Long before becoming one of the most well-decorated wrestlers in the world, Taya Valkyrie was a trainee at the Storm Wrestling Academy in Calgary, Alberta. Not only did La Wera Loca kickstart her career in the province, but as part of her training, appeared on the World of Hurt TV series hosted by both Lance Storm and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper.

Valkyrie recently joined me to discuss her experience breaking into the business in Alberta, wrestling for the PWA, and her feelings on World of Hurt.

Her memories of working in Alberta

Spencer Love: “We were talking before this, you were genuinely on the first-ever professional wrestling show that I ever went to. (It was) just such a highlight for me (and) something that obviously has been a huge impact on my life, but obviously, you’re the guest! I want to pick your brain: What  was your experience like when you were working here in Alberta?”

Taya Valkyrie: “I mean, it’s so crazy to think back on it, (because) it feels like a million lifetimes ago, just because so many things have happened and changed. I’ve just grown up so much over the last almost 10 years in this business. Oh my god, almost ten years! I mean, back then I was just like a wide-eyed, you know, excited, new wrestler. (I was) so green! So green. I mean, I watch some of those old matches. I’m like, ‘Oh my god, what is happening?’ But, I mean, everyone starts somewhere, and Alberta as a whole, I mean I went to the (University of Calgary) when I first graduated high school. I’m born and raised in Victoria, BC, so I spent a lot of time in Calgary and in Edmonton, Alberta as a whole. It’s always – I always think about Alberta with a smile on my face, and it definitely was where Taya Valkyrie was born basically. So, it’s a good feeling to think about. I’m excited to get back there at some point when things kind of start calming down.”

World of Hurt

SL: “One other part I did want to touch on as far as Alberta goes, because going through and doing my research there’s always some stuff that I find that I hadn’t found out before, take me through your experience with World of Hurt?”

TV: “Oh my gosh, you’re really going for it! I was on – for people that don’t know, World of Hurt (was on) for two seasons. When I first did World of Hurt, I think it worked kind of like a, I mean, a wrestling school scenario, quote-unquote ‘reality show,’ and season one was taught by Lance Storm, my actual wrestling coach, and then Season Two was actually with Rowdy Roddy Piper. Season One, I literally had been wrestling probably for about three months when I was on that show.

My first-ever match as a professional wrestler was for TV, aka World of Hurt.

When everybody looks at that stuff, you’ll be like, ‘holy crap, that was Taya’s first match,’ and I remember we had to do to on that first day and I was petrified, and I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh,’ like, I’ve been a performer and an athlete my whole life, so I’m very much a perfectionist. And I just was – I mean, I had confidence, but I mean, obviously, I was worried that I was not that good at the time.”

SL: “Not quite where you are now.”

TV: “Now, looking back I’m just like, ‘wow, yeah, that was not good,’ but, I mean, it was a huge part of like, how I started, and I love it! And, like, Lance was such a huge part of like my entire career, obviously, having been my first coach and that’s where I met a lot of people that are still, you know, in my life when it comes to professional wrestling and PWA was where I started in Calgary and Edmonton. So, World of Hurt was a lot of fun.”

TV: “The second season, when we did it was Rowdy Roddy Piper, was incredible and crazy and fun as well, and I learned so much from him and getting to have learned from him. I feel like I always say that that month when we were shooting that, he really helped connect me to my character for promos and things like that. I would say that’s probably the most important thing I took away from getting to work with him for a month straight. So, yeah, it was just – it makes me laugh to think about the whole situation. I think it was on like, some channel called the Cave Network or something. I don’t even know if that’s a thing! Like, I don’t even, is that still a thing?”

SL: “I couldn’t even find it on YouTube. It’s on some weird, like, Vista or something like that.

”

TV: “Yeah, I think there’s some weird clips on YouTube of it, but it’s quite – if you are a Taya Valkyrie fan, you should watch it just to have a good laugh.”

SL: “Well, for what it’s worth, you weren’t the one that I think a lot of people were laughing at more, but we’ll let people tune in to the show to find out more on that end!”

TV: “YEAH! Okay, I know who you’re talking about!”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any transcriptions used. 

From January 6, 2019 to January 18, 2020, Taya Valkyrie held the Impact Knockouts Championship for a record-setting 377 days. Not only was the reign the longest in Knockouts Championship history, but the single longest title reign in Impact Wrestling history, period.

Valkyrie recently joined me to discuss a variety of topics, including her record-setting run as Impact Knockouts Champion.

Being the longest-reigning champion in Impact/TNA history

SL: “We’ll leave that one for the uncensored podcast. It’s so cool to me because you obviously say your first match was on World of Hurt. (You) starting out in Alberta. It’s one of the things that I love most about independent wrestling is you really get to see people at the start of their careers and then obviously, getting the opportunity to speak to not only the longest-reigning Impact Knockouts Champion but the longest-reigning champion in Impact and TNA history. How much pride you take in the fact that that one of the premier wrestling organizations in the world not only had the faith in you to put a title on you, but literally be the person who held the championship the longest?

”

TV: “I mean, it’s crazy. I remember when everything was starting to happen, (it’s) like ‘you’re like only a few days away from breaking this record’, and I just kept going in, and I was just like – I watched TNA and I looked up to so many people, and that generation of Knockouts in early TNA, like was so inspirational to me in becoming a wrestler. I remember just being like ‘these girls get a lot of time,’ and they (got) to show so much more than the girls were getting in WWE at the time. I mean, obviously, things have changed and evolved, and women as a whole are just getting a lot more respect and opportunities than we ever have, and it’s because of women like that, the women that started at all in TNA.

I am so blessed to even be working for this company that I looked up, you know, wanted to be part of for so many years, and also to be put in a category with some of the top women and men in professional wrestling as the longest-reigning champion in Impact Wrestling history. So, I take that with – I am very proud of that, and I hope that everybody from those older generations is proud of me and hoping that I represent him as well as I can.”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any transcriptions used. 

Prior to reinventing himself as the French-Canadian Frankenstein, PCO performed under a number of different names and gimmicks. One of those was Pierre, one-half of the Quebecers, under which he won three WWF Tag Team Championships. Under the same name, PCO was one of the participants in the ill-fated Brawl for All, which was recently the subject of an episode of the critically-acclaimed Dark Side of the Ring series,.

PCO recently joined me discuss his participation in the Brawl for All and the Dark Side of the Ring documentaries.

On the Dark Side of the Ring documentary series:

SL: “The reason I bring those guys up specifically is because synchronicity really seems to be a theme throughout your career, and you have those two guys and then you have the Brawl for All all featured in one year on Dark side of the Ring – but we don’t see any of you! Number one, how have you enjoyed the series if you’ve had a chance to watch it and B) what was your experience like in the Brawl for All since they didn’t ask you!”

PCO: “I think they showed – I watched it. I watched the show and had a lot of guys calling me like Marty Scurll said, ‘oh, you didn’t know I didn’t know that you were part of Brawl for All,’ and Marty texted me on that, and a bunch of other guys and I did a few interviews as well. Yeah, my first fight was against the guy that was supposed to win the whole thing. (It) was against Dr. Death Steve Williams, and Steve Williams, I think he was a little bit worried facing me.

Like, he was trying to – he’s very intimidating, he (was) trying to intimidate a lot, he was trying to intimidate a lot of youngsters and young guys. At that time, I was like, probably 29-30 though. Hawk of the Road Warriors came up to me before the fight, and he said ‘Steve’s not gonna hurt you, just like when he hits you, when he tags you, just go down.

Just pick up your five grand, man, just don’t give him a fight. He’s gonna, he’s gonna kill you.’ I told Mike, Mike Extreme, I told them I said ‘Hawk, just go back to Steve and just tell them that I’m gonna give him the fight of his life,’ you know, ‘I don’t care about it, like Jesus.’ Basically, I said different words on that but I don’t know if we’re allowed to curse.”

SL: “You’re more than welcome to cuss on here, we got the explicit rating on iTunes for that!”

PCO: “Word-for-word I told him, I said ‘tell Steve to go fuck themselves, go fuck himself with the five g’s and the easy win I’m gonna kick, I’m gonna kick his butt and I’m gonna beat the shit out of him. Just tell him that.”

PCO: “It was short notice, you know. I got worked out so bad on this, you know. Like, I had been sent at one point to Power Pro Wrestling which was like the OVW or the NXT at the time. Kurt Angle, everybody, like – when they didn’t have something for you or if they were-“

SL: “Like, developmental, quote-unquote?

PCO: “Yeah, it was. Yeah. (If they) didn’t have anything on the creative side and they wanted you to work on another character or something, they would send you there, or they would bring guys up, like Kurt Angle got brought up from there. I was there with both guys of Three Minute Warning, Rosey and Jamal, you know, and Fatu was there, that was before he did one of his gimmicks. The kids, the Usos, they used to come. They were 10 years old or 9 years old. They used to come all the time. There was a bunch of guys, the Samoan guys, you know, holding the territory.”

PCO: “So, then I had a break. I was at home and it was during summertime and I got a phone call from Bruce Prichard. He said ‘hey, Carl. Vince (has) got a great idea for you. I was like ‘What? He’s got a great idea for me? What is it?’”

PCO: “I (bit) on it. I’m like ‘yeah, what is it? I’m so excited!’ ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he says. ‘It’s gonna be a tournament and it’s gonna be 16 guys, and it’s gonna be a shoot. You’ve got to fight for real. Five points you know, if you touch with your glove, and five points for a takedown and you get five grand every match, but then the Quarter Final you make 25, semi-final 50, if you won the whole thing, you make 200 Grand 250 grand. And I’m like ‘that’s not a bad idea!”

SL: “If you make it far, it’s not a bad idea!”

PCO: “That’s a hell of a push! I truly believe that maybe if I was lucky enough, I could have, like, a lucky punch or something, because they called me on a two-week or a week-and-a-half (weeks) notice, you know? Oh, really? Short. Yeah. Yeah, I didn’t have – I didn’t have time to train for that.

SL: “Just like for reference, would any of the other guys have known earlier? Like a Doctor Death: did he know months in advance or how was that sort of planned out?”

PCO: “You would have to make some research on it, but the rumours, maybe if I knew that probably other guys know that, or guys like Bruce Prichard or Vince Russo might know that. I think they gave him enough time to train and to get ready for this because they wanted him to win this thing and to go against – that’s what Jim said, I’m not sure if that was the plan for him to go against Steve Austin – but they wanted to build Doctor Death with this, I think, even if it was created on something that Bradshaw was bragging about with Vince Russo and then decided to go with it. I think Williams is really just the guy that they thought would win it by what he had achieved, being a four-time All-American in wrestling and having played for the Oakland Raiders in the NFL a little bit and college football and being a tough guy and having like a reputation of being one of the toughest shooters in the wrestling business.”

SL: “(He) just had the resume.”

PCO: “Yeah, beating up guys. You know, I’d seen him like, bullying new guys, young kids and things like that. And, he was strong. I saw him – like he did like he was doing like, easy – I saw him press Phineas Godwinn probably 300 pounds over his head in a wrestling match. In the gym, he was super strong, too, like behind the neck, easy. 350 pounds easy. He would do like 10 reps of that. So he was a strong guy. Yeah.”

SL: “It wasn’t an undeserved reputation.”

PCO: “Yeah, well, I don’t know if he – you know, probably some guy saw him in the ring giving a lot of beatings to job guys and things like that, or guys that are popping out in the business, or guys with a reputation that (were maybe) trying to go against them or whatever. I don’t know, because I’m not from that, from Steve’s era, really. He’s older than me, and he did a lot of his things for UWF, which I did watch a little bit but no, I wasn’t a part of them. I was a kid still. So, anyway, I took the fight on short notice, and I thought to myself, I said to myself, ‘if I, you know, by any kind of luck in any kind of good vein, I want to win this thing. It’s going to be – I want to force myself into a bush.

Well, it didn’t turn out to be like that, but I did fairly good. I didn’t get knocked down. The scariest thing when you do something like that you don’t want to end up on your ass. You don’t want to end up doing the bacon dance, you know?”

SL: “I’ve never heard that before! That’s hilarious.”

PCO: “You want to keep your pride you know, you want to show that you can go to fight and have a good fight.”

SL: “Hundred percent. Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t think anybody got that major push out of the brawl for all nonetheless yourself.”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any transcriptions used. 

Current MLW star Josef Samael has been thrilling and shocking audiences worldwide for the better part Whether it be as the Almighty Sheik, NASDAQ, or in his current incarnation as the head of CONTRA Unit, Samael has become one of the most respected names in the business today.

However, despite a loaded resume and the overwhelming respect of his peers, Samael only signed his first contract in professional wrestling a little over two years ago.

Samael recently joined me to discuss his role in Major League Wrestling, as well as signing his first-ever contract in professional wrestling with the promotion.

His role as a veteran in Major League Wrestling:

SL: “You sort of answered the question for me, but I was gonna ask you: how vital is it to have someone like yourself in a Major League Wrestling where you’re one of the deepest rosters in pro wrestling, period, but perhaps there are some individuals there who haven’t been in the ring or haven’t had the experience that someone like yourself has had in professional wrestling? Do you see that as a bit of your role as one of the veterans of the promotion?”

JS: “Absolutely. Everything I’ve learned in professional wrestling, somebody’s taught me, Indirectly directly, whatever. So, you know, it’s my duty to do the same, whether they’re receptive or not. MLW has a very respectful locker room, the younger guys really, really respect the old guard. And, unfortunately, I’ve found myself as one of the old guard today, it’s weird, it happened in a blink of an eye, but I do like to take my knowledge and give it to these younger guys because I sit on – I see things from a completely different vantage point, and a lot of times what I say to a younger guy doesn’t apply, and a lot of times it does. Sometimes, I can just tweak them a certain way. ‘Hey, move right instead of left. Hey, when you do that, keep doing that, but do it this way.’ You know, ‘pull back on that, push forward on that.’ Just these little things that – a lot of wisdom in professional wrestling isn’t always-or-never. It’s situational. It depends on the person.”

“So yeah, the younger guys are very receptive to me, and I have found myself in that role quite often, agenting matches. That’s one of my favorite things to do with MLW, and I’ve been very successful with my finishes. I fancy myself a ‘finish’ guy. I am really good at connecting the dots and making sense of this thing. And I think that’s very important, is to not only make sense of it, but to have it be digestible to an audience.

To do something, sometimes people do things just to let everybody know they’re smart, and that’s not always the route you should take in pro wrestling. Sometimes it should be spoon-fed to an eight-year-old. Sometimes things should be obvious.

Other times things should not be obvious. Sometimes when they think you’re going right, you should go left. Sometimes you should give them what you want. Sometimes you should take it away. It’s really, really important to understand the psychology of professional wrestling and to apply it in the right places. We’re not always right, and we’re not always wrong, but we definitely try to have the best batting average as possible if that makes any sense.”

Signing his first-ever wrestling contracts with Major League Wrestling:

SL: “We mentioned right off the hop on this interview that you’re a very well-traveled guy. You’ve wrestled for a number of different promotions, but I believe I’m correct in saying that this is your first professional wrestling contract, or, I guess contracts now by this point. What is it about the promotion that inspired you to make the jump and make a formal commitment to them?

”

JS: “Well, first of all, yes, it is. It is my first professional wrestling contract, and that’s completely by design. It’s not that I was never offered or it’s not anything like that. I just always kind of travelled that Bruiser Brody route. He was somebody that was a great inspiration to me and I just felt like I felt like the business was an outlaw business, and when I broke in there was still crazies in it and it was like a place where crazies could go to work. That’s kind of what I like to do. I’d like to travel. I like to globetrot. I like to do stuff. As I started to get older, I was always concerned with keeping one foot in front of the other having something to look forward to it. You know, as far as work goes, I don’t have a retirement. I don’t – entertainment and professional wrestling is my life. It is my livelihood. If you’re a smart performer, you’re always trying to figure out how to have something else in the future. This way you never run out of work as long as you can. So I’ve always been somebody that learned every part of the business.

I’ve always been in the back office booking and I’ve always been creating digital art and T-shirt designs. Everything. I’ve done every aspect of professional wrestling from top to bottom, besides editing. That’s the only thing I’ve never done which I’ll hopefully learn one day. But, as I grow older and I started to think as offers came in, I was kind of scared to do that because it felt very final to me, like somebody would own me or somebody. MLW was just the right fit for me. The people that are within the business are people that I respect. I know that they respect the professional wrestling that I like to present and I’m not saying that ours is better than anybody else’s but MLW’s product reminds me of World Class. It reminds me of the Florida Championship Wrestling of Eddie Graham, the Dory Funk Sr’s, it reminds me of All Japan, it reminds me of the professional wrestling business that I grew up to love. I certainly wouldn’t sign on with any company that I didn’t respect, and there’s plenty that I don’t but without naming any names, but when I definitely wanted to be with a group that I felt part of the family. I felt at home and MLW is certainly that for me.”

JS: “So yeah, it was a bit nerve-wracking, but I had friends in there so I felt like I went you know what I didn’t feel out of sorts. I knew after speaking to them that I was wanted for more than just my in-ring, and that’s something that’s very attractive to me because I do have a lot of knowledge. I have a lot of knowledge from just my experience on the road, and from – I’m not trying to name drop, but I talked to Terry Funk often. I talk to Kevin Sullivan almost daily. I talk to Jake Roberts whenever I can.

I talk to these guys that are, to me, the Einsteins of the business and I do have that knowledge to give these young guys, and not only do I have it, but I love to give it. It’s a passion of mine to be surrounded in the art and the history and the mechanics of professional wrestling. So MLW is just a great fit, I know it’s a long answer, but it’s just a great fit for me and, and a place that I feel at home, and I honestly don’t feel like -unless something absolutely crazy happened and they didn’t want me anymore – I feel like I’ll have a long history with MLW and most likely close out my career there.”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any transcriptions used.