Former 'Jackass' and 'Wild Boyz' star Steve-O was the guest on the latest episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, and as expected it made for an absolutely incredible interview.
It was not Steve-O's first appearance on Rogan's podcast, but there was still a lot to talk about, but with the line of work that he has been in for most of his adult life, the discussion soon turned to concussion and head trauma.
Steve-O, real name Stephen Gilchrist Glover, claimed that of all the cracks to the head he has taken in 'Jackass', it was a promotion with the WWE for his 'Wild Boyz' show that was the worst. Glover was put in the squared circle with Umaga, a 350 pound Samoan monster who unfortunately died of a heart attack in 2009, and a misunderstanding saw him deliver a beat-down.
After the rehearsed part of the performance was done, Steve-O not knowing that he was supposed to play dead seemingly offended Umaga who continued to deliver very real shots to the head despite Glover not knowing where he was. There was even footage to support exactly what he was saying.
I'm begging to him, I'm praying to him [to stop] but I'm still moving, and in his world it's not over until you play dead. But I didn't know that, see? They never even showed the ending, they just cut away from it because it got so ugly.
And I don't remember leaving the ring.
While the two laughed at times, it was more at how utterly ridiculous the situation was, as the story was a part of a wider discussion about how seriously dangerous concussions and head trauma are.
Also interesting from that discussion was Rogan's claim that professional wrestlers are some of the most underappreciated entertainers out there for how much they put in to each performance and how much time they spend on the road.
Pro wrestling is one of the most underappreciated things in terms of how difficult it is for the performers.
It's one of the most difficult jobs a person can do. Those guys are on tour hundreds of days a year, they're constantly on the road, they're doing that all the time, slamming into each other, throwing each other on the ground, pile-driving each other, jumping from the top rope.. Massive trauma.
He's not wrong. We see first hand how many people are so quick to dismiss what professional wrestlers do as 'fake', but there seems to be very little consideration of just how risky what they are doing is, purely to entertain.
You can see from the YouTube clip of Steve-O's WWE performance just how bad the beating was, until they cut away from the worst of it.
It seems ridiculous that an untrained person could go through that sort of thing, but that is exactly the type of risk Steve-O had to take on shows like 'Wild Boyz', where it often seemed like a competition to see how could damage themselves the most without getting killed, all for some good TV.
Steve-O's interview with Joe Rogan was absolutely fascinating, and you can catch it in full below:
