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The Get The Tray Tables podcast hosted by WZ’s Dominic DeAngelo. Along with his younger brother Marcus, Dominic discusses the hot topics of the week as the two reminisce on their wrestling fandom childhood.
In this special episode, Dominic & Marcus talk to Brandon Cutler. Cutler, a long-time friend of Matt & Nick Jackson, grew up in California and was a recent feature on AEW‘s “The Road To Double Or Nothing” series, being one of the three competitors announced for this year’s “Over Budget Battle Royal.” Cutler returned to wrestling last year after being retired for seven years and in this hour-long conversation he talks about his start, the reason for his initial exit and the ironic (and inspiring) twist of his wife aiding him into make a wrestling return. Below are some quotes from the the first part of the interview:
Brandon Cutler on what makes him “seven layers” a nerd:
I’d say the biggest thing that makes me a nerd is I’m into Dungeons & Dragons. I remember like growing up and knowing who Captain America was, that was enough to make you a nerd. Nowadays, you have big blockbuster movies with him. It’s not necessarily “Oh, you’re a nerd cause you like this stuff anymore.” I feel like I’ve gone seven layers deeper into being a nerd by loving Dungeons & Dragons.
With my wife she’s a huge nerd too, into the stuff she’s into, she loves comics…to the point where she knows all the artists that have done stuff and we go to conventions and she’s like marking out for them.
Brandon Culter on his favorite part of his Starrcast experience:
Some of my favorite parts were honestly just walking around with The Bucks because there would be such a commotion. I remember the first time they walked in when the convention had started, we were just getting to like I think the green room where all the wrestlers would kind of like chill in between their stuff, and there was a huge crowd lined up for something and we’re walking by them and everyone just starts like a huge Young Bucks chant and like “thank you” and stuff. And then throughout the weekend too.
On starting off wrestling with Matt & Nick Jackson of The Young Bucks:
We kind of started all about the same. I mean we started in the backyard days as usual it’s with a lot of people. I didn’t do it too much, like I’d always be around them and hang around, but I wasn’t wrestling as much and when they started getting trained and what not and they started doing their HRW shows I had braces at the time, so I didn’t want to like full-on wrestle get into it cause I was like, “I don’t want to rip my lip open or anything like that.” So I’d still do the trainings with them cause they would go train or every Saturday. They’d also hold trainings too. So I’d do those with them for like that whole year that I had the braces and then I kept saying, “yeah, when I get these off then I’d love to wrestle and do all that.” And that was when I debuted and actually had wrestling matches for them in 2005 and so they had already been doing it for like a year or so and also wrestling in other places. So I was always like a little bit staggered behind them because of that and so they would go off and get bookings at other places too and that’s when me and my brother kind of realized that “Hey, they’re kind of getting more bookings – them being together rather than everyone is just their own separate thing. Maybe we should be like a brother tag team.”
And then so we started getting some of those bookings too around the independents and so we kind of all went through it a little bit together and then like they’d get to PWG but then that like instantly springboarded them to even go to Japan too and stuff. And then after a little while of them I think maybe, I’d say a year, of them doing their PWG shows, we eventually got on those too, but like that’s kind of where we were with it. We got to PWG with them for about three years but yeah, that’s where I’ll say I felt like we weren’t as good cause in those three years we were having great matches and stuff, but at that time it was a huge thing if you got flown out anywhere and so I always thought, “Well if someone is gonna fly a tag team out, they’re gonna fly The Bucks, they’re not gonna fly The Cutlers.”
On his initial exit from wrestling seven years ago:
I also felt like we were were good, but I was like, “You know what? If a tag team was going to make it, it was gonna be The Bucks. And I don’t want to be one of the guys that are around wrestling hoping to make it forever and like my actual life suffers because of that. That’s where I kind of took that big decision of, “Alright, you know these guys are all kind of making it in wrestling but more importantly they’re all also finding their significant others and you know, lucky enough for them. I’m not finding like a serious relationship, I’m not making it as much in wrestling.” PWG is a great place to get to but if that’s like the tip you ever get to it’s like, “Well, you know, it’s good.” And so that’s when I was like, “Alright, I should probably get like a normal, everyday job so that when I’m dating a girl, I’m taken seriously and like I can show there is a future with me kind of a thing.” Not just like “Oh, he’s playing wrestling every weekend and he has this delusional dream that he’s one day going to get to WWE or something, you know?” So I was like, “Alright, well I guess I’ll go that route.” And like I started going more and more that route of being like a normal human and that’s where along the way I met my wife and as you saw we’d go to conventions.
On his wife inspiring him to return to wrestling last year:
Like it was a relationship that it wasn’t even possible honestly of meeting someone like that, much like me that is that much of a nerd and stuff, so that really opened my eyes into like, “Man, with like a person like this where she’s so supportive of everything and we’re doing conventions and I’m wearing spandex anyways, you know, I’m dressed like Gambit and she’s dressed like Rogue, and I’m like, “shoot.” And I’d always tease too when we would be making our cosplays and stuff, I’m like, “You would have been great when I was wrestling to making our tights.” Fast forward to now where she is making all kinds of tights and stuff and I am back into wrestling, but that was a big thing that pushed me into wrestling was honestly my wife. I figured I was going to have a wife and like this would always be talking about my old high school football days when I was somebody and stuff of like, “yeah, I used to be a somebody in wrestling,” but like she was always encouraging and she would see even especially friends, even though I was out of wrestling were still Matt and Nick, she goes to me, “They’re having a blast, like they’re making it, they’re making a living out of it. They just kept chasing it.”
You can follow Brandon Cutler on Twitter by going here & you can listen to the entire episode featuring the full-length interview with Cutler below:
