i'm hurt i need a safe space john trust is american college professor and actor stuntman stunt coordinator wrestling champion i like this part because i'm a starfucker if you like french you can swear he's also successful career the stunt performer and coordinator in two thousand and seven he and smooth tommy a lot the same suede train nicolas cage and later mickey rourke in the lead rule lead role in the wrestler you've also been in movies like  so and then from there we had our ups and downs and benchley i faded out by all for this man still going is guys on wrestling school powered career but i don't think he's got a good i think where do you teach instructional technology instructional design computer sciences how to build a computer graphic design classes like an art class like a just a photoshop kind of base class a web design class for building websites video productions make money as if your work of events themselves to to do any of the kids at home that are professional wrestlers follow your dreams but have a backup plan i'm probably one of the most successful guys i know in the professional wrestling business from the time that thirty thousand people over there i got very very lucky in in two thousand and five i did a couple tours like six or seven tours over in italy and it was it was a tremendous tremendous experience because we you from being in the professional wrestling business the one thing that you really understood was it was about the energy you have that connection with the audience it's about and about manipulating that audience and it and there used to be a phrase in wrestling as i'm out there five people out there five hundred people out there or five thousand people other that's bullshit if there's for performance wise that's great but when you're talking about energy wise there is no drug there is no high there is no anything that will ever make you feel what it's like to stand on a row in front of twenty and thirty thousand people on the opening card match when they're all fresh to see wrestling and that you come out there and i was wrestling in red white and blue and had this things that he wrote crossed me and i was wrestling at the time was two thousand and five so the arab terrorist sort of character and then i go to the top and thirty thousand people stand up and explode because it's a first thing they're seeing be it doesn't matter who i'm doing it it's right after nine eleven and all that so it's all of that energy carried right into that into the into our opening match on that and the energy of knowing how in in layers as opposed to any wrestling it's like ok i got a pop you know it's like i am usually happy about that and you also got your kind of like your outline of what your planet heritage do also want to get out there use the other waves to ry birds that's it and go and i'm actually currently tied up in a in a court case with the state of pennsylvania over whether professional wrestling is a sport or not so i'm i've become once in court already which is fantastic we're going to around to which i'm w boxing made this deathlike mission a four hundred thousand dollars last year professional wrestling made about three hundred fifty thousand so when it literally pro wrestling is half of the budget versus all of the other sports combine the pennsylvania staff let it commissions budget to continue doing things around a half of a million so if you took away the pro wrestling side of it they're in trouble or have so my argument essentially was ok progress is fake and i'm willing in the year two thousand and eighteen willing to admit that especially now that i'm a stunt coordinator in a understand how different worlds of play fighting work other than the real sport of wrestling which i was a second u s navy have been second place in the keystone state games and i was a district champion i place in regionals and stuff like that i was a strong amateur wrestler back in the day and i know how the sport of wrestling works and that is something where i'm going in there and i am engaging in a sporting athletic competition trying to do damage to my opponent or win the match and in them on the mat in even at the time when we were doing it there was we always  winning or losing yes i would say that there was specifically at the time that we were doing it we were doing more that super indy trend which was you had to have a script you had to have pretty much of a bible point by point by bullet point how you're going to go about your match  what true pro wrestling is though is what i learned over in italy which is one of the coolest things in the world which is you can have that script but the script really doesn't matter it's about you your opponent and the audience and it's about in the streng the go carette and since we're allowed to say some non p g things on here i kind of compare it to two guys double teaming a chick and it literally is both of us are in control and it's all about work in our right right  and that is that is reacting that is it is all and it's all about the reactions of beautiful beautiful if it's pro wrestling psychology movie psychology which you guys are all very understanding of a book psychology music psychology all of generally like this is that you kind of start off kind of hot and fast but if you keep doing that you're going to finish too soon and that's a squash match in pro wrestling so you have to bring down the crop failure and then it's all about getting to that point of good and then bring it up and down to like down ok we're we can't finish here so we're going to go down for a little bit and do x y and z into we're going to get back up to that pace and then we're going to bring it down and it's  that's why we came out to see it we came out see the hero when when we go out to see a movie we came out to see iron man win at the end of it that's why infinity were so cool because it kind of was like off you you had me here and you left me you left me big comes out all that back of the window but yeah so the whole point of this is though all of this follows the same pattern of pro wrestling which is started off bring it down hit your peaks in your valleys in between lead through the entire thing unless it's a michael bay movie but i mean if it's generally you you can start off with some sort of an action sequence or some sort of an event that gets you hooked into the event and then it's about how do we get that character back to square at the end when the flow through twists in the but i digress on all this as far as the pro wrestling and all that and that was learned in italy though so it was kind of the general idea than italy but then that you were you would get a lead of art so that's exactly why i want to get back to his italy taught me how to be a professional wrestler a professional wrestler might if you asked me to i think that you could argue that professional wrestling was real and if we're going to go truly historically were professional wrestling started the carnivals yes it was the answer to the town who like back in the one nine hundred twenty s professional boxing so you can make a living a professional boxing you can make a living  professional baseball professional anything except for professional wrestling so all of the town's big hillbilly hicks ended up having to kind of join the carnivals and get the good ones because they became what's known as a shooter and then there was like guys that came like all americans and they joined they became w known as a hawker and that was a person that was like your shooters you are the person that could tear anybody apart in wrestling and the carnivals would literally take their hawkers and their shooters and play some of the main event in an open challenge against the town's best r would place bets on it cause there was no regulation in the carnivals back then and as they were just surveying the crowd and seeing how the bets were going if everybody was betting on the town's hometown hero and nobody was betting on the on the carnival guy the carnival guy was probably an all american that could have tied him up one or two and have a conversation with the town's hometown hero back to say look at you have no future ah i'm going to pay you one hundred dollars back with one hundred dollars back matches but who cares what the undercard be the undercard people came to see that main event and had nothing to do a pro wrestling had everything to do with this that this is the legitimate sport they believed it was they believed it was real so the carnies took advantage of them armpit to give me the extra height i did not stretch i did not do anything before and i literally sling the ring did that because he was giving guys have causes and everybody was taking a wrong like john getting rid of so i take it i overrode jade it landed on my butt on it broke three because at least you have the table breaking your fault and that that goddamned bit of effort had zero give so back in the day that's another thing too in my argument between what's pro wrestling and what's not today those rings were a boxing ring of a converted version of a boxing ring that had as much as a rug to one inch of adding on it that you're going to get hurt on us now a days the things that i'd say most independent user were known as flexi brains which are for poles and then a sixteen foot or an eighteen foot section that would go around it and then sixteen in one thousand foot sections that form across sections that they put then a big long sixteen foot pieces of two by four on top of which causes actually kind of a trampoline ing effect which gives a lot of bounce most indies today i'd say use one to two inches of padding never really sanctuaries origin and i need to under need you guys understand a different progress ling and stunts now and understand the difference between where pro wrestling was versus where i'm trying to take it now so if we live in the world that we accept and acknowledge professional wrestling is a fake script a choreographed entertainment why are we still using stiffer reins why are we still using a you know one inch of padding why are we not why are we still beating each other up in there why are we if we get hurt why are we still wrestling through the matches why are all these things happening that wouldn't ever happen in stunts if i was on set yeah and i'd punch somebody in the face the director yelling cut and we're everywhere and everybody's checking on the doctor you know you have a concussion o movies work and it's when we talk about what's interesting pro wrestling in stunts i think the state's case is well there is almost no difference in pro wrestling as does that's because you don't know what you're talking about there is a difference and it's pure and simple about the safety if i'm going to punch you in commute that carries on here now you're going to look this way in which i had that way when i crossed his line that way the camera is not going to see that i missed him by that much in pro wrestling i have to make contact you know and i usually if the crowd doesn't believe me i have to make contact hard was like man i can i can bang out a lot of really good guys still i still have the ability as a trainer to train a lot of really talented guys and i could start training them to the way that i feel business needs to shift versus where it went now where it went today again is that's super in the shit that you all of us did which is the did it or didn't and become power rangers it's become no moves work and nobody respects a punch nobody respects a hammerlock too many finishing moves in a row i i am a lock is what police arrest people when they grab the guys on a wrench and in pro wrestling it's just a transitional move that's a finishing move and amateur wrestling a headlock i beat most of my people with that's a finishing move in progress transition from this to this and this  end independent wrestling and that's where the business has become i want to drag almost at the reset on pro wrestling and say let's drag you guys back to the reality that we have to follow on on a movie set unless it is power rangers but if it's if it's bruce willis versus you know yeah but on the street we're not doing all of this crazy sequential the did and bruce takes a power bomb on the on the concrete no we're scripting this fight like a true fight should be able to play out that people should believe because if the idea of professional wrestling is that you believe a fight like that the idea of why are we taking it in a direction that's less and less and less and less believable so after training that kid that way and that kid pretty much said your way is wrong and i'm going to direction of all this a b c and he's doing well with it but i just don't respect and i don't like the style of professional wrestling today and because it reminds me of when i was a mark and when i thought oh this is how wrestling should be and i was stunt related reason they are the twenty foot by twenty foot is now the stage and i was like guys come out on and then the sixteen by sixteen that would be a twenty but with the cut down is now a ramp way to the ring and then the ring is the flexing is all that  sanctuary wrestling's last hope and it was it was going to be that and i went with a lot of like guys like guys look like progress guys that you wouldn't as a fan you wouldn't walk up to go you know any if you did you'd look at the guy go  don't they don't do it anymore and if they do do it they they don't do it the way that the cricket should do it the crickets now trying to conform to the way the ant does it and the big show doesn't need to be doing a moonsault a big show doesn't need to be doing sequences and shit it surely is a punch doing wrong maybe even the hard way oh i'm i'm known as that guy and nobody talk it happened probably it to us it happened to us like your attitude from we've got a waved of showing you are is that part still happening so you're saying like did it s if a professional movie studio took over professional wrestling and said this the way we're going to do it from now on because other women guys are doing it while it's dangerous isn't it is just it's insane again like the idea i guess the answer my question there's no real way of doing that but what you did with us about what kind of you know so i here's here's something i've learned from my mother you know my father is never beat me but my father could beat the shit out of me in a never less never was something to me my mother knows how to mentally destroy me but it works and i have done basically the same thing now with all my guys and i think the best thing that i do to him is speak honestly like i am to you and just tell them how fucking and common they are and how stupid they looked and how bad they suck and and just be like a grid x y z ok let's go watch it and i almost intentionally ignore the things that i'm going to put over to him because there is going to mark out for themselves and i you know what you did right because that's why you're here to hear me say good job for this that's not why i'm here it's my job as your trainer and as your teacher to show you this is where you suck this is where he's this is where and every time they all come in all all proud of themselves before their men are after their matches then they wrestlers and now some of the guys a made into stunts the i've touched hundreds and hundreds of guys now ha in their hearts this in their hearts i've touched many of these don't think i get many eighteen year olds and say whoa whoa whoa oh well that's the average i would say most of the guys that i get in there are usually around twenty to twenty five and the reason is i seem i seem to be everybody's safety net in professional wrestling like there's a lot of really really that was back in the ninety's and in early two thousand now there's almost one in every town like then i mean that because it's like anything and these are the people who got fired by off a little while simona got fired by somebody else and they don't like the way their lives have played out so they went out and spent instead of another what i what you're doing i don't want to be a part of it it's not the kind of hit we're on that day as i've said to many people around me i hear the dice rolling in my life again because i've lost a lot of my passion for professional wrestling the court cases part of that the other part of it is is very much of this generation and it every day when you when you're in the generation that everybody gets a trophy they that there's something more special and i say about everybody i've ever known probably yourself in myself and are included because we know there is some sort of a light inside of us that we believe is special and an as opposed to you mean garrett we were constantly told you're right light is a big part of that is the struggle of the darkness i think i think the only way to truly be somebody who is truly has that glow is is by some by understanding how requests of the darkness and bite by having those name bracing and losing and losing and losing and losing and picking yourself back the fuck up and to not go into the that other story that's that's that's the entire thing of the most recent podcast and that's in a day the moral of that story stuck and what i mean i've seen a lot of these kids is it's no longer their fault they're not succeeding it's my fault god it's my fault as as the as a supervisor or as the person who is doing the scripting or the person that's doing the training it's not just energy because i see people getting what they're hollow they're hollow like i think the one thing i can feel that you can feel in this in this interview is that this energy is coming from right here in me and it's very passionate energy and that passionate energy has come from a i started as like i'm not liking this i'm not join myself there's a hell of a lot of drugs here everyone's like stick this nato in your ass i'm not doing it there was a lot of trouble and i started getting massive headaches after everything because this guy doesn't  prepared for you know that protect yourself one hundred percent on you know i'm so wrestling go there i'm giving you my body yes i'm saying here's my body go do like you're going to hit me or of your whatever it is here's my body it's presented you know your job to protect me yes in m m a or amateur wrestling i never accept their responsibility than the good and if you frustrate you know very well again i think that it's you know the kids that then who can't succeed on their own talent or their own ability or something like that in the state of pennsylvania one of things i argue with the athletic commission is all you need to be able to do to be a professional wrestling promoter you could be a professional wrestling promoted by paying the state a hundred dollars for the license and getting a think it's a ten thousand or a bomb which is another hundred dollars on another insurance policy but then you who knows now the doer's guys i'll let you do that if i trust them as veterans but then there's also wolves like at the sanctuary and one of things about center is i said for the first two years of it i did professional wrestling at some point i realized it's pro wrestling is broke and i was just constantly losing money and constantly looking at this like this is just i hated i don't want all that is just it's rebirth and it's something that i don't i don't relate now i don't i don't i don't identify with this version of pro wrestling i was a professional wrestler i don't know what it is today it's it's like pro wrestling cause play is the best way keep saying it is you know kids play dress up and instead of dressing up as your favorite superhero i'm going to create my own you know and it's it's a different era a different generation so what to do with the sanctuary be still doing it sanctuary is now a stunt studio and that's when i started putting in the big pads and that's when i started changing a lot of elements about the way guys have to work is that i came in a pro wrestling champion was a big guy named about six with three two hundred seventy pounds just big black muscle like like big big big big scary man he was the god king and he beat the shit out of humanitarian you know like but when we transition  book gone wrong that things that no indie wrestling company would ever ever ever so when you talk about its debt like light and especially i hate that simply at the sanctuary it's gone gone because i really present it like look we're today you know like it's not it to do the kind of pro wrestling that we would fall in love with i just don't i don't know what how to do the reset properly you know and i don't know space and i think that's like the only way that's a lot of work i don't think this contract that wrestlers are going to care to do that i don't and that's it is i think that they just universally recognize themselves as entertainment and that's fine but if they're going to be universally recognize entertainment then they really need to entertainment it up to then you know like like it seem like they focus so much on transitioning to that supercedes style and pace and lost all elements of and i think it's a softening of society but we lost all elements of character reality and let the boys do their thing i that's another reason i can't go back we were talking about creek two a little bit like that how lot of people usually just came out to you that want to be part of the experience and that's kind of the same thing that was like we just wanted to be part of the experience even though we know it's fake you know and i think you're right that the fans almost or that person that's missing that inside of them is like i need my sign count my i matter yeah i know you're no no no no where was your discrete to fight thing from  philadelphia the people yards or something yeah yeah yeah sure ever down down there for like oh i don't for a couple things on that again it was it was extra junk work but i mean it was something that i you know i am somebody that will take work with specially when it's sad there's no such thing on a movie especially some like create two that you want to go eight hours it's always going to be a twelve plus hour day and once you're a sag rate you're i think you're using about twenty bucks an hour and i think it's like a hundred sixty for the day and then it's over time and it doesn't get although you don't do it all the time you know room no no no do not get off film work and philadelphia yeah different to be and i wouldn't be willing to drive to new york city for the same rate for it i'm also a stunt man too and i don't want to ever become known as an extra you know i mean if you got a watcher i think that you know let's hope he died doing what he loved actually in front of a good crowd and he was if not it was a huge star in the eighty's they don't really explain how he lost a huge row known in the eighty three boxing was an act he walked away from he walked away from the sport made a lot of all problems too before he left and that in a trailer park most of the wrestlers from the golden age of professional wrestling in that one thousand nine hundred time in w f if you saw them out in public and you were a fan of the time you would absolutely recognize i would also say most of those guys you can find out in public now because they are they're not thomas wade in the stunt coordinator were brilliant in the way that we constructed a lot of matches on the movie the wrestler because if you go back and you actually watch it he doesn't take a lot of bombs he doesn't take from i mean he takes a lot of times rolls yeah it was eased and it was a really neat experience because i like again i got along really well them but one thing about nick nick and one who's on stunts like we brought him in there and i remember on the first day did or didn't did not  reflected the story of it which was more eighty's actor your big comeback moment you know eighty's wrestler big comeback moment early and i'd say to some degree i was slightly ironic that that's you know the wrestler he did i think  but i graduate college at twenty three and i was teaching college at twenty three and i like i been teaching calls at thirteen years so there is one part of wrestler i was don't know if this affects you as a as as a person but affected me a lot then work thirty students instead and being a pro wrestler is very much train me as much as my college education to be a teacher because now i can look my students in the eyes say something funny and witty connect with them on the subject matter while teaching them something and then if they don't remember i can wrestled mark and ran smack down in two thousand and six and actually that would be actually number three number two be the russell because the rest and actually russia should take first because you know no matter whether russell on smack down one hundred guys are jobbers on smack down his guys have had contracts and all this i have the ability to say to anybody who is a wrestling fan they see the movie the wrestler yeah i thought i have three a yeah i have an immediate go to moment in your brain that makes you oh awesome you know like like and there's i say the wrestler so then the wrestler clearly the most fun italy the biggest personal achievement said having the ability to say i've worked for divinity you know i mean that's that is is what i said as a child what's the future that you don't know for destined for much greater things part two has wrapped up i think and i think i'm entering my my third act of my life and i'm very interested to see yet stunt work and other things too i'm very interested to see where my life takes me over the next couple years  doing stunts i mean if you really broke it down you broke down all my body injuries that you like now you should do it i'm going to do it because i am passionate about the sanctuary i'm passionate about stop world still and until my body says you can't anymore i'm going to continue doing it be available as early as next month i don't want to give it they at all i see don't got them things and in my presence because i don't want to jinx anything but next month i will drop all that info and you get to come and find me by my art