Though he won the first season of Tough Enough, Maven's WWE career wasn't highlighted with multiple champions or sustained pushes.
Despite a WWE run that only lasted from 2001 to 2005, Maven worked with some top names and has plenty of stories to share. He's now sharing those stories on his YouTube channel, which already has 107,000 subscribers since launching just over a month ago.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Maven discussed the success of his YouTube channel.
"No one is more shocked than I am. When [Zack] came to me with the idea, I tried to talk him out of it. 'There are bigger names out there.' He explained to me, and he was right about one thing, 'wrestlers use YouTube wrong and it's an underutilized platform.' Here's the simple process we do; most wrestlers make wrestling videos and put them on YouTube and wonder why they don't do well. Obviously, if you're Steve Austin, your podcast is going to do a great number. For the most part, there are so many podcasts out there. He told me, 'we're going to make YouTube videos that deal with wrestling.' At that moment the light went off," he said
Maven continued, "I told him I didn't want to bury anybody. If you want to see a site or a video bury somebody, there is plenty of that stuff out there. That wasn't my goal. I wanted to put out content that dealt with my time, my experiences, my life. I can't speak to other people's experiences; I can only say how it affected me, and that's what we're trying to do. I try to put that disclaimer up there, 'this is how it was for me. It might be different for somebody else and it's probably different now, but this is what it was for me.'"
Van Vliet noted that Maven starts every video by saying he got to live his dream in WWE.
"We get heat for that," said Maven. "'In case you don't realize, Maven was a wrestler and this and that.' There is going to be someone out there who doesn't know who I am. Our goal is to turn non-wrestling fans into fans of what we're doing, and maybe they do watch the product. I realize what my career was. It wasn't stellar, by any stretch of the imagination. I also realize my age. I tell people all the time, 'social media came out probably ten years later than I wish it would have.' If everything out now was out in the early 2000s, I'd have millions of followers. I would have been on there with my phone up. I would have shared every aspect of my life on the road. It's just not how it came out. I'm glad we can start now."
Maven and Van Vliet noted that Maven's success will hopefully lead to the success of other wrestling channels as they'll show up in recommended videos.
Maven's YouTube videos include topics such as wrestlers he's worked with, how much money he made, taking steroids, and more.
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