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Today's episode is from an interview I did on the "Casual Conversations" Podcast, all about Pro-Wrestling! We discuss my introduction into pro-wrestling when I first came to America, how I started collecting and flipping wrestling action figures, why the "GaryVee" personality is a mix of some classic all-time great wrestlers, and much more..
Enjoy! Let me know what you thought.

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Thanks for watching!
Check out another series on my channel:
Tea With GaryVee (Fan Q&A Series): https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfA33-E9P7FBahSYlSAjOMGsuRPLMWWEO
Overrated Underrated (Hot-takes on Culture): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUSNSqA62uI&t=0s
Gary Vaynerchuk Original Films: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfA33-E9P7FAvnrOcgy4MvIcCXxoyjuku
Trash Talk: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfA33-E9P7FDelN4bXFgtJuczC9HHmm2-
WeeklyVee: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfA33-E9P7FBPjdQcF6uedz9fdk8XKn-b

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Gary Vaynerchuk is one of the world’s leading marketing experts, a New York Times bestselling author, and the chairman of VaynerX, a modern day communications company and the active CEO of VaynerMedia, a contemporary global creative and media agency built to drive business outcomes for their partners. He is a highly popular public speaker, and a prolific investor with investments in companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Venmo, Coinbase, Slack, and Uber. Gary is a board/advisory member of Bojangles’ Restaurants, MikMak, Pencils of Promise, and is a longtime Well Member of Charity:Water. He’s also an avid sports card investor and collector. He lives in New York City.

Does any of your, like speaking, ability come from your love from wrestling and cutting promos back in the day? It's funny a couple of wrestlers hit me up on dm, who are fans and they're like dude, you cut promos, you got your perspective. I just want to be happy, don't you want to be happy and we are back for another casual conversation with the classic, and here today with me, is none other than entrepreneur, e-commerce, legend five-time new york times best-selling author ceo keynote speaker, a mastermind with social media And i'm saying that from someone who's, read your books and used your techniques myself and for a lot of you that might not know, and what this is all about, is a lifelong fan of professional wrestling um, it's true. How are you doing today, gary vaynerchuk aka garyvee, i'm doing very well thanks for having me on the show brother. Thank you for coming on.

I really want to do this. I always was fascinated with the fact that you were a wrestling fan. I know there's a lot of people out there that do know they might have seen your interviews with the undertaker or stephanie mcmahon or they watch your podcast and they see the figures in the background and stuff um. So i always was like man.

I would love to talk to him about professional wrestling and i would love for my audience to know that you are a big professional wrestling fan you're also part of this extended family that we have with professional wrestling fans. So i want to start off with asking like what were your earliest and first memories of professional wrestling. What made you a fan god this is so fun to think about, because i really haven't thought about it. Um, you know call it 84., i'm trying to think about.

I don't think i knew about wrestling, you know don't forget. I was born in the soviet union yeah, so i come to the states. I'm three years old and 78 by 82 is kind of like when i really started saying i became americanized because those first four years we were poor like we barely had a tv like there was, you know so now, i'm 7 82 somewhere around eight or nine. Eighty three, eighty four, i think hogan was already champ, so i don't think i knew he beat the iron sheik in the garden, but i definitely knew about wrestling prior to wrestlemania one so much like most people in their 40s.

If they didn't have parents or older siblings, that were into wrestling, they got hooked up in that incredible era of where cindy loper is involved, wrestlemania won it all popped off in 84.85 for the rock and wrestling era. That's right! I so you know, there's people my age that had the luxury it was funny. There was an older guy in my neighborhood who used to tell me a lot of stories. This is all coming back to me now, so i got into it right then, and immediately there's a guy at the playground.

I i'm guessing. The guy was 30. lived in the in the townhouse era and he would tell me about the key. You know cola ivan koloff, beating bruno san martino with the knee off the top rope in the garden.

He educated me on, like pedro. Don't forget no internet yeah, it's a different era, pedro morales early doc. You know, because i knew who dom the rock morocco was, but young don, the rock you know, and so not only did i get into what was 84 85 86 wrestling right, wrestlemania one. The action figures that i have on my shelf buying those watching every saturday morning watching tnt when mcmahon would interview people love that show, but i also, but i also would listen to stories on the bench parks of the 70s a lot of 70s stuff.

So i and and then i started, buying wrestling magazines at crousers, which is like a 7-eleven. So now i'm like learning like the missing link and, like you know, like the blade runners and like all these other, like what's uwf and who are the von eriks and then in 86 87.88, that stuff started showing up on espn the dingo warrior yeah. You know so i was not only wwe, but i was like nwa. I was you know awa.

I was really a wrestling head and would like get super pumped when, like bad news, brown would come to the wwf. I'm like that's bad news. Balance, like you know like, i was really into it, and it was a core part of my entertainment. I mean my first sleepover party and as a you know, because if you're from an immigrant family, you don't have sleepovers that often so my first sleepover party was summerslam the first summerslam.

It was a huge part of my childhood. We wrestled outside. I made wrestling figures by drawing and cutting my v friends today and, of course, a lot of my drawing came from drawing wrestling figures, cutting them out on paper and then putting them on cardboard and gluing them. So i could actually wrestle with them like.

It was a very from 85 to 90. It was 84 to 90 that five six year period outside of jets, football, yankees, baseball and video games and just being a kid and doing, and then my entrepreneurial stuff, shoveling snow selling lemonade. It was a top five thing in my life, 100 yeah, a lot of that's really relatable. I can relate to a lot of that in a sense, and it's crazy out still with you tell today, like i saw that video on youtube recently um.

I know it's been out for a while, but that one where you're unboxing, all your lgn figures and you're asking your assistants and stuff like you know who the son they didn't, really know what her and you were like a little bit devastated so like. How do you know this person? How do you not know that person um? How does it feel for you when you got those figures? Was it sort of more of like like when it comes to collectibles? I mean you know so much of what i do now. If you're listening right now go to youtube and type in trash talk, garyvee, there's a show i put out. You know.

I talk a lot about like ways to advance your career and i started noticing a lot of people talking about well gary. I don't have any money like cool that you invested 25 000 into tumblr and it turned into a million. I don't have 25 000. and i was like fair point.

I was in a different point in my life. When i was in my teenage and 20s, i would garage sale a lot. I made a lot of money on ljn's and hasbro action figures. Yeah.

You know. I would buy 50 hasbro's at a garage sale for 10 bucks and then go list dusty rhodes or andre for 50 to 100 bucks by himself. Right so - and i literally i literally just wrote an article for 1, 37 p.m. About the 15 rarest and us figures for you guys, i love it.

I got to read it. I just wrote that for you, you bought up two of them that were on that list, and that was the andre and the the dusty world's husband yeah, and i bring it off off top of my head because, like i'm actually trying to see, if i can Find the article i'm talking to you um, you know it's it's it's what i you know there. It is love it. I'm gon na share it right now.

My twitter give you a little love. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome, um.

You know i it was just such a. I say that off the top of my head, because i really know right like i know what black card ljns are like. I know my like i'm really in this, like i, i watched most of the saturday night's main events i watched the you know the first 10 wrestlemanias like this is a culture. I really know um and love, and so you know for me the lgn thing was really fun.

As a matter of fact, this is not a joke. Literally watch this. If you're listening on podcasts, you won't be able to see this, but i'm going to show you something that's going to blow your mind of how big of a part of my life this is so this is my ebay, i'm just showing you and then obviously this Is my ebay account? The last thing i looked up, i guess was psa but watch this. I hope it's there, don't know how they do it yeah if you're on youtube guys.

You can check this out right now and yeah go check out that article guys i wrote a handful of articles from 1 37 p.m, and that was the most recent one i just did, and it was about the most rare, expensive figures as of today. Yeah, look at this look at this. Look at the last look at the last thing i searched on my ebay account there we go lgf, ljn wwf. The last thing you can search, so it's like just in me like it's, a very big part of my culture.

80S and 90s wrestling was humongous for me and i actually might have 11 year younger brother aj. So what's funny about that, is his age lands so his golden year. So i got him into wrestling yeah, but his golden era was in between hogan and the attitude era. Okay, so aj, like with like tatanka and like dukes of dunks rosie and like yeah, that yokozuna brett heart era before we went into stone, cold and the rock right yeah.

So i was, you know, ludwig borga and luger and like that kind of that era, and so like it's just always because once i got out of it very quickly behind me, my brother is now like i'm like this is steamboat, and this is you know. This is tugboat, excuse me, and this is earthquake and like that video game came out and so like it's kind of just been a constant heartbeat for me, and i can relate to that too. My older brother's 10 years old than me - and i don't think i'd - have been a rapping fan. He was born in 1981, so he lived through hulkamania.

That was his thing. I was born in 91, so i lived through that same breadheart, yoko attitude period. So i can totally relate to that as well. I uh being a fan of yours.

Obviously, i've watched your videos that follow you on instagram for years and stuff um read your books crushing at someone that i was referring to earlier, because doing what i did with the wrestling classic was a lot of reading that book on a plane going to wrestlemania 32 and being like, oh just slide in the dms, don't worry about it! Okay, i got this and i started implementing that in my own stuff that i started doing once. I realized that this whole wrestling classic thing could be something i didn't know it at first. I was just doing it for fun and then i went to dallas and people were wearing my shirts that i printed for fun for uber money, and i was like oh people actually are about this and your book helped me a lot with that. But that being said, i love your wheels.

I love your tick tocks. I love your quick motivational, videos and stuff. I always wondered. Does any of your, like speaking, ability come from your love from wrestling and cutting promos back in the day? So would you ever get in touch with your wrestling side, like i'm gon na cut a promo? Is that, like part of it, not only, is it a part of it yeah? I actually think it's the, i think.

Basically garyvee. The communicator is a mix between randy, the macho man, savage promo and chris rock and eddie murphy, and i mean the amount of richard pryor eddie murphy, chris rock. I listened to yeah in combination to wrestling promo yeah. I mean like sometimes it's actually too ridiculous.

Like i caught a video six or seven years ago for a conference, i was keynoting and they're like hey. Like my team, came in they're like gary, you know, would you uh, you know they're just that the ticket sales aren't going that strong? Would you do a quick video to tell everybody about this social media conference, and literally this is what came out of my mouth? I'm like hey guys, it's garyvee civic center march 19th, nine like i was like, and then i stopped like. Oh my god. This is literally a i've heard something and i'm like i'm like this sounds like a wrestling promo to me.

It's funny. A couple of wrestlers yeah hit me up on dm, who are fans that are like dude, you cut promos and i'm like i'm like i do. I know it took me, i didn't know it for five or six years of the garyvee, but then when somebody pointed it out and i really started getting into my feelings on it, i'm like yeah, i think i think quite a bit. I think a lot of my content now is clips from my day-to-day life, so it's a little bit less, but my rants, which were a big part of my 2014-16 content, and i just did one the other day.

I feel that they're like flat out wrestlemania promo videos yeah, because that's what i felt like i would watch him like. I know he's he's, meaning what he says, but i know this is influenced from wrestling. I can tell 100 it's subconscious right, yeah like he has that promo skill um. Do you have a favorite promo, like i know, macho man's one of your favorites of all time, he's gon na be copying the big time or something but yeah i mean i think my favorite is when he's outside by the pool.

Oh the mean gene and elizabeth. That's right, and he goes that mean gene there's a plane going by and i'm not on it like and i'm like. I don't know what it the cup who rises to the top is all time but for some reason there's a plane going by and i'm not on it. I don't know what it was that but i'll tell you what my favorite was.

Okay, my favorite was the macro concept of getting us into a frenzy before somebody was actually in the in the federation yeah by the time mr perfect and razor ramon were actually in the ring. I was completely out of control into both of them. Yeah those videos perfect - and i think that was the brilliance of vince mcmahon and the wwf - slash e like to me. They they just did such a great job in storytelling that that you were just salivating to watch.

One of these guys beat the out of iron. Mike sharp or canine or barry horowitz, you know back then wrestlers beat up nobodies on saturday morning. It wasn't all these big matches yeah to build the star, correct yeah. They did the boxing thing right.

They took a bunch of easy fights and i mean i mean that's corporal kirchner like even guys that most people don't know as well like the hype was just so fun. But what really stood out was razer and perfect because they really had those guys in a frenzy before they even came in saturday morning and beat somebody up. They were so creative and so good, like the wonder, razor pushes the guy into the fountain he's like. Don't have luck like him and perfect just doing the bowling and the golf and it's crazy, because obviously, as you get older, you realize it'd be like that whole football thing, throwing it across the field and him running and catching you know it's cut in certain things, But i've been pretty like whoa.

He actually did that. That's crazy! Oh as a kid you're like king kong, bundy broke hogan's, ribs and you're like so upset and like as a kid. It's just awesome. I think that's the biggest thing about professional wrestling, though right.

It captures you as a kid, because you have that imagination and you only grow to love it as you get older because you ever get that question. How do you still like this, like this ufc? How do you still like this, i'm always like, because now i understand it as a form of like art like it's like? Well, i i i like it in the way that i like watching queen's gambit yeah, the way that i watch you know a show to me. It's story line. I mean i think wrestling is male soap operas.

It really is, you know, like more character, storyline that really fascinates me now as a creative entrepreneur and a marketer and a storyteller. There might not be anything i'm more interested in wrestling as a matter of fact, literally yesterday i said to somebody i can't wait to see who triggers the next monster wrestling era. Literally yesterday i said hogan stone, cold and rock somebody. It feels like wrestling's doing its thing, but it's very much now like, like you, know, brock undertaker, the rock doing wrestlemania.

We don't have must-see people like, i don't feel like. I need to watch raw yeah, no 100 percent, but i feel like what i love about wrestling is at any moment there's some kid right now: who's coming up the ranks, who's gon na, be the human being that completely captures the national attention and for another 24 To 39 months, everybody's gon na know xyz the name and it's gon na make everybody watch raw every monday night and that's - and i think i think, and to your point, like they just kind of brought back john cena. For that reason, because they haven't really built any stars right now that has catapulted the wrestling back in that thing, but yeah it's funny me and my friends when i'm like going or like kind of paying a little more attention i take i like guessing. I i like saying, i see they're trying to push this guy.

I don't think he's got it right and - and i like to test my ability of like having a sense of like charisma and the consumer and yeah, i don't feel like they've pushed the right people recently. Have you given aw a chance at all a little very little bit like my wrestling right now in the last three years, i'm just so underwater and definitely with when kobet hit in the last? You know 15 16 months. I just had so many responsibilities to make sure i was on the offense business wise yeah that but but it keeps going down to the same thing which is like uh. You know i follow it on social yeah, but i haven't been able to like really really allocate like the way i like to do it when i'm like.

Oh, let's do this like. I need four weeks of like following the storylines to really get captivated by the charisma of the characters, and i just haven't been able to give anybody that right now i uh not to be another cheap plug, but if you ever need a catalog, i did also Write an article on the 20 top aew matches that that's such a good point like what i'm not as good of a reader. What i'll probably do is go watch the youtube versions of that yeah, because that's what i need to get like interested. No for sure - and i just think it's a good calorie, what's the best one, what's that what did you do? What did you decide was the best one uh for me.

I think it was between uh, cody and dustin, but that's also because once again, i'm also a character, storyline guy and there's a really good story there between the two brothers and whatnot and um. It was if you watch that magic. You feel, like you're, being told a story rather than just watching a match with a bunch of acrobatics, and i don't know what's happening, definitely check that out yeah, i'm i'm way more like way more story than i am performance, a hundred percent. I love performance.

No, no, i mean rey mysterio, jr and eddie, like some of this stuff is just outstanding. The performance stands out more if you're intrigued by the characters in the story yeah - and i, if i'm intrigued by the story - can overlook poor wrestling 100 right like hogan hogan warrior wrestlemania is not iconic wrestling, but the story is in that building the ultimate scene was Insane just to see those two eye to eye was like a moment, and that was but but on the flip side performance like when you watch piper bread, heart wrestlemania, where piper really puts brett over, like it's a very underrated moment in wrestling history, because it's like A in that pocket of like in between 90, i think one which was like a transitional time in a sense. I just think that when you see stuff like that, because piper's such a good wrestler too and brett, you know there's no story there, because brett was the up and comer and piper was the champion. The intercontinental champion knows his time to get that singles and so, like the story, always does kind of make things and elevate things more, and if the story is really good, you'll be invested in the match, if they're, just really good wrestlers and the match is even More memorable because that's right, you know what i mean um, i'm gon na.

Ask you this a little bit more of a fun question since you're an old school fan and you grew up watching wrestling say you are a manager, so you were bobby henan, okay, you're gon na start your garyvee family and be friends. You can call it yeah! Nft stuff, who would be on that survivor series team of five? Who would be your five guys macho man, randy savage yeah who's disproportionately, my favorite wrestler of all time here. It's something i agree with fully um. Okay.

Let's really, i really want to give you a real answer, so i'm going to really think this through um uh, y2j yeah, i love chris jericho. I've always loved jericho um. I would say i'm i i usually to give fast answers, but i really want to think this through, because i don't want to hear the uh. I would probably put the british bulldogs on there davey and dynamite yes, because because i'm thinking about like who did, i really love like genuinely love? And i would say the british bulldogs were the closest thing in my prime to macho man, yeah um, and then i'm probably going to go well, if i can blend leagues since the wwe now owns them all yeah, my favorite.

This is your dream team. This is yours, i would go with nikita koloff, the russian sickle yeah, the russian sickle is still one of my favorite finishing moves. He was just so badass and i still always had an underlining feeling towards russia since i was from there - and so i would say - macho man, the british bulldogs, jericho and the kitakova - that's a stack team with different styles of wrestling right. They got a powerhouse.

You got some flamboyance, you got the tag team, that's good stuff right there, it's a summer team! No for sure. Let's talk about the watchman really quickly, um, because he's my favorite of all time to you once again. That also goes back to. I think i, like my imagination, being captured as a little kid.

This guy was on, like wwf mania and whatnot, just all california's cowboy hats and whatnot um. What made you a macho man fan what made you like, because during the time of hulk mania, almost everybody was a whole community. It was always hogan hogan. My brother was hogan hogan.

I i realized in my old something happened later in my life when, like i didn't like tiger woods or kobe bryant and then when they were older, i loved them yeah and i and when that happened in my 30s i was like. Oh. This is just a very recent realization. I feel like i'm an underdog.

I love underdogs to your point. Everybody loved hogan. I didn't want to be like that, and so i decided um uh. You know i really want uh to be different.

The other thing that happened was, if you remember the story line, everybody was buying for macho man, that whole manager thing well miss elizabeth. I still think hogan was the heel there that he had lost in his eyes for elizabeth, i'm just i'm gon na say so. When, when when he goes, and i thought it was going to be slick, i remember i was like like i was like slick's gon na get him. Oh, when you, when he was vying for a new manager yeah and when he said my manager is eliza and she comes down.

You know you got to remember i'm like 10 11. yeah and like i'm, not sure, but i think that might have been the moment. I became a man yeah so between so between between underdog and then he was such a great wrestler right, like if you're like. If you watch, if you watch that tito santana match that he wins, i mean, then obviously the ricky, the steamboat match, i'm so pumped that that is like the greatest match of all time.

It means so much to me. That's storyline! That was tough. For me a little bit because you're a steamboat fan, i wasn't, but i liked them yeah, but it was so nasty like the throat it was like. It just seems, but i stuck with him through and through um, i loved georgie animal steel, because the jets were my favorite team and he had a green tongue, and that was big for me, um, so yeah.

I think it was the combination of miss elizabeth at the age that i was being counter different and just the charisma and like who he was. It was just the complete package um. I know we're gon na wrap this up soon. So i want to ask you this really quickly as well.

The big question um take time to think about it. I feel, like we've touched on it a bit here and there, but at the end of the day like, why is wrestling important to you? It's because, outside of walt disney, i think vince mcmahon has been one of the most significant storytellers of characters in our society. Yeah and i think the friends being one of the most important things in my life for the next 50 years is going to make sense to why i always was associating to transformers wrestling gi, joe disney. I'm a storytelling character based human being and i think wrestling's unique because, unlike wrestling, everything else is fictional.

This is like real humans that play these characters, but it's storytelling and i think it's been the most significant storytelling machine in our society and uh and that i admire. I love that i like to call it the greatest form or an athleticism, because it's the one that puts both of them together and it's amazing. I think i think dana white has a lot of don king meets vince mcmahon, like i think, he's why ufc so incredible is it's like slightly the reverse thing right, which is it's real life, but they do such a great job. Getting you excited about the fighters and that matters that's what great promoting no matter.

How much people want to say. Ufc is real and it's not. They took a lot from professional wrestling to get you hyped, yeah and and and vice versa. Right yeah, like like wwf wwe excuse me now, is very much affected by and and obviously has done, a lot with, the angles and and and shamrocks, and you know like and bobby and like so like it's it they're good for each other.

In my opinion, yeah they do they work well on. Look if brock didn't go to ufc and come back being the brock lesnar. He was because i am a fan of yours and i've. I've listened to your speeches and i've read your books and i follow you on social media.

You always say take advantage of all the opportunity again. I've had the opportunity to sit here with you, so i'm just going to throw it out there there's anything you ever want to do in the future. That is wrestling related. I'm your guy, send me an email literally, send me an email right now.

I want to save that in the folder sure, because the last seven years i've been running this page, i've made a ton of relationships with wrestlers within the industry and people that work backstage, as well as a valued voice with the fans i've been crapping on john Cena all week, but they still love me, that's who that's? How close we are. You know what i mean. So i love you, i'm more than happy to send me that email right now, i'm opening it for sure. I got my articles at 1, 37 pm too.

So cheers. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you, brother you're, doing the thing youtube watcher.

What's up, it's garyvee! First of all, thank you so much. I hope, you're doing super well during these times uh. I also want to ask you please subscribe, because my commitment and exploration of youtube is about to explode stories, polls, more content, more engagement, more surprise and delight. This is the time to subscribe.

I hope you consider it, and i hope i see you soon. You.