A young pro wrestling fan never thinks he'll one day be able to reach out and touch that world one day.
Watching these action figures come to life settle their differences in a wrestling ring is the closest he thinks he'll ever come to any first-hand encounters with industry titans like Ultimate Warrior or Andre the Giant.
But for lifelong fan
Conrad Thompson
, that dream became a reality a little later in life and created an unexpected career that launched him into the wrestling world as one of its brightest stars outside the squaredcircle.
Born in Guntersville, the 36-year-old Thompson now owns and runs 1st Family Mortgage in Huntsville, while hosting a pair of now-globally popular wrestling podcasts that have stretched far beyond his spare time.
Thompson hosts the podcasts
and
with Tony Schiavone, both of which you can find on the MLW Radio Network and iTunes.
While both are extremely popular among die-hard wrestling fans, his show with Prichard has become a bonafide podcasting phenomenon, a needle in the ever-growing haystack of wrestling podcasts that amasses more than 3 million downloads per month.
And it started with meeting wrestling legend Ric Flair, with whom Thompson has cultivated a close friendship. Shortly after he and Flair launched a podcast in April 2015, Thompson and Prichard launched "Something to Wrestle" in August 2016, with Prichard (former WWE employee and part of Vince McMahon's inner circle) offering first-hand accounts of the company's most fascinating stories and personalities.
Following the success of the Prichard podcast, Thompson would also launch "What Happened When?" with former World Championship Wrestling announcer Tony Schiavone in January 2017, about as equally beloved by fans.
And despite his newfound intimate relationship with pro wrestling, including befriending a few legends in the business, and success with podcasting, his one-time "hobby" has certainly taken a toll. With the shows, Thompson piles about 30 hours per week on top of an already-busy schedule helping families buy homes in the Huntsville area. He also makes frequent appearances for living tapings of the podcasts in different parts of the country.
And to call him a fan seems a disservice to Thompson, who's more of a pro wrestling historian with a knowledge that takes a backseat to no one who isn't technically part of the industry.
He's just happy folks out there like what they hear in his work. More than 3 million a month would suggest they do, and you can bet the shows will influence the future of the medium, if they set out to put in the requisite work Thompson does every week.
"I'm just a wrestling fan. I'm not in the business. I make no bones about that," Thompson says. "I want to hear what [Prichard and Schiavone] are going to say just as bad as you guys do. I hope people are digging the format. I hope it's one that can help shape the future of podcasts a little bit. All of that has been fun to see how it grows. I hope other podcasts participate in a similar fashion. I think that's what makes our show so good. We try to give the audience what they want.
"I'm not a professional broadcaster. I've never been to broadcasting school. There's no reason I should be doing this. But I am just because I did."
In the video above, Thompson tells how us how a mortgage lender in Alabama becomes host of one of the most popular wrestling podcasts in the world, why Nick Saban is the Vince McMahon of college football and what he considers his favorite piece of wrestling memorabilia.
In the conversation below, he talks about growing up in Guntersville, balancing his wrestling fandom and podcasting career with his personal life and realizing he might be "in too deep" with pro wrestling now.
Listen to the conversation, or read an abridged version below.
So how does a mortgage lender in Huntsville, Alabama become host of one of the most popular wrestling podcasts in the world?
Conrad Thompson:
A happy accident. It was right place, right time. Ric Flair asked me to sit in and visit with him on his first podcast, just to ask fan questions. We were friendly, and he knew I'd done a little bit of live radio just to promote my mortgage company. I was his buddy and knew about wrestling, so I wouldn't put him in a bad spot. And that went well. He asked me to keep coming back. CBS was into it. So we just kept it going. When that show came to an end, I said Ric I think we can do this on our own. We don't necessarily need a major player behind us. Podcasting is not all that complicated. From there, The Ric Flair Show was born.
Somewhere during that timeline, I was introduced to Bruce Prichard. I realized this is what a podcast should be. He had so many great stories he felt like people didn't care about. He told me a story about the Radicals one day in my living room, I turned to him and said this is a podcast. When he made me care about them for about an hour, I thought this is what people like me want to hear. So I twisted his arm and I convinced him to tape a pilot with me. He had fun. We taped another. Said we're ready to publish one. Let's go. So we picked Dusty Rhodes, went with it and really took it seriously. And all the sudden, here we are.
How do you think your wrestling fandom defines you as a southerner or even more specifically an Alabamian?
CT:
I don't have a shrine to Bobby Eaton in my house, so that's a step in the right direction. I don't know that I have a great southern slant. I might if I was 10 years older. My first introduction to wrestling was WrestleMania IV. That was the first thing I saw, and I fell in love. I loved the over-the-top, cartoonish characters right away. That was aimed at kids my age. Nobody better than Hulk Hogan, Macho Man, Ultimate Warrior. Once I was 15 or 16, I had a chance to go back and watch the old tapes of Jim Crockett Promotions, and that stuff was outstanding, but I was too young at the time to get into it.
What do you remember about the first wrestling show you saw in person?
CT:
My first WWF show was right here in Huntsville. I was living in Prattville at the time. WWF didn't come to Montgomery very often. That was more of a WCW town. So I went to several WCW TV tapings. We did a meet and great, and I got to meet Tom Zenk, the Z-Man. My first WWF experience was a Main event with Macho Man and Dusty Rhodes. I was still enamored with Macho Man. When you're a little kid, you went to get to the aisle and touch the wrestlers as they walk out. I'll never forget that. It was 1990. I was all about some Macho King, even if he was the bad guy.
What was it like growing up in Guntersville?
CT:
We moved to Guntersville I guess when I was 12-years-old. So I did middle school and high school there. I loved it. It's small town Alabama. You've got all the big city stuff you need, not too far away from Huntsville. If you want a just slower pace of life, it's hard to beat Guntersville. What a picturesque city right there on the lake. I wouldn't trade it for anything. Yeah I had a great time. Class of '99 was a great year. Great school, great teachers. I couldn't recommend it enough. I hope every kid has a high school experience like that. I dropped out of football in eighth grade. Parents put me in it in kindergarten.
At what point do you remember wrestling becoming a part of your life?
CT:
1988. We went to visit my grandfather. We were living in Prattville at the time. As we made our way north to visit my grandfather in Albertville, at the time everybody went to the video store. That's not anything people these days do. They rented me the WrestleMania IV two-tape set. It was a way to pacify a little boy for a weekend, and it worked. I was enamored with wrestling. I guess like with most kids, I kind of faded out. I didn't watch in 1992-95. And then one day in '96 in the fall, I'm flipping through the channels and see Hulk Hogan in all black with a black beard and I stopped. This was not the yellow and red I'm used to. It was the NWO, and I was back in.
What enamored you about it?
CT:
I think it was just the larger than life presentation. I was a big fan of GI Joe and He-Man. This felt like the real-life version of that. It didn't matter to me if it was "real." Neither were cartoons. That didn't impair my enjoyment. I was off to the races. I was all about it. The face-paint, the crazy hair, the muscles, the entrance music, the storylines. It's like a male soap opera now, but back then it was almost like a live-action cartoon.
What did your parents think of wrestling?
CT:
They probably thought it was a phase I would grow out of, and I did. In '92 when I was 11, I put it down and I was done. I found it again with the NWO, and I had a good run there for several years. And then again, it just kind of wore off. I stopped watching in early '06 and was out until '12 and was back in with both feet.
How would you watch PPVs growing up? Order them at home? Watch with friends or family?
CT:
We started with videotapes for sure, and I was watching the free TV. The first big event was "Saturday Night's Main Event." It was such a challenge to me as a kid to stay up until 10:35 at night because it came on right after the news in Pratville. That was really tough for me to do, but it was such a larger than life presentation. So I'd record those, and at the time, they were only doing a handful of PPVs throughout a year. I think the first PPV I remember ordering would be WrestleMania V, then SummerSlam '89, then Survivor Series '89, then Royal Rumble '90. And by then, I was all in. I remember that like it happened yesterday. All of '90 really sticks out, but '89 is when I first doubled-down and fell in love.
Wow, so it sounds like you had parents who supported this habit.
CT:
Yeah they were really supportive. They bought the action figures for me. I had tons of those Hasbro action figures and little posters for your room.
Have you ever at any point thought you were "in too deep," or has it always been the goal to get as close and intimate with the business, its history and those who worked in it?
CT:
I do think I'm kind of in too deep now. Obviously I'm not inside the business or a performer, but I am close enough now to a lot of the guys and have been fortunate enough to kind of see behind the curtain a little bit.
Did you ever try or want to work in wrestling in any capacity?
CT:
It's never been something I thought you could make any money doing. The reality is, what would I do? I enjoy doing mortgages. This has been the way I've provided for my family for a long time. I don't have any sort of illusions of trying to be a professional wrestler. I never considered that. I don't know anybody making money as a wrestling promoter, not enough to be a real sustainable income beyond the WWE and I guess New Japan Pro Wrestling. Just a startup, that doesn't really exist. You saw the trials and tribulations that happened with TNA. It just feels like something that is something that is very, very difficult to do, and the odds are stacked against you. As close to inside the business as I'll ever be is a podcaster. I enjoy it being my part-time hobby, but I don't know that I would want it to be a full-time living to try to promote or be a performer.
You never really talk about the current product on your podcast. It makes sense that you wouldn't, but do you ever want to express your thoughts on today's WWE in podcast form? Do you watch, and if so, what do you think of it?
CT:
I do watch. My daughter is a huge wrestling fan now. The Divas division becoming the Women's division and the whole women's revolution really got her attention. Her interest is at an all-time high right now. So I do wind up watching "Raw" and "SmackDown," mostly for her. When I don't have her, I usually just DVR the shows and fast-forward to whatever the internet is raving about. I do enjoy the product, but I feel like I'm in a place in my life where I just don't enjoy it the way I might have as a kid. When I go back and really watch the stuff I grew up on and really love, there's only a handful of things on each show I still like today. But at the time, I thought it was all great. So if you're not really digging everything in the product, it's because it's just not for you. It can't be a home run every time.
In talking to Bruce and Tony for so many episodes now, diving into such specificity of people, events and moments from the past, what has it told you about the present? Do you see any of the greatness of the past or its opposite in anything WWE puts out there now?
CT:
It makes me appreciate the amount of work and man hours that went into all of this. The realization that so much of it that we do as being a big deal is really not that big a deal. It humanizes it a bit more. I think we as fans tend to romanticize some of that stuff, but it's what we grew up on. If you grew up on that stuff, you have an emotional connection to it. I think as time goes on, I've become more and more of the understanding that the performers didn't have that same level of emotional connection to it that we did.
You're a big Alabama football fan, correct? How do you balance that fandom with pro wrestling? Is there any crossover? Do you make more time for one or the other?
CT:
Alabama always got the majority of my attention until podcasting took over my free time. Between the mortgage deal being my full-time gig -- and that's a job and a half in itself -- and then the research and the recording and the promotional aspect of the podcasts, it pretty much dominates. So I'm a little more selective now with what games I go to. But yeah, it definitely has affected it in terms of attending games, but probably not as far as my enjoyment. I'm always catching them, just sometimes from my den as opposed to my seat-back.
Do you ever get genuinely frustrated with Bruce, or is it just heightened for the sake of the podcast?
CT:
No I get legitimately frustrated, and let me tell you what the source of my frustration is. I have to do a lot of research for the show, and I put a lot of thinking into what we put on the poll. Once that starts to reveal itself as to what the winner will be, I really double-down on the research. So I'm reading books, watching shoot interviews, scouring old newsletters. I'm putting together a format of sorts that's going to be 35-40 pages long of detail, and how I want to go, what all I want to cover, and that takes significant time. I'm doing that after hours in my free time after work, on the weekends and at night. I need Bruce to show up on time and make sure his mic sounds good. And when I ask a question, don't give me one-word answers. And sometimes I feel like Bruce is answering a deposition as opposed to having a conversation. I don't have Bruce here at gunpoint or against his will. If he just says yes or no, I get very frustrated. I need more than that. I put so much time and effort into the selection process for this topic and questions, and all I need you to do is sound clear and give me an answer with more than one word. Sometimes that proves difficult. When get three or four of those in a row, I lose my cool, and I'm OK with that.
It's two guys sitting at a bar, telling stories. Let's just have a conversation, me picking your brain about what happened when. When I first started hanging with Bruce, he'd still be guarded about what he'd say. As time as gone on, he's learned he can trust me. If he doesn't want something out there, I won't put it out there. But I am going to push him to make a great show. Eventually he realized that's what makes the show good and why people listen.
How do you balance your time with your mortgage company, your family life and now all the time you spend researching and recording these shows?
CT:
It's not balanced at all right now. It's way out of whack. I'm doing too much. Occasionally when I'm overwhelmed with real life world or when I have to travel, I will call in for some backup research help. But I know exactly what I'm looking for. It'll be copy and paste the WWF section of the Observer. I probably have about eight hours a week in research for Bruce, and four hours for Tony. So I've got about 12 hours of research. And the actual shows are about five hours. All told between the editing and posting, it's about 20 hours. Social media probably another 10 hours. So 30 hours a week on top of a full time job and a real life. It does get out of hand.
Conrad Thompson hosts the podcasts "Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard" and "What Happened When?" with Tony Schiavone. You can find them on the MLW Radio Network and iTunes.