Lil Yachty talks friendship with Trick Williams, hurting after WWE debut match, CM Punk, and more

Lil Yachty sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Atlanta, Georgia to discuss his WWE debut against Baron Corbin at Sunday Night’s Main Event, how much he hurt after the match, his real life friendship with Trick Williams, if he wants to wrestle more matches, being a massive CM Punk fan growing up, being referenced by Eminem in a song, Michael Cole being a fan of his music, and more!

We’re sitting here a day after Sunday Night’s Main Event. How are you feeling?

“I feel like sh*t. I feel like someone hit me with a bag of bricks.”

What hurts the most?

“My kneecaps. But when I woke up this morning, my shoulder felt dislocated. My kneecaps, my shins. I couldn’t even tighten my hand. As the day goes on, everything’s loosening up. When I first sat up in bed, it was the most pain I ever felt in my life. Shins, knees, whatever this is behind the kneecap, my back, my lower back. I feel like I’m wrestling for 20 years. Man, it’s bad.”

What was the spot that hurt the most?

“The clothesline. I came in, I hit him with the kendo, and I charged up to give him another one, and he gave me that clothesline. It’s so funny because my entire life, I wondered what a clothesline felt like, because JBL used to make them look so disgusting. The clothesline from hell looked so excruciating. So I always wondered what they felt like, and I always wanted to take one. I don’t think that was anywhere near JBL’s, but it hurt so much. When he first did it, I thought I wasn’t gonna be able to finish. I could not breathe at all; that was not selling. I think that was a receipt for me hitting him with that microphone, but I don’t know. It hurt so bad, bro. Then when he threw me at the barricade, that sh*t really hurt too.”

It seems like you’ve built a real friendship now with Trick Williams. When we pulled up to the house here, Trick drove you here.

“That is like my brother. That relationship, I couldn’t have paid for it. I couldn’t have asked for it. That was like dropped down from God. I couldn’t have asked for that friendship, man. That guy, he’s been the most positive influence on my life I’ve ever had, and I’ve always wanted an older brother like that. He’s really helped change my life for the better. Not only with the wrestling stuff and the opportunity, I’m grateful for that too. But off camera, just my health and training, and just the way he lives his life. I come from rap. It’s dark. We live a different life. I’m up all night. It’s a lot of drugs and women, and it’s just a different lifestyle. With Trick it is really routine, schedule, really healthy, really clean, on point, just a structured guy. Just being around him has really reshifted my brain in so many ways of life that he would never even know or understand because it’s just an image I haven’t had around being in studios with rappers and in the club or whatever. Just the way he lives has shifted me.”

We have to talk about the gingerbread man. How did this idea get pitched to you?

“So funny, it was not supposed to work. I remember when me and Trick got in, we were like, man, y’all sure? But then we just tried to make the most of it. When I got the gingerbread shirt printed and we did the song, and we were really clowning him [Sami Zayn]. Funny enough, they didn’t actually pitch Gingerbread Man. That was something we said, because he was ginger. Just me and Trick clowning and calling him Gingerbread Man. Then I got the gingerbread cookies and we just had fun with it. Me and Trick, we always get on the phone or text and sh*t, be together and we just think of ideas. How we gonna say this? What we gonna do? We’ll spend the whole day in my dressing room just trying to figure out how we gonna clown, or what jokes we gonna make, and it just stuck, and then it turned into a thing, and it was so fun.”

I thought the Gingerbread Man funeral was so funny, and the fact that the face of the Gingerbread Man looks completely different now that he was gone.

“It was so silly. It was so silly. I mean, again, people forget it’s entertainment, and it’s supposed to be funny. It’s supposed to be fun, and yeah, it’s good wrestling, but it’s entertainment and fun and have fun, man. Don’t be so uptight. Sometimes I be thinking it’s like, damn, you just want a card full of five-star matches.”

The sit-up in the coffin, the Undertaker. It was perfect!

“I had to practice that, bro. They had to pad my feet up so I could push. I don’t have the abs for that. That’s ab work, man. Shout out to the Undertaker. That’s ab work, sitting up.”