How Chris Van Vliet Became Wrestling’s Best Interviewer

There was a time when professional wrestlers doing interviews was rare. Unless they were larger-than-life and in character to promote a show, like Hulk Hogan on The Tonight Show, speaking to the press was a no-no. Today, however, kayfabe is dead and fans want to know more about the real people behind the gimmicks. From how careers began and ended, to the wild in-ring and behind-the-scenes stories, we can’t get enough. There are countless wrestling websites and interviewers out there (The Sportster’s Adam Barnard and MuscleManMalcolm are awesome), but the biggest name out there is Chris Van Vliet. Over the years, he has risen to become the interviewer that WWE and AEW‘s biggest stars seek out. He’s so good he can make even the toughest of them cry.

Chris Van Vliet Found Success As an Entertainment Reporter

Born in Ontario in 1983, Chris Van Vliet first made a name for himself in Vancouver, working as a host for Canada’s celebrity news show Razer News. After that it was off to Toronto’s Inside Jam, before moving to the United States where he worked reporting entertainment news at a local CBS channel in Cleveland. With his infectious personality and good looks, he quickly got noticed and even won a few Emmys.

In 2015, Van Vliet’s interviewing career continued to evolve with a leap to Miami and WSVN. It was there that his popularity soared to new heights with a hilarious online video of an interview he did with Dakota Johnson and Leslie Mann, where they teased and flirted with him. Now with over 3 million views on YouTube, it’s impossible to watch and not laugh at Van Vliet’s innocent discomfort. Van Vliet had a way with celebrities that was authentic. He talked to them like they were real people and didn’t try to make the moment about himself. It was a simple conversation with someone who was genuinely curious.

In a 2021 interview with Jon Shartzer, Van Vliet recalled:

“I would fly all around the world to interview some of the biggest celebrities in the world, like Denzel Washington, Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Stephen Spielberg, the list goes on and on. Sometimes they would offer us a satellite interview. This was before Zoom was really a thing. They would offer a satellite interview and you would always be hesitant to take the satellite interview because regardless of how good that satellite connection is, or the Zoom or Skype connection is, there’s always that half-second delay or that quarter-second delay. That doesn’t happen when you’re in person. So, I’d say these interviews are 90% as great as they could be, compared to if you were talking to that person in-person.”

Through it all, Van Vliet was also a wrestling fan. Soon, a move into that world would make him a huge name in the world of sports entertainment.

Chris Van Vliet Formed His Own Wrestling Podcast

Seven years ago, in 2019, Van Vliet took a risk by beginning his own show, a podcast he called Insight with Chris Van Vliet. The title was fitting, as the host sat down with various pro wrestlers and learned insights into their lives and careers. There was only one big problem out of his control. One year later, the COVID pandemic struck, and the world shut down. The in-person interviews Van Vliet excelled at so well (he’s interviewed The Rock at least nine times!) went away, replaced by those awkward video calls we were all doing to begin the decade.

Still, Van Vliet’s channel flourished because of what it offered. He wasn’t prying. The goal wasn’t to find the clickbait headline and use a wrestler for his own gain. It was, again, a conversation. He’d ask questions, sometimes ones they’d been asked so many times before, then he’d sit back and listen without interrupting and trying to insert himself.

So much of wrestling media is hateful and gross, with former wrestlers and personalities like Jim Cornette ripping into everything, or Bryan Alvarez so unhappy with all he sees. That’s not even including all the self-starters on YouTube who love to hate one company while they adore the other. That’s not Chris Van Vliet. There is no tension, no choosing sides. It’s a guy in love with pro wrestling who is fascinated and wants to learn everything he can about someone without exploiting them. In today’s wrestling fandom, that’s refreshing.

The Biggest Names of WWE and AEW Appear on ‘Insight with Chris Van Vliet’

This approach is also what gets wrestlers to want to do his show. Wrestlers have to do podcasts and interviews. It’s needed to sell an upcoming show. While some of those podcasts are very good, it has to be exhausting to move from one to the next. Unless it’s at a convention or something similar, those interviews are most usually done via a video call, which removes the intimacy of the conversation. Here, the interviewee feels like cattle being moved from one chat to the next.

With Chris Van Vliet, his shows now are almost always in person. He goes to them, sacrificing his time to have the in-person experience. He knows how much it means to have two people sitting across from each other in the flesh. It makes the interview which follows so much more compelling. Over the last few years, most of the big names have appeared on his podcast, whether it be WWE or AEW. There is no tribalism here. Insight is a celebration of the sport and the craft behind it, not with quick interviews either, but an hour or two chat that really digs into what a wrestler thinks. More than once, he has even got a wrestler to cry, not by manipulation for clicks, but simply through talking. He’s incredibly easy for those who hide behind a gimmick on TV to open up to.

If you were watching SummerSlam this year, Chris Van Vliet was right there in the front row on night one. On social media, fans noticed and loved it. Everyone in wrestling media has those who don’t like them for whatever reason. You don’t see that with Chris. Love for him is universal. He’s become the voice of wrestling interviews, and he’s only getting started.