I just finished watching the video. Here are some highlights. Willie goes a little bit into how he started in the industry and how he has, if I remember correctly, a Master's in literature, which was surprising to me. The gist I got from the interview is that Willie is a very passionate person who was very proud of his first few years at Flo, and he had nothing but great things to say about the original innovators at Flo, including Joe Flo, Martin, Fretwell, Roper and others I can't recall right now.
Prior to Willie joining Flo, he had worked at the Open Mat, but was making no money at all. He was at the Open Mat for three years and I believe he made $400 a month for the last 6 months he was there, and other than that he was paying everything out of his pocket to go to tournaments, etc.
I believe I totally underestimated the fracture that has occurred in the relationship between Willie and Pyles. Willie called Pyles a back stabber. It sounded like they were extremely close at one point with Willie going to Pyle's house for Thanksgiving, etc.
Willie really believes that the demise of Flo was when they brought in venture capitalists and Flo became too corporate and, in my words, lost its soul. He believes that Flo is now solely interested in subscriptions and that they do not have business ethics or a love for the sport of wrestling in general.
Willie talked about how his demise at Flo started when Flo offered him some good money to assist with some of the other Flo programs such as Flo track, etc. Willie pushed hard to get Flo to hire Pyles, and Willie later said that getting Flo to hire Pyles was the worst decision he ever made. Ouch!
Willie was under the impression that once he finished his short stint helping out some of the other programs such as Flo track, that he would be able to slide back into his position as the head wrestling person at Flo, but when Willie tried to get back into that position, Flo kept Pyles in Willie's old slot. Willie also made the comment that he did not have any respect for Flo now because they tried to take him down as collateral damage in order to get to Martin and Rokfin. Willie felt that Pyles became buddy buddy with the higher ups at Flo in order to boost his own career.
Willie told one story in particular where Pyles totally berated Nomad on live air when Nomad was a very new employee. Willie was disgusted with how Pyles had behaved and later found out that Pyles went in and deleted all of the video footage of the incident. I believe that Willie now has little to no respect for Pyles.
When Willie was asked if he had any issue with Ben Askren taking over his position on FRL, the only thing Willie mentioned was he felt Askren had betrayed Martin, who Askren had been very close friends with, because Askren knew that the prior lawsuit that Flo had brought against Martin was frivolous, and had cost Martin hundreds of thousands of dollars. Willie felt it was wrong of Askren to join on to Flo after Flo had treated his friend Martin so poorly.
