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Fighting! Out of the funny papers, New Jersey! Presenting the rating! Defending! Undisputed podcast champion of the world! Jersey! The dawn! Cherry! Alright World Jersey, the Con Jerry. All right, episode 32, friend of Jerry, special guest. Captain, this is this. This was one of our white whales, and we got them. It's a big one. Mike, the situation. Mike, thanks so much for coming on. We really appreciate it here. Hopefully, the travel went well. Everything went smooth. Yeah, it was smooth 45 minutes in and it's always a pleasure to come out and see you guys. Perfect. So I want to get right into it. The situation. How did that come about? The nickname. The nickname I was in my 20s and my father gave me an ultimatum in college or shortly thereafter and he said that you are too wild and that Uncle Sam needs to straighten you out somehow. I'm obviously later on he would. But he said that you are going to the military whether you like it or not or you're going to kick down. So I said, all right, pops. So pops takes me to a military recruiting center, and I take the ASVAPS, which is the military test, and I got a 67. So I'm about to go to the Navy. So I told my pops, listen, give me two weeks, before I do what you want to do, before I go into the Navy Navy and then maybe after that be a firefighter. I'll never forgive myself if I didn't throw the old hell marry, the old hell marry for what I want to do with my life. Because if I get the no for maybe trying to be into entertainment, that's fine. Then I'll just do what my father wants and do that. So I had about two weeks. I said, pop, give me two weeks, he said, art fine. And then you're kicked out. So in that two week time period, I, people had always said to me during that time period that I was unbelievably shredded naturally. And then I should have done something with that body, almost like I was a, has been at 24, at 24 25 modeling or something. Yes something. Okay and I always wanted to be an entertainment I looked up to Mark Wahlberg and the old Calvin Klein campaign he did and I was wanted to do something like that. So I I had a girl at the time that I was dating or saying I had her her take pictures of me and my underwear. And I sent him into New York City fitness and underwear modeling agencies immediately. Within about three days, I got some callbacks and they wanted to sign me. Now these are just, this is not no like top tier modeling agency. Like the best I could have probably done at this particular point with some JC Penny modeling at agencies. I would have been in a JC Penny catalog. But I was super happy that I was doing this and I was on the right path and that my hell marry was completed. I wasn't drug dealing anymore. And in celebration of getting signed to a modeling agency, I went out to a club. I was shredded. I was probably on MDMA or Exoc, at the club, down at the shore and a girl and her boyfriend. They were holding hands and they walked in the club and they saw me and the girls like, holy shit honey. Look at that. That's a situation right there. The boy friend is there. The boy she's the boyfriend's hand and i was like damn i was like that's an amazing story i'm like but the real situation is this and i pointed to my apps eventually a couple weeks later um after uh... getting knows from uh... my gocees in new york city for modeling and I was wondering why I was getting those nose.

Maybe I wasn't giving blow jobs or whatever, I don't know. But I fell upon a Jersey Shore casting and they sat me down and like, what is your nickname? I'm like, yeah, it's Mikey Abs, man. They're like Mikey Abs is generic, man. That's not good. You got anything else? I was like, you know what, I actually do. and so I was like, my nickname is the situation

and I had a story attached to it, and that's how it worked.

Gee, so right from... I was like, you know what, I actually do. And so I was like, my nickname is the situation.

And I had a story attached to it. And that's how it worked. Gee, so right from then, it was often running. Well, once I told the producers and the concept creators of Jersey Shore, that my nickname was the situation. I actually had a real story attached to it. They're like, holy shit, that's great. They're like, you can use that in anything. and you can recreate it every season and be something different.

And you got picked right from then.

I got picked right from then.

I was one of the first people casted for Jersey Shore in 2008 during the concept. Eventually the concept was sold from VH1 to MTV in 2009 and then they eventually did the other castings. Wow. During your time in Jersey Shore,

like, you were starting to blow up huge.

Yeah, it was like a phenomenon. Was it like tough for you as a person to deal with like all these people, like wanting to meet you, want to take bitches where you was, it really hard? I mean, in the beginning, no. I would embrace it. You would. I definitely embraced it. eventually once you start to go years in and you're trying to do all the castings and the bookings and the endorsements and wherever you go, you get no privacy and to add into that fact, I was in active addiction, making all the wrong decisions, taking substances for every type of incident. If you've ever seen Wolf of Wall Street where it comes out of the door and he's like, I got this to wake up. That was me. And so it was definitely tough because I wasn't doing the right things. So it started to wear on me. All right, now a word from our sponsor BetterHelp. It can be tough to train your brain to stay in problem solving mode when faced with a challenge in life. But when you learn how to find your own solutions,

there's no better feeling. If you're thinking of giving therapy a try, better help is a great option. Get matched with a therapist after filling out a brief survey. When you want to be a better problem solver, therapy can get you there. Visit betterhelp.com slash Jerry today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help help.com slash Jerry. The one of my favorite moments on the Jersey Shore was when you put your head through the wall. Oh, damn, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Ironically, I was going through withdrawal at the time and I didn't even know that I was really going through it and I'm like this really sucks man because I'm being filmed 24 7 and there's no way for me to escape it So during filming to try to make myself feel a little bit better from the I guess the opiate with Dora I try to drink a little bit more and hopefully I thought it was going to go away, which it doesn't. You know, in that situation, it doesn't. You need actually medical assistance. You need to go to rehab. So when it happened with Ronnie, I was super surprised that he was actually finally challenging me. But I was definitely not at my best. You know, I was going through actual withdrawal. withdrawal, you know, I'm saying And I had no idea how to control my emotions and so I'm like all right man This is happening. This is gonna be a tough fight with Ronnie the kid you know, Ronnie likes to fight the last couple seasons He's knocking people out on the boardwalk. This is not going to be easy But I was game for it. Yeah, and also with with you know going through withdrawal. So I was like, all right, I felt disrespected. I'm like, it's finally happening. I would never was afraid of any confrontation with anyone. You know, I'm gonna just, you know, it's gonna happen. Yeah. So I'm like, all right, we're about to fight. But I thought to myself, if I can get the first shot out of the way, the first sting, and it's on, we'll see what happens from there. At least you gave yourself a chance for it. Yes, so I thought to myself that the walls in Italy were sheetrock. Unbeknownst to me they are not sheetrock, they're actually pure cement. Old-screwd probably like, you know, probably goes back to the days of the Spartans and shit and like, you know, and the Romans, this is how old the stone was. And an old sitch thought that he was gonna go straight through that and I definitely committed for sure. Yeah. I had a lot of commitment and I went straight into a headbutt into an actual stone wall when it actually was not sheetrock. Yeah. And I knocked myself out. And then the meme went viral. Yes, yes. I knocked myself out. I was on the ground and I thought to myself, wow, the people are never going to forgive me for this one. How do I recover from this? I'm going to have to get up and fight this motherfucker right now. Am I allowed to curse on this?

Yes, of course.

Okay, okay.

So eventually I got back up.

I was actually seeing stars.

You know, when you played football, when you were younger.

Oh yeah.

I was seeing stars at this particular point.

And I'm like, I gotta get up and I gotta at least,

you know, fight them now.

...