The Art of Wrestling with Colt Cabana
Release Date: September 7, 2017
Guest: Dalton Castle
Recap by: Josh Coulson
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Newsworthy items
- The first promoter Colt ever worked for had him wrestle King Kong Bundy in one of his first ever matches.
- Dalton Castle worked in radio before he was a pro wrestler, interviewing the likes of CM Punk, Metallica, and Paul Heyman.
- Colt’s terrible WWE win/loss record is the worst of all time according to a list on Reddit.
- Castle amateur wrestled throughout high school and college and still dabbles in it now.
- Colt has a reputation among peers for being a great wrestler, but having a hard comeback punch.
- Castle turned down TNA to be with ROH and got calls from people at the former telling him he had made a huge mistake.
Show highlights/rundown
Colt reveals that in his first one-on-one interview for a while, his guest will be Dalton Castle. He adds that even though the live shows don’t do the same numbers as the one-on-ones he hopes that those who did listen enjoyed them.
Colt discusses some of the things him and Dalton talk about, including the first time they ever met before Castle had even started wrestling. He also quickly tells a story about the first promoter he ever worked for, who had him wrestle King Kong Bundy in one of Colt’s first ever matches.
Cabana says that he has wanted to talk to Dalton like this for a while, but they were previously in a program together at Ring of Honor.
Cabana quickly recaps a couple of the tales from his time at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, including having his bike stolen and getting on a train to London rather than Glasgow.
The return to one-on-one interviews means the return of song of the week, and this week it’s The Sprained Ankles with “Heel Turn.”
Interview begins
The interview starts with Colt talking to Dalton about his time in radio, referring back to when he interviewed Paul Heyman and CM Punk on his show. He didn’t tell the two of them that he was a wrestler until the mics went off.
Colt asks who he had the chance to talk to while in radio. There was one time when he had to interview Metallica after his shift ended and he was mad because it meant he missed the first half of a hockey game he had tickets to.
Dalton also interviewed stars like Chad from Nickelback and the bands Linkin Park and POD.
Colt and Dalton then argue over whether you should reject interviews you don’t want to do or simply ignore their messages.
First meeting
The two of them then get on to the topic of the time they first met. It was in a bar after a Chikara show and before even talking to him, Colt assumed that Dalton had been wrestling for about ten years because he was so relaxed. He quickly found out that he was just a friend of a wrestler.
Castle asks if Colt remembers how they bonded that night. Apparently they were putting salt and pepper on a drunk girl at their table and telling her she was going to be ‘so spicy.’
Colt then goes on to talk about how he worries what impression he has left on people who haven’t seen him again since back then. He also says that he didn’t like Castle that night, but he has changed over the years. Dalton says that he considers consequences more now and whether the whole room is going to find what he’s doing/saying funny.
Castle says as much as he has changed, there are still YouTube videos of him out there from his time in radio thinking that he was funny when he really wasn’t.
Colt asks if Dalton’s goal was to one day get into podcasting. Castle recalls working four jobs and listening to Art Of Wrestling. At the time he thought that people with podcasts wanted to get into wrestling until he realized that the industry is actually replacing radio.
Colt compares podcasters wanting to get into radio as wrestlers wanting to get to WWE. That even though you don’t have to do it that way any more, people still strive for it. Dalton thinks people do it so that they have an employer they can shift responsibility on to.
Whenever Colt tells people he’s a pro wrestler, they don’t seem to think he’s validated until he tells them he was with WWE for a couple of years.
Colt reveals that his terrible WWE record got him on to a list as one of the worst WWE Superstars of all time on Reddit.
Amateur Wrestling
Colt asks how exactly Dalton came to befriend and travel with pro wrestlers. Castle says that he has known Colin Delaney since kindergarten and has been friends with him ever since.
When he first started travelling around with them, Dalton tells Colt that he was too involved in amateur wrestling to join them in the pro wrestling world.
Dalton remembers thinking his sister’s boyfriend was really cool because he was an amateur wrestler, and that’s what made him choose to do the same thing. He later learned that the boyfriend was actually a terrible wrestler, but Dalton himself got really good at it and still amateur wrestles to this day.
Dalton is the only pro wrestler that goes to this amateur wrestling training, and he didn’t tell them he was a pro wrestler until he had been doing it for eight months.
Colt asks if he has ever been recognized via people seeing him on TV. Dalton says that he was once in a gym where he was on the TV and still nobody realized.
Dalton says that at the show he’s going to that night everyone will know who he is, but as Colt points out those are the only people within a 100 mile radius who will know who he is.
Dalton then begins talking about when his amateur wrestling career really came to an end, and in his senior year at college he didn’t get the wildcard bid to go to nationals.
A little while later Colin, who was still with WWE at the time, cornered him and said that he should really be getting into professional wrestling. He says that subconsciously he needed actual pro wrestlers to tell him that he should be doing it, and that’s what kick started his career.
Colt talks about things he tells kids to do if they want to become a pro wrestler. One of them is to learn a different language because if you can speak Spanish, for example, then you can go a long way in Mexican wrestling. Dalton asks why people put on an accent when they speak to people from other countries in broken English.
Castle goes on to talk about his brief time training to become a pro wrestler, and how he lucked out and didn’t have to pay for it. He was later booked on a show by that same trainer.
The independents and Ring Of Honor
Colt asks Castle how he felt when that first match came, to which he replies he was extremely nervous. His trainer, Hellcat, was in the tag match with him and told him to slow down. He wrestled as Guile, his real last name, Colt thought it was an ode to the Street Fighter character.
Colt reveals to Dalton that it doesn’t click for anyone in their first match, something Castle is extremely relieved to hear. He remembers a tag gauntlet match a little while later when it started to click.
Castle then tells the story of the first time he ever worked in a match with Colt. He had always wanted to be friends with him and thought this would be the moment. Dalton accidentally gave Colt a stiff forearm and then blamed it on his trainer, and later in the night Cabana shouted at him for being loud while he was trying to record a podcast.
Cabana recalls the stiff forearm, and Castle says that he would do it again. Colt says that Generico and Owens have commented on his come back punches being particularly hard.
Colt then fast forwards to Dalton’s work with Ring Of Honor. He’s incredibly popular there at the moment, but he says he is constantly terrified that people will get tired of him any day now. Cabana says that’s what he likes about the independents, it’s not a machine making people, but fans gravitate to those who are naturally the best characters.
Dalton describes how he had been trying out the character that he uses in ROH for a couple of years prior on the indies. He remembers being given show girls at first before telling the promoter that they needed to be boys instead.
Colt asks if he came in as a heel in ROH. Dalton says he had to as his first match was against someone coming back following a recovery from cancer.
Castle was given the choice of joining ROH or TNA, and says that it was a very tough choice to make. He recalls going for so long without any offers and then gets two at the same time. One choice wasn’t a good living while the other was a decent salary, but not somewhere that he wanted to be. He chose ROH because they were going to be a lot more hands off with his character and creativity.
Colt asks if he felt bad for rejecting TNA and that he was burning a bridge. Castle says that he got phone calls from people there telling him he was making a big mistake, which just solidified for him that he was making the right choice.
When Dalton went to Japan, Tanahashi told him that’s he’s his favorite wrestler.
Colt asks what worries him about later in his career. Castle replies his top worries are his character getting stale and not being able to do what he wants to in the ring.
Cabana points out a scar on Castle’s risk. Dalton says that it’s from a staph infection he got and Colt is confused as no one else who wrestled in that ring got it.
Colt says that Castle could always return to amateur wrestling if need be, and Dalton claims that there isn’t a seventh grader he couldn’t take down. Dalton says that he could beat a seventh grade Jon Jones, but Cabana disagrees.
Colt then finishes off in the usual way by asking where Dalton is at on the internet.
Close of show
Colt then throws back to his studio apartment for the close of the show. As usual he wraps things up with some plugs and upcoming events.
Review (7/10)
A welcome return to one-on-one interviews this week for Art Of Wrestling, and a great first guest to get back into the swing of things. It was interesting to learn about Castle’s path into the business, and how he started late for someone who was friends with pro wrestlers his entire life. While Castle’s life story makes for a great interview, the only pitfall in this particular episode is the lack of discussion about where Dalton is right now, which isn’t really discussed until the very tail end of the podcast.
Subjects covered (with timestamps)
0:00- Sponsor/ad
0:31- Start of show
8:53- Song of the week
11:39- Interview begins
16:28- First meeting
24:59- Amateur wrestling
41:42- Independents and ROH
1:02:43- Close of show
About the writer
Josh Coulson is a journalism graduate from Bristol, England. He has been a pro wrestling fan since the age of 10 and truly fell in love with the business during the build to WrestleMania X-Seven, citing the rivalry between Austin and The Rock as what really got him hooked. Other than wrestling he is a keen soccer fan and a long suffering supporter of his local team Bristol City. You can find him @BristolBeadz on Twitter.
For more, check out our archive of The Art of Wrestling.
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