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I recently did an exclusive interview with Former Survivor Contestant, Professional Wrestler/Manager, and television personality Jonny Fairplay.
Jonny Fairplay is a reality star best known for his appearances on Survivor: Pearl Islands. Fairplay is also known for being on other reality shows such as Survivor: Heroes vs Villians, Celebrity Newlywed Game, Celebrity Fear Factor, MTV True Life and is a wrestling manager.
Here are a few excerpts from the interview:
SK: You were on Survivor: Pearl Islands, which is infamous for your lie about your grandmother passing. How did you come about coming up with that while on the show?
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Fairplay: Cause I'm a heel, I'm a heel. I had never seen the show before I was cast. I ordered all the episodes on eBay. So, I ordered the VHS tapes, and I'm sitting there watching them like, oh my God, I have to be nice this sucks.
So I get to Rob Cesternino from Survivor: Amazon. He jumped from alliance to alliance without consequence. I based my game off of his. When watching the loved one challenges, I would cry. Those are emotional episodes, you know? So I said if I'm crying there has to be a way to use this out there.
Once again on the same season, Jenna Morasca, who fans also might remember from TNA, and for having one of the worst matches in wrestling history versus Sharmell.
Jenna's mother was dying from cancer so everyone lost the auction on purpose so she could get a letter from home to see how her mom was doing. Right, then, and there, I decided what's more sympathetic than a dying mom? A dead grandmother. That's when I came up with the idea for the dead grandmother line.
SK: So I learned something I never knew about you. Before Survivor, you were already involved with professional wrestling?
Fairplay: I started in 1998 with New Dimension Wrestling in the Carolinas. I was trained by Manny Fernandez, "The Raging Bull." Then later, Axel Rotten helped me out. I was Rowdy Piper's personal assistant for little over a year. I consider that my finishing school.
So started in 1998 Managing a tag team called The Rising Suns in New Dimension Wrestling. They were the tag team champions, and it was whoever was wearing the masks at the time. I would manage them against The Hardy Boyz.
I cheated to win because of the promoter. He was scared of The Hardyz winning and taking the belts with them to WWF. Jeff would miss like a third of the shows so it would be Matt and Shane Hardy. Shane Hardy was Hurricane. It was pretty crazy.
Those were my early days of managing. I later went on and started a heel faction called The Fairplay Revolution. I managed Nite-Stic Eddie Brown, Roge Shooter, and Otto Schwanz.
Schwanz went on to become The Dupps. Our biggest feud was with a wrestler named Venom, who was Jason Arhndt, who later became Joey Abs in The Mean Street Posse. So that is my wrestling origin story.
SK: What was it like to work with Roddy Piper?
Fairplay: It was insane. He was crazy haha.
SK: You also worked for Total Nonstop Action, and work with AJ Styles what was that like?
Fairplay: "Well, the first night in TNA, I took a spinning powerbomb from AJ. He stiffed me, and I got a concussion. My second night, Brian Urlacher threw me over the top rope to the floor. I won an ESPY for Best Non-Sports Moment Of The Year. On my third night, Simon Diamond stomped on my hand. My fourth night, I threw a drink in AJ's face.
Then my fifth night, I took a Styles Clash. After taking the Clash, Lex Luger and Abyss won the tag team championships. They were managed by me, which is kind of weird hahaha. I don't think I even talked to Lex Luger that night; it was crazy.
SK: Did you enjoy your time in TNA?
Fairplay: I don't know; it's a mixed bag. Dixie and I were friends, so that was cool. I got three hundred thousand for two years, that's insane. I got insurance, and I got a cell phone, it was a pretty amazing contract. All of that was cool, but most of my time was being paid to stay home and not do anything, and that was frustrating.
SK: You also got to be part of Ring of Honor, DragonGate USA. You worked with guys like Frankie Kazarian, and lost a match to Molly Holly?
Fairplay: I did, I did. It was me versus Molly Holly. Jimmy Hart was the special guest ring announcer. The special guest referee was Larry Zbyszko maybe? It's Hall of Fame, Hall of Fame, Hall of Fame, and well, I am in the Survivor Hall of Fame, so there's that.
SK: What was it like to be on other reality shows like Celebrity NewlyWed Game, and Celebrity Fear Factor?
Fairplay: I won the Celebrity Newlywed Game. I didn't win Celebrity Fear Factor, The Miz and Trishelle won that. I beat Davey Jones of The Monkeys. He was very vulgar and very intoxicated. I mean, I was pretty intoxicated too, but he won the intoxication limit.
That night we filmed, my manager shares an office at The Comedy Store in Los Angles. So we went to The Comedy Store that night with the other couples that were filming episodes that day. So we're hanging out front, and my managers like, "Come with me. Quick, quick." So we go into the main room there's Dave Chapelle. This was when Dave Chapelle had been on hiatus for years. It was actually his first night back unadvertised. There was like ten people in the room if that; so we watched that.
I would go as far as to say I worship Dave Chapelle. It was the most uncomfortable night of comedy in my entire life. Everyone pretty much walked out. He's still all messed up. Rumor innuendo, I don't know how far this is true or not, but supposedly when he was doing The Dave Chapelle Show, he got much flack from the black community. In that, he was exploding black people in his comedy. I felt he was an equal opportunity offender, and I still feel that way.
If I were black, maybe I'd feel differently. I'm not saying who's right, who's wrong. Everyone is entitled to there opinion because everyone has an opinion especially in 2019.
So, according to legend and folklore, that's why he left. He didn't want the black community to hate him. So when he was stepping his toe back in the water to attempt comedy again, every joke he started he couldn't finish because he's like, "Oh, that might be racist." He didn't finish any joke! I was like, "This might be the worst thing I ever heard".
SK: When can fans expect to see you in the ring next, managing next, and where can fans find all that information?
Fairplay: There's a promotion in High Point, North Carolina called Revolution Wrestling Authority. They're going to start TV tapings March 3rd. The commentators will be me and Matt Coon, who does the intro songs for On What Happened When, and also Something To Wrestle With Bruce Pritchard's Podcast.
He's also the co-host for Vince Russo's Truth or Consequences Podcast, and also does Why It Ended with Robbie E. So, he and I will be on commentary starting March 3rd. You can find more information on that at rwa-wrestling.com.
I do a podcast weekly that drops every Wednesday. It's SurvivorNSFW. You can find that on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. You can also go to survivornsfw.com, and of course, NSFW does stand for Not Safe At Work as I do drop an f-bomb a few times per episode.
I have a Patreon in which we do a video version of the podcast. In addition, we watch old episodes in episodic order. We're finishing up Pearl Islands now. We also do a weekly Q n A video, tons of interaction, hours new weekly content if you want to give that a try its patreon.com/suvivornsfw.
Most importantly, if we're giving out these plugs if you'd like a Jonny Fairplay tee shirt or one of my many SuvivorNSFW inspired shirts, head over to jonnyfairplay.com, or you can misspell and go to johnnyfairplay.com. It's okay; I own both domains.
With any purchase, you get a phone call from me, Jonny Fairplay thanking you for your order. It's pretty cool. I'm sure people are listening all over the place, we have a live Survivor watch along that's happening in Cincinnati February 20th.
So head over to survivortix.com for that. If you're going to be in Durham, North Carolina you join me for a live viewing party, and my birthday, and get tickets for that at survivorbirthday.com.
Then we're doing a cornhole tournament if professional corn hole players are doing exhibitions, being the judges. We're giving away SurvivorNSFW cornhole boards, and only twenty people allowed at that. So, that's also in Cincinnati on February 20th that afternoon. You can get tickets for that at go to the dirtytwenty.com and get tickets for that.
Look at that; I'm all over the place man. Is this crazy or what? April 24th I'll be at Zanies in Nashville.
You can follow Fairplay on Twitter at @JonnyFairplay. Make sure to comment your thoughts on the interview. Audio to the conversation provided here.
