Mm.

I mean, as a defense attorney, if you, if you're, you know, using self-defense, you need somebody to explain why he was legally justified, because the whole point of it is it turns on that he was in fear of imminent bodily harm or death, and he- that's the person that needs to explain how he felt and to put the jurors in his shoes so they could reasonably see, "Okay, this, this is how that happened." To not have that, the eyewitnesses, basically they're looking at something that they observed, and they can attribute to, you know, how they might have felt.

But it seems that Carmelo Anthony was, you know, the only person who, you know, just from what we're hearing, who reasonably believed that he was in, in fear of, of harm.

I, like, I haven't heard it in any of the witnesses, and I think that's partially why the result was what it was.

Because the, the witnesses the defense brought, they didn't really provide anything that really helped their case that much.

They, they, they really didn't.

So that's why I was shocked that Carmelo did not take the stand, because at that point they were, they were losing.

Mm

When is, when do you keep them on? When do you take them off?

This is a, a tough one, because I really believe that the reason they called so few witnesses was, I think their strategy was initially they were going to have Carmelo take the stand.

I mean, as a defense attorney, if you, if you're, you know, using self-defense, you need somebody to explain why he was legally justified, because the whole point of it is it turns on that he was in fear of imminent bodily harm or death, and he- that's the person that needs to explain how he felt and to put the jurors in his shoes so they could reasonably see, "Okay, this, this is how that happened." To not have that, the eyewitnesses, basically they're looking at something that they observed, and they can attribute to, you know, how they might have felt.

But it seems that Carmelo Anthony was, you know, the only person who, you know, just from what we're hearing, who reasonably believed that he was in, in fear of, of harm.

Uh, like I haven't heard it in any of the witnesses, and I think that's partially why the result was what it was.

Because the, the witnesses the defense brought, they didn't really provide anything that really helped their case that much.

They, they, they really didn't.

Mm

But it's TV stars that can wrestle are the ones that are going to sell the most.

And this is something that I was discussing on my YouTube channel also is that like for me, I was a TV star and they knew that.

And so they always booked me for that.

But they they they knew that from the moment they got me in FCW.

And so they rushed me where I was so green.

I'd only had a handful of matches before I debuted on TV.

Like it in essence, it wasn't it wasn't fair for me.

Everything's just going up, up, up for you.

He said that WWE is finally focusing on TV stars that can wrestle because you can get a ton of wrestlers that are fantastic and in the ring and everything, but it's TV stars that can wrestle or the ones that are going to sell the most.

And this is something that I was discussing on my YouTube channel also is that like for me, I was a TV star and they knew that.

And so they always booked me for that.

But they they they knew that from the moment they got me in FCW.

And so they rushed me where I was so green.

I'd only had a handful of matches before I debuted on TV.

Like it in essence, it wasn't it wasn't fair for me.

And it's showing by your everything's just going up, up, up for you.

Why did you start doing this, and how are you liking it so far?

Man, that's a great question, because if you had told me I'd be doing this two months ago, (laughs) I- I wouldn't have believed you.

Um, I just ...

this honestly just started with the Raja Jackson incident.

Like, I was watching people give their commentary on it, and nobody quite understood, because, you know, the laypeople didn't understand the wrestling terminology, and then the people who understood that don't understand the legal side of it.

And I kind of realized I'm in a unique position to be able to comment on that, ha- you know, being in both worlds.

So, I made a video breaking it down, and man, it- it really caught on, and people really liked what I was saying and were asking for more, so I did some follow-ups, and then just the feedback was amazing.

Okay.

Right, still paying them off.

Yeah.

And so I took a job at the biggest firm in Chicago.

Well, see, let me back up.

Initially, I never even planned on going to law school, but how that developed was I was really close with my dad and I was pre-med in college.

But when I graduated college, I did not want to go to medical school.

I wanted

So then how did wrestling come about?

I don't know if I asked you this already, but were you involved in the process of making that song with Jim Johnson? Was it Jim Johnson that made that? Jim Johnson.

Yeah.

No, you know what? You just reminded me of a really, I'll get to that, a really cool memory, though, is when we were on NXT, we first came up to the road.

I vividly remember the first time they took all of us to WWE headquarters, and we got to go.

There's this infamous closet, I don't know if you've heard of, and it has all the merchandise in there, like action figures, you name anything you can think of, and they let us take whatever we wanted.

What I remember from it is, yeah, what I remember from it is, it was Heath Slater and I.

We boxed, I had boxes and boxes of stuff, and so did he, and they had to mail them home, because I have a son, and also, hey, I want to keep this stuff.

I

I don't know if I asked you this already, but were you involved in the process of making that song with Jim Johnson? Was it Jim Johnson that made that? Jim Johnson.

Yeah.

No, you know what? You just reminded me of a really, I'll get to that, a really cool memory, though, is when we were on NXT, we first came up to the road.

I vividly remember the first time they took all of us to WWE headquarters, and we got to go.

There's this infamous closet, I don't know if you've heard of, and it has all the merchandise in there, like action figures, you name anything you can think of, and they let us take whatever we wanted.

What I remember from it is, yeah, what I remember from it is, it was Heath Slater and I.

We boxed, I had boxes and boxes of stuff, and so did he, and they had to mail them home, because I have a son, and also, hey, I want to keep this stuff.

I

And what do you think the outcome will be for Raja Jackson in this? Whoa.

Okay, the prevailing theory for the people who've watched it, they assume this was attempted murder.

So this is a clear-cut case of that, because if he hadn't stopped punching him, he could have killed him.

And that very well could be true.

However, it's a lot harder to prove attempted murder than people might think.

You have to prove that there was specific intent to kill.

And even though Rajah was on stream and he was saying things, he was saying he was going to go in there and go off script and really punch him.

And what would be if you were defending Raja Jackson? What's your defense?

So he is out and I'm sure that we're going to get, you know, some details in the coming weeks or days, but is this something that you think could wind up going to a trial or do you think this becomes a plea deal or what do you expect might be the outcome in this situation?

know it's really hard to say because it's so public and in fact i mean what's interesting to me especially as a lawyer is the fact that this entire incident was live streamed and so you have the defendant essentially testifying throughout this entire ordeal but then there's the whole element where it is live streamed and is he kind of in gimmick or does he have kind of a character on his live stream? And so can you attribute his statements to his actual mental state or was he performing in some way, which just makes this extremely interesting.

But I would think this probably does go to a trial because I mean, there's so much that could be argued on both sides.

Where was this a work? Where was this a shoot? How much did Raja know? because there's a lot of fault here on the promotion itself, and you can see from the video, they didn't really smarten Raja up to this too well.

They didn't really explain what the spot is, and they never really explained to him what a receipt was.

So you're telling a trained MMA fighter that he gets to get his lick back for real, and you can really lay it in.

So how is he supposed to interpret this? Now, that being said, Clearly, he went way beyond the scope of that.

You even heard Stu say something like, are you not going to sell it or something along those lines? If Roger would have immediately fired back a live round in that moment, does that change this? Does he still wind up getting arrested or is it a totally different tone and tenor if it happens like that?