EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Mister Saint Laurent Talks MLW, Ric Flair, Kevin Sullivan, Bill Goldberg, Guns N’ Roses And More

For long-time fans of the independent wrestling scene, especially those in the southeastern United States, Mister Saint Laurent may be best remembered as one-half of the last-ever AWA World Tag Team Champions. But over the past few years, MSL has reinvented himself as a trainer (Team Vision Dojo), broadcaster (EVOLVE) and podcaster (MLW Radio Network).

MSL’s work with MLW began with him co-hosting the network’s namesake podcast alongside former WWE writer Court Bauer. Not too long after, the duo added lucha legend Konnan as a co-host, who added a great chemistry during his MLW tenure. Ultimately, MLW’s surge in popularity led the team to launch more podcasts, and MLW now can count Ric Flair, MVP, Tama Tonga, Jim Cornette, and Kevin Sullivan among its broadcasters; members of The Bullet Club were weekly contributors to the network until signing with WWE late last year.

Nowadays, the MLW Radio Network is one of the destinations for wrestling news and reviews — if not THE destination — and Still Real To Us had to opportunity to conduct some Q&A with Mister Saint Laurent. MSL kindly pulled back the curtain a bit, opening up about why he is the eccentric personality that podcast fans know him to be. His MSL & Sullivan series is one of my go-to podcasts every week, as it pairs never-before-heard WCW history with insight into modern wrestling, boxing and MMA headlines.

For more info on MLW, click on over to www.mlwradio.com. MSL can be visited directly at www.m.sl — a one-of-a-kind domain, courtesy of the country of Sierra Leone — and on Twitter via @MSL.

When you started up MLW as a network, what was the plan? Just to do a weekly podcast and also remind people
about the old MLW promotion?

Mister Saint Laurent: Yeah, originally the idea was simply to do a “where are they now?” kind of thing. So I started interviewing different people from MLW’s past each week, but after a few months, you start to realize that tens of thousands of people are listening and there’s no way all of them were watching MLW back in 2002!

So before long, the show kind of morphed into focusing on how the wrestling business really operates behind the scenes. MLW’s founder, Court Bauer, had gone on to work as an executive for WWE after MLW closed, and he had so many great stories from his time with WWE. Then some of his friends that had worked there started coming on the show and the whole thing kind of snowballed into a destination for people that had worked behind the scenes at the highest levels of the industry. Jim Cornette was obviously a natural fit. Then we got Kevin Sullivan.

It’s been a gradual thing. It didn’t happen overnight. Now we’ve got Ric Flair, the greatest wrestler of all time. It’s really amazing what it’s turned into. It’s all been a happy accident.

Are there plans for MLW to expand beyond podcasts? Or to continue with adding more podcasts?

MSL: At this point, I have no idea what the future holds and honestly a lot of that is above my paygrade. I prefer to just focus on being the best host I can be. I’ve got my hands full with MLW Radio on Tuesdays with Court and MSL & Sullivan on Fridays with Kevin Sullivan. I’m not really sure if or when more people will be added to the network…Hard for me to think beyond that at this point.

How did the chance with Ric Flair come about? A lot of people had thought he was off to Podcast One after leaving CBS.

MSL: It’s funny how things work out sometimes. Look, he’s the greatest wrestler that ever lived. I’m sure every network would have loved to have his podcast. I can’t really speak for him, but I’m sure when he looked at the landscape, MLW felt like a natural fit. We’ve got Jim Cornette. We’ve got Kevin Sullivan. We try to be a destination for anybody interested in wrestling knowledge and who is going to have more knowledge than Ric Flair?

Other than your own, do you have a favorite podcast on the network?

MSL: I really enjoy Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru, which is the VIP show he does on Tuesdays where he answers questions from the fans. I like that direct interaction. I grew up on sports talk radio. I wasn’t allowed to have a television as a kid. My parents were very strict. I listened to AM radio in my room every night. WQAM in Miami. Falling asleep to sports talk radio every night. As an adult, I still fall asleep to sports talk radio every night. So even though we don’t take callers, reading and answering e-mails from the fans I guess is the podcasting equivalent. And I love that give and take.

Do you listen to podcasts beyond working on MLW matters?

MSL: There is a sports writer down in Miami named Ethan Skolnick that does a show on AM radio every day on 790 the Ticket. I download the podcast version and listen to it every night when I go to bed. It’s the only podcast I listen to. I’ve been
falling asleep to Miami AM radio sports talk since I was five years old and I doubt I’ll ever stop.

You have a girl over and they want to go to bed and they get annoyed that you’ve got to put on sports talk to be able to fall asleep, but I can’t help it. I’ve wanted to be a sports talk host for as long as I can remember. So it’s been pretty cool that MLW Radio has taken off as much as it has. It’s really allowed me to live my dream. It’s been a very humbling thing.

As someone who’s wrestled and worked a lot behind the scenes in various facets, what do you still hope to
accomplish within wrestling?

MSL: It’s funny, because I’m not sure I hope to accomplish anything else at this point. I enjoy analyzing pro wrestling and people seem to enjoy my analysis. So I don’t wake up wanting more than that. On the other hand, Kevin Sullivan really gets on my case because he thinks I should be spending more time working as a booker in the industry. There’s just so few jobs though. I don’t know if I’ll ever get that opportunity beyond the regional shows I help book down here in Florida.

Did you ever come close to taking a normal day job outside of wrestling?

MSL: I’ve never had a normal day job in my life and I don’t plan on starting now. That’s not to knock having a normal day job. I just know I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I’m a night owl, man. A “9 to 5” just wouldn’t work for me. Whether it’s wrestling or music, I guess I’ve gravitated to industries where showtime is nighttime…

Do your wrestling and non-wrestling lives intersect much?

MSL: Not really. I’ve always tried to keep them separate. I think it stems from being a musician before I was a wrestler and everybody I dealt within the music industry thinking wrestling was silly. Kind of trained me at a young age to hide my wrestling life from my music life and vice versa.

In your opinion, is wrestling good these days? Are its best days behind it?

MSL: Art is so subjective. People should enjoy whatever they enjoy. I do think the hard numbers indicate though that fewer people in the U.S. enjoy wrestling than at any other point in my lifetime. So maybe there are creative or marketing elements from the past that worked that need to be brought back. The entire art of how you make people want to see a fight is so unique. It’s become a lost art almost.

I mean, there are a few guys left that really know the art inside and out, and to toot MLW’s horn a bit, I feel like most of them are hosting podcasts on our network. (laughs) But the modern wrestling companies, they’ve gone in a different direction. They’ve ditched some of the tried and true philosophies that go all the way back to the 1800s. They’re free to do as they please, but I think the hard numbers indicate it was a mistake to make some of the changes they made.

You’ve mentioned on podcasts that you don’t watch NXT, yet you have friends working there. Which shows do you watch most weeks?

MSL: That is true. I purposely avoid watching NXT and that’s nothing against NXT. I’d love to see my friends wrestle there, but when I’m trying to analyze WWE’s main product and figure out what’s working, what’s not and why, I don’t want my view to be tainted. The average WWE viewer does not watch NXT. When an NXT star shows up on Raw, most people watching at home are seeing that NXT star for the very first time.

Whether that guy ends up clicking with the audience or not is going to entirely depend on how they’re portrayed on Raw or Smackdown, so I want to watch that guy with clean eyes. I don’t want my view clouded by his NXT work because I want to see him the way the majority of the audience sees him. Makes it easier for me to figure out why he did or didn’t get over.

Are you working on anything related to music at the moment?

MSL: I still play for fun, but I’ve been so busy with wrestling stuff that it isn’t really feasible to go out and gig anymore. Especially as you get older and your ability to handle riding in a van all day for a couple hundred bucks starts to dissipate.

Are you happy with how things shook out with Guns N’ Roses?

MSL: I can’t comment about anything pertaining to Guns N’ Roses. Sorry.

It’s come up on the MLW podcast that you own a French-language newspaper. What can you tell me about that?

MSL: (laughs) Yes, that is true. It’s not something I talk about often. I think it goes back to wanting to keep my wrestling life and non-wrestling life separate. Especially back when I was an active wrestler, almost always a heel, and I’m trying to convince people that I’m an out of control maniac. It’s not really beneficial to the believability of my character for people to know about real estate investments, or in this case, a media property.

I think when I stopped wrestling I got more comfortable with the idea of people knowing I’m a real person. So yes years ago I did buy a French Canadian newspaper. Just seemed like a wise investment at the time. My great-grandfather was Prime Minister of Canada. My grandfather was a member of parliament. The St. Laurent name carries a lot of weight in that demographic. I knew I had family that would be able to run it and would understand that audience. And it’s a way to honor my heritage on my dad’s side of the family.

Who was the first person in wrestling that you had realized was Jewish?

MSL: Bill Goldberg. And I was already a huge Bill Goldberg fan before I thought about him being Jewish, but it was cool for Jewish kids to have a sports hero like that at a time when wrestling was so huge. I grew up around a lot of Jews in South Florida. My mom’s side of the family is all Jewish. I was raised in temple. I think every group wants to take pride in their history and wants sports heroes that represent them.

Having promoted and booked wrestling shows as long as I have, I’ve always tried to keep my finger on the pulse of the market I’m in and make sure everyone in the audience has someone to identify with. I actually used to run wrestling events at a Jewish Community Center, which was a cool thing for me as so much of my youth was spent at the local JCC.

Did being Jewish ever come up for you behind the scenes?

MSL: Unfortunately I actually have dealt with quite a bit of antisemitism in the wrestling industry. Never in a major company, but at the lower levels of the independent circuit when I was working my way up the ladder.

You know, you grow up in South Florida surrounded by Jews and then you start to branch out in to other parts of the country, and it dawns on you that not only are there places where there aren’t any or many Jews, but there are places where Jews are actively despised. It’s very sad. Growing up where I did in Miami, you have no idea that you’re a minority. It’s only later in life when you end up in some of the more backwards parts of the country that you realize you might have to deal with discrimination.

Finally, what do you wish more people knew about MSL?

MSL: I wish nobody knew anything! That’s been the toughest part of being a podcaster. Having to let go of the mystery a little bit. For so many years I never broke character. I took pride in being a throwback. I’ve been stabbed. I’ve been assaulted. I wanted to master the art of being hated. Nobody knew anything about the real me.

But then you start a talk show about how things really are in the wrestling business and there’s no way to maintain the mystery without being a total hypocrite. I’m still getting used to it. The idea of anybody knowing who I am beyond the madman in the ring. The method to my madness was nobody knowing there was a method. Now that’s not possible.

But the plus side is now I get to learn more about myself. I was stunted in a lot of ways. I started college at 11. By 15 I’d run away from home and was wrestling professionally and playing in bands. I don’t think I ever matured past 15 because I was too busy trying to survive. In a way, letting go of that baggage and opening up on the podcast has allowed me to slowly turn into an adult. Better late than never!