Mike “Cash Flo” Walden Says Pro Wrestling Prepared Him For Acting In Tulsa King

Mike “Cash Flo” Walden reflects on how pro wrestling helped him with fight scenes in the Paramount+ series, Tulsa King.

Mike Walden portrays the character known as Bigfoot on Tulsa King. The hulking professional wrestler is a bodyguard of the character of Dwight Manfredi, played by Sylvester Stallone. The bodyguard who specializes in Psychology and smashing heads is bound to have plenty of fight scenes featuring Walden.

During an interview with Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful, Mike Walden explained the parallels he finds between the worlds of professional wrestling and acting. He also discussed portraying a character similar to himself in real life.

“I’ve said this numerous times and I say this to some of the young guys that are in wrestling now. I genuinely feel like it’s a natural evolution, Sean. If you truly know what professional wrestling is, then it’s just a natural evolution to move into the film industry because it’s all about being in the moment. It’s all about telling stories, facials, understanding where camera is, camera angles, lighting. It’s a natural evolution. A lot of people they take professional wrestling a million different ways. If you truly understand what professional wrestling is, it is a natural, natural evolution. Sometimes you beat yourself up in acting as well. So it’s kind of natural.

“I was shocked. I was surprised when I read the script. But that might have been purposeful. It was a little easier to stand in front of Sylvester Stallone and be in that moment of who you’re supposed to be. The whole Bigfoot thing is that’s so Kentucky, so Pacific Northwest and so Kentucky. But I love it. The role is me and whoever wrote that, whoever come up with that, that’s great. That’s amazing. I’m tired.”

Walden also discussed getting bumped up to being a serious regular, saying he enjoys the proof he works with and was pretty stoked to get the spot.

“Dude, I was stoked. Because of this job, you try not to pay a lot of attention to the peripheral. You want to stay focused on what you need to stay focused on. When I heard that I was getting bumped up to series regular and all the perks that go with it, I was over the moon. I was like, ‘I must be doing something right. I enjoy this crew, I’m happy to be here. This is amazing.’ So I was pretty stoked.”

Furthermore, Walden explained how his professional wrestling background helps him with the fight scenes in the series. He also explained why acting, even in fight scenes, is a little easier on the body than professional wrestling.

“When you’re talking fight scenes in Tulsa King, you’re talking Emmy-nominated fight choreographer, Freddie Poole, and the guy is super amazing in what he does and how he comes up with what he comes up with. He knows his stuff. You can’t forget you also have Sylvester Stallone and all his 40, 50 years of fight choreography and fight experience. It helps coming from professional wrestling because of the camera angles. A lot of that has to do with camera angles, and I can make it look like I’m hitting somebody and not necessarily hit him. I can make it look like I’m getting hit and not necessarily getting hit. It kind of goes hand in hand, I believe.

“It’s much easier on the body, I’ll say that. Professional wrestling, the only way you can really make it work is to make it work. With multiple takes, you can kind of maneuver, and it’s a different process, but it can become arduous, though. It can become arduous.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Walden opened up about getting compliments from the man who portrayed Rocky Balboa. Read more here.

Those interested can check out the series on Paramount+ today.

Check out the full interview with Walden in the video above.