Sean Mooney Reveals What He’s Most Looking Forward to During WrestleMania Weekend

– Sean Mooney spoke with WrestleZone’s Bill Prichard about his new podcast format, his WrestleMania plans and more. Highlights are below:

On moving to a new premium format for his podcast: “I’m still doing some stuff with MLW Radio Network, but what it came down to, especially when you are starting a podcast—it’s kind of an ‘assessment period’ to see if you’re going to get a lot of listeners and it’s how advertisers go about putting spots on your show. You have 90 days and then hope to after that period pick up some advertisers. So we did very well, about eight months in we had about 1.2 million downloads, but the advertisers coming on with us was very slow. We had a few, but podcasting is really in the hands of advertisers; they pretty much control that entire environment. Nobody wants to do these for free. It’s a lot of work, and you put a lot of hours into it and they set the rates. There’s no standard of ‘if you have so many downloads this translates into this price’ it’s more like they try and determine what level you’re on. They are very slow to pay, and it’s across the board. It just got to the point—and I started after the 20th episode with the guest format, where I brought on new guests every week—things continued to grow with downloads, but it hit everybody across the board. It got to the point where you couldn’t depend on these advertisers. I have a lot of people helping me, helping on social platforms, which has dramatically improved in the last couple of months, and volunteered basically, to do graphics for the show, and I have a producer. I want to be able to take care of everybody, and I just couldn’t depend on advertisers. There was kind of a standard before where the main podcast would be free and if they do a premium, they put up something like ‘bonus material’. I’ve always felt like ‘boy, that’s kind of backwards’ because you want your best material and why are you going to do that? Why wouldn’t you make that [main show] premium? You use bonus material to entice people to come and do that. Initially, when I made the decision to—I was fed up with how that system was working—if I’m going to be doing this, I want to be able to know that one, I’ll be able to make money from this, but also to pay the people that work with me. It came to the point where I said I was going to stop doing this, or I’m going to take a chance with this [new format]. I really feel like—and I don’t want to say blazing a trail, it’s a different approach—and we shopped around a little bit, and in trying to find the best platform, it was Podbean.”

On his original plan for the premium podcast: “My original idea was I wanted to make this very inexpensive; I wanted to do $1 a month. But then I found out once you go on the premium side, you still have a big chunk of that with the people that have you on their platform. They get a piece, everybody gets a piece of that advertising money and it’s the same on the premium sites. They take it from revenue and they have charges for credit card transactions and they take a percentage for their fee. So, when you do that, there’s not much left. After going through all of the numbers, we came up with $1.99; that’s four podcasts a month, pretty much fifty cents an episode. People that buy a Starbucks coffee, [it’s] $3-4, so I didn’t think this would be too much. That kind of the way we started, and one thing I love about this format too—I liked to give away stuff before, but now the more successful we get, I’m going to start giving away more and more material, and even moreso now, there’s interactions with our subscribers. You have to imagine that when you switch to a format like that you are basically starting from scratch, so the numbers are not great, but it’s giving me an opportunity; I’ve pretty much in one way or another contacted every single person that has subscribed to ‘Prime Time with Sean Mooney.’ I’ve done some Facebook Live [videos] and I’ve given away some pictures, and I’ve given away some Coliseum Videos that I have from my collection that I’ve had for years and years. I gave those away and I’ve also made phone calls to people that have come on. It’s really been a great new adventure, and I don’t know where it’s going to take me, but I’m excited about it. I hope people give us a listen, all you have to do is go to PrimetimeMooney.com, and it’s all right there. There’s a lot of stuff you can listen to; we’ve got sneak peeks, there’s episodes on the premium side. All you do is it’s a couple of clicks and you’re a subscriber and it’s $1.99. I hope that people come along, especially now because it’s a great time. My mission in New Orleans next week is to get a ton of material. I’ve got my recorders, I got my camera, I’ll be doing some Facebook Live from there to capture the whole experience for everybody. There’s going to be a lot of bonus material that people will be able to listen to with Prime Time with Sean Mooney on the premium side.

On working with Peter Rosenberg on the RAW 25 ‘List’ skit: “I really, really enjoyed doing that. The WWE has brought me back for a few things. You mentioned RAW 1000, really one of the first times I’d been back in front of the cameras for WWE so that was really great. I got to bring my son with me, so that was really awesome. It also made me realize how much I missed that whole world. It was great to connect, and since then I’ve done a few things, but that RAW 25 was a blast. I went back, and I’ve never met Peter before, and it’s funny because we hit it off right away. The way they structured that—they didn’t script it but they let us improv a lot of it—it brought me back to the stuff I used to do with Alfred. Peter was great, and I’d like for us to do more; he was great on both sides of it, playing the straight guy and he was funny. We had a really great time. It was set up like ‘Night At The Museum’ of the WWE, where you had these relics and I was among them, and the premise—we set this up when I came back for one of the ‘unreleased matches’ DVD, because people are always like ‘what happened to Sean Mooney?’—it got set up that I was living in the warehouse. That’s where that came from, but we really followed up on it. It’s me in this warehouse, the Gobbedly Gooker, and it was really fun. We can do follow-ups to that forever; doing that was great. They also asked me to be there for the live show, and one thing in history I lay claim to is I was the first person ever seen on RAW. That’s why they originally brought me back for that RAW 1000. They asked me to come back for [RAW] 25, and that’s all I really wanted to do, give me 25 seconds at the top of the show to say ‘you’re looking live…’ but I’m am a news anchor out in Arizona, and they wouldn’t let me go. Anytime somebody mentions that to me it stings me because I really, really wanted to do that, but I was happy that I was able to do the RAW 25 Top 25 Moments. I’ll take whatever I can get whenever I get a chance to be in front of the cameras for WWE.”

On his Wrestlemania weekend schedule: “I’m going to be at Walemania that Thursday night, I’m going to be on the panel that they asked me to be a part of. I’m also going to be a part of WrestleCon; I’ll be signing on Saturday and Sunday. Bruce [Prichard] and Conrad [Thompson] have asked me to introduce them at their [Something To Wrestle] live event there at the House Of Blues, which I’m sure is going to be an interesting event.”

On what he’s looking forward to during WrestleMania weekend: “The event itself, if anyone has experienced it they know what I’m talking about, but there’s nothing else like it in sports entertainment or in many ways sports. When this was started I came in a little later after a few years, but it was when it was starting to become this 3-4 day event with fan fests, and all of these other great events that are taking place. It’s a tremendous experience. As far as the event itself, I haven’t really kept on top of exactly what’s happening. Of course the big match that’s coming up is with Brock [Lesnar] and Roman Reigns, that’s going to be interesting to see. I like some of these other things that are taking place, these certain personalities that are really evolving, and they’ve come up and I’ve seen them develop now. People like Braun Strowman, I think he—people ask me all of the time ‘who do you think would have done well in that period of time in the ‘80s and ‘90s—there’s a lot of these guys. Braun Strowman, Bray Wyatt, I’ve always liked Dolph Ziggler; he’s someone that they’ve never really taken full advantage of what he can do. The Miz has proven that he can be an unbelievable entertainer, if you want to talk about paying your dues. Of course, John Cena; who else in the history of the WWF now WWE has done what he’s done. No breaks, hasn’t left the company over differences, he hasn’t had issues with the company, and he’s a good representative of the pro wrestling world and what he’s done with charities. It’s going to be a great event; I think the whole thing with Ronda Rousey is going to be interesting. I think everybody is interested to see what she’s going to be able to do in the ring. I think she’s going to do well because the way she works and what she’s done in [MMA] is as close to a shoot as you can get.”

On Undertaker coming back after last year’s WrestleMania: “That is so difficult for me to answer, because I don’t want it to sound like I don’t want him out there for people to appreciate. I don’t know of any other character or any other gimmick that has captured the attention of the world of professional wrestling ever. I can’t believe that he’s even willing to get back in the ring with the abuse that his body has taken over the years. Personally, I would have liked that to have ended where it did [at Wrestlemania 33], but God love him. There isn’t really such thing as old anymore, as I have learned; I’m 58 and I still feel like I’m twentysomething. If Mark still thinks he wants to get in the ring, I know whatever he decides to do he’s going to be entertaining. That’s all it comes down to for me. Entertainment. If you want to do it and people want to see you, get up there and step in the ring.”