Sean: 00:05 – Hi everybody. Welcome to another edition of Two-Brain Radio with Sean Woodland. On today’s episode I talk with a man known around the CrossFit community as Joshy G, Josh Gallegos. But first, if you’re enjoying this show, I would encourage you to subscribe to Two-Brain Radio. Every week we bring you the best from the fitness and business world. On Monday, Mateo Lopez fires up the marketing machine and explains how real entrepreneurs are generating huge ROI on ads. On Wednesdays, of course, I bring you great stories from the most interesting people in the fitness world and on Thursdays, Greg Strauch and Chris Cooper bring you the best of business, a host of experts who can help you level up as an entrepreneur. If you haven’t, please subscribe to Two-Brain Radio so you don’t miss a show. And of course we’d love to hear what you think in a review.
Sean: 00:59 – Josh Gallegos has been involved in CrossFit for 10 years, and you’re probably most familiar with him as one of the floor announcers that you might hear at competitions like the CrossFit Games. But Josh is also the coach for some of the biggest names in the WWE, that’s World Wrestling Entertainment. He does programming for the likes of Seth Rollins, Becky Lynch, Cesaro and Bayley, just to name a few. I talk with Josh about how he first got involved with training WWE superstars, his passion for coaching and how he’s using his Deadboys fitness program to spread the message of fitness. Thanks for listening everybody. Joshy G, thanks for doing this man. How are ya?
Josh: 01:43 – Baba booey to everybody out there in the podcast land.
Sean: 01:46 – First off, Joshy, most people know you from your voice and your work as a floor announcer during events like the CrossFit Games and maybe some of the Regionals that they used to go to and some of the Sanctional events as well. But how did you first find CrossFit?
Josh: 02:00 – Well, it’s a funny story. I have a buddy of mine, his name’s Jonas. He used to run CrossFit North Miami Beach. When I moved to LA, I was buddies with his brother Adam. And growing up, I used to go to the gym, you know, Gold’s gym in Vegas, clang and bang, if you will. So when I moved to Glendale, California, and I became friends with my buddy Adam, I drug his brother Jonas along with me. And we would do, you know, the typical body-guy stuff, benching and curls and crunches and all that good stuff. And Jonas wasn’t necessarily the most motivated individual. He was really good at playing Mortal Combat and smoking weed, but going to the gym, it wasn’t his schtick, it wasn’t his deal. So, fast forward to a couple of years, I was so bored with working out at a traditional gym.
Josh: 02:50 – I started training to compete in triathlon with my buddy Nate, and Jonas moved to Miami and he posted some pictures on Facebook or something and he was just shredded, just like shredded wheat, Shreddy Cougar, whatever shreddie analogy you want to use. That’s what he was. And he was doing triathlons and he had the craziest times. And he was just like a triathlete overnight. And I was like, dude, what happened? What did you do? And he goes, oh man. I started doing CrossFit. And I was like, oh, CrossFit. And before that I even heard the word CrossFit, like I will admit I was the biggest, and when I say biggest, I mean biggest CrossFit hater, I would cut promos on people that did CrossFit. I called it a cult. I said it was stupid. Why would anybody want to do that?
Josh: 03:37 – And when I saw Jonas and his results, I was like, God damn it. I gotta go try this CrossFit out. Now finally I gotta do it. So I went to a gym in Culver City, which turned out to be DogTown CrossFit over time, and I did my first CrossFit class and I was immediately hooked and I ate so much crow for it because I was the guy talking all the smack about CrossFit. And here I am now 10-ish years later, Captain CrossFit.
Sean: 04:01 – What was it about it that hooked you when you went in the first time?
Josh: 04:04 – It was a couple things. First and foremost, like if anybody’s ever trained for a triathlon, like your weekends are done, like say goodbye to any kind of social life; you’re spending hours running and swimming and biking. Whereas in CrossFit, you know, you go into a classroom setting for the most part and you’re in and out of there and an hour and you pretty much for for all intents and purposes get the same kind of results.
Josh: 04:25 – And it was not only just, man, I can cut my triathlon training basically in half, but I’m around a really, really cool community of people that want to get better, faster and stronger, and it was just the whole aspect of learning new and different skills, you know, it was everything from, you know, gymnastic skills to weightlifting skills. It was all of those things that encompasses CrossFit that I was just a humongous fan of and it just drew me in. I was then that person that was like, oh my God, you got to try and CrossFit. Oh my God, it’s so much fun. Oh, you gotta. I’m bringing people to class after class because I would just see results within a couple of months that I was striving to get the two or three years that I was at a Gold’s gym or the one and a half, two years that I was at trying to be a triathlete.
Sean: 05:11 – What then motivated you to become a coach?
Josh: 05:13 – Well, a couple of things. At the time when I started CrossFit, I was working at a little entertainment company called Sony Pictures, Sony Television for a Game show called Jeopardy. And Sony I guess apparently made a bunch of movies that didn’t make a lot of money and I was the unfortunate victim of corporate layoffs. So I was laid off and I was still going to DogTown at the time and I had this job as like an event coordinator that my buddy got me at his bar and restaurant, which I was really, really good at. Apparently I can throw and put together really, really cool parties, but it just did not, I wasn’t really passionate about it and I was also training people, voluntarily part time, the LLS leukemia lymphoma society, to train people to do triathlons.
Josh: 06:06 – So that’s how I got involved. So it was kind of like a, oh, you do it for somebody else. And I was like, man, I really like coaching people and I really enjoy CrossFit. And so I kind of shadowed a bunch of coaches at DogTown, you know, and I really, really got into it. And then the emcee things started to happen or the live event hosting started to happen. And I was like, well, man, if I’m going to start live event hosting these things, I should really know what I’m talking about. So I think that weekend, when they asked me to do Regionals, I think the next weekend or the following weekend, I went to Las Vegas, my hometown, and I got my Level 1. So I knew exactly, you know, everything I was talking about, I wanted to make sure people knew that I was a part of it. You know, that I wasn’t just kind of BSing my way through Regionals.
Sean: 06:50 – You mentioned the emcee thing and I talk about that at the top. How a lot of people will recognize your voice from those events. How did that whole thing get started for you?
Josh: 06:56 – It’s so funny, man. I have lived a very, very interesting life. I always tell people in a joking way, I’ve kind of, Mr. Magoo’d my way into weird situations and for those of you millennials who have no idea who Mr. Magoo is, look it up. But I’ve Mr. Magoo’d my way into a lot of weird situations and emceeing is one of them. At DogTown we put together a cancer charity fundraiser. So this is right when Fight Gone Bad kind of went away and DogTown, from what I remember, and don’t quote me, but they were one of the top gyms fundraising for Fight Gone Bad. And I had just left Sony, but I still had a relationship with a couple of the producers at Sony that started Stand Up to Cancer.
Josh: 07:40 – So long story short, we put together a cancer charity fundraising event. And—are you there?
Sean: 07:46 – Yep.
Josh: 07:46 – OK. So we put together a cancer charity fundraising event and you know, it was great turnout, it was called Crush Cancer, and the owners of the gym, Adam and Dusty, they were in this last heat of this event. And so when they went and worked out, cause I think Adam, I believe was the emcee of the event the entire time. So when they went and worked out, I just grabbed the microphone and I just started yapping and doing what I do, my schticks and my Fast and Furious references and nicknames and I was just going all out and I was just having fun with it. Like I didn’t look at it as a job or anything. I was just cutting promos and doing what I do best.
Josh: 08:22 – And a company by the name of WOD Gear, they were there. And they’re like, hey, we’re going to do an event. You’re really good at the microphone. We want you to come do our event. And I was like, oh, sick. So I did that event and that event led to another event. And then the other event led to an event for the Regional director at the time, Andy Rios. And he was like, hey, I’m going to submit you for Regionals. And I was like, oh, cool. That sounds great. I hope it happens. And it happened. So the rest I guess is history.
Sean: 08:52 – You talking about the Mr. Magoo analogy and that’s pretty good. I’m not sure if you, Mr. Magoo’d your way into this one, but you certainly made an effort. How did your relationship with WWE superstar Seth Rollins begin?
Josh: 09:04 – Well I definitely didn’t Mr. Magoo my way, if you want to say that I catfished him that’s probably a better analogy. So, you know, I started emceeing these events and I think this was like second or if my third year of emceeing the Games and obviously I’m a big WWE fan, back in the day before I met Seth, I was Bill Goldberg’s assistant in my movie days. Mr. Magoo’d my way into that one but that’s for another podcast. And I would just follow Seth on Twitter and I saw that he was a big CrossFit fan and I hadn’t been to a WWE event at that time in so long. And Lindsay Valenzuela, a CrossFIt Games athlete, was at the gym and I was like, oh it’d be fun if we all go to a WWE event cause it’s coming to the Staples Center.
Josh: 09:52 – So I bought us a bunch of tickets and I was like, you know what, out of the off chance that this might happen, I’m going to just, Lindsay, can I direct message Seth from your Twitter account, cause he’s not going to recognize, you know, Joshua Gallegos, he’s gonna be like who’s this jabber reaching out to me? But if he sees that Lindsay Valenzuela is reaching out to me, then maybe he’ll answer. So I asked Lindsay Valenzuela, invited him to DogTown, he came and I was there and we hit it off. I think he came in on a Sunday. We worked out together on a Sunday. Then he brought in Cesaro on Monday. We worked out on Monday and we just stayed in touch. And so then the next loop, he came in, we were working out and then he was just like, hey man, you want to write some programming for me?
Josh: 10:38 – And I was like, yeah, of course. That’d be great. That’s awesome. He’s like, yeah, I’ll even pay you for it. And I’m like, oh, that’s even better. I would have done it for free, but now you’re gonna pay me? Sure. So a buddy of mine, Mike Vackero and I were writing programming for him and then that just kind of opened the floodgates for all these other wrestlers. We got Cesaro and Luke Harper and you know, the list goes on and on. And as far as the athletes would see that, you know, the changes in Seth were very similar to the changes of anybody that starts CrossFit and you know, not that he didn’t have that base before, but you know, he was definitely getting stronger faster and not blowing up as you may call it, going into the ring and doing these matches and stuff.
Sean: 11:20 – Yeah. When you program for him and the other WWE superstars, sort of indoor stable, what are the things that you need to keep in mind to make sure that they’re getting the type of workouts that will serve them best inside the ring?
Josh: 11:33 – Yeah, it’s funny cause when people ask me this, you know, I don’t really try to reinvent the wheel. Like I’m a huge fan of keep CrossFit CrossFit in the sense of like, I don’t need to injure my athletes and I definitely don’t try to train them in the sense like as if they were Regional athletes. I try to keep, you know, for example, for Seth, he likes to have a warm-up. He likes to have a, you know, a conditioning piece at the beginning. And then he likes his lifts, whether they be bodybuilding or body-guy stuff or Olympic lifts. And then he likes to have a fun workout to do at the end. And then it really all depends on their schedule because unlike a Mat Fraser, and that’s no disrespect, or a Tia-Clair Toomey, Tia and Mat aren’t throwing themselves to the ground every night.
Josh: 12:17 – They’re not on the road 300 days a year. And so sometimes, hey, I got hurt in this match. Can you readjust the workout? Or, hey, look, I’m in a hotel in Malaysia. I can’t get to a gym, but this hotel gym has X, Y, and Z. Can you change it up? So it’s a lot of, you know, as CrossFit says, be prepared for the unknown and unknowable. I mean, that’s basically their programming. I am on a text thread with all of them and depending on their schedule or how they’re feeling, you know, depending on whether it be a match or you know, a travel schedule, I have to learn to adapt their training regimen. So it’s never really the same as much as I would love for it to be, you know, kind of regimented, it’s never like that. Sometimes their rest days are days that I don’t think that they should rest and sometimes their, you know, their workout days are days that I feel like they should rest, you know, and you know, thankfully with the invention of the Whoop, you know, they can kind of track their recovery level, but even then, sometimes when it says like, hey, you probably shouldn’t work out, they’re such machines that they’ll do it in.
Sean: 13:26 – For a long time, WWE superstars, you know, they looked and they trained like bodybuilders. Why was and why is that starting to change?
Josh: 13:39 – I think it’s a couple of things. One, I tell people all the time, what these guys do inside the ring almost emulates a CrossFit workout, right? So, they may not be clean and jerking the big show up and overhead, right. but they’re moving heavy weight at a very fast rate. You know, they are doing gymnastics elements inside the ring. You know, obviously you can’t simulate them falling or taking a bump per se. But for the most part, like a CrossFit workout is anywhere, a good CrossFit workout, at least in my opinion, is anywhere between, you know, 12 to 15 minutes long of high intensity and for a show like Monday Night Raw, that’s what these matches are. They’re anywhere between 12 and 15 minutes of super high intensity. A guy like Seth, you know, can go anywhere from 12 minutes to an hour.
Josh: 14:31 – And with that conditioning base that CrossFit has given him, he never shows signs of slowing down. You know, he may show signs of getting hit over the head with a chair, but his conditioning is never a factor inside the ring. You know what I mean? Where if you watch some other wrestlers, you’re like, oh man, that guy’s already blown up. You can see him huffing and puffing. But guys like you know, Rollins and Cesaro who can go post to post and not blow up or you know, Becky’s another example. Or Bayley, like those guys, they are well conditioned in the ring and you could see that, you know, other wrestlers are very curious about it. They have the old Joshy G approach in the sense of like, oh, CrossFit isn’t for me, I’m going to get injured. You know, a guy who I have a constant conversation with is the Miz.
Josh: 15:15 – The Miz tells me all the time like I’m going to get injured with CrossFit, but my conversations with him are like you never scale a workout. You’re trying to do what Seth does. You try to do Cesaro does. Unfortunately, Miz, you’re not there yet. So you have to tile it down. And that’s I guess a lesson for the CrossFit community in general is that it’s OK to scale. And I think that that’s a lot of, some people are afraid to scale and there’s nothing wrong with scaling. Trust me, you keep that intensity level high, you’ll get the same results.
Sean: 15:45 – We’ll have more with Josh Gallegos after this. How do I budget for new equipment? What do I do to attract new members? Where can I find a coach who will allow me to work on growing my business? Gym owners, Two-Brain Business mentors have heard every question there is and they have answers. If there’s something you want to know about the fitness business, don’t spin your tires. Talk to a certified expert who can help. You can book an hour with an expert at twobrainbusiness.com today. In 60 minutes, a mentor will answer your questions and show you a path to success. These mentors aren’t random people. Each one ran a very successful gym or runs one right now. These are kindred spirits who want to help. Book a free call today twobrainbusiness.com. Now, back to my interview with Josh Gallegos. When the superstars come to you and they’ve been training a different way and then they do a couple of your workouts, what is their reaction?
Josh: 16:50 – Whether you—are they seasoned CrossFit athletes or people who have never—
Sean: 16:54 – Say they’ve never done it before.
Josh: 16:56 – Their reaction is the same reaction that I had in my first class, which was like, wow, that was five minutes that I feel like I’ve been working out for an hour. Like, that was awful. That was gross. You know, thank you sir, may I have another, like that type of reaction. It shocks people in the sense of like, oh man, that was a full-body workout in less than five to 10 minutes. You know, I don’t have to spend three hours at the gym. I don’t have to worry about people taking photos of me at Gold’s gym when I’m trying to get a workout in. You know, I think that that is the reaction is that they don’t realize like how fast and yet efficient a CrossFit workout can be.
Sean: 17:34 – Yeah. And you’ve gotten to know these superstars as people where, you know, most people just know them from their in-ring persona. What are they like outside of wrestling?
Josh: 17:45 – I mean again, it really kinda depends on when you catch them, you know, I’ve been on the road with them and I’ve seen both sides. I’ve seen people lining up at 3:00 a.m. at the airport and no one asking politely, throwing a magazine or a Funko Pop or some sort of action figure in their face and not even saying, will you please sign this? They just expect them to sign it. And for anybody listening, if you’re a fan, like that is not the way to do it. You know, you ask politely and you get a polite response. You don’t be a jerk and expect to get a polite response back. And I think that how they are outside of the rings, look, every one of my clients and most of the WWE superstars that I’ve been in contact with, they’re all super humble and they’re all super rad.
Josh: 18:33 – But it also, at the end of the day, they’re human beings. And if somebody’s trying to have a meal and you go up to them and shove a camera in their face or something in their face and like, hey man, can I take a photo? Like that’s not cool. You know? And that’s what’s so great about the CrossFit community in general is I have the daunting task of reaching out to CrossFit gyms all over America. And I’m sure if any of you are listening, thank you very much. Where I’m like, hey, I have clients that are coming into Knoxville, Tennessee. Hey, I have clients that are coming into Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Hey, you know, everywhere from, you know, Charlottesville, North Carolina, or South Carolina, I reach out to everybody and 99% of the time people are super rad. They will open the gym at odd hours and they leave them alone.
Josh: 19:19 – And you know, we don’t have to, but we always reward them with tickets to the show and pictures and all that good stuff. And it’s just so cool to see that the CrossFit community has embraced them so much. You know, you get a guy, when he was on the road, John Cena, right? John Cena would be like, hey, can I get a gym somewhere? And we’d get them a gym and nobody would mess with them. And it’s John Cena. And then I’ll look on Instagram and he’ll happen to go to like a globo gym and there’s 34 pictures of John Cena taking photos with people that you know that he just wanted to go in and work out and, you know, it’s just cool to see that the CrossFit community is so rad and so welcoming and yet at the same time too, giving them their space and respect and that’s just really cool to see.
Sean: 20:00 – What have you learned about coaching from dealing with them?
Josh: 20:04 – Being able to adapt on the fly. You know, it is tough. I enjoy coaching obviously when I’m on the road because I get to coach them, you know, otherwise it’s just I’m writing programming and they’re doing the workouts and then they’re telling me how terrible my workouts are and that don’t ever, you know, put thrusters in a workout ever again. And then the next week I put in thrusters. But, you know, it’s , I guess, where I’ve learned the most is adapting on the fly. You know, being able to change their workouts when and if they need to, you know, if they’re in a hotel gym. And also kind of being creative, you know, for example, Bayley, she hurt her arm and I had to come up with workouts that all involved one arm.
Josh: 20:47 – You know, same thing with Rollins when he tore his MCL ACL, I had to come up with workouts that were just all with one leg, you know, and Rollins was the perfect example. And for his cardiovascular, you know, his conditioning to not be hindered because he only had one leg was just a true testament of A how hard he works and B, how effective the programming was.
Sean: 21:09 – Yeah. How did Deadboys fitness start?
Josh: 21:12 – Oh, that’s a great story. So obviously I’m a big wrestling fan. Rollins is a wrestler and this was right around the Team Series, I believe this was like two years ago. And I was like, man, you know what, no one is talking smack. No one, no one is cutting promos. It’s the Team Series. Like this is where people should have fun. Like I get the Open, right?
Josh: 21:40 – This is a lot at stake. And you know, at the time it was, you know, you gotta take it to Regionals and you can’t really, you know, mess around and you want to be humble. But like the Team Series, it’s the Team Series for God’s sakes. So we were in, I believe it was Sacramento or maybe it was Fresno, I don’t know. It was the first week of the Team Series. We decided to come up with like a name and it was just Deadboys, and it was Rollins and I, and we cut this promo and we talked about how we were going to take down all these different teams. I forget some of the teams, but it was like, you know, somebody ridiculous like Dan Bailey and Rich Froning, like that wasn’t gonna happen. But you know, we’re wrestling fans at heart, so we’re going to just pretend like that was going to happen.
Josh: 22:18 – And we would cut promos on Dave and this, that, and the other. And we just really, really ate it up. And I think that day too, we did all four Team Series workouts in a row, which was the dumbest thing on the planet because, because of Rollins’ schedule, that’s what we had to do. And no one took the bait, no one talked shit. It was just me and Rollins just sitting there being like, man, what? No one took the bait. So we did it again. I think it was last year was the second year. And still no one, no one did it. We tried. But yeah, that’s kind of where Deadboys was born.
Sean: 22:52 – Why did you decide then to turn this into sort of an online coaching and programming service?
Josh: 22:58 – It’s a great question. So the reason why is, it really kind of started the year that Seth Rollins came to the CrossFit Games. That was really kind of when it was in its initial phases because that same year when Rollins came to the CrossFit Games in California, I believe they had a house show or maybe it was a Monday Night Raw two days or three days after that. And so what happened was we would go from the fittest fans on the planet to maybe not so much the fittest fans on the planet. And that’s no disrespect to wrestling fans out there. I’m just saying if you’ve ever been to the CrossFit Games, it’s ridiculous. The fan base versus the wrestling fan base. I mean, we would also get a lot of DMs and messages and when we’d go to, you know, these different CrossFit gyms, people were genuinely interested in Seth’s programming.
Josh: 23:52 – And so we decided like we wanted to make programming available geared more so towards wrestling fans than it was CrossFit Fans. Cause at the time I think Street Parking was still in its initial phases. There was all these different Misfits and Comptrain and you know, we weren’t trying to be the best CrossFit programming out there or we weren’t trying to breed competitive programming for CrossFit Games athletes. What we were trying to do was gear our programming towards wrestling fans because there are a lot of people out there in the wrestling fan community that just don’t work out. And I was a wrestling fan when I was growing up and that was my drive to go into the gym. I would see guys like Macho Man Randy Savage, Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, those guys were the ones I wanted to emulate because you know, guys like Hogan and Warrior, they were just too jacked.
Josh: 24:43 – I was like, that’s just too much for me. Macho Man and Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, these guys are not only ripped but they’re really athletic. You know, they were CrossFit before CrossFit, if you want to call it that, you know, like they were athletic and those are the guys that I wanted to look like and emulate. And so in a way, you know, that’s what got me into the gym and begging my dad to take me. And I was just hoping that if wrestling fans would see, and like man their hero Seth Rollins or Becky Lynch or Bayley is encouraging them to just get off of the couch and you know, do 10 air squats, that’s better than them not doing anything at all. You know. And I know that CrossFit HQ kinda got a lot of slack from that weird couch and the jugs of, you know, antifreeze or whatever it is.
Josh: 25:27 – But in a way like whether that was geared towards old people, but that’s a lot of wrestling fans that we’re making them do that. I mean, obviously we’re not making go grab jugs but you know, squats off of, you know, off of a couch or a box or having them farmers carry just heavy bags and stuff in and around their house because you know, they’re intimidated, they don’t want to go to a gym and you know, especially not a CrossFit gym because they’re afraid that people aren’t going to accept them because of the way they look or their athletic ability. And that’s just silly, and that’s why we have a lot of Deadboys seminars when we go and have these big events is we want to tell people like, look it’s, everyone starts somewhere. You know, Seth started in his first CrossFit class and I’m sure he wasn’t great.
Josh: 26:09 – I know it took me 45 minutes I think to finish my first CrossFit workout. I almost threw it up but we all start somewhere. I think that, you know, whether they’re a member a month or you know, going on almost a year, like just knowing that we’ve been able to touch people in the sense of like get them motivated, I mean, most of my cancellations and trust me, there are some, most of my cancellations are because they have now decided to join a CrossFit, which is bittersweet. You know, obviously I would love for them to stay a member, but the fact that they have now gained the confidence to join their local CrossFit gym, it’s really, really, really cool.
Sean: 26:44 – Yeah. You mentioned the day with the Deadboys, and for people who don’t know what that is is if there’s an event going on in a city, sometimes you and Seth and some of the other WWE superstars you work with will hold like a fitness seminar at a gym. What, and you talked about this a little bit, but what are the things that you look to accomplish when you hold one of these events?
Josh: 27:06 – So it’s a couple of things, right? It’s one, wrestling fans can pay up to two, three, four, $500 to meet and greet their favorites superstar. Right? You want to meet John Cena? You pay $500 or whatever it is. You can meet him, but the catch is you literally meet him for 10 seconds. Hey Mr. Cena, how you doing? Great, thanks. Hey, can you sign this photo? There you go kid. All right man. Have a good day. Good luck this weekend. Thanks man. You too. That’s it. You just spent $500 on that interaction. Well, for maybe half of that you can meet Seth. You can spend an hour working out with him. You can ask him questions, you can take photos with him, but before you do all that stuff, you have to go through a workout. You know, it all kind of technically started in South Brooklyn it and he said it almost as a joke.
Josh: 27:54 – There were guys that were lining up that said, Hey, look, can we get a photo or can we get an autograph with you, and Seth was like, you go buy a membership from CrossFit South Brooklyn and I’ll take a photo with you. And the guy was like, all right. I don’t even know if he was from Brooklyn. The point is, is he bought a membership. So we’re like, OK, well what would be a cool way to get wrestling fans to interact? And at the same time to hopefully maybe get them enthusiastic about physical fitness and their well-being. You know, are we saying like, hey, we want you to stop drinking Mountain Dew? In a sense, yeah. But maybe start off by not drinking a 32-ounce cup of Mountain Dew every single day. You know, we get guys in there that are CrossFit Games athletes or Regional athletes and we get guys that have never worked out ever.
Josh: 28:41 – You know? And it’s cool to see that interaction kind of intermingle cause they all have one thing in common. They love wrestling and they love Seth and they love Becky and they love whoever happens to be there. But the thing that really brings them together at the end of the day isn’t that love for wrestling. It’s, oh man, we did this terrible workout together. And whether, you know, the wrestling fan did it super duper scaled and the Regional athlete did it super super Rx, the point is that they did it together and one didn’t look better than the other.
Sean: 29:10 – Yeah. And what do people who come out to these events, those who haven’t worked out before, what do they think about your message of fitness?
Josh: 29:17 – Oh, they, I guess it turns people instantly whether they sign up for Deadboys Fitness or they go to their local gym. I mean, I keep in contact with a bunch of former, you know, I wouldn’t even want to call it a seminar, but like day of the Deadboy event members that came and joined us and they, like I said, they’ve either joined Deadboys Fitness or they’ve joined a CrossFit gym or even like a Anytime Fitness or a Planet Fitness. I mean, they’re doing something, you know.
Sean: 29:46 – You have been a lifelong WWE fan. You mentioned that. If I went back in time and I told 10-year-old Josh Gallegos that he would one day be training some of the biggest WWE superstars on the planet, what do you think he would say?
Josh: 29:59 – He would probably call you a liar. You know, and I literally, I think it was maybe like six months, seven months ago, like I posted a Instagram post, I got to do a couple of shoots for WWE and they paid me for it. And it was just surreal to getting a check from WWE, you know, on there, Stanford, Connecticut, like I remember just going to these events as a kid and you know, idolizing these guys and it was such a huge accomplishment. And now granted the amount of the check didn’t matter. It could have been a dollar on that check. And I know that sounds so cliche, but it really was just truly like, man, like that is such a rad thing to be such a huge fan of something and being able to work with them in some capacity.
Josh: 30:44 – You know, I was able to try out as a ring announcer and unfortunately I didn’t get the job, which is fine, but it was just surreal to be standing standing in a WWE ring and pretending to announce that my two really good friends, Seth and Cesaro, were gonna match with one another. Even that moment was surreal. So to be able to go back to a 10 or 12 or 13-year-old Josh and be like, hey man, not only are you going to work with these guys, but you’re going to be able to go to any show you want and sit front row and collect these chairs and be buddies and Vincent McMahon one day he’s going to say hi to you backstage. 13-year-old Josh would be like, you’re insane, get out of here. What? What? You gonna have flying cars in 2019, too, buddy? Huh? What are those? Those “Back to the Future” shoes, they really gonna make those? Yeah. OK, bud.
Sean: 31:28 – Let me get my hoverboard.
Josh: 31:30 – Yeah, exactly.
Sean: 31:31 – What has been for you, and maybe you just answered this, but what has been the best part about your CrossFit journey?
Josh: 31:39 – Man, it’s so interesting. Like I said, I used the Mr. Magoo analogy, but like CrossFit has changed my life in so many different ways. Obviously the fitness level and the way I train currently. Like if it wasn’t for that, obviously I’d probably still be trying, I’d still be on the road training to be a triathlete or I maybe I’d to go back to Gold’s gym or whatever, but it’s been 10 years, maybe a little bit more. I so enjoy the way—CrossFit workouts, they never get old with me in the sense that like they may all suck still, but that way of training never gets old for me. But the fact that like when I get to go to the CrossFit Games or the Sanctional events or Regionals back in the day and still have fun and entertain on the floor, I know it’s completely different than something that you do, which is a play-by-play announcer.
Josh: 32:32 – But I just, I really truly enjoy doing that stuff. It’s just so much fun for me. And then on top of that, I get to do what I like, which is helping people be better versions of themselves. But instead of those people being a soccer mom or you know, a lawyer or a movie or television agent, they happen to be professional wrestlers who I’m fans of. It’s really like a surreal moment. And sometimes you gotta take a step back. And again, I know it sounds cliche, but appreciate the small things. You know, I get to emcee really, really cool events and I get to see these amazing athletes at the highest caliber, you know, perform. And I’m right there with a front row seat. I get to train amazing athletes who are at the best and the highest level of their game when it comes to professional wrestling.
Josh: 33:20 – And I get to go to all these cool events and I get to see my friends succeed, whether it be Seth winning a championship, Becky winning a championship, Bayley. And not only am I happy for them because I’m their coach, but at the end of the day, I’m also their friend. And you know, those are the things that I just sit back and look and like, man, this is just such a crazy life. You know? It’s true. It’s crazy how I went from being laid off at a job that I loved. I loved traveling the world and taping stuff for Jeopardy. And I thought, man, that’s it. It’s not going to get any better than that. And low and behold, it only hasn’t gotten better, it’s doubled. It’s tripled. You know?
Sean: 34:00 – Well, Josh, you deserve all the success man, it’s been a blast getting to know, you know, not only as a coworker, but also as a friend. And best of luck to you and all the Deadboys Fitness members moving forward.
Josh: 34:10 – Yeah, man, I appreciate you. Thank you for having me on the show. Hopefully, all my Mr. Magoo references and we’ll have Mr. Magoo trending on Twitter hopefully soon, but no man, it’s been a lot of fun, Sean, you’ve been always awesome to me. I appreciate it and I look forward to working with you again.
Sean: 34:27 – Likewise my friend. Take care.
Josh: 34:30 – All right buddy. See ya.
Sean: 34:31 – Big thanks to Joshy G for taking the time to speak with me. You can follow him on Instagram at @JoshyG27. You can also follow Deadboys Fitness on Instagram and find out more about the program at deadboysfitness.com Chris Cooper almost went bankrupt in 2008. Now he’s running a multimillion-dollar company dedicated to helping entrepreneurs avoid the mistakes that he made. He spent thousands of hours mentoring gym owners one on one, and his new book is packed with advice to help you grow your business and create your Perfect Day. “Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief” is an Amazon bestseller. Check out the book reviewers who are calling it a must-read and a lighthouse for your business. If you want to level up, this is the business book that you need. Thanks for listening everybody. We’ll see you next time.
