny to call ourselves the Green Mountain

12:27

Rebels. We didn't use the flag or the imagery

12:29

or anything to test it. But there

12:32

was just this funny name because it

12:34

was for suburban kids. And we played

12:36

Springsteen songs and ACDC stuff and had

12:38

our own originals. And my

12:41

buddy Chris comes to AWF, he

12:43

was down in Philly. So we

12:45

still stayed in touch. He ended up working for Conan

12:47

and SNL himself. And that's actually

12:49

how I met Colin Jost. But that's like,

12:51

yeah, I played bass. I sang. It was

12:54

a good time. Oh. This

12:56

podcast is going in all kinds of different directions. I'm

12:59

here for it. This is friggin awesome. Oh my god.

13:02

So you show up at Future of Honor 2, you

13:04

started with ROH. How

13:06

does it work? Do you sort of just have a tryout or

13:09

did they know that you have this background in broadcasting? What

13:12

gets you from saying yes

13:14

to every opportunity to getting in the sea with

13:16

a headset on? Yeah. I would

13:18

just drive and show up places to the point I

13:20

was annoying. Sounds like indie wrestling. That is the best

13:22

way to get it. That sounds like pro wrestling. Yeah.

13:25

And to the point where I drove

13:28

to a tryout camp, which was nearby in Bristol,

13:31

Pennsylvania. And I was

13:33

kind of a ringer because they knew

13:35

I had a background in broadcasting. And

13:37

again, they introduced me to Delirious. And

13:40

I got in front of him. And

13:42

I was able to call some things and do some stand-up

13:44

interviews. Punishment Martinez was there, former

13:46

Ring of Honor World Television Champion. Dalton

13:49

Castle was there. And he was trying out

13:51

as well. There was a number

13:53

of wrestlers that went on to be somebody

13:55

at that particular camp. And I

13:58

was able to sit down. didn't realize

14:00

what an opportunity I had because they pulled me

14:02

in a room with with Delirious at the time,

14:04

really controlled the look, the feel, everything of

14:06

the show. And I essentially

14:09

got to kind of privately audition, I just started calling

14:11

things and doing interviews and Adam Cole. I remember I

14:13

did a stand up with Adam Cole, who was there

14:15

just to kind of help with the camp and with

14:17

Jay Briscoe. And it seemed to

14:20

fit. And at the time, I was going to be the

14:23

backstage interviewer and the

14:25

backup play by play person. And I was going to

14:27

start with Future of Honor, they were going to do

14:29

kind of they wanted to do

14:32

what AEW Dark became, just

14:34

never got the resources. So we

14:36

would have Future of Honor matches won on

14:38

every card, but we could never kind of

14:40

replicate the first two full cards. So

14:43

I would drive and show up where I could. I

14:46

remember driving overnight to Kalamazoo to

14:48

Dayton, Ohio, to Nashville, Tennessee. And

14:50

then the first time I got

14:52

let loose on a regular Ring of

14:54

Honor show was about a year later

14:56

in Dayton, Ohio. And there

14:58

was a storyline where my friend

15:00

Steve Carino, he got banned, he got suspended

15:03

for doing something to another wrestler as a

15:05

commentator, and he can't do that. And

15:07

so they didn't think it through

15:09

that he got banned the night before, and that

15:12

they didn't have anybody else. And

15:14

I just happened to drive the nine

15:16

hours to get to Dayton, Ohio, from

15:18

southeastern Pennsylvania. So they threw me on

15:20

the headset. And I got to call

15:22

my first card there. And from there,

15:25

it just became addictive. It just was, hey,

15:28

all right, great. There's a card in San Antonio.

15:30

They told me if I show up, I get

15:32

paid X amount of dollars. So I'm gonna use

15:34

frequent flyer miles. And I'm gonna get to San

15:36

Antonio. There was a card in Florida. Well,

15:39

great, my brother's down in Florida, I'm gonna drive and go

15:41

see him with my wife. And I'm

15:43

gonna happen to just pop into the Ring of Honor event

15:45

while I'm there. And it was stuff

15:47

like that until they couldn't kind of

15:49

shake me loose. The team that we

15:52

had, which included Nigel McGinnis, both departed

15:54

at the end of 2016. And

15:57

that's when I had an opportunity to stay

15:59

step in and I had a

16:01

number of partners at first. I really did. I

16:04

had everybody from Mark Briscoe to Silas Young who's

16:06

been on Cross Air as a ring of

16:08

honor and then Colt Cabana was the best

16:10

fit out of the gate and then

16:12

when Colt decided he wanted to wrestle again

16:14

I was blessed to have Caprice

16:16

Coleman fall into my life. So yeah he and I've been

16:20

together for five years now which is

16:22

just insane. And

16:24

you guys continue to be such a

16:26

money duo and I want

16:28

to talk a little bit about some of the experience

16:30

you had with other commentators particularly

16:33

with Colt Cabana. We're going to

16:35

talk about all of that when

16:37

AEW Unrestricted continues. Angie

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terms at mintmobile.com. AEW

17:46

unrestricted. It's Aubrey and Will

17:48

with our special guest Ian

17:50

Riccobani. Ian, we're talking earlier

17:52

in the show about some of the partners you've

17:55

had, of course, the last five years you've been

17:57

with Reese Coleman. In 2017, though, you talked

18:00

about being paired with Colt Cabana, who

18:02

hadn't made his return to wrestling yet.

18:05

And it's kind of been a mainstay of

18:07

Ring of Honor. So having him on commentary really

18:09

made a whole lot of sense. And I think

18:12

because he was such a name, people

18:14

associated with Ring of Honor, he really

18:16

brought a lot of the history of

18:18

the company to the commentary table. Did

18:20

you really feel like you got that

18:22

experience with him being with Colt during

18:24

that period? Yeah. The

18:27

best thing about Colt was he

18:30

was a lot like my actual older brother

18:32

Bill, where he wasn't afraid to call me out on

18:34

my stuff. And if I

18:36

threw a joke and it didn't land, he

18:38

would tell me if I was trying to be too funny and

18:40

wasn't serious enough, he would tell me if I was being too

18:42

serious or not, lighthearted, he would tell

18:45

me. And he just has a real great

18:47

feel for wrestling, which is very apparent when

18:49

he wrestles or does anything involved in wrestling.

18:51

He is such a great person to

18:54

break in with because he's not afraid

18:56

to deliver that type of feedback in

18:58

a very straightforward way that makes sense,

19:00

but also doesn't make you feel horrible.

19:03

And so I really enjoyed working with him.

19:05

He's become a great friend. He

19:07

was at my house a couple of days before

19:09

my daughter was born. He flew in to record

19:11

episodes of Ring of Honor in 2019 because

19:15

they told me, hey, your

19:17

wife is gonna have your daughter

19:19

any day now. We don't want you to

19:21

miss it. Like stay home. We're gonna film these. We'll

19:23

cut them up. Colt will come to your house.

19:26

And there was like a 50% chance

19:29

Colt would have had to deliver our daughter Nora. And

19:32

he was so good at everything else, I would have trusted

19:34

him to do so. So he

19:37

brought just energy, enthusiasm,

19:40

gravitas. His first match in Ring of

19:42

Honor was Final Battle 2002. So

19:44

at that point, 15 years in to the

19:46

company and he knows

19:49

all the styles and he's

19:51

a great analyst because he

19:53

can point out when someone

19:55

has borrowed something from a style or a

19:57

technique, stuff that viewers,

20:00

They might see a cool move, but they don't know where

20:02

it comes from or how it's executed. And Colt really

20:04

was great at pointing that out. I love that you're giving

20:06

Colt Gabbana all of his flowers because as you're saying

20:08

all of that, I'm just like, oh my God, I agree

20:10

with all of this. He's just so good at

20:12

making whoever he is working with better.

20:15

I've had that experience with him as well,

20:17

just being a referee and he's an agent

20:19

on a match in particular.

20:22

And just hearing how he delivers things

20:24

and his just understanding of wrestling is

20:26

insane. And it's so great

20:28

that you had the opportunity to sort of

20:31

like come up with someone like that, sort

20:33

of guiding you in that direction. I'm

20:35

curious because anytime we talk to

20:38

commentators, you guys have just this like

20:40

crazy vantage point of what it is we do.

20:43

You see it up close, you see it personal,

20:45

but at the same time you're

20:47

enjoying the product, but you're also trying

20:49

to get everyone else who's watching it

20:51

to keep up with it and understand

20:53

it and introduce all the storylines.

20:56

How do you approach

20:59

commentary on a show? What sort of preparation do

21:01

you have? What sort of research do you do?

21:04

How do you bring the Ian Riccobani spin

21:07

onto the commentary role? Yeah, that's a great

21:09

question. I kind of view it from a

21:11

really selfish point. What's in it for me?

21:13

And what I mean by that is if

21:15

I was watching, what would I want to

21:17

know? When I watch

21:19

a broadcaster or watch the Phillies

21:21

or watch the Iron Pigs or watch whoever, I think,

21:24

well, geez, where did this guy

21:27

come from? Or wow, this is

21:29

a massive hitting streak. What's the record? Or

21:32

how is this player pitched

21:34

against this hitter? So I

21:36

look for matchup details. I look

21:38

for historic details, time of year

21:40

details, event-specific details. And I

21:42

have those in my back pocket. And one

21:45

of the things that Colt was really great

21:47

at when working with Colt was

21:49

when I first started, I would just kind of

21:51

vomit them out. Like, oh, he's five and one

21:53

against this person. And this, this, and this. And

21:55

this, this, and this. Meanwhile, the match is halfway

21:57

through. Something interesting's happened. And I've railroaded right now.

22:00

through it. Colt was really great at

22:02

kind of helping me understand the

22:04

ebbs and flows and emotion. I

22:06

try to approach it almost musically.

22:08

I've played bass for a long time. I

22:10

played viola and oboe growing up. So

22:12

I'm not quite classically trained, but I have

22:15

many, many years and thousands of dollars of

22:17

lessons that my parents probably wonder what they

22:19

were for in those instruments.

22:21

They were for this. They were for this. They

22:23

were. But it helps you understand why

22:26

people get connected. And

22:28

if you can hit the crescendos, the

22:31

decrescendos, if you can hit the

22:34

accents in the music, naturally

22:36

with care and authenticity, that's

22:39

going to give something to the viewer that

22:41

adds on to what's happening in the ring.

22:43

And sometimes, sometimes it's the

22:45

excitement, it's the rapid fire. Other

22:48

times it's saying nothing at all. I remember matches

22:50

where the best thing I could do was

22:52

just drop out, let the crowd hear

22:54

the ref hit three and let

22:57

the crowd hear, let the folks at

22:59

home hear the crowd explode. So it's

23:01

one of those things that you kind of have

23:03

to orchestrate and have a feel for what's going

23:05

on. But yeah, the

23:08

oboe lessons I took and the viola lessons

23:10

really helped me honestly give me an idea

23:12

of kind of the ebbs and

23:14

flows. And I over prepare.

23:16

I'm on cage match. There's

23:19

a guy who runs cage match on

23:21

Twitter. If someone's not on cage match,

23:23

I'm DMing them the night before saying,

23:25

hey, who is this? Why aren't they

23:27

on cage match? I

23:29

try and look up news articles to find interesting

23:31

tidbits. If I'm in person, I try

23:33

and track down the person in the locker room. If

23:35

I'm not, Caprice and I are blowing

23:38

up their DMs. If it's somebody that

23:40

we're calling a tape match of. So

23:42

yeah, we try and over prepare because

23:44

you can always not use something. But

23:46

the worst feeling in the world is

23:48

having an opportunity to say something or

23:50

do something interesting and not having anything

23:52

in your pocket to use. Well, talking

23:54

about Ring of Honor and of

23:56

course, all the wrestling, you can't

23:58

really talk about either without the talking about kind of

24:00

the origins of AEW and where it all kind

24:03

of got started, which was an event called All

24:05

In in 2018. And

24:08

at All In, Sears Center in

24:10

Hoffman Estates, I almost wanted to say Chicago,

24:13

but then Chicagoans get mad at you when

24:15

you do that. They do. They do. But

24:18

at Hoffman Estates, you got to be

24:20

a part of that first event with

24:22

Don Callis and Excalibur, who are, of

24:24

course, two big AEW mainstays

24:26

today. But talk about kind of

24:28

how that commentary team came together, why

24:31

that team was who it was decided

24:33

on, and that night in general. Yeah,

24:35

I'm glad you asked this, Will, because

24:38

over the years, I've kind of

24:40

told this to people offhand and they don't believe me. And

24:43

then I say, ask Tony Schiavone, and

24:45

everybody believes Tony. And he can back this

24:48

up. So when the

24:50

idea first came about, we were in Philadelphia, and

24:52

I was standing with Cody and with Nick and

24:54

Matt, and they came up to me. They said,

24:56

what are you doing? And

24:58

I have these up here. What are you doing September

25:01

1st, 2018? And

25:04

I said, well, if

25:06

we don't have an event, I don't know. And they said,

25:08

keep your Labor Day open. I said,

25:10

why? And they said, well, we're

25:12

doing this thing, and Ring of Honor is going to be

25:14

behind it a little bit too. So don't worry about having

25:17

to ask for permission. We want you

25:19

and Colt and Tony Schiavone to be the broadcast

25:21

team for this big event. We're going to try

25:23

and get people from impact. We're going to try

25:25

and get people from New Japan, from

25:27

CMLL. And I thought,

25:29

wow, that's great. Thanks for thinking of me. And

25:33

as we get maybe a couple weeks down the

25:35

line, people start getting the all-in graphics. And

25:38

I'm wondering if maybe they changed their mind or

25:40

if, you know, the commentators really don't

25:43

need to be on the marquee. Like we

25:46

have Jim Ross, the greatest of

25:48

all time. We have Tony Schiavone, arguably 1A,

25:50

1B of wrestling commentary. And we don't need

25:52

to put them on the, with all due

25:54

respect, folks are watching the

25:56

program for them, but they're not coming to the

25:58

building for them. there's a little bit of a

26:00

difference. So, you know, the only

26:02

graphics start rolling out and I'm saying these

26:04

names and I'm excited cause it's Okada and

26:07

it's the Bucks obviously. And then it's Omega

26:09

who wasn't making many US appearances then. So

26:12

the huge amount of talent I'm getting excited.

26:14

And then a number comes in that I've

26:16

never had my phone before and it was

26:18

Cody and he said, hey, Tony Schiavone is

26:21

out. And I said, oh no. And

26:24

I said, why Georgia football? And I go,

26:26

okay. It

26:28

was a Saturday and he couldn't make it work. And then he said,

26:31

hey, and Colt's out too. And I said, why

26:33

is Colt out? He said, Colt wants

26:35

to wrestle. It's going to be a huge crowd. It's

26:37

going to be near Chicago. Colt wants to

26:39

wrestle. So I said, fine. He

26:41

goes, who would you want to have? And

26:44

I said, well, do

26:46

you know the PWG guy Excalibur? And

26:50

he said, not really. And I said, ask

26:52

Nick and Matt. They know him. I

26:54

think he'd be a great fit. And so

26:57

they ask him, he's in. And so great,

26:59

wonderful. And then it's

27:01

brought up and they say, somebody

27:04

suggests Don Callis. And it might've been Kenny

27:06

or, but I remember Matt Jackson coming up

27:09

to me. He goes, you don't got any heat with Don Callis,

27:11

do you? I go, I've never met him. I've never. That

27:13

you never got a question with like that has

27:15

to be Ken, right? Right.

27:18

And I go, I've never met him. And he go, great.

27:21

Would you mind doing commentary with Don Callis?

27:23

And I said, I'd love to. Because I

27:25

remembered him from ECW. And I remember just

27:27

kind of being, the smarmy

27:30

pompous man that he is, that we all know

27:32

and put up with. I wouldn't say no in

27:35

love, no in tolerate. We love to hate. We

27:37

love to hate. There you go. And we had

27:39

some fun special guests that night too, but that's

27:42

kind of how it came together. And

27:44

it germinated as Cody, I

27:47

think really took after

27:49

Tony Schiavone. He really loved and

27:51

adored him. And as

27:54

we all genuinely do, and

27:56

Tony at that point had started doing some

27:58

MLW at that point, and it was clear.

28:00

that Tony still had his fastball. And

28:02

I think Cody saw this. And

28:04

I think Cody saw this as a great opportunity to

28:06

get him back in front of some major eyeballs. And

28:08

I was I was heartbroken. I have

28:11

a picture with him from the star cast, because

28:13

that was the first time I met him. And he

28:16

was such a sweetheart. And I

28:18

thought, man, I missed my shot, I would have got

28:20

to call some wrestling with Tony. Little did I know

28:22

it would happen dozens of times later.

28:24

But, but yeah, the moment I was like, man,

28:27

what could have been? I mean, honestly, what I

28:29

took away from that story is that you may

28:31

have gotten next caliber his job. And

28:33

yeah, no, no, it was he's talented enough. It would

28:39

have happened regardless. And that's that's

28:41

a fact. And if

28:43

anything, I credit him for getting me

28:45

into AW and getting me a spot.

28:47

I think you guys can kind of

28:50

credit each other like it's almost like

28:53

almost if you guys didn't have each other,

28:55

how would that have gone? Yeah. And I

28:57

feel horrible because Colt can tell you this.

28:59

I was talking to Colt in the locker

29:01

room at all in and the

29:03

I was talking to Cole

29:05

and I said, Wow, I wish I wish you decided

29:07

to do it tonight. And I didn't know what Excalibur

29:09

looked like without his mask. And who's

29:12

sitting right there who I've not yet

29:14

introduced myself to. I have to tell

29:16

you, I had a very similar experience,

29:18

like the first time I had to

29:20

meet him. And it was my

29:22

first day of work at AEW. Oh, boy. And of

29:25

course, you know, his announcer voice is a lot different

29:27

than the guy when you're just talking to him. And

29:29

so, yeah, it was very much like I

29:32

didn't quite know who I was talking to.

29:34

Then he said something. And it

29:36

was the way he said it.

29:38

I went up this Excalibur. Okay,

29:41

got it. Makes sense. But

29:43

I had the same experience my first day at

29:45

work. So like, I fully understand that if you

29:48

don't know what he looks like, they

29:50

can completely throw you off. So

29:52

yeah, yeah. And we became

29:54

Pokemon Go friends that night. We became

29:56

Pokemon Go best friends within the shortest

29:59

period possible. Does this all make sense?

30:01

Yeah, we kept in touch. We kept

30:03

in touch as AEW was

30:05

beginning to form. There

30:07

was some discussion. He

30:09

was on board first. There

30:12

was a brief discussion. Hey, Ian, when's your deal

30:14

up? When's this? And

30:16

there are opportunities over the years that I've

30:19

kind of stuck a little to Ring of Honor

30:21

for a few reasons, but I have very young

30:23

kids, five and seven. And it

30:25

really means a lot. My dad worked a lot, a

30:27

lot, like 80 hours a week, a lot

30:30

when I was a kid. And he came to every

30:32

sporting event he could. He came to every baseball game

30:34

he could, but he was just tired

30:36

and exhausted. And even when we go on

30:38

vacation, now we would go on these great trips

30:40

to Disney World or the Jersey Shore, and

30:43

he would just be exhausted and just trying

30:45

to recover from the work and

30:47

everything. And so, you know, over

30:49

the years, I've just tried to keep that in

30:51

mind, especially once we've had kids. You know, and

30:53

there's part of me when AEW launched, I was

30:56

kind of like, wow, like that could

30:58

have been Excalibur and I and JR, or that

31:00

could have been whomever. And I

31:02

carried that with me. That was kind of unresolved

31:05

for a while. And as All In was

31:08

such a big success, and then

31:10

it kind of leads into the formation

31:12

of AEW, it took

31:14

some time to figure that out. I was, I

31:17

would say the word jealous or confused or, but

31:19

the first double or nothing, I went

31:22

outside and put together lawn furniture. And if

31:24

you know anything about me, that

31:27

was the least likely thing that I

31:29

was going to do. But it was

31:31

such an event where I knew everything had changed.

31:33

And I should have picked up on the signals

31:36

at All In when there was AAA and CMLL guys

31:38

wrestling each other. And when there was Impact and Ring

31:41

of Honor guys wrestling each other at the time. But

31:43

it was kind of a moment of, OK,

31:46

everything's different. Did I make the right

31:48

decision? And the answer to me was

31:50

yes, I'm here for my daughter. My

31:52

daughter was just born in February. Yes,

31:54

I'm here. Like right now, right

31:56

place, right time. Like this

31:58

for now is good. and I'm still living

32:01

my dream as a wrestling announcer. But

32:03

there was some kind of like weird kind

32:05

of heartbreak as Ring of Honor stock had

32:07

gone down. And the pandemic, we had higher

32:09

TV ratings than we ever had syndicated-wise. It

32:11

was crazy. No one, we could have

32:14

no one in the arena, but more people than

32:16

ever were watching us on the local affiliates. So

32:19

it was just a strange two years. It

32:22

was strange, but at the same time, like

32:25

it's so great the way that it worked out,

32:27

right? That you're here,

32:29

your voice is still synonymous with Ring

32:31

of Honor. We get the opportunity to

32:33

see you from time to time on

32:36

AEW broadcasts. And I'm just

32:38

so thrilled that sort of your attitude

32:40

of always say yes to everything, but

32:42

also staying true to what you care

32:44

about, like being a father that is

32:46

there with his kids, which is extremely

32:48

hard in this business. So you literally

32:50

can have your cake and eat it

32:52

too. The Ian Riccobani story, that's the title

32:55

of your future book. I'm

32:57

so lucky. I haven't talked much

33:00

to Tony, but he left

33:02

us tickets. He left anybody that was

33:04

interested could have gone to the Fulham

33:06

game in Philadelphia when they had a

33:08

friendly. And I remember talking to

33:11

him about that. And I was just so thankful. My

33:13

son, my daughter, my wife, we all came to

33:15

the soccer game. And

33:18

I just, I've got to express my gratitude. Like, hey, a

33:20

lot of other people would have just told me to take

33:22

a hike and kind of

33:24

hit the road and you didn't. And I

33:27

appreciate that. And I still get

33:29

to be associated with this thing I love. I mean,

33:31

I got ROH stuff all over my room here. I

33:33

got all the new action figures. I just got the

33:36

vault Danhausen, like I'm, and

33:38

I got the blood and guts

33:41

Yuta, like I'm in. Like this is

33:43

like, it's something that's kind of in my DNA. And

33:46

I would have been heartbroken if that had to

33:48

end. Life would have gone on and I was

33:50

ready like at that final battle 2021 where

33:53

it looked like that was it. Although I

33:55

did find it suspicious, every AEW wrestler that

33:57

had ties to ROH was allowed to send

33:59

in a video. And it was very meticulously

34:01

produced. I'll just say that. Not that my tin

34:03

hats, not not that my tin hats on, but

34:06

they were very well produced and

34:08

they were they were the top stars. So

34:10

I don't I'm just just throwing that

34:12

out there. Well, we've got a lot more

34:15

to talk about here on AWN Restricted. We're

34:17

here with Ian Riccobani and we're talking his

34:19

run in an ROH and

34:22

his commentary career. We talked all in

34:24

and we're going to be talking much

34:26

more when all elite wrestling unrestricted continues.

34:29

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to your happy price, Priceline. it's

35:30

Aubrey, it's Will and it's

35:32

Ian Riccobani. And

35:39

I want to start off with the

35:41

story that requires a bit of an

35:43

apology to one Ian Riccobani. Oh, boy.

35:45

So I had

35:48

a segment I produced not that long ago.

35:50

It was probably about two months ago on Dynamite.

35:54

And it was the celebration of

35:56

Will Nightingale. And I

35:59

was putting this... It was a TBS title celebration. It

36:01

was on April 24th, the April 24th edition of Dynamite.

36:05

And the segment was gonna be crashed by Mercedes Monet. And

36:08

it was a fun segment to put together. And so a

36:10

couple of nights before, I'm, like, working on all the details,

36:13

working with Stokely on his, what he's gonna

36:15

say, and coming up with exactly what Willow's

36:18

going to say and all of that, and

36:20

how this segment's going to go. And then it hit

36:22

me. And I go,

36:25

oh, how can we do

36:27

Willow's entrance without the rap? Like, we

36:29

have to have the rap. Like, that's

36:31

the only way this works. But

36:34

I recognize I only have so much of a

36:36

budget for this segment, and that if I ask

36:38

to fly both Ian and Caprice into Dynamite, they'll

36:40

probably, like, ring my neck for that. And so

36:42

I was like, okay, if I have to pick

36:45

between the two, I'm gonna have to get Caprice

36:47

for this. And so I pulled Caprice

36:49

in, and, like,

36:52

I wanted both. And I wanted both, but

36:54

I knew that the only way this was going to work is

36:58

if I got Caprice here. Because, like, nothing

37:00

pops me more than you guys over her

37:02

entrance music. Like, every single

37:04

time it gets me, like, and that might

37:06

be the only person. I might have done

37:08

that. I might have put that

37:10

on the show solely to pop me and nobody

37:13

else. But I knew that... That's wrestling in a

37:15

nutshell. Like, I remember there were certain people, like,

37:17

who weren't aware, and they're like, wait, why is

37:19

Caprice suddenly on commentary? Why is he even in

37:22

the building? And I'm like, just

37:25

trust me on this one. This is gonna

37:27

be great. And literally, I think

37:29

I asked him, like, two days beforehand, maybe

37:31

even the day before. It was

37:34

very, very short notice, but it was literally just one

37:36

of those things. But I wanted to apologize, because if

37:38

I had all of my resources for that, I would

37:40

have put you in that segment. And

37:42

I just couldn't in that moment. You know what? Number

37:45

one, he's better. He's an

37:47

actual better rapper. You

37:49

should hear him preach. He's

37:52

just got to flow. Like, it's that. Number

37:55

two, I'm a guest in the culture. I,

37:57

you know, I'm a guest. I

37:59

recognize... that it's, and I can't do

38:02

it without Caprice. Like he, he

38:04

is my courage. He is my like, and

38:07

I, I have, uh, five

38:09

black nephews. Um, my sister-in-law is black,

38:11

my brother-in-law is black and I love

38:13

it. And I love everything about it. And I get

38:16

the best of all, again, back

38:18

to that, to that point, I get the best of all worlds, I get

38:20

to have my cake eat it too. But I

38:22

recognize that I'm a guest and I'm not the one that

38:24

should be wrapped. I feel like that's my guy. But

38:28

I knew like the wrap would have been complete if

38:30

it had had both of you on it, but I

38:32

knew that, oh, I only get one. All right. I've

38:34

got to get Caprice to Dynamite. I got to get

38:37

him to Jacksonville. And I am

38:39

so glad we made it happen by the way,

38:41

because, uh, again, it might've

38:43

just been to pop me, but there

38:46

is nothing I enjoyed more than you

38:48

guys on her entrance and

38:50

like when she gets to make appearances and ring up on

38:52

her, I like, I know what's happening here. This is going

38:55

to be great. And, uh,

38:57

there's nothing better to me. So I knew like,

38:59

okay, we're doing a celebration of Willow Nightingale. It

39:02

has to have the wrap on it. But I

39:04

brought this story up to segue into the fact

39:07

that you and Caprice are such a

39:09

great duo. You guys are such a great tandem,

39:11

such a great combo. You know,

39:13

you've talked about the broadcast partners you've had over

39:15

the years, but over the last five years, you

39:17

two are so much fun to

39:19

listen to. Talk to me about Caprice as

39:21

a broadcast partner. Oh, thank you. I

39:24

can't talk to you about him being a

39:26

partner without talking about the man he is

39:28

and we are both so aligned.

39:31

We couldn't be more different yet. We're

39:33

so much the same. He gets up in

39:35

the morning and he calls his wife

39:37

because he wants to, not cause he

39:39

asked to, he FaceTimes his kids because he

39:42

wants, he wants to see what's going

39:44

on, not because he feels like he

39:46

has to, he is connected with his community.

39:48

He volunteers and he's a preacher. You

39:51

know, every other day I'm asking, asking him

39:53

about something and he's doing something, he's installing

39:55

a handrail somewhere for someone that needs it.

39:57

He's helping build something. He's helping raise money.

39:59

money for this. Caprice is the man

40:02

that I think everybody should want to

40:04

be. And he's doing that on top

40:06

of, he's helping out the wrestling school.

40:09

He's training some, some of

40:11

the young and up and coming stars.

40:13

He's a commentator, world-class commentator. So he's

40:15

burning the candle at all ends, but

40:17

he's still making it happen for his

40:20

family, for the folks at Charlotte, at

40:22

many churches. He will take

40:24

calls from folks he doesn't know

40:26

just to reassure them about, about life.

40:29

I mean, that's, that's how connected he

40:31

is. I've seen him before Ring of

40:33

Honor pay-per-views say, Excuse me, and I

40:35

got to call this. I got to, I got to take this

40:37

call. You know, someone from my parish asked

40:39

if they could have somebody call me. They, they're in

40:41

a rough spot right now. And he will drop everything

40:43

and take that call and make

40:45

sure that they're OK, even though in

40:48

an hour, in 45 minutes,

40:50

he has to walk through the curtain and be

40:52

electric and be animated and be, be the Caprice

40:54

that we all know. And he's

40:57

that kind of guy. And when

40:59

they say shirt off your back, I

41:01

mean, he's like shirt, shoes, pants, let

41:04

you drive the car, like, and

41:06

he will give everything and expect nothing in return.

41:09

And I want to be

41:11

Caprice Coleman when I grow up. And he's worried. We're

41:13

not that much different in age, but like, that's, that's

41:16

how I view Caprice. And coming

41:18

in from that perspective, and that's kind of what

41:21

you see is what you get that preacher, the

41:23

label of preacher is not a facade. It's not

41:26

a kind of gimmick. That's

41:28

he lives in and breathes

41:30

that kind of attitude, that

41:32

positivity, that hope. And that

41:35

is so fun and

41:37

freeing to be next because

41:40

it makes, in wrestling,

41:43

it makes when the good guys are on

41:45

a roll so much better, and when the bad

41:47

guys are on a roll to so much

41:49

easier to go hellfire and brimstone. So there's

41:52

elements of that, that I feed

41:54

into and really enjoy broadcasting with

41:56

from a performance element, because

42:00

what you see is what you get. He's the

42:02

same guy on camera as he is off camera.

42:05

And there are certain things that he, like

42:08

the Dalton castle's entrance. I

42:11

always make, you know, adult and unfurls his jumpsuit

42:13

and he takes it off. I,

42:15

you know, I go crazy. I hoot and holler. And

42:17

then he kind of plays back. And there's stuff like

42:19

that where, yeah, that's a little bit, that's a little

42:22

bit real. Like we're, we're going back and forth. But,

42:25

you know, but there's other times too, where

42:27

I'm legitimately in the dark when Jack Jameson

42:29

starts saying stuff about low T and this

42:31

guy, I'm thinking he's talking about some, some

42:33

artists I've never heard of, but

42:35

he's insulting the fans in Las Vegas. Low

42:38

T would be the, the probably

42:40

the funniest rap gimmick of all

42:42

time. So

42:48

Caprice is like, nah, you know, you would know it

42:50

if you got it, Ian. And then like, I'm like,

42:52

oh, okay. But we get along so well. We have

42:54

kind of the same frame of reference. You

42:57

know, my brother was eight years older than I

42:59

am. I grew up on MTV raps. I was,

43:01

you know, I was three, four years old. I

43:03

was watching kid and play. I was watching Vanilla

43:05

Ice and Hammer, but then quickly public enemy. Like

43:09

I was seeing it all unfold. And so

43:11

we have a lot of the same kind

43:13

of influences of what we saw growing up,

43:16

which I think were eight years apart, me and

43:18

Caprice are maybe nine years apart. So that's

43:21

kind of interesting too. Cause he'll say something.

43:24

He referenced PM Dawn the other day on Ring

43:26

of Honor. And I, as I hit him with

43:28

Set Adrift on Memory Bliss. And

43:30

he was like, you weren't, were you alive yet? I

43:32

was like, yeah, I was four. So

43:36

yeah, it's just, we're friends first.

43:38

And that makes it so much

43:40

easier to just

43:42

go out and, and have fun

43:44

and do a wrestling show. The

43:46

thing I like about him too is I've had

43:49

partners in the past and not cold, but other

43:51

folks that, Hey, what do you want me to

43:53

say? And then it stops there. Or

43:56

what's this match going to be? All

43:58

right. Or what's the finish? Sure. What's

44:00

this? Nigel's not like

44:02

that. Nigel's a super hardcore preparer,

44:04

you know, Nigel, Nigel, if

44:06

he doesn't know it, he looks it up. If

44:09

he's thinking about quips to say he'll write them

44:11

down. And he's very much of that same. I

44:14

can write 15 things down. And if I

44:16

use one, because I'm searching for something great.

44:18

And if the other 14, I

44:20

don't use, then I can see if I can fit

44:22

them in again somewhere else. Caprice has

44:24

very much hated these folks wrestle before. Let's

44:27

walk through that match, what they do. What's

44:29

the way. What led up to this? Can we

44:32

call back something else? Was, Oh, this was like

44:34

a different match that happened three years ago. Is

44:36

that too old? Is that too new? Is that

44:38

relevant? And he's willing to have

44:40

those conversations about, about every

44:42

match. And I've commentated with some

44:44

people that are just like, Yeah, you know what,

44:46

it's a match. It's the 10th time they're wrestling

44:48

each other. I, whatever. Like they're, they're

44:51

five and four or whatever.

44:54

And then with Caprice, it's like, well,

44:56

how did, you know, he'll think back, well, how did he

44:58

win that match? Or how did she win that match? All

45:01

right. So, you know, when they go for the figure four,

45:03

get really hyped, because that's how they won last time. And

45:05

we'll, we'll talk through that. So we're on the same wavelength

45:07

of, all right, look for the

45:09

callbacks, look for the, the references, the

45:11

energy. Remember how we got here. Remember

45:14

what led up to it. And we have such great

45:16

video editors at AEW and Ring of Honor that usually

45:19

there's a package that'll lead up to it. But for

45:21

some of the matches with more local talent on Ring

45:23

of Honor, that can be tougher. So Caprice

45:25

and I really dig into those. God, that's

45:27

so great. I just, I just love when

45:29

you found like someone who is such a

45:31

great teammate that like elevates you with the

45:33

same way that you elevate them. But

45:36

it's also great hearing sort of how

45:39

you talk about Cole because it's like, Oh, there's a

45:41

common denominator here. All right. I'm just gonna, I'm just

45:43

gonna put it out here. I

45:46

think I might know what it is. Regardless,

45:49

regardless. So you, you've been a

45:51

part of a lot of major moments in wrestling where

45:53

we talk about all in 2018. You

45:56

are also part of the broadcast crew

45:58

for the G1 Supercar at Madison. square

46:01

garden in 2019. It was the first

46:03

non WWE wrestling event there since 1960.

46:05

So that's crazy. One,

46:09

what was that like? And two, are there

46:11

any other like major moments in your mind

46:13

that really stick out as like, this was

46:16

fricking awesome. Yeah. Yeah. That was wild. I

46:18

over the years, I've become very good friends

46:20

with Carrie Silken who bought ring of

46:22

honor in 2003, sold

46:24

it in 2011. Carrie never

46:26

made a dime on ring of honor. And

46:29

he ran it strictly on passion and love.

46:31

And he ran a great ticket resale business

46:33

over the years called rave review tickets. He

46:35

was great at predicting winners on Broadway. And

46:37

that's how he made his fortune. That's how

46:39

he would take that money and reinvest it.

46:41

And he reinvested it into

46:43

Samoa Joe and to Bryan Danielson and

46:45

all the wrestlers that we love from

46:48

from that Nigel and into that classic

46:50

era. And so heading into Madison

46:53

square garden, I'd gotten to know Carrie quite well

46:55

over the last couple of years before that. And

46:57

he would tell me stories about going to see

47:00

Bruno San Martino at the old garden. And

47:03

then he would tell me about, well, Pedro

47:05

won the Pedro Morales won the title, and

47:07

then he'd see Pedro at the new garden.

47:09

And then it was superstar Billy

47:11

Graham and Bruno again. And then he, you

47:15

know, spinning the gate at the first WrestleMania. And so

47:17

where that's when you pay for one ticket, but you

47:19

kind of tail the person behind you and you get

47:21

two in for the price of one. And I said,

47:23

Well, where'd you sit? He goes, we just sat in

47:26

the aisle. And he said, Nobody kicked you out. He

47:28

said, There were so many people that spun the gate

47:30

that day. They couldn't keep people out of the aisles.

47:32

And if you go back and watch that, you can

47:34

actually see the stairwells are just full of people. The

47:37

aisleways are just full of people. It's crazy. There

47:39

was way more people than there should have been.

47:43

But for me, it was special because

47:45

I got to see Carrie kind of

47:48

see this thing that he

47:50

loved and cared about for eight years and

47:52

just put his time, money, energy into never

47:55

really asking for anything back and

47:58

him getting to. see

48:00

it be a part of Madison Square Garden, this

48:02

place he went to as a

48:04

teenager, as a kid, where he saw Jeff

48:07

Rotol, where he saw Springsteen, where he saw

48:09

every, all these major musical artists. So to

48:11

see it through his eyes was amazing. But it

48:14

was also a place where when I went to

48:16

college at NYU, I could

48:18

never afford to go there. So it

48:20

was, it was one of these things where I went

48:23

to one Knicks game because I got tickets through the

48:25

college for $10, but that

48:27

was it. And I just remember walking in

48:29

that day, I was in the service elevator

48:31

with Shane Taylor, and he

48:34

and I were just talking. I said, this is pretty big,

48:36

huh? He goes, yeah, let's go look at the ceiling, which

48:38

is not your first instinct in

48:40

most buildings, but the garden has-

48:42

The garden is the place to

48:44

do it, though. Yes. Yeah. It has

48:47

that historic kind of circular ceiling, and

48:49

it's got that dome-like structure. And

48:51

I just remember staring at the

48:53

picture of Jimi Hendrix in the back playing the

48:56

garden. I remember just staring

48:58

at the Springs. I'm a huge Springsteen

49:00

fan. I got my Dennis Wilson

49:02

shirt. The Beach Boys have played there before. So

49:05

many folks that are so important to

49:07

me and memories that I've had with

49:09

Carrie, memories I've had with my parents,

49:11

my dad playing Hendrix in the car

49:13

when I was a kid and getting into

49:16

Springsteen when I was a teenager and skipping

49:18

school and going to the Stone Pony. That

49:20

kind of stuff, that made

49:22

it super special because you realize

49:25

everything that you've worked

49:27

for, those eight hour drives to

49:30

Dayton, those overnights from Kalamazoo, spending

49:32

frequent flyer miles from a job

49:35

that you have to get to San Antonio to get

49:37

a hundred bucks, all of those

49:40

things suddenly have become worth it because

49:42

you're calling Jay White versus Okada for

49:45

the IWGP title in the

49:47

world's most famous arena. That was super

49:49

awesome. Yeah. And

49:51

on top of that, folks look at

49:53

2019 as kind of a year in

49:55

transition for Ring of Honor. It's obviously

49:58

when IEW started. I

50:00

had some of my favorite road trips in 2019.

50:03

I got lost in the Smoky Mountains

50:05

with Okamura from CMLL, and I didn't

50:07

speak much Spanish. And Mark

50:09

Haskins was in the car as well, and

50:11

Joe Hendry, and they spoke varying degrees of

50:14

different types of English, and as did I.

50:17

And Caprice was in the car as well. So we were

50:19

all trying to communicate, and we all, we

50:21

all had different accents. And my

50:23

Spanish was broken. And I remember

50:26

Mark speaking a little Spanish, and it wasn't

50:29

quite what Okamura spoke, and he just wanted to

50:31

see the mountains because he's never seen the Smoky

50:33

Mountains before. We were driving from I think Atlanta

50:35

to Nashville. And I remember a couple of trips

50:38

with the Briscoes when it was

50:40

them, Colt, and I believe Jay Lethal, and

50:42

we were driving. And, you

50:44

know, Jay wanted to see the Chattahoochee River, and we

50:46

saw a sign for it. And so we pulled off,

50:49

and we pulled off, we looked at

50:51

it, because we loved the Alan

50:53

Jackson song. And I just

50:56

remember Jay's laugh and enjoying that. And

50:58

I remember coming back from

51:00

Toronto, we had Summer Supercard later that

51:02

year in August, Jay had a huge

51:04

gash in his back after a ladder

51:06

war, and it required stitches. But

51:09

they were going to close the parking garage, they were literally going

51:11

to physically lock our car in. And Jay

51:13

was just like, Hey, Rick, man, I'll

51:15

put a shirt on, Rick, don't worry about it.

51:17

And he put on a shirt, and we drove

51:19

back across the border. And he's

51:22

this huge gash that required all kinds of stitches.

51:24

But we had a great time went to the

51:26

Denny's across the border in

51:29

Buffalo. Somebody ordered spaghetti, I always

51:31

accuse Chuck Taylor of doing it. Sounds like

51:33

a Chuck Taylor thing. It does. But Chuck

51:35

wasn't with us at the time. So I

51:37

have this razor sharp memory. But I can't

51:39

remember who ordered the spaghetti. And

51:42

it was either Chuck or Juice Robinson. But juice

51:44

wasn't on that show, I don't think so. From

51:46

a wrestling standpoint, I think all in G1 Supercard

51:48

are my favorite things. But I

51:51

think from from traveling around, I think

51:53

those are some of my best memories. And as

51:55

weird as it was, those the

51:57

bubble tapings for ROH I

52:00

got to know Caprice better than at any

52:02

point. We were spending 12, 16

52:06

hours together some days because we were the only two people who

52:08

were allowed to be around each other. Oh

52:11

my God, didn't even think about that, but yeah. Yeah.

52:14

This has been an incredible conversation, Ian.

52:17

Genuinely, we could probably talk

52:19

to you for a few more hours if we had

52:21

the ability to, but this is

52:23

AEW unrestricted and time is what

52:25

it is. But seriously,

52:28

Ian, thank you for being here on

52:30

AEW Unrestricted. You can, of course, catch

52:32

new episodes of AEW Unrestricted right

52:34

here on your favorite podcast feed. Every

52:37

Thursday, we drop new episodes, new video

52:39

episodes every Monday on our YouTube channel.

52:41

You can catch AEW Dynamite every Wednesday

52:43

on TBS. We've got AEW Rampage every

52:46

Friday on TNT. AEW Collision is every

52:48

Saturday on TNT. And of course, you

52:50

can hear this man on Ring of

52:53

Honor every Thursday. Watch roh.com or in

52:55

the Ring of Honor app. Thank you

52:57

for being here with us, Ian. Oh

53:00

God, thank you so much for having me. And if

53:02

you are in the Lehigh Valley, if you're anywhere near

53:04

the Lehigh Valley, the PPL Center is the place to

53:06

be for listening to this on Thursday, June 20th. And

53:08

we all know you are. Come on out.

53:12

Ian Orange Cassidy, Wheeler Yuta, and myself at

53:14

the Iron Pigs makes full of ourselves by

53:16

now. So come on out and

53:18

support the effort. Come out and support the

53:20

Lehigh Valley. And it's going to

53:22

be a heck of a night. It's going to be

53:24

Collision, Rampage, and maybe, fingers crossed, a

53:26

little bit of Ring of Honor. It would be a

53:28

dream come true to call at least one ROH

53:30

match. I'll say this. I'll

53:33

come out of retirement. I want to know if I need to.

53:35

I will wrestle in Allentown if needed as long

53:37

as the AEW says Ring of Honor. I'll just.

53:40

And so whatever it

53:43

takes, I'm there. Oh

53:46

boy. Thank you

53:48

so much, Ian. This is AEW Unreficted. We'll see

53:50

you next time, and have a great day. Come

53:52

on, throw your hands out. Let me see you.

53:55

Unrestricted. Got that house

53:57

now. We going to

53:59

turn it up. Bring the house down

54:01

Got their big space Clompin', make em

54:04

bounce now Blows it like they bossin'

54:06

And the freaks are comin' out now

54:11

Unshift Unshift

54:18

Unshift Come

54:21

on, throw your hands out, let me see you