AEW wrestler Shawn Spears was a recent guest on the “INSIGHT With Chris Van Vliet” podcast to discuss a variety of topics, including the infamous Cody Rhodes chair shot in All Elite Wrestling, his future AEW dream matches, Tony Khan’s work ethic, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On the infamous Cody Rhodes chair shot: “Swing for the fences was the term. I said, Okay, put your hands up, and he goes, No. I was like, buddy, you gotta put your hands up. And he says, No. I was like, damn it. So again, it’s Cody, I trust him. He trusts me. [was it supposed to be a gimmicked chair?] Yeah, but it’s, you can shave down a chair as much as you want. It’s not the flat part, it’s the lip of the chair that is always the most dangerous part. And that’s usually the part that catches somebody and, in this case, it was. And it was just a fraction off, but he’ll take the wrap himself, I’m swinging, so I take the rap for it, and it’s my fault. But I hit him and it was a wonderful reaction and it got the shock value that it did and you hear the term red equals green and it’s you know; blood is money and all that kind of stuff.
“I just remember hitting him, listening. And I have a look at Brandi, and we have a little moment there. And I look back at Cody, and that’s when I see the pool. And I just went Oh sh*t. And I look at Brandi, and she’s kind of looking at Cody and she looks at me and I go sorry, I gotta get out of here. I got to the back and like I was, I had tears of like, tears in my eyes. I was profusely apologizing to her, because I felt so bad, I loved that guy, was like a brother. And then I go to check on him and he’s on the table face down and go, I go, Hey, man, look, I’m so sorry, you okay? He’s like you are the most unsafe professional wrestler I’ve ever seen in my life. He starts just busting my balls. And I’m like, you can’t, you don’t understand where I’m at right now man. I’m having a hard time he goes, Yeah, I’d have a hard time too. I am having a hard time getting stitches put in my head. And I’m just like this guy. But that was the night it got, business wise, it got a lot of buzz. It set us up for what would happen at All Out.”
On Tony Khan: “I have never seen him yawn, so I’m assuming no [he doesn’t sleep]. He might be half a cyborg, who knows? But that guy has a tonne on his plate. And just a steel trap of a mind, remembers everything, every detail. When I first met him, we were having conversations, he’s like, Oh, I remember the match you had, I forgot about it. I was like really? Yeah, it was in such and such city. I’m like, holy sh*t. I was like, Oh, you’re just buttering me up? No, he remembers everything. But he’s not just like that with wrestling. I’ve walked into his office and I’ve seen him, he’s got his iPad, I hope I’m not gonna get in trouble for saying this. But he’s got his iPad set up. And he’s watching like a Jags game and they are at you know, he’s watching a Fulham game. And he’s, he’s, he can multitask like, like no one I’ve seen before. But in the midst of putting a card together and getting everything done. And so, I mean, yeah, and like I was saying before, just what a sweetheart of a man, gave me all the time in the world when my mom passed. And now that Austin’s been born, I had all the time in the world to be home with my wife, because it’s just us here, like just a good man, a busy man, but a good man.”
On the chair shot not being capitalized on more: “I thought we could have capitalised on it a little bit more. I thought it, you know, when you come into a company like that, starting out, I don’t think we had TV at the time. That was the other thing about [it]. We had either just gotten it or we were in the works of getting it. I can’t remember the exact time. But a lot of people will say to me, do you think the match, you know, with Cody, do you think you should have won, like coming in, and you know, do you think that would have propelled you? That’s not the match, no, because this match started on the internet. And we did the Road To’s on YouTubes and stuff like that. And the big blow off was the match at All Out.
“I’m a big believer in when the good guy and the bad guy are having battles, it’s okay for the heel to win a few battles here and there. As long as the babyface wins the war. That was our babyface winning the war. Because we didn’t have the three months of television time to kind of bounce back and forth. There would have been five times more promos there would, that’s the part that kind of bugs me the most is I wonder what we could have done verbally against one another because again, he would have forced me to up my game or he would have left me behind. So, I was looking forward to that aspect of things, we just didn’t have the luxury of television time.”
On future AEW dream matches: “There’s no one’s, this doesn’t mean I don’t want to wrestle anybody. But I’ve had, I’ve wrestled almost everybody I’ve set out to wrestle in my career in some way, shape, or form, whether it be a live event when the cameras are off or on tour somewhere in some city that people have forgotten about or whatnot. I’ve been very lucky, very fortunate to wrestle a lot of people that I set out to wrestle. There’s no one that really jumps out at me. Because there’s still a lot of things, I would like to do in AEW. But I had a blast wrestling as many people as I did there so far.
“Maybe Wardlow. I think Wardlow in a one-on-one singles, give us about 20 minutes and just let us wrestle, no cage, you know, even a cool, I’ll take a cold match with Wardlow. Let’s do it on a Dynamite, Rampage can be 20 minutes. And let us just go, because that guy is still untapped. In my opinion, he’s very untapped. He’s been decorated. He’s a two-time TNT champion and stuff like that. But you’ve seen a little bit of his athleticism, but he’s still untapped on what he can do. And I think I can pull it out of him. He is massive, sweetheart of a man, incredible talent, incredible human being.”
On becoming a father: “So, I have a lot of friends. I’m a little older, like I had my child, what many people consider later in life. You know the deal when you’re growing up, everybody [says] you’re supposed to get married and have a house and kids by 30. Just kind of what society has thrown out there, at least for me growing up. So, some people might say I’m a little late, but a lot of my friends have children, and they’ve had kids for years now. And they’ve given me so much advice, and hey, wait till this happens and wait till that happens. And it’s, you can get all the advice in the world, nothing prepares you for when you’re holding your own than everything just, you kind of forget everything that somebody had told you. And then things kind of make sense, but they’re not supposed to. And it’s just, it’s a whole new world. And I’m still trying to figure it out, that’s why I’m still trying to find the words for it. But it is the absolute greatest thing that I have ever done and will ever do in my life. We might have another or whatnot but like this, that will be by far my greatest achievement will be my children.”
