Dan Barry Interview by Abby Maldonado

Photo credit: @JWasherBeyond

Abby Maldonado had the privilege of sitting down with Dan Barry back in June of 2022 while Dan was in Albany, NY performing stand up with Mick Foley. Dan was Foley’s opening act. The man with four first names…Daniel Charles Matthew Barry. Stand up comedian. Wrestler. They chatted for about an hour and discussed alot of his beginnings. Enjoy.

Q: So how old are you?

A: I am 39. I turned 39 in February, which is not great. Thirty-nine, for some reason, is notably more depressing than any other age I’ve had so far. Not that 40 is a big deal, because it’s really not.

Q: Do you have any age-oriented goals you think you should have hit by now?

A: No. I’ve never lived by goals. I used to work in television. And they were like, “Hey, if you aren’t a producer by this amount of time, then what are you doing?” I’ve never liked that. I’ve always lived under the guise of: I just want to enjoy today and hopefully enjoy tomorrow. And, so, if I can try to enjoy aspects of each day, that’s great. That’s kind of my benchmark for success. It’s not about money for me. Or titles. Or aspirational goals. It’s always been about not being a miserable fuck.

Q: Where were you born? Where’d you grow up?

A: I was born in Long Island, NY. A town called Brentwood. We moved around a bunch when I was a kid. I lived in Woodside. I lived in Brooklyn. I lived in the Poconos. When my dad left, we relocated to my grandparents house in Bellemore. And then we sort of moved into a new house every year. We went from living in my grandparents’ basement, to living in a one-bedroom apartment above a U-Haul with four kids. Then moving to a two-bedroom. And then a three-bedroom. And then, eventually, mom was able to buy a house in Long Island, New York.

Q: Were your parents together for any of this?

A: No. My dad left when I was a year old, basically.

Q: What was your first exposure to pro wrestling?

A: So, I had an older cousin who was a big wrestling fan. And he’d be forced to babysit us. So we’d be watching wrestling Saturday Nights. Saturday Night Main Event.

On channel 12 by me, after a certain time it’d become sold time slots. USWA would be on at, like, 2:00 in the morning. And we’d just be up all night watching wrestling.

And there was a guy my mom knew. She didn’t realize he was into wrestling. His name was John Shane. He was a wrestling manager. He used to wrestle at The Dog House in Brooklyn. We started seeing him and going to his shows and that became my, “OH, I’ve got to do this.” And John Shane was roommates with Mick Foley. It’s kind of this whole weird world of how I got in. But it all started with my cousin. And then me being like, “I want to be a wrestler.” I thought I’d never be a wrestler because I thought they were all, like, 7 feet tall. And then I watched USWA and there was the Lightning Kid, AKA XPac, wrestling someone who I believed was Jeff Jarrett. I don’t know who it is, but in my head it’s Jeff Jarrett. It was on at 2 o’clock in the morning. And I’m like, “That guy is small like me.” Fun Fact: Xpac is not small. He’s, like, 6’4″. But to me, he was a midget.

Q: Is there anyone who influenced your style of wrestling?

A: I think no one can watch my style of wrestling and pick out who my influences are. But my influences, really, and this is legitimately true: Dean Malenko, William Regal, Yuji Nagata. So, I love that wrestling. Say whatever you will; I don’t look like I like that wrestling when you watch me wrestle.

My other wrestling influence is Jackie Chan. People will say Bruce Lee is a better martial artist. But people who know martial arts will say Jackie Chan is probably equally as good. The difference being when Bruce Lee would hit a punch, he’d add ferocity to it. Whereas when Jackie Chan would hit a punch, you’d get a, “Ow! Shit! My hand!” And I liked that! There was something about that that showed notably more personality than, “Look how badass I am.” So, I’ve created a moveset or way of doing things that’s based on the idea of, “why the fuck am I doing this?”.

Q: Almost, like, ironic?

A: It’s like an irony of, “How did I get in this scenario?”. Jackie Chan, in a lot of fight scenes, he was just working with his environment. So, when I think about wrestling, I’m on the top rope. “Why am I comfortable on this top rope?” This is a weird position to be in. So rather than be super comfortable, there is always an edge of, like, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…”, and then I just do whatever I’m doing. And that’s the kind of mindset I’ve adopted in wrestling.

Q: To pivot a little bit: what was your first exposure to stand-up?

A: My mom will tell the story of me sitting in the living room watching Carlin. And laughing when I was supposed to be laughing, even though I definitely did not understand the jokes. And for me it was always like, “I love stand-up.” Loved it. I would listen to stand-up. I’d buy CDs and listen to them on car rides. I’d watch it. HBO had comedy specials. Like, Comic Relief and stuff. I’d watch A to Z — every single one. And then Comedy Central came around. They had the 30-minute, 22-minute stand-up shows. I would watch those aggressively, as well. And I would consume stand-up. And then I would go to school and try to formulate jokes. I had stupid jokes that I thought were really funny. There was a newspaper in my eighth grade, and I wrote monthly jokes. And some were real bad. And some were… I had one: “Michael Bolton had just released a greatest hits CD. It’ll be blank. It’ll contain absolutely no songs.” Something like that. <laughs> I remember thinking: that was my pride and joy. Meanwhile, Michael Bolton is a very talented musician, but at the time I was like, “Fuck him. He’s not Nirvana. He’s not making my type of music.”

Q: Is there anyone who influenced your style of comedy?

A: I’ve always been a fan of people who’ve had authenticity to their voice; Carlin being a pretty good example of that. It didn’t matter what he was saying, he just genuinely believed what he was saying. Not that it was true. But HE believed that what he was saying was true. So, you have Carlin; you have Bill Burr. Those are guys I really look up to. You have <Richard> Pryor. I would argue Pryor is up there as well; because, again there was that level of authenticity in everything he said. And, as you move on, there’s a guy Gary Goldman, who I think is one of my favorite comedians ever. And it’s not his authenticity. I mean, it is his authenticity, but it’s more like, “Of course you believe that… you’re an idiot.” And someone who I think is very good and very underrated is Kevin Hart. I think Kevin Hart is a phenomenal stand-up comedian. He really is. Everything he says is in his voice. There is no doubt what he’s saying, you believe. Yes, he is a fucking empire now, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the guy’s fucking good. He is GOOD. It’s like the Cena thing where everyone says, “Cena sucks”, but … yeah, yeah, yeah. How’d he get there? There’s a reason the guy can sell out Madison Square Garden.

Q: Where did you train to be a wrestler?

A: My training started at New York Wrestling Connection. Which, at the time, was called Critical Mass Pro Wrestling. In 2000; I was 17. My mom had to sign a little waiver. It was in Hicksville. It started in a karate dojo. So, we were bumping on mats in the karate dojo. Then they moved it to a garage, and the garage was in a strip mall. And in between a pet store and a learning center there was an alleyway… There was a garage that was the storage garage for the pet center that they ended up getting rid of. And they put a ring in there. It was a three-car garage that had a wrestling ring. Weird. We had no air conditioning and no heat.

Q: Who was your trainer?

A: I always credit my trainers as being Mickey Whipwreck and this guy Mike Mayhem. Mikey being the secondary trainer I had. And then there’s a guy John Curse, who I would argue is a really good trainer, but he was more the business end of NYWC. He was the guy who handled the books and finances, but he was an amatuer wrestler. A legit shoot wrestler trained by Taz. Dude’s legit. The next guy was this guy Brimstone, who was definitely NOT my trainer. He’s a fucking monster. I didn’t like him. He credits himself as being my trainer; but, I can assure you, he wasn’t.

What I liked about Mike Mayhem is, Mike Mayhem is a guy that I argued didn’t necessarily get the psychology of pro wrestling. At all. But he could literally do, give, and take every wrestling move ever invented. And I think even now it’s incredibly important for young wrestlers to learn that. Because everyone learns the basics. They’re like, “Here’s the basics.” And then a lot of schools say, “Go out there and get experience.” From my perspective, it’s like, learn how to take absolutely every single move. Because if you’re going to be on the indies, you’re going to be taking every single fucking move. If you’re easy to work with, then people are going to want to work with you. If you’re not easy to work with, nobody is gonna want to work with you. So?

Mike Mayhem — I give him that much credit for giving me the moveset. Mike, you’re the first one that really solidified the wrestling aspect for me.

Q: And the psychology?

A: Psychology. Presence. Authenticity. An element of what he was teaching was very different. There are certain, I would argue -logical- things he taught me that a lot of people didn’t. And then it came from just being on the road and picking things up. Being at a show. Simon Diamond running a wrestling show, and me listening to him. And people are like, “here’s what you can do better.” I’ve also gotten a lot of shit advice like that. Baseline moves. Here’s basic psychology. I also consume a lot of wrestling media.

Q: Who was your first match against?

A: My first wrestling match was against a guy named Max. Max Million. Who had a weird gimmick. Which was like, he was a playboy, but if you ever knew who Max was, it was not him. They gave him this gimmick because he had abs. It was an odd set up. He was a really good dude. The next match I wrestled a guy named Papadon. Mike Mayhem and Papadon broke my orbital bone. So it was my second match ever… they broke my orbital bone in my second match. Pole in throat, punch me in the face. That’s it.

Q: So, how did you start doing comedy?

A: 2011. So I started working in Television. I had already been a wrestler at this point for about 11 years, or something like that. I started working in television and I was an Associate Producer and was working for a show called The Marriage Ref, which was a Jerry Seinfeld show. And it was hosted by a comedian named Tom Papa. Tom Papa is really good comedian. Phenomenal. He’s kind of ‘squeaky clean’ as far as comedians go. He’s kind of a cleaner comedian. But that’s Tom Papa. Authenticity to his voice. And I was telling him a story, cuz he and I worked somewhat closely together during the course of the day. And as I’m telling him the story, he asked me, “Are you a comedian?” And I said, “No.” He says, “You have the cadence of a comedian. You sound like you do comedy.” I said, “I’ve always wanted to do comedy.” And he goes, “Have you ever tried an open Mic?” I said, “No. I’ve never gotten to it.” He goes, “You should try an open mic. I always say to people if you want to do comedy go try an open mic.”

Q: So what year would you say this was?

A: About 2010 – 2011. In that timeframe. My first show was 2011. In 2010 was when he told me to do that, and I didn’t do it right away. And then he asked me if I had done it, and I said, “No”. And he’s like, “What the fuck?” And, then, there was a break in the show for a week. Sometimes shows go on little short hiatuses ‘cause there’s nothing filming. So, they don’t pay people to sit in the office, and I had nothing to do. Governours comedy club in Levittown, NY had an open mic on Wednesdays. I found out that a girl I went to High School with worked at Governors. She and her husband were part owners. So, I sent her a message, like, “is there any chance I can get myself on that open Mic show?” She goes, “Do you have five friends?” I said, “I sure do.” So, I called five of my closest friends. And the five friends that I called, I knew that if I didn’t do well, they would fucking tell me. You know how you have those friends, who are like, there’s no bullshit in them? I called those friends.. I’m like, “I need you guys to come, and I want you to tell me the absolute fucking truth.” And so I went up and told some jokes. I did, like, six minutes worth of material. I had put a lot of work into what my bits were going to be. And there were one or two jokes that just didn’t land, but for the most part it was, “Oh no. You got it. You figured it out. You should keep doing this.”

I’d gotten into the green room, and I called it a “locker room”. Because it’s the same bullshit. Every comedian in the room could’ve been a wrestler on the show I did the week before. It was the same. So I walked in, and I’m seeing, like, “That’s the guy that’s really loud and really shitty.” You could tell immediately. “That guy’s not funny but he’s going to be the loudest person in here. He is going to be telling everyone what’s wrong with comedy.” And then you start going around. “That guy, the quiet one over there, he’s the one that’s really good but people are sleeping on him.” And then you get to this point, I talked to the booker of the show and I asked, “Is there a light?” Because, normally, in comedy there’s a light in the back of the room. And he goes, “Get a watch!”, and he walked away. And I start laughing. Because that’s what Mickey would’ve said. If you were like, “How do I know eight minutes is up?” <He’s say,> “Learn how to fucking tell time, kid. What do you want me to say to you?” So I was like, “Oh, okay. I get this.” So, all the lumps I took when I first came to wrestling, where I didn’t understand the etiquette of pro wrestling; I am now a veteran in the etiquette of pro wrestling. So, I walked in and was just “the nice guy”. And that’s it. I just had to be nice, and a decent hang, and people would be cool with me. And that’s all I did. And from there, the ball kept rolling because I wasn’t a shitty dude.

Q: What’s it like to tell a bad joke?

A: Oh, it’s a sock in the gut. I just told this story…. We did the Mick Foley <show> last night. But me and Mick did a fundraiser in Shelter Island. It’s in Long Island. But they do a bikeathon to raise money for MS. And they go, “Would you mind doing comedy at this show?” They’re supposed to ride a bike for two days. They are then supposed to get a feast of food. And then they’re supposed to get alcohol. And then a comedy show starts.

Well, the food never came. And the alcohol didn’t come. And then they’re like, “Can you guys just do the comedy because we’re running behind?” So, I have to tell jokes in front of people who just rode a bike for two Goddamn days. I go up and do my first joke… I’m trying to break the ice because you could feel they were like, “What the fuck is going on?”

So, I’m like, “I think It’s really great you guys do a bikeathon for MS. But I have acid reflux. Could I get, like, a walkathon or something?” And then no one laughed. Not a single person. And a person in the front row looked at me and said, “No.” That was the only response I got.

I find there are two types of jokes where you don’t get a laugh. So, there’s that – The gut punch. And then there’s the one that you think is really funny that you didn’t get a laugh. When I got depressed, I would write jokes about suicide or whatever, because it’s kind of cathartic for me. And it gets me to a point where I can make fun of all that dark thing that happens. So my joke was:

“I really got depressed and thought about commiting suicide. I looked at my ceiling fan and I realized it would never support my weight. So I joined a gym.

Good news is I’m almost at my goal weight.”

And you could feel the sadness cover the room. And that was hilarious to me. Because I knew that was a bad joke, but I’m doing it anyway. Every now and then you’ll tell a joke you know is shit, and that’s the point of telling the joke.

“Did I tell you I’m a big supporter of dried out grapes?

I’m just raisin awareness.”

Q: In your body of work, what would you say is one of your best matches, or a match that you’re most proud of? But, then also tell me about a match of yours you’d never want people to watch.

A: I’ve probably had more of those. So it depends. I’ve had matches where I’m really proud of them that people will never see again. I had a ladder match with this guy Grim Reefer and Johnny Ova in NYWC in 2003. And it was a three-way Tables Ladders Chairs match. And, the point was, I’d become the lightweight champion. I had lost the belt the show before due to shenanigans. And the whole point of this match was to build to what was going to be called “The Psycho Circus”, which was an enormous event that NYWC runs every year. So myself, Reefer, and Ova pitched the idea of this three-way TLC match. And, at first, they were hesitant, but then they said, “Let’s do it.” So, myself, Reefer, and Ova met up secretly and went over wild ideas we’d come up with. But Reefer was the first person to jump off the top of the ladder, land on the top rope, and then flip off into the crowd. HE did that on that show. A sold out show. Like, we… That’s the thing about the show, too; we sold it out. Three people, who, at that point, no one gave a fuck about, sold out this show because they were like, “They’re gonna fucking kill it.” And we had creative spots. We did a lot. And the last spot I took, I was at the top of the ladder. We’re talking – a big ladder. A legit 15-footer, and I’m grabbing the rope, and they push it. And I go through four tables on the outside of the ring. And I ate that bump. I ate it. To the point where people came over to check on me after the show.

I did another version of that with Angel Ortiz, Wes Draven, and Joey Ace. And we did it in FTW. And the last thing I took was a Canadian Detroyer off the top of a ladder through a table. And again. There’s no footage. There’s no nothing. But I know that this happened.

Q: So there’s no footage of these matches?

A: If it does exist, I’ve never seen them. It might be out there.

As far as recent memory, me and Bill <Carr> won the CZW tag team championships against the Young Bucks, OI4k, Alex Reynolds, and John Silver. And they thought the tag team championship was going to The Young Bucks. And then we beat all of them. And the crowd wanted The Young Bucks to win, and I think, in that moment, they realized it was, like, a switch… a total switch.

My first match in OTT, against a guy, B Cool. It’s based out of Dublin. I was in Ireland and was like, “Hey, can you please get me on your show? If you have an open spot I’ll take it.” And they said I was going to wrestle this guy, B Cool. I feel like they booked it as a throwaway match. I wasn’t going to ask for a lot of money. I was just a dude who happened to be in Ireland. Me and B Cool had a really good match. A match that, like, the crowd was chanting my name by the end, and they had no idea who I was when I walked in the door. There’s footage of them singing “Dan” to the beat of Everybody Dance Now. It went from no response when I first came out, to that.

And then Progress Wrestling, me and Bill (Carr) against the Anti-Fun Police. They were cops. We were cops. And the point of the match was hijinx. The point of the match was not a wrestling match. We had the announcers just broken. We defeated them. It was one of my favorite bits.

If I remember it wrong, I remember it wrong. Someone pulled a finger gun out. It got kicked out their hand. Somebody else grabbed it. It got kicked out of their hand. Somebody else grabbed it. And then as a person went to put the gun down, we all pulled our guns out. And then we all went to put our guns down but we didn’t put our guns down. Another referee came out to stop us from pointing guns. He scared us. We all shot him. He gets hit in the chest. There’s a blood packet. Blood is coming out of his shirt. He dies on the show. He’s not to be seen again the rest of the show. All of us take our finger guns, jump into the crowd and hide them under people’s seats. We slide back in the ring, and we’re standing there waving our hands like, “No, no!”. The crowd starts chanting, “We saw nothing.” That was it. The announcers were broken. Jim Cornette would shoot himself if he saw that show. We had a good follow up. The rest of the match was wrestling. Had a good finish. The crowd was high. Just a cool environment to be in.

Q: Have you ever been arrested?

A: Yep.

Q: I only asked that because of the cop gimmick.

A: The fun part of the cop gimmick is that we weren’t cops. Everyone thought we were cops. People thought the gimmick was, we were cops. But we’re not. We’re crazy people who thought we were cops. It’s a big difference in those two. It’s a weird distinction.

I was a theatre kid. I did a lot of acting growing up. And it’s always like, what’s the thing that people see? And what’s the thing that people don’t see? Every character has the… what’s the driving motivation about who they are. And then what the world sees.

So when we come out and they see us, we’re cops. Except we use finger guns. Not real guns. We don’t wear police outfits. We don’t dress like cops. We dress like undercover cops, except we don’t dress like cops. Because we dress the way we think undercover cops look like, right? Why is that? Because we’re crazy people who think they’re cops.

So, two of my influences were Don Quixote and the other one was this guy Emperor Norton. So, Don Quixote being a knight who wasn’t really a knight. He had this squire with him, Sancho Panza. Sancho Panza just let him be crazy and attack windmills. So I made the crowd my Sancho Panza.

And Emperor Norton is a guy from San Francisco who told everyone he was an emperor. He was the first emperor of America and protector of Mexico. This is all very Google-able. And the people of San Francisco said, “Just let him say he’s an emperor. Who gives a shit?” So he’d go to local restaurants and pay with emperor’s money which was just some nonsense money. But they’d let him, because people would come to restaurants to see SAn Francisco’s Empreror. The world of San Francisco thought he was fine.

He went to jail. They arrested him for lunacy and people protested outside and he was let free. it’s a really cool story. He was actually written about in Huck Finn. When he died, there was a poem written about him. And the summary of the poem is basically: of all the emperors in all the world, he’s the only one where no one had to die so he could get that title.

What a good dude. I like that idea of, ‘yeah, he’s crazy but who gives a shit? He’s not hurting anybody.’ And so that was what drove what Team Tremendous was. And then eventually it just became two lunatics. One of them whose probably drunk, being Bill. And we had this straight man funny man set up. It was designed to be Laurel and Hardy. Abbott and Costello. One of us is the straight man. One of us is the funny man. I was always the straight man, ‘cause Bill is fucking crazy.

Oh. By the way, I have been arrested. I got arrested for not paying tickets. It was on my birthday. I went to go pay a ticket I forgot I had to pay, and they were like, “We issued a bench warrant yesterday,” and they arrested me. I just remember being in handcuffs and thinking, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Q: What match are you still looking to add to your body of work?

A: So, people I would love to wrestle?

Jeff Cobb. I love how he wrestles. He is… There is something about him, to me, that’s, like, the perfect wrestler. Jeff Cobb is a wrestler in his body. There’s nothing that Jeff Cobb is going to do, that someone is going to say, “I can’t believe he did that.” The dude is that talented.

I want one more match with Bill. I want another hardcore match with Bill. We’ve had two. The first one was very good, I think. The second one was lesser. I think for a third one I’d like to amp it up again. I’ve never had a cage match in my life. So I’ve debated, what would a cage match look like? What would a cage match look like with Bill?

Q: Is there any promotion you’ve tried to sell that to?

A: Beyond Wrestling. But the problem is, cages are expensive and hard to come by. And thats a true statement.

I’m all about first time matches. There’s a guy named Joe Lando based out of Europe. But he’s somebody who wrote to me and said, “I’m a big fan. I grew up watching you.” So I told him, “Alright I’m going to wrestle you so you can check it off your bucket list.”

I don’t know. It’s hard. I’m all about experiences. I would love opportunity to wrestle in Japan. I thnk DDT. I think that’s where I would be fun. My birthday is next year. I’m turning 40. I’m going to see if I can arrange a flight to Japan and just reach out. And say, “Hey, give me one”. A match in DDT.

This is going to sound depressing for a second, but I’m on the back nine of this career. My goal right now is to be the guy that helps young wrestlers get up. My job was never to stand on the top of the ladder. My job was to help people on the ladder. Or, if I am on the ladder, to pull them up so they get above me. And at some point my job is to not be near the ladder. I have to be off the ladder for them to get on the ladder. Whatever that means, I know thats going to eventually happen. I don’t want to be the guy who held on too long.

Q: You haven’t set a date for that yet?

A: No. Honestly I really thought about one day just taking the shoes off. And being done. Having a match, and when it’s over, take the sneakers and kickpads off. Bow and then walk out.

The line that I always had in my head was, “All I ever wanted to do was be a pro wrestler”. That’s it. I’ve never wanted anything else. I never wanted to be on TV. I never wanted to be this person. I always wanted to be a pro wrestler. So if I were to die tomorrow, my obituary would read, “Dan Barry – Pro Wrestler.” And that’s kind of all I’ve ever wanted. That. To be recognized on the heels of pro wrestling. There have been wrestlers who say, “I’m the best wrestler no one knows about.” I don’t care. That sounds more depressing that I intended to, but, honestly. People always worry about, “how do I get signed?” or “how do I get on TV?”, and my first response is: just get good. Worry about getting good. You want to be a good wrestler.

I studied every form of pro wrestling because I wanted to be good at it. And it’s arguable if I’m good at certain things or not, but I can competently speak to every single part of wrestling.

Q: Have you ever wrestled in Mexico?

A: No. I would love to. But it never been a goal because I’ve never envisioned that they’d give a fuck about me. I don’t know that I translate.

Q: What was it like working on the reality show with Mick Foley?

A: That was a weird one. And Mick told the story about it last night. But it was something I only found out a few months ago. That he wasn’t the reason I was on the show. Vince McMahon was the reason I was on the show. Which is fucking wild to me. Because that man has 4 other shows he could’ve put me on. C’mon man! You know what I mean? You put me in a reality show? I can do a moonsault!

So, I met Mick Foley in 2006 or 2007. He had been filming another reality show for A&E. The pilot involved him kind of coming back into wrestling because he had stopped wrestling for a bit. And he was watching through a curtain. They were filming through a curtain. He was watching me. I did a move, A Russian Legsweep DDT. So he comes up to me after the show, (imitates Foley), “Hey I saw you did that move. Are you gonna be around tomorrow?. We’re gonna film a thing. I’d like to see if you’ll be involved.”

Now, here’s the thing… I had to be at work the next morning. I’m like, <thinking>, “I’m not going to work now. I’m gonna be on this fucking show. This is my big break.” So he calls me in and we start going over things, he’s going to teach me a move, I’m going to teach him how to do my DDT. And he’s like, (imitates Foley), “So, I’m going to give you the corner spot. Camera’s gonna be on you. So I’m gonna lay it in. It’s gonna be a little snug.” I’m like, “I don’t care. You’re Mick Foley.”

Brother.

That man punched the shit out of me. Like, twelve times and then ran and hit the knee. Whatever. I sold it. The point is, I knew it was coming, but it does really hurt and I had to sell it really hurt. So they cut cameras, and he goes, “Thank you so much. That was great. Great sell on that.” Oh, that wasn’t a sell, brother. You punched the shit out of me.

So, we became friendly and we’d see each other intermittently because he’s a Long Island guy, I’m a Long Island guy. We’d be on shows together. All that kind of stuff. And then that show comes around, I think around 2015. I see he’s going to be at NYWC school. I had bought a sweater from NYWC that I was going to pick up. I was like, “Oh, I’ll just pick up the sweater today. I’ll say Hi to Mick. I’ll go home.” So, I walk in, he sees me. And Mick goes, “Dan can train her.” Pardon?

Turns out they’re filming a reality show with Noelle Foley and Mick Foley. It’s called Holy Foley. And this is the pilot. And they want a trainer. And the idea is, episode one, she has a trainer and Mick takes over training responsibilities. That’s the idea. We film it. And then they green light it, which means I have to recreate everything I did in the pilot. So I recreate everything I did in the pilot, and that’s when they they took it to Vince McMahon. And Vince was like “I want more of his Pomeranian and more of Dan Barry.” So I went from being on one episode to being on the entire season. 8 episodes I was on. It was wild.

I had been a television producer. And I’d been doing very well as a television producer. And one day I was like, “I fucking hate this”, and I quit. I snapped. It’s a long story, but really, like I said, if I’m not enjoying this, I’m just stopping. At the time I had been working for a bank. And I felt I was just producing propaganda. Like they were bragging about things they had done, while they’re forclosing on homes. I was like, this is fucking terrible.

I went from making six figures plus to $26,000 a year. I had done this giant gamut swing. And that was the beginning of that year. I found a gig doing social media for a company. I was making $500 a week. And it was 1099. So I had all my expenses. I had all these things I had to take care of. That came around and that whole summer I just filmed Holy Foley. I went from being in a position where I was like, “I don’t know what I’m going to do to pay my bills this month”, to being like, “Oh, I’m doing fine.” I’m on this show. I was wrestling a lot. I did a lot of comedy because Mick and I were filming this reality show.

It was a total accident that I got brought into it.

Q: When you were doing those Highspot interviews, which was your favorite of those?

A: So there’s been a couple that I thought were very interesting. Cause I oiginally did it with Chuck. And then did it with Bill. And I’m doing it by myself. I’m not doing them as much, but I’m doing them whenever I’m available. The one I think I like the most, that I feel some people aren’t going to like the most, is Meltzer. Because Chuck did not want to interview him whatsoever. I’m not knocking Meltzer. Wrestling journalism is wrestling journalism. But people give him shit for his star ratings. As an adult, why the fuck do you care. Yeah. he gave this match 5 stars and you didn’t like that match. It’s his fucking opinion. HE thought it was a 5 star match. It doesn’t mean that your match was fucking shit on the card. It just means he really liked that one. That’s it. That’s all it means. And then people are like, “he only gave this match 3 stars.” Yeah. That’s good! Three stars is good! Not everything is 5 stars. Go look at any restaurant on Google and find one 5 star restaurant. Even if it’s your favorite restaurant. It’s probably three-and-a-half to four. We’re in a hotel room right now. It’s got 3 stars. I feel good in this hotel. Do you feel good in this hotel?

Q: Looks fine to me.

A: Exactly. But with Meltzer, Chuck was nervous about it. ‘Cause he’s like, “I don’t want to do this.” He was very uncomfortable because he just doesn’t know how to talk to Meltzer. So, we started rolling and the first question I asked Meltzer was, “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

He started laughing. And I was like, that’s what you need to do, man. For the record, where we shot this was sold out with wrestlers. It was sold out. Ricochet was in there. Sami Callihan was in there. The Brits were all in there. Everyone who was on BOLA that year walked into that room to watch that interview. And we just sat and talked. And I pulled in other people. Sami came in. Ricochet came in. Ricochet, who he had just given a 5 star match, came in. The Brits came in. Haskins was in there. Pete Dunne was in there. We’re just calling people over to talk.

Trevor Lee was in the corner just shitting on Meltzer. It was so funny. Meltzer was saying everything that certain companies were doing right and said something that Impact was doing wrong. And Trevor Lee just gave him the finger. It was the funniest thing. They had a real interaction. You could tell Meltzer was uncomfortable. And that’s what made it funnier… Is that Trevor Lee took the guy’s rating and Trevor Lee is like, “Your opinion sucks. Fuck you.” It was like, this funny, genuine… It wasn’t like there was animosity in the room. It was a fun room to be in. And that’s what I liked about that.

I got to interview a cool bunch of people. Josh Barnett was someone that I interviewed. I feel like, if people met the two of us, they’d assume we don’t like each other. And we love each other. I love that man. He’s one of the nicest people in the world to me. We disagree on a lot of shit. But me calling him and talking to him. I pulled him and Jonathan Gresham into an interview once. The fun part about those interviews is, I don’t treat it like a shoot interview because I don’t want it to be. I want it to be: this is who this person is. Lets talk about the fun shit in your life.

I interviewed Mark Andrews. The fun part about interviewing Mark Andrews was he and I didn’t really know each other that well. And I was like come do an interview. I’ll just talk to you. He found out very quickly that I know a lot about British pro wrestling because I really like wrestling. I was like, “you guys haven’t gotten the credit you deserve.” They were fucking killing it forever over there. But there was no access to them. People traded Japanese tapes. People traded Lucha. They never traded British Wrestling. You had to really search for World Of Sports. But if you go back and look there’s a lot of really great wrestling out there.

Q: Is there anybody you’d still like to interview?

A: I want Foley on there. He won’t do it. There are people who won’t do it, I would argue for somewhat good reasons. And there are some people who wont do it because they feel its an attack. And I can’t tell you how little of an attack this is.

I wanted to interview Matt Cardona when he first got released. And he’s like, “I won’t do it because it’s behind a pay window and that’s not what I’m about.” I said “You’re right. I get it. No problem.”

I did an interview this past Wrestlemania with Vincent, Dutch, and Tyler Bateman. Because people think I have heat with Bill Carr, Vincent, and Tyler Bateman, because he left me to go be in that group. I was like. ‘No, just come in. Let’s bullshit for a little while.”

Q: If any wrestler you could wrestle that’s passed, who would you wrestle?

A: Macho Man. WCW Randy Savage. I feel like he would love to be doing some of the wild shit going on right now. There’s something about him that would make me think he’d love it. Another would be Brodie Lee. He was somebody who could wrestle smaller guys and big guys. There was something about watching Brodie Lee. That mother fucker could do anything. He wasn’t presented correctly in the WWE, but Brother could go. And looking back… man, I wish I had wrestled Brodie Lee.

Q: Is there anyone on the indies who you think is up and coming that you think just has it?

A: Alex Coughlin. He’s New Japan Dojo guy. He’s a New York, Long Island guy. I interviewed him just recently on Highspots. He is somebody who, 1) has a lot of personality, that people aren’t going to see yet, 2) he’s got the look, 3) he’s got the skillset, and 4) he’s stong as fuck. He’s uncomfortably strong.

There’s a guy, Encore. He’s new. He’ll get it eventually. I think he can do a lot of good stuff, but not over the hutch yet of whats going to happen.

Q: Have you ever been injured?

A: So many.

Q: What’s your worst injury?

A: My teeth have been knocked out. So that one is pretty rough. That one was the most expensive and that one hurt the most. Broken Orbital bone really sucked. Lets get out my laundry list.

Concussions I’ve had. This is going to include everything I’ve ever injured in my life. Because there’s a lot of them. Concussions, staples, stitches. Broken orbital bone. Broke my jaw. My teeth were knocked out. Broke my nose more than once. I set it with plastic spoons, which is why it’s somewhat crooked. My ear was torn off in a car accident. Broken collar bone. Fractured clavicle. Broken elbow. Broken forearm. Broke my knuckles. Dislocated fingers. Torn labrum in my left shoulder. Separated /dislocated both shoulders at different times. Broke a rib. Dislocated my right hip. Herniated disc in my lower back. No meniscus in my right knee. No MCL in my right knee. Broken ankle. Broken foot. Broken toes. Broken ankle. Broken foot. Broken toes. And that’s not even the stitches. At one point I lost my health insurance, and so I went to a real first aid trauma class so I could learn how to super-glue cuts closed. So that how I avoided a lot of stitches. I have them all over.

Q: Do you train wrestlers?

A: No. I’ll do seminars and shit. I wont train. There’s always weird internal drama at wrestling schools. Wrestling schools and small wrestling communities always have their internal bullshit. And I don’t want to be part of any of it. I like the idea of teaching people. But I like to take what you know and make you rethink presentation wise, how you want to do it. Cause everyone is like, “WWE likes it when you do this?” Cool. Well you’re not in the fucking WWE. Wrestle. Learn how to do everything. And once you learn to do everything, and they go “hey we only like it when you do this”, you can filter it down. Everyone does the same shit on TV right now. Fucking cool. Who cares? It’s boring. Learn everything and then decide who you want to be.