We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jose Gonzalez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jose below.

Hi Jose, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Even from a young age, I was always fascinated by the idea of being in the spotlight. Whether it was growing up seeing pop stars performing, kids getting big breaks on TV, or hearing announcers calling sports action, I knew one day I could see myself doing something grander.

The biggest influences that led me to get into creating wrestling content and pursuing commentary were Renee Paquette and Jim Ross. I started watching wrestling (namely WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment) at age 10 and “JR” was the lead commentator on Monday Night Raw. The passion he gave to each call of the action hooked me into the business and made me appreciate the rigor of calling everything on the fly and also catching newer viewers up on why things were happening.

Outside the commentary booth, Renee Paquette, previously known as Renee Young in WWE, is a backstage correspondent and host that brought conversations back to interviews in wrestling. She showed me that not only can you ask great questions, but you can remain yourself in the process. It’s something I always admire about her and hope to still incorporate in my own work today.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

So in a broad sense I’m a content creator, meaning podcasts, livestreams, interviews, and videos. Primarily my content is centered in the wrestling world, though most of my livestreams are all gaming centric on Twitch, where I’ve been an Affiliate since 2020.

With my wrestling content, I was part of Squared Circle Sirens intermittently from 2017 to 2020, focused on weekly recaps and interviews with the women of professional wrestling both on television and independently. I also produced and hosted the Golden Era Podcast from 2019 to 2021, a retrospective review of WWE’s women’s division from 2001-2006, which has since been overhauled and reformatted to a weekly show.

I ventured with my own shows on and off since 2016, though I’d say I really got the gears moving in 2022 after assisting my good friend and fellow wrestling creator Ella Jay with producing interviews she conducted on-site in Dallas, Texas for WWE WrestleMania 38 weekend. Seeing Ella’s drive and skills up close really got me thinking I could finally try my hand at my own content and contributing for additional coverage to reputable sites in the wrestling sphere.

My Guest At This Time is currently my main show, where I’ve interviewed wrestlers, media members, announcers, and have regular predictions panels for upcoming events in wrestling with my peers. Aside from my own program, I was fortunate enough to be a correspondent for PWMania with covering both WWE WrestleMania XL in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and WWE SummerSlam in Cleveland, Ohio, WWE’s two largest events of the calendar year.

In total this year, I’ve gotten to attend shows for WWE, NXT (WWE’s developmental brand), AEW (All Elite Wrestling), and Ring of Honor (AEW’s sister brand) as a member of wrestling media, and have interviewed and spoken with performers from each company, in addition to former champions from TNA (Total Nonstop Action Wrestling), all the largest televised wrestling promotions in the US.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

In the world of wrestling, the most money to be made lies in those televised promotions that are having shows weekly, constantly on the road, setting up to fill large arenas. Conversely, independent wrestling and just freelancing in the wrestling world is far less lucrative. Wrestlers and other contributors on the independent scene can often work for modest to no pay depending on their experience, where they’re working, or how well-known they may or may not be. While the ultimate goal is to sustain ourselves fully from wrestling work, we understand it is a long grind to get to that point.

There’s a lot of wrestlers and contributors, myself included, who still have full-time jobs elsewhere to make sure we have bills paid and benefits, all while still trying to chase our dreams on the side. That being said, we all still treat wrestling on any scale like work instead of a hobby. We’re all trying to get noticed by the right people to hopefully make a true career out of what we love.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Originally, I wanted to be a music teacher when I graduated high school. I auditioned and got accepted to music programs at universities, I performed in county and state vocal ensembles, and I even acted in a few school musical productions. The big problem I faced after graduation was burnout. I went to a very prestigious high school here in Buffalo and was always mandated to take accelerated curriculum, even though the state had different graduation requirements. Immediately going from not wanting to deal with the stress that high school caused into classes about the education field, I knew something had to change.

In 2015, I applied and would transfer into a different university and change my major from Music Education to Journalism with two key things giving me that extra push: wanting to be able to use those tools to eventually get into wrestling, and to gain media literacy in a time of major uncertainty with the political climate of the US and placing a lot of distrust into media by blatantly denying proven facts.

I loved my Journalism program at SUNY Buffalo State and graduated in 2019. Though I was tacked with skills to help me navigate a hard news world, it was the features and creative side of what news could be that really made me enjoy my studies more. Had I not made the choice to change my studies, I don’t think I’d be where I am today.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.joseontheair.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joseontheair
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/joseontheair
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@joseontheair
• Other: Twitch: www.twitch.tv/joseontheair

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