Writer Producer and host Joshua Hale Fialkov is joined by producer, writer, and publisher FJ DeSanto (Transformers: The War for Cybertron) to discuss his lifelong love of Professional Wrestling, his career as a producer that has spanned global franchises including Batman, Tekken, countless Anime, Kung Fu films, and documentaries, and how his upbringing in New York exposed him to both regional AND international wrestling and pop culture at an early age.

Their conversation serves as an excellent primer on the differences between American and Japanese Wrestling, AEW and WWE, and the challenges of writing and producing giant franchises in the social media age. Learn about the inner workings of the Transformers Franchise and just how similar that is to how the WWE and AEW are booked.

FJ is also the head of film and television for VAULT COMICS. Learn more about them at https://vaultcomics.com/

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00:00 Intro

02:20 Origin Story

04:30 Japanese Wrestling

06:24 Anime and Manga and Wrestling, Oh My

10:28 Wrestling and Writing

12:10 Pop Culture Evolution Parallels with Wrestling

18:00 Producing and Watching Wrestling

26:30 AEW vs WWE

29:30 Evolving the Transformers

41:20 Social Media and the Creative Process

44:15 On the Bravery of Going Against the Internet

47:05 Writing Wrestling?

54:45 Outro