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An Interview with Turnquist Custom Fig Belts
37 Plays3 years ago
Chick Foley and Heel Husband have stolen the MVP Marco’s gimmick and are sitting down for an interview with the #1 figure belt customizer in the game today, Dan Turnquist.
He takes us through his inspiration to start this endeavor, some of the technical details behind his process, and the dos and don’ts of requesting custom belts from him. We also talk about his background and a wrestling fan and indy wrestler!
Check out Turnquist Custom Fig Belts
https://instagram.com/turnquist_fig_belts?igshid=MWI4MTIyMDE=
Find all things Chick at CHICKFOLEY.com
Use code CHICKFOLEY to save 10% at ringsidecollectibles.com
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Transcript
Welcome and Thanksgiving Tales
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to Chick Foley show.
00:00:23
Speaker
What is up Foley fam? We are back with a special edition of the Chick Foley show. We're going to be doing something a little different tonight. I'll get into the details in a bit, but first let me start by introducing the star of the show, Sheena. How you doing? Doing good. It feels good to be here recording with you on this just like strange Tuesday afternoon or Tuesday evening.
00:00:40
Speaker
Yeah, we want to wish all the Foley fam and all the listeners out there worldwide a hope you guys had a happy Thanksgiving. Sheena, tell me how our Thanksgiving went. It was good. So we talked about kind of in the last episode how we were opting out of Turkey this year and we went with a little.
00:00:54
Speaker
fried chicken, southern fried chicken. It turned out amazing. It was so good. We kept the meal low key, but we had leftovers for the next few days. So it was awesome. Couldn't have asked for better Thanksgiving. Seriously, you left out the most interesting part of the day that our kitchen seat took a shit at nine a.m. Basically that. I think I blacked that out of my head. So yeah, just imagine the night before, I'm doing all kinds of preps and cooking and stuff, like getting stuff ready for Thanksgiving. So that on Thanksgiving, I can just like,
00:01:23
Speaker
put stuff in the oven and be ready and whatnot, right? Well, I didn't do the dishes, so after the kids went to bed, I went out, did all the prepping, went to bed with a sink full of dishes, dude, because I was like, I'll get up in the morning, I'll do the dishes before I start, you know, actually doing Thanksgiving. As I start to turn on the sink to do the dishes,
00:01:40
Speaker
the freaking hose like we have a pull down nozzle on our our faucet the freaking thing ruptured dude just like straight up just water blown out the sides of it i was like oh my freaking gosh thanksgiving day nothing is open and uh it even worse like let me just give you this little bit of information i had like a smidge of dish soap left i had let myself run completely out of dish soap
00:02:03
Speaker
for Thanksgiving, so yeah, it was a nightmare. Our kitchen looked like freaking chaos, but the meal was great. The dining room was nice and clean, and we went in there and just- We had the sink back up and running by Saturday afternoon, so it was all good, but yeah, definitely a lot of headache. Remind the listeners where they can find you on social media.
Social Media and Sponsors
00:02:18
Speaker
You can find me on Instagram, at Chick Foley. Our buddy Marco runs the Twitter machine over at Chick Foley Show. All your Chick Foley links and recommendations are at chickfolly.com.
00:02:30
Speaker
And we want to remind you guys, this podcast is brought to you by Ringside Collectibles, use code Chick Foley to save 10% on all your figure purchases. They have their extended Cyber Monday sale going on right now. So a lot of great things at really cheap prices. So I told you guys at the start, we're doing something a little bit different tonight. We got a little bit of gimmick infringement going on. You know, Marco, the MVP has been running
00:02:52
Speaker
the open mic series on this feed where he's kind of doing some long form interviews with different people in the internet wrestling community. It's been great. So definitely recommend you guys check out the, uh, that, that series so far. I think he's on number eight right now. So you got time to catch up if you need to. Um, but we're going to be doing our own interview tonight. I think this is, have you guys ever done an interview before? She definitely the first interview we've done since, since I came on the show about two years ago. So.
00:03:16
Speaker
We're going to be doing an interview of somebody that me and Sheena are both really big fans of, and we think this dude's about to really kind of explode in the wrestling figure community. So he may end up being mad at me for saying that we're going to try to blow his spot up, whether he wants to or not. Whether he wants to or not. Sheena, yeah, go ahead and introduce our guest for
Meet Dan Turnquist
00:03:37
Speaker
tonight.
00:03:37
Speaker
So we have Dan Turnquist tonight from Turnquist custom fig belts. Man, just an absolute talent in the wrestling figure community. Brings us all of the incredible custom belts that we may never see from our favorite fig.
00:03:54
Speaker
Mattel and all of our big figure producers, and also he just up levels them. So even the ones that we do get, if you get some from Dan, I mean, you're just going to be like, holy smokes. What have I been doing with all those Mattel belts all these years? So I'm pleased to introduce our guy, Dan. How's it going, Dan? It's going great. Thanks for having me, guys. Really excited to get out here and talk about belts and stuff.
00:04:16
Speaker
Awesome. So in my opinion, you know, it was, uh, you know, you and I'm, I'm probably going to offend somebody because I know I'll forget somebody, but you and forbidden figurines were like top tier when it comes to custom belts, right? They're like the AEW and WWE of the custom. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of, there's a lot of guys out there that are doing good work and great work. And you know, I'm sure everybody's going to be, everybody's working at their own pace and on their up and come up, but you guys have really perfected the craft. Um, and you know, forbidden figurines is amazing. We don't, uh,
00:04:46
Speaker
We wish her well because she kind of took a little bit of a hiatus and a break and she's shut down operations for now. So that puts Dan as the king of the mountain in the Chick-Fully verse. I think of the figure belt version. Yeah. This guy's the freaking king of the mountain now, man, for sure. So first of all, before we get into all the details of everything, I want to know a little bit about the man. I know you just got married, so how's marriage? How is it like being in the ranks of husband?
00:05:14
Speaker
Um, it's good. It's not much different. Um, we'd already lived together for like seven years. So probably would have been married a little bit earlier if it wasn't for COVID and everything like that. But, uh, you know, so it's, you know, it's nice.
00:05:29
Speaker
to be official, because you can be with someone for what, eight years, and people are still like, oh, you guys aren't going to ever tie the knot. It's like, oh, we live together. You know what I mean? 100%. We were together four years, and we were engaged for two years and lived together for over a year. Yeah, living in San for a while there.
00:05:50
Speaker
But yeah, I feel like it's just a piece of paper. I feel like if two people really love each other, getting the government involved is never a good idea. I mean, I'm all for the sanctity of marriage.
00:06:01
Speaker
but I definitely don't think a piece of paper makes you married. So yeah, I feel like, you know, if you feel like you've been married for a while, like more power to you. Let's see here. I wanna know a little bit about your wrestling fandom before we get into like customizing and figures and all that. So like, how did you become a wrestling fan? Like what age were you just like, you know, starting to become enthralled with wrestling? So man, I, it's hard to think like when,
00:06:27
Speaker
you know, when it was your first wrestling memory or whatever, I've been asked that a lot. But like, I think back to like 97, probably I was, so I was born in 91. So I was like six thing in like new age outlaws stone cold, like that era that like just past the Bret Hart era. I'm not a Bret Hart guy. I'm also not a winged Eagle guy. Pull the plug. Sorry. I think we're done here. Tell them where to find you on social media, man.
00:06:53
Speaker
Sorry to be rude to our first guest in chick-fil-a show history, but I'm not a Shawn Michaels guy either. So, okay. All right. We'll continue on man, but you're on a short leash now dance
00:07:05
Speaker
I just, that's just not my era. You know, I came in and like the rock stone cold era. I think I, one of my most popular belts is the winged eagle and like, Oh yeah. When I got into making this, I was like, I'm not going to be that guy who just puts out a bunch of winged eagles and stuff. I was like, I want to make the real obscure stuff. And it's like all the time. People are like, as soon as I made the WWE titles, I just posted them.
00:07:26
Speaker
I had been asked for two years to make those and I kept turning it down. And finally, I had a guy who came to me, he's like, come on, man, they look so bad on my Roman Reigns, I'll ultimate whatever. I was like, fine, I'll make it. And of course I post it. It gets like 900 likes and people just blow it up. But I could spend two months making the NWA Heritage Championship, Heritage States champions or whatever. And it's something super cool that just was on like Larry Zabisco and disappeared or whatever.
00:07:54
Speaker
And no one cares, but you guys want to. Yeah. And your defense, uh, you're working backwards there. Cause I mean, the people who really care about, you know, the Larry Zabisco area, a lot of them, like they're not, they're not on Instagram. You know what I mean? Like a lot of those people aren't out there showing all the, all the internet love, whereas like, you know, there's marks of a younger generation out here now. So, uh, yeah, anything attitude era and beyond is.
00:08:17
Speaker
is where the popularity lies. Yeah, and the WWE belts, the companies, Jax, Mattel, if you want to go back further, go back to Hasbro, they always do a good job, but they always leave you wanting more with their belt designs. When you get the really good customizers, go that extra mile on the attention to detail and the craft, it makes all the difference in the world.
00:08:38
Speaker
It makes sense to do like the WWE or the undisputed, whatever they're calling it, because there is all these great current figures that need it. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's very true, too. Yeah, I've been pretty against making stuff that comes with like every
00:08:58
Speaker
Every WWE, every elite comes with the AW title. That's something I just recently finally made. And the same thing with like anything WWE, I feel like every WWE figure comes with like the Smackdown tag titles, the US, that kind of stuff. And I'm just, I've kind of pushed back. Yeah, but now you're going to be into all the custom side plates, you know, cause now the, the Mattel's come with the custom side plates. So it's going to be, I think there's going to be requests for that.
00:09:21
Speaker
I've worked up a way to do them interchangeably. I don't like it. I'm kind of tweaking with it, but I'd like to be able to just show you one universal title. And if you ever want different side plates, you could just change them out. That's cool. Something I'm working with.
00:09:35
Speaker
So what's your history with wrestling
Crafting Custom Belts
00:09:37
Speaker
figures? Were you a wrestling figure collector as a kid or is that something that came along with becoming an older wrestling fan when you could actually go out and buy the figures for yourself? No, I had tons of figures growing up. One of my earliest memories of being a wrestling fan is my dad coming home late from a union meeting one night and he'd stop by the Toys R Us and he brought me back to the cage set that they had that had the little figures in it.
00:10:03
Speaker
I remember thinking that was the coolest thing in the world. It was such an awesome surprise. I've always had figures. I feel like everybody has that point of their life where they're not a wrestling fan. They don't watch all the time and stuff. Even during that, I still would check the toy aisle all the time. When I first met my wife, she
00:10:23
Speaker
It was funny because when we first met, I didn't really talk about wrestling. I didn't watch wrestling a lot. And then one day I just came home from work and I was like, hey, I'm going to go to wrestling school and become a professional wrestler. And she was like, what? And then even at that point, I still always just checked the aisles. But I snuck up. I snuck the wrestling on her after a year.
00:10:44
Speaker
Nice. Yeah, we did the same thing. I took like a basically a 10 year hiatus from being a wrestling fan from like 04 to 2014, but still I would always go and check the Toy Isles, man. I remember just being infatuated with like those Jax classic superstars I'd see on the pegs. Cause like I was, I'm a little bit older than you, but coming up in the nineties, there was like absolutely no like legends figures at all. That just wasn't a thing before Jax brought out the classic superstars. And that was the first line that we actually started collecting before we switched and went to Mattel. So when we got back into it in 2014,
00:11:14
Speaker
Um, you know, we started a collection, you know, Seth still has his childhood collection for the most part. Um, but at our house, we started a fresh new collection and we started with Jack's classic superstars. And then we made out, yeah, we took a hard left and went to, uh, went strictly Mattel and liquidated all the, the Jack's classic superstar. So did you end up going to a wrestling school?
00:11:33
Speaker
Oh yeah, I was a, I wrestled for four or five years or so at my local indie company and I wrestled. So yeah, I was an indie wrestler for, I can't even think right. Like from 14 to I stopped when COVID started.
00:11:47
Speaker
Oh wow. That's crazy man. That's how I actually got started making the figure belts was so I had a custom figure made of myself and I was like, it needs the belt, you know, cause I was the champion of like my local fed. And so I made the belt and I posted on one of the Facebook groups or whatever. And they were like, everyone starts commenting. They're like, they, where'd you get the belt? The belt's cool. And I was like, I made it myself. And then so it's like, of course it goes,
00:12:13
Speaker
Oh, can you make this belt? And then I make this belt for somebody and then they post it and then two more people. Hey, can you make this belt? And then it's just kind of spiraled to where we are today.
00:12:23
Speaker
That's cool, man. Yeah. There's a lot of organic growth in the wrestling figure community, dude, because if you do something cool, like people are going to talk about it in the wrestling figure community. I mean, back then it was so small. It's grown so much. I feel like even in just the last like few years, but back then, I mean, there's so many like smaller groups and like Reddit forums. And now there's like the major wrestling figure podcast group. Like if something is out there, that's cool. It gets posted. It like spreads like wildfire. So.
00:12:48
Speaker
Yeah, I told you, I don't use Facebook. I have a Facebook, but I haven't been on it in over a year. I got a really good friend of mine who I used to wrestle with, and he kind of got me into figures. He'll always send me screenshots of people posting my stuff randomly.
00:13:03
Speaker
in the groups and like random different groups to be like, that's so cool. He's like, that's your stuff. And I'm like, thanks, man. I'm like, that is cool. And then I got another guy who was like my first client who does the same stuff. He'll just send me random screenshots of someone being like, got this belt from Dan, you know, a cool guy, cool belt. And I'm just like, that's cool. People, you know, aren't just like blasting me randomly on other parts of the internet. So the fact that yeah. So the fact that you just kind of like decided on a whim to make this custom belt for yourself
00:13:32
Speaker
Did you already have 3D printing material and stuff like that at home? Or did you have friends with it? How did that happen? Or did you just take an old belt that was already created and just add new plates?
00:13:45
Speaker
No, so I'm an engineer by trade. So I already do 3D modeling and stuff is like my job. So I modeled the belt and then I already had a 3D printer, but I didn't have the kind that I needed. So I found a guy locally on Craigslist who had the right printer and I sent him over my file and he printed it for me. I thought it was so cool. I instantly started getting people asking and drawing them and then as I just went ahead and bought the right printer and now I have five.
00:14:13
Speaker
Well, and that's crazy that what you said you started just in like 2020, right? Right when COVID started? I made my first custom around the end of 2020, I want to say. Brodie Lee. And then, you know what, tragically passes right after it's kind of... Yeah. But that's when I started making... I think my friend sent me a screenshot not long ago of my Instagram and it was... I can't think of it was at the beginning of this year or the beginning of last year and I had like 300 followers.
00:14:42
Speaker
And I was just like, I thought that was a lot. And now I'm almost at 4,000. In your defense, I mean, 300 followers for the, for an average person, that's a, that's a lot of followers, you know? So, uh, the fact that you jumped from 300 to almost what, 4,000 now, like in such a short period of time, that's pretty freaking awesome, especially in this time period where Instagram is to break out.
00:15:01
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot more, there's a lot less organic growth now than there used to be like, you know, even just like six, seven years ago. Uh, so the fact that you've grown that fast is pretty, pretty awesome. Um, so what is your all time favorite championship belt? Doesn't have to be like what you've made, but like just in general, like day in the man, what's your favorite championship belt? I would probably say like the IWGP V4, like the Kenny Omega Okada, like the one, not the current, but just the last one. Those are all beautiful belts, man. Yeah, for sure.
00:15:30
Speaker
What about your most hated? What's the one that like, you just, you see it and you're just like repulsed. What a great question. You know, I don't really look at any belts that I hate.
00:15:43
Speaker
I'm not a, like I said, I'm not a big like winged eagle or like eighties in our continental guy. I know that that's like a huge, like, I don't know if it's just cause I make so many of them. I love, God, I love that winged eagle. My fingers over the disconnect button. I knew I was going to make some enemies too. They're both awesome belts. It's just like when I think, I bet it's because
00:16:08
Speaker
I mean obviously they look great but then I don't have any member like the winged eagle was. There's no nostalgia dude and wrestling is like 90% nostalgia they've been living off nostalgia like that's what they built their empire on is nostalgia so cuz I love the big eagles like a great belt too if I can't think any belt that I hate really.
00:16:28
Speaker
Especially now that I'm friends with a lot of these. I hate the spinner, dude. Yeah, the spinner's not great. It was disgraceful. It was cool for Cena. For the first time, he won the belt, but I don't know why the spinner was around for so long. You're right. Seeing Triple H with that belt looked off, and it said champ on it instead of champion. Oh, man. That's kind of like the old NWA TNA X division that says title across the bottom instead of champion. That's weird, too.
00:16:57
Speaker
So what do you think makes a good belt? In your opinion, what makes a beautiful title belt?
Designing a Great Wrestling Belt
00:17:03
Speaker
That's a great question. I talked to, I don't know if you guys know Hyperon belts. He makes the GCW belts. And I talked to Hellfire about that a lot. What makes a cool belt? It's got to look like a trophy. It's got to look like a prize. Yeah.
00:17:19
Speaker
So any belt that's got like some size to it and an elegant design, like some of these belts, they lose, like the WWE championship, no one would say like, that's a beautiful belt, you know, like the current one. Yeah. That's all about branding. It's a branding. It's a marketing tactic. Yeah. But like, I saw an AEW came out with their belt, even though it was like branded, you know, it was still beautiful. There was intricate design. There was big plates. Like I just, I think the AEW belt is really pretty. It's got a throwback too.
00:17:47
Speaker
Yes, that's like my logo is like off like the Reggie Parks, you know belts like the TV title and then even like the Hogan era like world title and stuff like I like that I like silver belts too. I don't know why I think the so like dual-plated school goal I liked some of the silver belts like the wing or not the wing deal but the The smoking school look cool silver. I thought oh, I love the smoking school belt. Yeah
00:18:10
Speaker
That's a great belt. You guys want to take a quick beverage break before we get hot and heavy into the actual belt making process? Oh, for sure. All right.
00:18:25
Speaker
All right, it's time for the weekly beverage break where we're talking about what we are drinking as we pod. We'll let our guest Dan kick it off. He kind of already gave us a spoiler before the show started, but Dan, tell the listeners what you're sipping on tonight, man. I'm sipping on some great Mountain Dew Zero sugar right now.
00:18:42
Speaker
Do you ever drink and belt, Mandy? Are you usually got a beverage going while you're working on your belts, Mandy? Or is it strictly a sober activity all the way? It's definitely sober activity. Have you ever tried to paint something that was like a millimeter tall and you've had a few drinks? No, he doesn't because anytime he wants anything made, before we met all of our belt customizer, he used to have me paint
00:19:05
Speaker
belts, such bush league. Yeah, Dan, you didn't know you're talking to a belt customizer on here right now, dude. Sheena made me the baby blue, the robin egg blue, winged eagle, a lavender winged eagle. I had before I ever heard of one of her big figurines. I painted it with a gold dust gold belt too, yeah. Yeah, before I ever heard of forbidden figurines or what a Dan Ternquist was, Sheena was out here customizing belts for me way back. Pioneering. Pioneering the custom belt movement. Yeah.
00:19:33
Speaker
So I'm sipping on the exact opposite even though I'm coming off Thanksgiving and you feel like just a big like a blob like you just can't eat another bite of sugar. I made myself like the most sugary contraption tonight or concoction tonight. I put a little ice cream in the bottom of my cup. I poured iced coffee over the top so kind of like avocado style and then I hit it with a shot of dough ball whiskey. So
00:19:57
Speaker
It's kind of like a mudslide situation. I'm not normally one for super sugary drinks, but it's the holiday. So, you know, Yolo, I guess. Yeah. If you guys listen last week, Sheena kind of goes off the chain when she starts drinking. So we'll see how the rest is. I may have to tag in and on the hot tag and finish off this interview. I'm just drinking the, uh, the unofficial official beer, the podcast, uh, Miller white. So let's get back to it. All right. So
00:20:22
Speaker
We talked about your favorite and least favorite, but as far as the process goes, what is the most challenging, frustrating belt that you have made in figure form? It's got to be the AEW Championship. Oh, really? Just talking about it. Just because there's so much detail. Anything dual-plated is super hard, because you're either going to have to pick one of two base coats, silver or gold, and then you have to go back and accent the pieces with them.
00:20:51
Speaker
with like gold touch-up paint or silver touch-up paint. And I found that they look better when I can do a gold base and then come back with the silver like, you know, the chrome finish. Like I used to make the WWF tags and I would do the silver base too and do gold touch-up. And I just didn't, I didn't like how it looked. I think they look a lot better, but
00:21:14
Speaker
I made the AW championship. It's one that like it was one of the first belts I made and it gives me bad memories because the guy who I sold it to hated it. I didn't sell to him. I just was like, it's free, man, because he hated it so bad. I was like, don't worry about it. Was he like nice about it at least? Or was he like rude about it? No, he's pretty rude about it. That's fucked up. Jerk. Oh, the charging double. Yeah, exactly. It's totally fine. When I first started doing stuff, I had a lot of like,
00:21:43
Speaker
or Facebook wasn't nearly as nice as Instagram was. Everyone on Instagram is cool, right? And there's some people who have their criticisms and things like that, but it seemed like, because I already sell my stuff pretty cheap.
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah, you do. And so I would have guys be like, well, can I give for $8? And I'd be like, sure, man, I guess. So my time is worth absolutely nothing to you. Yeah, exactly. And I would just be like, yeah, they're not that good. And I'm like, well, then just don't get it. That's totally fine. At least to me, that's the whole thing is if it's not that good, then go somewhere else. Don't waste my time.
00:22:22
Speaker
if you don't like what I'm putting out. I just can't, I can't stand that. I even have a policy where if you're somebody who's pretty new, I will ask you to please just get one. Yeah, exactly. Get one, get it in your hand and make sure it's what you want because I'm not in the business of trying to send you 20 belts that you hate and then we got to store it out. PayPal, we got to store it out. You're going to ship these back to me so I can give them to someone who actually wants some stuff. I'm like, man,
00:22:49
Speaker
I just recently had to tell somebody because I sent them, they sent me a belt there. Hey, can you make this? And I was like, I can, but it looks like this. And they're like, well, can you change this, this, this, and this? And I was just like, I'm sorry, man. I was like, I don't think I'm the guy who makes the figure belts that you want. I was like, I'm really sorry about that. But I can't make your belt for you. And they were like, whatever, man. And I'm like, I'm just being honest because I don't want any disappointments. I don't want any misconceptions. It's like, it's better to get this out front.
00:23:15
Speaker
way before. That's why I don't even take money from guys until they've seen pictures or sometimes in scenarios, I'll wait till it even gets to them because I've had some- You're way too kind, Dan.
Managing Demand and Criticism
00:23:25
Speaker
We got to toughen you up, dude. You got to make sure you're the block master, dude. Yeah. Block people, yeah, for sure. Tell people just to F off and stop wasting your time. You're way too kind and generous with your time and talent. That's good though. It's a blessing to the figure community. You are a blessing to the figure community, but also
00:23:42
Speaker
people try to take advantage of people like that. What's the big issue you see with customer satisfaction? Are people expecting these to be like Mattel belts with the rubber strap and hard plastic plates? They're just expecting something more durable? Because these things are like... I don't know if delicate's the right word, but they're definitely like little... I've always described them as like little miniature works of art. Yeah, it is. It's yeah.
00:24:03
Speaker
It's not something you're going to crash your figures together with. There's been some, the only real issues I've had is some people just don't like how I paint and stuff like that. I totally understand. I've never painted anything in my entire life until I painted my first belt.
00:24:19
Speaker
Dan, let me just tell you from someone who's painted lots of belts, not a lot of detail, the detail work that you do with painting is just insane to me. It's incredible. I will be looking at these things right up next to my eyeball. How the hell did he get that paint there without smudging it all over everything else? What kind of paint brushes is this magician working with?
00:24:42
Speaker
So I don't know what these people, what kind of Picasso shit these people are thinking that you're trying to pull off here. But yeah, it's incredible, dude. Well, you know, people like Forbidden kind of set the bar pretty high. So I was telling someone, you know, like, I'm fine with being the, like, you know, the store brand version. Like, that's totally fine. You know, I'll take number two. I don't I'm not here to debate. Like, I get it. Like, we use different products, you know, like we use different pay. We use different processes. Like, we aren't the same.
00:25:10
Speaker
So like price and way less weight too. Yeah, exactly. Dude. Yeah. There was, there was clearly, there was clearly a flaw in the, in the business model there. So it was like, you know, you just, I don't know. I don't know what people.
00:25:25
Speaker
what people expect, right? And most of these people that, you just have to remind yourself, I'm not taking a shot at like, you know, marks, cause I love marks is what I do. Like, you know, it's why we run our podcast. We are marks, but there's a lot of people out there in the internet wrestling community without a freaking stitch of talent in any, with that, with that, I'm just saying. When she starts drinking, man, this is where it goes. They don't have a stitch of talent, couldn't freaking color inside the lines on a kindergarten coloring book, right? And they're, they're the first ones
00:25:53
Speaker
to complain about something so miniscule, like, you know, like, oh, I didn't like the way you put this paint on this tiny little women's championship belt. Like, you know what I mean? Like, get the F out of here, you know? That's when you hit the block button, Dan. Yeah. I can't really think on Instagram that I've blocked anybody yet.
00:26:12
Speaker
It's such a barrage of people. It's hard to even understand. There's a few people who are super cool and I always look out for and have become good friends in the figure community and then there's just the masses.
00:26:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. And it is, I mean, I get that too. Like there's sometimes there's people like arguing in my comment section. They're like just saying like the most stupid shit I've ever heard in my life. Um, but it's like, you don't even see that stuff cause it just goes so fast and there's like already like 30, 50 comments on that same post. So it's just like, you don't even see that stuff. So yeah, it does just, does just kind of blend in with the masses. But the comments that matter, like those are the ones that hit, you know, the ones that are good and the ones that make you feel like, damn, this is why I'm doing this. You know?
00:26:55
Speaker
Those are the ones that stick. So if you're out there and you're leaving good comments on people's Instagram and people and artists Instagram, like good for you. Keep, keep up the good work. And I try to spread positivity to our guys. Like there's so many dudes out there who take like the craziest pictures or like dudes who I, I posted something today. I think about it was like,
00:27:12
Speaker
Hogan with the undisputed and I was like photo by me for once because like I've been posting all these pictures from other guys because I'm terrible at taking photos and my tables like all got paint all over. It looks like crap. My wife's always telling me, she's like, I can't believe you send these guys pictures with these on that terrible table and stuff. I'm like, they're just, you know, it's just to let them know what it looks like. I don't care about posting it, but there's so many talented people who like
00:27:35
Speaker
I'll send them the belt and then they'll send me back a picture of it. And I'm like, I'm looking for like a stitch line on the side of it. Cause I'm like, I didn't make that thing. I'm like, that's not mine. I know that that I didn't, you know, or, you know, I'm looking for something to be like, that's like what, how on earth, that's not my belt, you know? So there's so many talented people.
00:27:51
Speaker
And I try to make sure I let make people know. And I've got a bigger platform at this point, so I like to be able to post guys picks and tag them and stuff like that. It's cool to give back like that. But one time, not long ago, I commented on something and some dude responded like, holy crap, the belt guy commented on my picture or whatever.
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, the first time that that starts happening like you start to feel like what this is so weird because you're just like a normie even me and you know I'm so calm and star cast people approaching and get pictures and it's just yeah, I'm just like dude I'm just like a normal like mom like wrestling mark, you know, just a normal person going through my day I don't know what people think goes on behind that the internet, you know, like they think you're some sort of like internet celebrity or something like naughty I'm just over here living my normal life and then I come on Instagram, you know, like I
00:28:37
Speaker
That's that's how it rolls so yeah people at my work don't understand like the belt thing at all I try to tell them about like you mean people want those little things you make and I'm like buddy I'm like you wouldn't believe the amount of people who want I can't even yeah I can't even make them fast enough yeah I'm impressed and share it with your co-workers dude like my whole podcasting life is completely kayfabe dude like
00:28:59
Speaker
There's like two people I work with that even know that I do this, man. It would just blow people's minds when they found out that I spent a couple nights a week podcasting. My old boss used to sit down and try to run the numbers and be like, you might be able to quit. He'd be like, if you just make this many, and I'm like,
00:29:16
Speaker
Yeah, I was like, man, but I like where I like working with you. I like my job, you know, he's like, yeah, man, but you like making those belts too. He's like, you might be able to, you know, you know, I think some people, I think artists do their best work a lot of times when they don't have to do it. I've seen so many people do that and take their passions full time. And we're like, it has to be
00:29:35
Speaker
Like it has to generate income. Um, and you start doing things that you're not passionate about. You start taking on projects that you don't love and it kind of ruins it for you. You know, um, I have a friend, I don't know if you've heard of Sam Evans art, you know who that is. He's an incredible artist. Uh, but during COVID, you know, he, he unfortunately was a person who lost his job and he was doing art full time. And he was just like, during that time, I would just felt so.
Balancing Work and Passion
00:29:59
Speaker
Kind of just down on it, you know, so he's like I was glad to be able to get back to work so that I could just start doing projects that I Wanted to do and start doing the things that I like to do I totally understand that cuz it is definitely nice to be able to just say Someone messages you like a belt. You don't want to make or something and you can just tell you know I'm not really interested or if if it's like Sometimes it's nice to make a big order, you know, but it'd be like sometimes guys will message me I get
00:30:26
Speaker
Like I just recently made every impact belt for somebody and every IWGP belt. And it's like, it took me a while, you know, and I would imagine there'd be probably a lot more pressure to get something like that done if this wasn't just something I do for fun.
00:30:40
Speaker
Yeah. And that's tough too, if you're getting a bunch of different orders, right? Like if you're just doing like a straight run of IWGP titles, it's like, okay, well I'm getting my rhythm down for how to paint these titles, right? Versus like each one is a little bit different, trying to like figure all that out. So I imagine that's a little bit stressful.
00:31:00
Speaker
Are you planning on, uh, are you going to keep like just the, like kind of like ad hoc, um, commissions going, man? Are you looking at maybe doing like some like batch production runs on stuff anytime in the future? Um, so I'm trying to get to a point where I kind of keep some stuff like,
00:31:16
Speaker
not really in stock, but I'd like to get to a point where next year for Christmas, I have enough stuff that's on demand that people could just hit me up and get stuff for their kids or their significant other. The ROH world title and the ROH tag title and the winged eagle, I pretty much have three machines that are just running those belts.
00:31:35
Speaker
Um, cause I want to try to keep them, like I try to keep them base coded. So all I gotta do is like pull them out in detail, paint them and put them on a strap. Um, I would like to get to a point where I did some bigger stuff, but I have like all these lofty goals that I tell myself when I finally start to slow down, I can do this and I've just never slowed down. And it's like every time I start to get close to slowing down, I'll, you know, people are like, are your commissions back open? Your commission's back open. Can you make me this? Can you make me that? Or even like.
00:32:04
Speaker
I'm working on a couple projects that I can't really talk about for some bigger people. And it's like, see, just, you know, get an email from someone and you're like, holy crap, like that person knows I exist or that person emailed me. And it's and they ask you to work on stuff. And so that's pretty cool. But
00:32:20
Speaker
I just don't have the time to... I work, like I said, I'm an engineer, so I'm a project engineer. I work 10, 12 hours every day throughout the week. Oh my gosh. It's like I come home and then I work on belts for two or three hours and then go back to work in the morning. So I don't have a ton of extra time to dedicate to the process.
00:32:40
Speaker
Like I wish I did, but I've got some ideas to get to a point like that, but I do want to keep the, I don't ever want to have like a website in a store or anything like that because.
00:32:51
Speaker
I feel like that leads to a lot of pressure. Just having a store, just the idea of, I don't even let dudes prepay me. It bugs me, the few guys who have my PayPal and they send me money and they're like, can I get one of these? No rush. And I'm like, well, no, you just paid me, man. Now there is a rush. Yeah, so now the pressure's on. Yeah, exactly. No, I feel that. I think that's just part of just evaluating what you really want to do. Because at this point, everyone knows you.
00:33:20
Speaker
you're not going to get to a point where you get time to slow down. You know what I mean? Unless you like deliberately create that shut down and then kind of evaluate like what your goals are as far as like, you know, like you said, you want to have enough stocks for Christmas next year, black Friday or whatever, just for people to purchase for the holidays and stuff like, you know, that's just mapping all of that out as something that it feels so overwhelming when you just look at it from, you know, a macro perspective, but you know,
00:33:48
Speaker
I think you end up happier though on the other side when you take that time to kind of map out where you want to go instead of just letting the masses decide for you, you know? Yeah and I've got a Discord group and it's like a real good core group of guys and they've been really good on helping me like
00:34:05
Speaker
You know, I can direct stuff well through them and they, like the guys in the Discord usually gets, they have, we'll do some exclusives and stuff just because it's so much easier to manage. And like, I really like, I wish everybody, whoever won the belts would get on Discord, but I'm still finding a lot of people are like, what's Discord? And because it used to be in my bio on my Instagram, but I got so many negative hateful messages from people about how, your website's terrible. I hate your website. What is this? And I'm like,
00:34:33
Speaker
It's not a website, it's a link chat. Yeah, it's a chat room basically. Guys can post pictures of belts they'd like to see me make in there and I can post updates to stuff. We did a Hogan exclusive on the Discord where we did the 84, the 85, the 86, the mystery belt.
00:34:52
Speaker
I think that's it. Did you post a couple of pictures of those on your IG? Yeah, I think so. I posted him holding the red and the black and the 86 and then the mystery of the face, which I got to print out the decals because you guys wanted that one too. Yeah, the cool thing about a Discord group though is you know that those are the hardcore of the hardcore.
Community Engagement
00:35:12
Speaker
If they'll follow you to Discord, that's the reason we opted to go into a Facebook group instead of just having the masses on Instagram. We love all the people that follow you fully. If you spend any ounce of your day
00:35:22
Speaker
scrolling through the chick-fil-a feed like we love you wouldn't be here without you but we really wanted like a deeper more meaningful like community so that's why we kind of moved it to our facebook group because we know we're just gonna have more quality interactions there like you know i'm sure in your discord group you have better conversations you know that are more
00:35:42
Speaker
They bring more to the table than just the fodder that you get sometimes just on Instagram, the comment section. Yeah, exactly. You guys can give some criticism like that and guys, you give their feedback and we even have a part- Without it being in a super public forum too. Exactly. We even have part where my Walmart right now has, I think, 13, 14 of the AEW exclusive CM Punk. It's one of those things where I can go on Discord and be like, if anybody's looking for one, let me know. I can share it to you.
00:36:11
Speaker
different things like that. So it's cool to have a community like that. And it's cool to, you know, to grow that stuff. But it's cool also on Instagram to just have strangers from all kinds of countries and stuff. Because I think at this point I've shipped almost everywhere. Even like Malta, New Zealand, all kinds of stuff. That is so crazy to think about. South Korea.
00:36:33
Speaker
I'm big into the, uh, like the retro bootleg wrestling t-shirt game and stuff, man. And like the number one guy I get stuff from, he operates exclusively off discord. There's a discord with like just a hundred members and like he only, if somebody leaves, that's the only time he adds anybody new to it and stuff.
00:36:50
Speaker
Because the and that world they're really concerned about getting shut down Yeah, like you know their IGs will just like straight up like hammer those guys and just completely black out their accounts Is that something that exists and like the custom figure belt game or is that a concern of yours? Um, so I feel like WWE figure artist had had some issues on eBay with stuff like that at one point He was telling me about I got a guy from Greece, right? Yeah, he yeah, he's awesome. Yeah He's the godfather of it, right? He's the first one
00:37:20
Speaker
We got bills from him a long time. We were like, we got a guy in Greece. That's what we used to say. We used to follow him. He actually blew us up, dude. Yeah. Is he still doing stuff, or is he out of the game, man?
00:37:32
Speaker
You know, he's not doing belts that I think of. It's crazy because he has so many followers and stuff. I remember the first time, I was a big fan. I have some of his belts too. That's kind of also, I made my custom belt and then I was like, man, I'd really like to get the TNT title. And I was like, I really don't want to wait for it to show up from Greece. And so I just made it myself.
00:37:51
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know if he still makes belts. He was working on something else. I don't know if he would want me to talk about it, but he's doing some other stuff with 3D printing. Such a cool guy. I still remember the first dude who sent me a message and was like, hey, WWE Figure Artist told me to ask you if you could make this. I was like, what? I was like, no way. I was like, that's awesome. The first time belts by Dan messaged me and was like, hey, your stuff looks really good. I was like, oh, that's cool. I was like, you're only the dude who makes these belts.
00:38:20
Speaker
I hadn't even thought about that guy in a while till you mentioned it, man. So we bought some belts from him and shouted him out and stuff on the podcast and everything. And I guess he's got a bunch of wrestling friends out there, stuff in Greece too, because he blew us up, dude. So we get the analytics on our show and everything. And out of nowhere, man, for about a six month period, our number one country is obviously America. Number two is the UK. Three is Canada.
00:38:44
Speaker
And then Grease, dude, we had like a ridiculously large following in the country of Grease for about six months and it kind of tailed off, you know, because we stopped, we kind of just like ebbed and flowed on our production of the show. But yeah, it was like, I mean, I can only think that was due to WWE figure artists like shopping out. It has to be. He's such a cool dude.
00:39:03
Speaker
He would give me all kinds of feedback when we were first talking about like, hey, how do you do this? And how do you do that and stuff? And he was super cool. He was someone that was awesome to talk to. I actually, what made me find out he wasn't making belts anymore is I reached out to him and I was like, hey man, it'd be really cool if like I design a belt and send you the files and you design a belt and send me the files and then we each paint them however we think this should be painted, you know, and do like kind of a little thing.
00:39:27
Speaker
See who likes each person's version better. He's like, that sounds really fun, man, but I'm not making belts anymore. And I was like, I hear you. So you mentioned that he did get a little bit of like, you know, pressure from WWE or from another wrestling company. I think he had something from from eBay. I think he was saying that his his WWE championships were getting taken off of eBay or something.
00:39:50
Speaker
Cause I'm the same way. I don't like to post a lot of the WWE ones and stuff. Cause I'm worried about that exactly what you're talking about. But, uh, Hellfire designs is like, I make all their designs and no one's ever said anything to me. So I'm like, I guess you're right.
00:40:04
Speaker
You know what's weird? I just never even really considered them taking stuff off of eBay. Like I knew there was tons of, I mean, I know artists that, you know, just draw like WWE, like just use their images and they got their stuff shut down and got cease and desist and stuff. So I've never even thought about them taking down like people's eBay shops and like eBay listings and stuff. They got freaking internet pirates everywhere, dude. WWE is no joke.
00:40:29
Speaker
Yeah, that's why I try to make sure that everywhere it says not a store. I'm a hobbyist. I just kind of make them and give them out. It's not like I'm not out here to replicate 50,000 of your belt and be a competition to your store. I also try not to go out of my way to talk crap about Mattel or anything like that. I've applied for jobs at Mattel, so I'm not trying to bash them.
00:40:52
Speaker
For sure. Good thing is action figure attack. You know, Steve Ozer, good friend of ours, dude, basically the brand director for WWE's line. He's always seemed like he has like a warm embrace of like the customization community. I think he realizes that they don't really take away from anything that Mattel or Jazzwear for that matter is doing. They add to, you know, so. Yeah, because there's no way that Mattel and Jazzwear, I mean, there's just no way they're going to give everybody everything that they want, dude. So there's a place for customizers out there.
00:41:18
Speaker
And another good thing is for the most part, you can't buy individual titles. They have to come with the figures. Mattel's not just selling individual titles. I know they did a belt pack at one point, but for the most part, you can't… That's once and they've been licensed for 12 years now. Yeah, you can't just buy titles. So it's not like you're in direct competition. You still have to buy the figure.
00:41:41
Speaker
Yeah, I've thought that same thing too before, because it's like if you get on Macari or whatever, you see people are selling the Mattel belts for whatever price and stuff like that. And it's like, all I'm really doing is just giving you another avenue to get those. Mm-hmm. I agree. So is there a belt that you haven't made yet that you're excited to try your hand at?
Innovation in Belt Design
00:42:02
Speaker
I've been trying to finish the triple crown, all Japan triple crown, all year.
00:42:08
Speaker
the one that like Vader had and stuff, it's got the chains across it. I think I finally found a way to put these, I have real chains, like jeweler's chains. I've been trying, I've tried about 15 different ways to get these things to sit on the belts and look correct. But I think I'm close to it. But other than that, I think I've almost made like every belt. I can't really think of any belts that I haven't made yet.
00:42:37
Speaker
Have you done the million dollar belt? Because I feel like that's one that like, I don't think any of the mainline like companies have ever nailed it. And I'm not sure I've ever seen a customizer do that one, man. Have you tried your, tried your hand at that one? I was just talking to some guys on Instagram live about it. I haven't yet. I want to, but
00:42:57
Speaker
When I do make it, I think I want to make it where the whole thing is plastic, but it articulates. I don't know if you guys follow a lot of 3D printing, but it's real big in the 3D printing world to do these like articulating dragons and like articulating, you know, characters and stuff where it prints in place. And then when you pull it off, like the print better, you pull it off your
00:43:15
Speaker
your level from your resin printer or whatever, that it's printed as one whole piece, but then when you pull it off the way it was designed, it actually articulates. That's cool. That wasn't a belt. It was actual- Yeah, it was basically a piece of jewelry. Yeah. Yeah. It was like a giant watch. It was a bracelet. Yeah, it was a giant watch. I would like to do that one. It would take a lot of time to sit down and really
00:43:42
Speaker
mess around with, but I think I will get around to doing the million dollar belt at some point. There's not a ton of demand for it. There's a few belts I just didn't make because Forbidden was making them so good. People would ask me and I'd just say, I'd send them her website. I'd just be like, here you go. She makes it already. That's not worth messing with right now. Oh, but I don't want to wait for it. I'm like, yeah, well, you're going to wait just as long for me, man. You better just buy it.
00:44:06
Speaker
Yeah, just go ahead and put your money over there because, yeah, you're way here too. Yeah, exactly. I think that's what, yeah, people just don't understand, I think, how long stuff like that takes, dude. Well, and, you know, like Dan told us, he's an engineer, forbidden figurines is the same way. She had a full-time job and a kid, so I mean, dude, it's like...
00:44:23
Speaker
We feel like just doing the podcast, man. We used to actually pod a lot more than we do, man. We would do weekly and then do bonus pods and everything, but yeah, life is- It's hard to find time for these side hustles, man. Time is the number one resource, man. We could have more of it, man. That's the big limiter on this stuff. A lot of folks that don't really have something like that going on, they can't really understand how hard it is just carving out a few hours in the evening to go and work on this stuff.
00:44:50
Speaker
for sure. I've been lucky. Since I've come back from my honeymoon and everything, my father-in-law has actually been helping me do some of the easy stuff like clean them off their supports and stuff like that and get them taped down. Yeah. Kevin, right? Yeah.
00:45:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's my father-in-law. He's the best. He's the coolest dude ever. He just survived lung cancer last year, had his entire lung removed. Wow. Salute to Kevin, man. Yeah, salute to Kevin. He was telling me I got to give him a shout out, too. It was funny. My best man at my wedding was talking about all these things, and one of the things he said, he's like, the best thing, belt figure, belt maker. And Kevin was like, you didn't give me a shout out.
00:45:34
Speaker
You gotta mention me on your podcast and I was, I tried to get him on live and stuff. That dude's just the best. He's like the most appreciative dude in the world. And he keeps, he's like, you gotta keep making, you gotta, I'll help you out. Cause you gotta get these people their belts that they need them. I heard him. I heard him say, you know, you gotta keep growing this thing. Keep the orders coming in, man. He's your biggest cheerleader, dude. He's a, yeah, he's, he's wanting to see a Dan Kirk, turquoise belts go mainstream, dude.
00:45:58
Speaker
Yeah. So he's been helping and it does help because I can just, and having more printers has helped too. I've been trying to, you know, as stuff comes in, I put together print schedules and then I can, I can print stuff. There was a point when I first got back that I was so busy that I was like, it takes like two hours to print.
00:46:13
Speaker
So I was like, as soon as I got home, I'd change a print and then it'd print, and then I'd get like two or three out. I'd go to bed. I had an alarm set in the middle of the night. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and change a print, just to make sure that the machines were always running. And then I can give those boxes to him. Wow. Freaking Walter White. Freaking... Heisenberg. Heisenberg. Heisenberg. Heisenberg.
00:46:32
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Wow. That's nuts, dude. I'm just trying to think of creative ways to keep things going, but still putting the little snap pieces on and then getting some of the paint and stuff like that. Those are still things that just take a lot of time.
00:46:46
Speaker
Yeah. Is this in your garage, man, or do you got a room in the house? Maybe start taking a studio like you're set up a little bit. It expanded. It first started on my kitchen table, and that quickly was detailed. I'm sure your fiance, future wife love that, man. Yeah.
00:47:04
Speaker
I made a post when I first started. It was like all these belts across the kitchen island and it was like thanks to Amanda for letting me take the island up for the weekend or whatever. Yeah. Shout out to Amanda for being- The unsung hero. The unsung hero, yeah. She hasn't got much mention on here, but yeah, we all know that the wives of the Marx and the artists, they definitely allow all of this to take place. So shout out to Amanda.
00:47:27
Speaker
Yeah, for real. So I got an office at home and the closet I converted into a 3D printing space. I redid all the shelving and stuff to hold all the printers and stuff like that. So there's that. And then I do all my airbrushing and stuff outside my carport.
00:47:44
Speaker
which sucks in the Midwest because it's cold and then the weather. Then it's hot. Yeah, exactly. Then it's hot. Hot is great because the belts dry a lot faster. That's true. Yeah, the cold. Yeah, that's kind of a bummer. But I got a set up. I got an office that's full of printers and then I use a Cricut machine to cut the straps out. So I draw the strap and then that helps because my first belts that had hand-cut straps were freaking terrible.
00:48:09
Speaker
That was like the first thing I was like, I got to change this. I got to get this different. So I started, I already had one, but I bought it better, a better vinyl cutter to cut, cut the straps out and stuff. I can't imagine the hand cramps that you got like hand cutting belts like that. Oh yeah. And then it was like, I was like doing these little forms like, you know, to trace it out to what it should be, like print out a paper, cut it out and then it still never turned out right. So I was like,
00:48:34
Speaker
Now I can just click one button and have like 20 straps cut out in a couple minutes and it's way nicer. And then the end pieces were something that was really important too. I was like, I really want to put those end pieces on because I feel like it's a touch that I'm not seeing anybody do. And then it's something that it's like a calling card. If I see a bell, I know it's like that's mine because it's got the
00:48:55
Speaker
the little gold piece. And it's those little details like that that separate it from like the belts that Mattel or Jazzwares give them. So like, I'm really a nerd on like the infrastructure on this type of stuff, man. So you said you're running five. Yeah, Seth usually, he's the one always like telling me like, hey, we need this belt. Hey, we need this belt. So yeah, well, I'm more worried about like, so you said you got five printers, dude. I'm wondering like, what kind of heat do those things put off, man, if they're all running, like, you know, basically nonstop, like are they are they affecting the temperature inside the house?
00:49:24
Speaker
Well, so luckily the resin printers, I do have one FDM printer, which is like what you'll normally see that uses like the filament for plastic and it uses the spool, you know. The belts are made with resin printers and they use a UV light so they don't have any kind of heat. Okay. They just, they actually, it's kind of crazy. If you're ever bored, look up like resin printing, like a time lapse, it looks like they're just pulling something out of like
00:49:48
Speaker
this goop because you pour a liquid in and then layer by layer it shines a light of what it's supposed to look like and then it picks it up. How does it impact the old electric bill? Yeah, so that was going to be my next question, man. So it's not that much? No, they're all pretty efficient. I think that obviously my FDM printer runs, takes the most because it's got to heat it up, but I still think it's not more than like a dollar or two a day.
00:50:13
Speaker
Yeah, so that goes back to my theory. You know, Sheena always bitches at me about the lights, but I tell her, like, dude, nothing affects that electric bill like the freaking AC and heating, man. Everything else is like- See, I will live in the dark if I can have my house cold. Or how, depending on, you know. Everything else is dropped in a bucket compared to the HVAC on that electric bill. Oh, man. That's the truth. I had a friend at work who was doing some crypto and stuff, and he was like, you need to get one of these trackers and put them on all your machines, and then you can, like, write them off on your taxes and stuff. And I'm like, man, that just sounds-
00:50:47
Speaker
Hopefully, you know, hopefully Erwin our shysters not listening to this podcast ready when I go to IRS reps, dude Get on there on the freaking write offs, dude So we do that because you know, we we resell a lot of stuff because like our collection of figures has gotten so big that there's a lot of shit that's just expendable so we do a lot of stuff on eBay and you know post stuff up on a
00:51:08
Speaker
on IG and everything. And even the podcast stuff, dude. Like we write off everything, like our microphones, all that stuff, dude. And I had a, I mean, I have a fitness coaching business that had to write stuff off. I mean, cause if not, I mean, I'd be just like handing money to the government, hand over fist, dude. Like it was just, you don't got to do that much for it, man. Like we just keep a, like a rough Excel spreadsheet and I, you know, my mom was my accountant. I just turned that into her and
00:51:31
Speaker
They buy off on it, man, which, you know, I don't know. I mean, it's legit. I mean, the thing is, is like, it's not, you're not doing anything that's like, shiesty. It's just like, I mean, especially Dan, dude, you're buying printers to make these belts for a business that you're, that you're running, dude. So I would take advantage of the write off stuff. It definitely makes a difference, man. So that's, I said, be the early contribution, especially, especially now that, you know, PayPal is like making anybody over $600 do like, you know, fill out a 10 99, which I'm sure you exceeded that. Like, you know, whatever the threshold was before anyway, but.
00:52:01
Speaker
Yeah, now it's anything over 600, so yeah, I would freaking, I would take all the write-offs I could do. Yeah, that was the plan for this year. I have a friend who used to make mead and he was giving me a bunch of advice on stuff to write off. Luckily, almost everything I buy is Amazon, so I can go back and pretty quickly look at that. Yeah, I planned to look into some of that, but I didn't know if I was going to write off my electricity and stuff like that.
00:52:26
Speaker
Oh, yeah. See, I don't, yeah, we were, there was times where we were like, yeah, you could do like electricity or your phone bill. Like my mother-in-law was looking at all that. I was like, I ain't, I'm not going back and like, parceling my phone bill, you know? Like, it's a- Yeah, fucking with taxes, man. Yeah. Don't, don't, don't get me on that. I get my, so yeah, so my mom's an accountant, so she pretty much takes care of all our taxes and stuff, and I just get frustrated because she's like- She's kind of by the book. Her moral compass is like true north at all times. I'm like, come on, mom, I need some like, better call Saul shit. I need Saul Goodman on this freaking taxes, yeah.
00:52:55
Speaker
Yeah, taxes will really eat up your side hustle quick, man.
00:53:00
Speaker
So I wanna know the process. So an order comes in. Thank God I'm married Seth who is an organizational master. Everything in our life has an Excel sheet. Everything has a system in place. And I'm just kind of a fly by the seat of my pants. No huddle offense. No huddle offense all the time, yeah. So I wanna know what your process is. When an order comes in, how does it go from DM to shipping out that belt? What's the deal?
00:53:30
Speaker
So it's getting better. It used to be memory, right? Because the first few guys were whatever. And then it got so much. It was a notebook. And then I had a bunch of notebooks. And then I tried to do some spreadsheets. But I would try to do them at my work computer. I'd try to do it on my home computer. And then I'd get mixed up. So right now, it's all through the Notes feature on my iPhone.
00:54:00
Speaker
which is cool because you can make different folders and stuff and I'm able to do like a print schedule and then I can do, you know, you can do your check marks and stuff. But basically someone sends me something, I'll type it out. It's always better when someone sends me the belts they want like in a list format because I can just copy paste it right into it. But if not, I'll open it up. I'll type out a list they want and then like one morning or, you know, after work or whatever, I'll sit down, I'll look through a bunch of stuff and I'll print every single thing that like five or six people want.
00:54:29
Speaker
Um, and then those will get printed and they'll get put in a box and then Kevin clips them and everything like that. But it takes about a week or so to really get everything kind of base coded and then takes a couple of days to get clear and everything like that. So I'll go through, like if, if I was going to do, I'm going off on tangents, but if I, if I only know you go roll with it, you know, yeah, we're into this kind of talk. So, but like,
00:54:54
Speaker
And like I said, I try to keep one machine running the winged eagle. I try to keep one machine running whatever the hell FTR wins every other week because this seems to be what people want. The stuff that's popular, IWGPUS is another one that I think I do pretty well and people like. So I keep some machines just always run those belts, right? And those are just belts that stay and they go there in everybody's order. But if someone hit me up right now and I'm looking down and they're like, hey, can I get the TBS championship?
00:55:23
Speaker
I've already got those files saved, supported and everything like that. So I just open up the program and throw them in to print. And then I'll run off the print and you got to clean it in alcohol.
00:55:36
Speaker
And then you got a lot of cure. There's a curing machine, so UV cures, and then clip it off the supports, base coat it, pull it in, detail paint it, and then cut the strap. So that's kind of the process from like an order. But trying to, I'm so bad at this. When I first got back from my honeymoon, my table, like my desk in my office was completely clean. I was like, this is perfect. And I would just like,
00:56:06
Speaker
look at someone's order, pull off their five belts, because I was limiting stuff to Discord for five belts, and I was like, pull that off the little sheets of base-coded stuff, make it done. And then now I look down at my desk and it's just full of junk, full of different belts that I don't know who they're going to, and I got to go through and look, and this guy wanted one of these, right? And this guy wanted one of those.
00:56:26
Speaker
I'll print and I'll be like, well, I'll print a couple extra. These people probably want them. Yeah. You sound like me. That's me. Seth would be like the complete opposite. Seth would be literally like, he prints one person's order, start to finish, then the next person, which can also be a bad thing too, because there's ways to get ahead if you just start bashing things. But yeah, I'm like you. I'm like, oh yeah, crap. Let me go back and see who wanted this belt. I know somebody wanted it back in the DMs. Yeah.
00:56:51
Speaker
That's exact, yeah. It's been nice doing it through notes and stuff like that, because now I can be like, I made this, and I can be like, who wanted this? And then people change their name on Instagram and stuff, so it's like... Oh, I can't even imagine keeping up with people's names, and then their Instagram names and stuff. And I tried to email system for a little while, and that quickly just became like, I made the email, put it out there, and then a week later, there was like 250 emails, and I was just like, we got to get rid of this.
00:57:19
Speaker
We got to get rid of this. We got to take this out of the pinned comments and stuff like that. And then it's buried on my page, the email. And I'm still working through stuff from the email, but I'll still randomly get guys who email me orders. And I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot I still have that email address out there. Or some people who ordered one in May, and then they're like, oh, obviously this is how you order. I ordered last time. Yeah.
00:57:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's tough. I mean, especially when you're going through the growing pains, like you're going through, just figuring out what's going to work best and how best to execute everything. Like, yeah, there's definitely going to be that time where you're just like, holy crap. Like you said, just kind of desk full of belts, like going through and trying to figure out who ordered what. But I mean, you're making it happen, dude, so. Or like, you know, you make a belt for the first time and then you can only make one of them, even if someone wants, you know, or a couple of people, like the A.W. Trios titles, right? It's like,
00:58:15
Speaker
I sit down. I made them like that night and I printed one and I was like, all right, these are good. So then I can go print one. But one that I did that and it didn't work out great was I printed the big green championship, like the Hogan, the big green. I made like I ran like three printers all night. And then when I went and laid them all out, it didn't work.
00:58:38
Speaker
that made the side plates too big or something. I couldn't lay out, I couldn't fit around a figure. So I had to throw away like 25 belts worth of stuff. It was a big disaster. So what are the, so the materials, like how are the materials for this process? Like how expensive are the like actual things that you need for running the 3D printer, like the resin and all of the things? A bottle of resin is like $30.
00:59:03
Speaker
and I can usually probably get 50 or so belts out of it. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, I don't feel like I ever am spending too much money on materials. I buy the black leather, the black faux leather, I buy in a huge roll. It's like a six foot long by 15 feet wide or whatever. You get a million belts out of that.
00:59:29
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I have to cut it into little squares to fit onto sheets. I was doing that when I got home from work today, but the colored stuff comes on smaller rolls. I've learned some tips and tricks throughout the year. The glue is super expensive because I use a nice Loctite brand glue because you don't want them falling off.
00:59:51
Speaker
Obviously, that's probably the most expensive and I've changed it. I think I can't remember if we had a problem with one of the first things I sent you or not, but that's something that I changed. That was back in like 2021, right? Yeah. I've had a couple between. I mean, I've had stuff. Yeah. I mean, some of our custom belts, we've had stuff a lot, but I would just give it just a little minuscule drop of glue. Yeah, put it back on.
01:00:16
Speaker
Yeah in the the fully pixley title man that's a hit yeah that's a hit man so uh for those of you who don't know if you're not in our facebook group dan made a uh our fully pixley championship based off basically our glorified gambling ring yeah for wrestling and dan made us a uh it is a custom belt
01:00:35
Speaker
Custom fig belt. Yeah. Yeah. So it's pretty cool. We, uh, we have a, like a pix league, like I said, it's one of the most fun things we do. One of the most competitive things we do. So that's a, that's a prize in the chick fully world. So we got a, we got a handful of those that we're going to give out over the next few seasons. Uh, but everybody who's won one so far is.
01:00:51
Speaker
I'm very pleased with their titles and showing it off. Hey, Dan, so I got a question, man. You mentioned Hellfire a couple of times. I remember when we were working with, when we would do orders with like WWE figure artists, he, I know he exclusively got his 3D models from Hellfire. Are you using any of Hellfire's models or are you doing all the modeling on your own and maybe walk us through a little bit of how that process works? So he doesn't do 3D models. He does like a vector art.
01:01:21
Speaker
Okay, the belts. So I don't know if you've ever seen the files that the actual belt makers get. You ever see a belt that's completely black and white?
01:01:31
Speaker
That's so I do like so I'm an Intel specialist and we do like vector files and some of like the like 3D targeting stuff that we do. So I'm like vaguely familiar with it. But I'm like a customer on it. I'm not a producer at all on that kind of stuff. So yeah, so some of the stuff that you can get from Hellfire, it's like reference art more than anything. So in like I know that I do it completely different than the other guys have. And actually, I'm pretty sure figure artists did differently to
01:02:01
Speaker
A lot of, I do some stuff with Hellfire. We kind of have like a, you know, we've had a pretty cool friendship. We got a lot of stuff that we have in common and I've done some bigger, I printed a transformer. That transformer I posted was for him and I've done some like Power Rangers stuff for him. He's in the UK, right? Yeah, he's UK. And I've done some like 1.6 scale stuff for him. Awesome dude, like he's the goat. He makes all these, he finds all these obscure belts and can get these super clear pictures of him.
01:02:31
Speaker
But- I'm sure that's helpful. Yeah. And he kind of cuts out. So what I'll have to do is I sit down with a belt. If something, if it's like a custom belt or something, or if it's something that he has not made, I either will have to import, like I'll draw it first on my iPad and then vectorize that. And you can bring it into the 3D software and you can start either tracing that image
01:02:59
Speaker
with different lines and shapes, or like Vector Art works with some 3D programs differently where you can actually start extruding those shapes. But it's just kind of a shortcut on the image and like the clarity of an image. He basically gives you like a really good reference photo to start building a 3D model off of. Yeah, you guys amaze me. This stuff is way above my pay grade. I'm like, I don't even know how I would begin to start all this.
01:03:28
Speaker
Seth gets mad at me. He's like, Sheena, I feel like your tech skills made it to like 2012. And then they just stopped. They just took a screeching halt because now everything. I'm like, Seth, how do I do this? I need to, you know. Yeah, just like I said, man, I'm just thoroughly impressed. I mean, dude, I'm a tough critic, man. I'd like to think I'm a nice guy, so I'll never be public about it.
01:03:52
Speaker
You know, she knows how you like privately, like I will complain about like the smallest little details about figure, like, you know, I was, I was pissed off that the new mega power set Mattel put out the on the handshake
Accuracy in Belt Creation
01:04:03
Speaker
mold. Macho man doesn't have the taped fingers, but the rest of his hands have the tape fingers. Like that's the kind of guy I am, but the belts that publicly though.
01:04:11
Speaker
Yeah, not publicly though, but the belts that you make, man, it's crazy how you get all the different reliefs and the change in leveling and stuff. It just blows my mind how you're able to get it that accurate at that small of a scale. Oh, yeah. Seth always gets giddy when a Dan Ternquist package shows up in the mail. He's doing a little happy dance. I try to make sure the stacked plates and stuff like that are good. I've been complimented a lot on sizing.
01:04:37
Speaker
I try to make sure that my belts are really accurate on what they would be.
01:04:42
Speaker
on an actual figure, you know, that's a big, yeah, that's a big problem that I think Mattel has is just like all over the place. I'm from Mattel. Yeah. I'm like, I do think, um, I think, you know, cause I've been in a figure game since really since LJ ends and Mattel definitely, I think they make the best belts like across the line, but yeah, you're a hundred percent right. And if I had one complaint, it'd be the scale. Like there's some, like some of their belts are just gigantic.
01:05:07
Speaker
Especially women's belts. The women's belts are all- Well, the women's belts have always just been repainted men's belts. Elite 100, they're actually going to have a properly- Why is that ridiculous, dude? Well, because it's cheap. It makes sense with their mass production. But Elite 100, they're going to debut the new resized belts for women. But yeah, that's my issue with Mattel. Dan, of the mainline companies, who do you think has done belts the best? Do you go Mattel or do you go Jaxx?
01:05:34
Speaker
Um, Jax did those metal ones, didn't they? Those were really cool. Yeah. Jax, I think as the line, I think Mattel has been the best Jax had a few like for like the deluxe aggression or like the deluxe classic superstars, the ones they really went out loud on. Those are pretty awesome. But, but I think Mattel is kind of generally has the best ones. Yeah. There's a few Mattel belt, like the hardcore one they did that came with like viscera and stuff was awesome. And I think that they're, uh,
01:05:58
Speaker
their current United States in the previous United States and then they're like their current intercontinental belts are really nice. There's a few belts that they do that are really, really nice. And then like, I was looking at the, I was talking to someone last night about how the current universal and WWE championships, like if you look at it, the side plates, like the little bars that are supposed to be on the sides of the belt.
01:06:19
Speaker
Um, are connected to the side plates and stuff like that. And there's some things that they could tweak even for mass production to make the belts a little bit nicer. But I think that there's not really a belt. Well, and I'm trying to think if there's a Mattel belt, that's like terrible. I can. Women's belts have been bad because like Sheena mentioned, they're so big. Like they don't really fit right on the ladies. Well, I feel like the, uh, they made the attitude era women's championship, but I thought it was kind of small.
01:06:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know. I mean, I felt like that, oh man, I guess maybe because I'm so used to seeing the giant belts, I was so happy just to see like, oh, this is an actual women's size belt. Yeah, but the current Raw and Smackdown women's championships, they're straight up just repainted men's belts, man. Speaking of women, have you ever made a Divas JPG? This is totally off, but I just want to know if Dan has ever produced a Divas JPG chip belt.
01:07:11
Speaker
Like the butterfly belt? Yeah. No, I've never made that. I've made the attitude era women's and I've made like the knockouts championship and the older knockouts. Dance Kidder did a hardcore fan. I'm just saying. The hardcore fans do not want that Diva's belt. No, I don't want that Diva's belt. I thought that belt was repug. Diva Dor customs. I was just curious if there was somebody out there.
01:07:33
Speaker
Devador Customs, I reached out to him at one point because I was trying to find someone to take a good picture of my knockouts. No, of the Digital Media Championship, Jordan Grace had it. And I like sent him a message. I was like, hey, man, you got any interest in, like, I'll send you this belt and you can just have it. Take some pictures. Just tag me in it. He's like, you sent it to me for free. I'm like, yeah. He's like, well, I don't really have a Jordan Grace right now. And I'm not going to make one. I was like, all right. He's like, you got any other ones though? And I think he had mentioned making like the Divas title. And I was like,
01:08:00
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not making that title. I had a guy, I think I made for a pig fed one that was like a rip off of the divas title though. Yeah. I think they'd be the ultimate heel move in women's wrestling for somebody to win it and bring back the divas
Wrestling Influences and Perspectives
01:08:16
Speaker
title. I would be here for that. Kind of like how Chris Jericho was like, you want to be a sports entertainer. You know what I mean? They'd be like, no, I want to be a diva. You know, wear all the little like, you know, thongs up above their, uh,
01:08:26
Speaker
Hip bones. Oh man, what a time. How much completely custom work do you do, would you say? Obviously, you've got the actual belts, but for pickfeds and picks leagues and all that kind of stuff, fantasy leagues and stuff.
01:08:47
Speaker
There's a big, big backlog for it. I try to take on one or two a month because those... So I charge 15 for a singles title and then for a custom I charge 20. So I try to just take on one or two a month. And a lot of the times I'll get into some dudes who want their cool pick fed belts and stuff like that. And then I'll get into... What I found there's more demand for are guys who
01:09:13
Speaker
had a belt made that was like their design, you know? And they like really want a figure version of it now because they've got their own custom of themselves. So I'll do some of those too, but I've done, I'm really proud of some of the pick fed belts I've made. Like sometimes it's my design, sometimes it's their design. I got one guy, I cannot think of his name off the top of my head, but like he's a younger guy and his dad will like sit down and draw these super cool custom belts and then send them to me.
01:09:41
Speaker
and then I'll make them. So that's super cool to actually bring someone's hand-drawn design to life. And I've done that a couple of times. Do you do a lot of indie belts? Like you said, people who have won, yeah, they've won the belt for their local town and they want you to make them a figure version of it?
01:10:00
Speaker
Not as much as I'd like. I have some buddies from when I wrestled who've like asked me, you know, like, Hey, I won this belt over in Evansville. Can you, can you make this belt for me? And I'm like, sure I can, but then, you know, they don't get you the right pictures and they don't. Yeah. Evansville. Nice. We know Evansville. Yep. Cause me and Sheena are, you know, you said you're in Illinois. Me and Sheena are both from Kentucky, man. So. Oh, really? I'm sorry. I'm from Carbondale, Illinois. I'm like,
01:10:27
Speaker
You know, I'm an hour from Paducah, Kentucky, and then I'm like two hours in St. Louis. We're both from Bowling Green, Kentucky, man. So like, you know, we grew up going to like Holiday World and all that shit. Yeah, yeah. Definitely been Holiday World a lot in Santa Claus, Indiana. Oh yeah. Why you can drink Cokes. What? Why you can drink Cokes at Holiday World's free Cokes. I bet it ain't no more. Free sunscreen too. Free sunscreen. So are you an actual belt collector? Like do you collect like life-size replica belts at all?
01:10:53
Speaker
I have a TNT championship, the Brodie Lee TNT championship was a birthday gift. And then the place that I used to wrestle, I have their world championship because I designed it and bought it. And then so when I retired, I was like,
01:11:07
Speaker
I'm taking this with me. That's cool. So you mentioned Brody Lee a couple of times. Is he like your all time favorite wrestler? He's not my favorite. He's one of my, he's one of my favorites. So I just, so like when AW first debuted, I kind of hated it. And I was like, I watched like the first two episodes. I was like, this sucks. This is trash. And then I remember during COVID, my best friend came and he stayed with us like the whole time for COVID. And there was one night where we were both just like, let's just, let's just, I said, let's just give AW a chance man. I was like, let's just watch like,
01:11:37
Speaker
five weeks of just every Wednesday we'll just, you know, knuckle down and just, and then like the first night we watched like FTR debuted and then like Mike Tyson was on the next week and it was awesome. And then it was like Brodie Lee was doing all that stuff. And just when he beat Cody on that Saturday night dynamite, I remember that was like the first time I had like been shocked by a wrestling match since like seeing Punk beat John Cena and Money in the Bank. I was like,
01:12:01
Speaker
I stood up and I was like, what just happened? Halfway through the match, I remember saying, is he going to Brock Lesnar this guy? Is he just going to beat Cody? It felt like when his passing and stuff felt so sudden. I don't know. I liked Brodie Lee and AEW a lot. I thought that it was super cool.
01:12:23
Speaker
You know, he represents like a time period of my life that was like, for sure. It was pretty transformative during that time period. I mean, that's when, you know, your, your business started and all this stuff, but like, you did crush it during COVID. I feel like that's kind of in a way, they kind of been living off of it, dude. Yeah. The daily's price, like their, their presentation or COVID was so much superior.
01:12:43
Speaker
to the Thunderdome. Yeah, especially what they were doing before the Thunderdome, but even after the Thunderdome. Oh, yeah, the performance center where they had a performance center. Yeah, AEW just really figured out how to operate. And they were really killing it with a story. Well, they were. And they were the first people to put talent as fans. You know what I mean? So it still looks like. And they had the outdoor stadium, so it didn't look as just closed off in closet-y. Yeah, it looked really, really nice. I think they had fans, too. They had sporadic fans out in the crowd. Yeah, that's right. I feel like WWE, if they had
01:13:12
Speaker
their wish, they just would have hit the pause button for the whole COVID period. But AEW, they were just starting off, so they didn't have that luxury. So they were going hard. I'm with you, man. That 2020 AEW was really, really good. But you were a fan of Luke Harper. You called Luke Harper from the beginning, you, when he was just kind of an obscure member of the white family. I still think, dude.
01:13:35
Speaker
Not to get too far off on this branch, but like I said, Dan, I heard you mentioned him a couple of times, so I felt like we needed to go down that road, man. I still think it's a crying shame that at WrestleMania 33, that it wasn't a Bray, Luke Harper, Randy Orton triple threat match for the WWE championship. Because I remember he was real involved in that storyline leading up to that match.
01:13:55
Speaker
He ended up being in the battle Royal or something, right? He was in the freaking battle Royal after he had, like I said, he had been playing like the supporting role, um, you know, for that whole storyline up until, up until WrestleMania. So yeah, RIP, uh, Luke Harper, Brody Lee, you know, whatever you want to call it, man, dude was a hell of a talent. Yeah, for sure. So kind of just circling back to the beginning when we were talking about how, you know,
01:14:21
Speaker
how people can just be kind of just obnoxious when they're trying to get what they want when they when they want it.
Custom Requests and Favorite Matches
01:14:27
Speaker
Let's just talk a little bit of etiquette here. So when someone reaches out to you like how you're here on the Chick-fil-A show like you can talk about you know obviously you said you had your your email that kind of just like is like dormant for a little while like what is the best way? What way do you want people?
01:14:42
Speaker
to reach out to you as far as getting customs and what's something that turns you off from wanting to work with somebody. Give us the deets on how to approach Dan Turanquist about getting a bill order. That's a good question because I don't have a
01:14:59
Speaker
a great answer to it. But the best way is to hit me up. And if you're looking for something, say, hey, man, is it possible to get a X, Y, and Z belt if you've seen it before? If it's a belt that you've never seen before, say, hey, have you ever made the... I've had a couple people ask about the ECW tag championships, the very last version. And I actually had just made them the week before. So it's something that... My phone is full of pictures of belts.
01:15:23
Speaker
And there will be a day soon, hopefully like next year, sometime early next year, I can get some kind of indexing site where you can kind of look through it. And if I've made it, you just click click on it and say, hey, he's made this before. But like, yeah, just sending a message is a good way. Commenting on pictures and stuff is a pretty good way to the email always works. But hit me up and ask to get in the discord is going to be your best bet, because I also like I said earlier, I don't take money.
01:15:53
Speaker
beforehand. So sometimes guys hit me up, ask for five or six belts. By the time they're done, they're like, oh, I don't need those anymore. So I throw those up on Discord for like a, not an auction, but like a claim sale kind of thing. So if you're ever
01:16:09
Speaker
If you're in the discord, you get a chance to buy a lot of stuff that fuck sales that fall through and stuff like that. But just, just being cool and just being straight forward. Cause I feel like sometimes guys will hit you up and be like, Hey man, have you made, you got any like IWGP us? I'm like, I could probably put one together. Are you interested? And they're like, Oh, maybe I'm like, just say, save your time and don't clear. Yeah. Clear communication is, is key. Like just say yes or no. Like even if you just say no, like just say no, but don't say, yeah, maybe, you know, like,
01:16:37
Speaker
I feel you in discord for all of you who may be listening who don't know what discord is i never had to score it's i am i alluded to earlier how my technology skills stop in two thousand twelve i can operate discord it's very user friendly it's super simple it's literally just like a chat thread chat room type situation in the cool thing about discord is that.
01:17:00
Speaker
it's it's off of social media so there's not a lot of noise there there's not a lot of distraction there's privacy so yeah if if you want to get in dance discord follow the link is the link still in your bio dam no it's not it just hit me up but i can get you the link though i i took the link out of the bio just because i was trying to uh mitigate confusion because it's like
01:17:18
Speaker
I didn't scale up in a nice five people, 10 people. It was like the first 10 people and then 100 and then 1,000 and then 2,000. Yeah. Don't be going up in the Discord being a shit disturber either. You know what I mean? Keep that shit on Instagram and Facebook. There's no way I like that. If you want to be in Discord, be cool, be positive, and be patient.
01:17:41
Speaker
All right, so Dan, thanks again for joining us. Me and Sheena have kind of kicked around the idea of doing interviews for a while. Like I said, our buddy Marco, you know, main member of the Chick Foley show is doing open mic, but this is really the first interview me and Sheena have done. And we're big Anthony Bourdain fans, and he would always end any of his conversation with chefs on no reservations and parts unknown with asking them, you know, what their all time favorite meal was. And we kind of always had a vision of asking our guests what their
01:18:09
Speaker
All-time favorite wrestling matches, so I'm gonna pose that question to you now man to kind of close out this conversation What is your all-time favorite wrestling match? That is such a hard question
01:18:23
Speaker
Now this is one of those questions. I wish I would have had me asked before you got to give us an answer to you've been talking Let me leave the timestamp, baby. We've been talking for an hour and 18 minutes, dude So I'm not letting you off the hook, dude. Yeah, we need to answer on this one. There's a lot of right answers Yeah, there's no wrong answer to you. There is no wrong answer man. So
01:18:43
Speaker
I really, I know a lot of people hate it. I like the rock and the rock and seeing punk at Royal Rumble is one of my favorite matches. I think back, that was one of the matches like right before, cause I stopped watching wrestling probably right after punk quit. I liked that match. The shield was in it and you know, Seth Rollins is involved. I'm not complaining. Yeah. Uh, and then like you go back like rock and Austin at 17. Yeah. That's another great one. I don't, I don't know if I have it all the time,
01:19:14
Speaker
favorite man. It might be CM Punk vs. John Cena at Money in the Bank. That's the match I used to always try to get my wife to watch. Wrestling's cool, like, look, this is crazy, but this guy, this is his whole talent. He's not supposed to beat him. He's the bad guy and they're cheering him, you know? And he's like, she's like, okay, cool. And I'm like, no, but this is John Cena. He's like, everybody loves this guy, but not here, you know?
01:19:34
Speaker
We'll take CM Punk versus John Cena at money to bank 2011 for Dan's final answer. Dan, thanks so much for joining us, man. I want to remind all the listeners, use Code Chick-fil-A to save 10% at ringside collectibles. This was an awesome conversation, man. Seriously, thank you. Please let the listeners know where they can find you.
01:19:55
Speaker
You know, spoiler alert, we'll have all the links in the show notes. So if you're listening on Spotify or Apple, just scroll up and you'll be able to tap to get the all Dan stuff. But Dan, let them hear it from you. Where can they go to find Dan Turnquist belts? So great question. I recently changed the Instagram name to try to make it. It used to be Dan underscore Turnquist. I'm pretty sure it's Turnquist underscore fig belts. Yep, it is Turnquist T-U-R-N-Q-U-I-S-T underscore fig underscore belts.
01:20:24
Speaker
Yeah, I changed it recently because I was trying to make it a little bit more concise. Then I'm on Twitter too at the Red Daniels. That was my indie wrestling name back in the good old days. Red Daniels. Yeah, the Red Daniels. I tried to do the Twitter thing too where I get on Instagram and Twitter, but Twitter started to get a ton of messages, so I don't really use Twitter for belts much anymore. I'm on there and I post some stuff sometimes, but those are the two main places. You can message me on either one to get the Discord link.
01:20:55
Speaker
Awesome. All right. Well, Dan, thank you again. Like I said, I'm super excited. Anytime I can get out and talk to people about being in the community and what I get to do to give back, you know, that's, that's my favorite thing about it. I'm real excited that I got to have this conversation, man. Yeah.
01:21:10
Speaker
Listeners, let us know if you get any follow-up questions for Dan. We can definitely do this again in a few months. I was very intrigued. Yeah, it's been cool for us. Like I said, we've been buying belts from Dan for a while now, so it's been cool to really just dive in and see how it all goes down behind the scenes as these little packages just show up at our door.
01:21:30
Speaker
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. You can find me, uh, on Instagram at chick Foley. Marco runs the Twitter machine over at chick Foley show, all your chick Foley links and everything you need is at chick Foley.com.