"Big Daddy Cool: The Power Player Tells All 💪"

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Titlematchnetwork dot Com.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to another edition of the R Video Shoot Interview series.
Today were joined by a true legend in the sport
of professional wrestling, Kevin Nash. Thanks for being here today
with us down here in Florida. My very first question
to you would be is how do you get started
in the wrestling business?

Speaker 3 (00:16):
And if you were a fan of it grown up?

Speaker 4 (00:18):
Yeah, I was a fan. I grew up with Detroit
because that's side of Detroit, so we had big time wrestling.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Out of Detroit.

Speaker 4 (00:26):
And like most kids, you go through a period where
you watch it, you know, religiously.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
And you kind of grow out of it.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
And then when I came back with what over the
year for a couple of years, I put some ball
over there, came back and it was kind of like
the the mid Hogan era in WWF, and I went
to with some friends of mine Donald Joe Lewis and
watched it. It was like, you know, it's a lot
different than the progress that I had watched, and from

(00:56):
there I just decided that I could I could do it.
And it took me a while, but you know, just
kind of find the inroads to get into it. It's
just if you're a big guy and you go to
wrestlers and say, hey, you know, can you help me
break in the last thing they want to do is,
you know, put a six to fift ten guy in
the roster. You know, have a chance for that guy
to succeed at their expense. So I ended up in

(01:19):
Atlanta and random the Steiners at a gym, and Robe
and Scotty kind of pointed me in the right direction
and I ended up by like a w CW developmental camp.
It was run by Jody Hamilton. And but nine months

(01:40):
later I did the Clash of the Champions.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
I was going to ask you what was Jody Hamilton
like as a trainer. It was amazing because he was
a giant. He was he was a big.

Speaker 4 (01:49):
Guy, heavy wise, but he could still move.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
I think the thing that Jody brought was he.

Speaker 4 (02:01):
You really knew the psychology, like he talked to the
psychology like you know. I think that's the biggest thing
is these kids learn how to do you know, backflips
and all this other stuff, but they don't learn the
psychology the business. Where Jody talks to the psychology and
did the lessons more and he said, you're a big guy,
You're not going to need to do that much, right,
you just have to look convincing and a few things

(02:22):
that you do, and I you.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Know, that's kind of way. I mean, I never really
did a whole lot in my career.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Well, I guess for training wise, what was the hardest
thing for you to pick up sides of psychology or
would you say that was the hardest part of the
business to learn.

Speaker 4 (02:37):
I think the I broke into the era when guys
didn't sit in the back and go over the match,
you know, by step. But yeah, you went out there
and it was it was the same old It was
the days of the heels in one locker room, babyface
in the locker room, and the referee brought the finishers
back and forth. So you know, it's completely different if

(02:59):
you don't know what you're doing and the guys out
there just calling the mask to the end and you
know it's I mean, you can you can know what
you're doing, but in front of a crowd and everything else.
The first couple of times I was thinking this will
be easy, and I went out there. It was the
hardest thing I've ever done.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
As far as like, during the training, was there any
times where you got discouraged and you said, out here, this.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
Is not for me.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
No, I mean I you know, I set my my
my goal to make it.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
I wasn't gonna you know when I the first day
I got there, they did the five hundred hindoos and
five hundred step ups, five hundred push ups, run the ropes,
run around the building. You know, they ran it to
you puked, and then to see if you're stupid enough
to come back. And that's when you had to pay, right,
you know, it was like three grand or whatever it was.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Did you pay?

Speaker 5 (03:44):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (03:44):
I had to pay.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
So it's basically, I give you three thousand dollars you
you know, try to get me to quit, basically torture me,
and then see if.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
I come back the next day. That was and nine
out of ten guys did. All right, So I guess
your first gave a W C W as the master.
But what are your memories of that whole deal?

Speaker 4 (04:08):
I mean it was I had long black hair and
I was working at a strip club, and uh, you know,
Olie said, I got an idea for it.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
He told me he wanted me to have a red mohawk,
which I just thought like that yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
I mean, it's just one of those deals I got
and now I don't even know. I can't even have
a normal life. Now I'm gonna look like a pro
wrestler and uh which you know I always took it
as okay, this is one of those situations they're going
to test you to see if your back and doing something.
And then they gave me a partner who was supposed
to lead me as I you know, got seasoned, who

(04:45):
was greener than I was. He lasted six days and quit.
You know, he was illiterate, couldn't read. His name was
Corey pindarvis. It was broken in by the legendary worker
Ox Baker.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:05):
And uh so you know, a weekend in my first run,
I don't have a partner, and Wilmingham in Indiana.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
And El Green was in the locker room.

Speaker 4 (05:15):
I was working first matches a heel and they you know,
Al had a kind of funky hairdse. They threw Al
and me together, and Al and I worked together for
probably maybe six seven months, and then they wanted him
to do a job. It was around Christmas time. We
were supposed to job with the Steiners, and he himed
it hot about it. They fired him but sent me home.

(05:39):
I told me to grill my hair out and they're
going to repackage me. So, I you know, at this point,
it's been my first year and I probably had maybe
forty matches in total. And then the next year I
just sat around and they put an oscar.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
I got that was my next question. Who came up
with the os gaming? That was dustiest brainstort.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Where your initial gets impressions of that whole idea.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
That was that was ridiculous. You know, I just and
I've said there a million times to people. I know
it's redundant, but just he sent theres I mean, you're
going to be OZ. I just said, Oz is the
geographical region, it's the Wizard of Oz, it's the he's
the wizard, the guy, you know, the guy behind the curtain.

(06:24):
I said, no, he's the wizard that you know, that's
where they're at.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
And he just looked at me, and I just thought, like, okay,
he's my boss.

Speaker 5 (06:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (06:35):
I always thought to this day I think it was
a red right just you know, I just think it
was because I did it like two or three times
and that was it.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
I said. For another whole year, I was going to
ask you around this time period. Was that flare bucking
at the time period at all or.

Speaker 4 (06:52):
I mean, you know, they know they had the committee.
I think I think they had the committee that I
don't think Rick had.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
A pencil at that point in time.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
What were your thoughts of Rick as a booker?

Speaker 4 (07:04):
You know, once you're so green at that you wouldn't
know good idea of you know, if you heard one, you're.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
Still in the process of learning the business.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
I was, and it was such a there was such
a separation between you know that crew guys, you know,
the Windoms and that click of.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Guys, and then you know the John b Bads and
me and you know.

Speaker 4 (07:22):
The guys that when we used to say in center stage,
the guys in the right locker room, you know, the
guys that were making less than one hundred and fifty years.
So there was you know, you just were happy to
have your job, and they made it that situation. They
made it, you know, where you were just happy.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
To have a job.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
How did you wind up with any Vegas character?

Speaker 3 (07:41):
They were over two on gimmicks, so they're gonna give
me one shot.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
So I watched that Blue Heaven movie with Steve Martin,
and I thought it was I thought it was a
pretty cool character, so I kind of just copied that
along with some other characters. I was just gonna put
that together myself so it's good enough to entertain Seawn Michaels,
which was Keishawn Michaels watched on TV and liked it,

(08:08):
and that's where he that's why he wanted me to
come in and be his bodyguard.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Before all that happened, I guess was, Uh, who was
your mentor around this period of time?

Speaker 3 (08:16):
Did anybody take into their wing?

Speaker 6 (08:18):
Yeah, Rude was my guy. What are some of the
valuable lessons that he Todya Never take your gimmicks until
you're fifty miles close to the next time.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
You know.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
Rick'shall thing was he was the first guy that I
really watched that could do like he could have people
you know, laugh, cry, be hostile and hate him. But
he really was able to change his gears and turn
emotion in the ring. But he was the first guy
I saw that was a pure entertainer. You know, he'd

(08:53):
work his ass off, he'd snag on your back, but
you know, it came time to Tree to come back.
He mean he nobody tried to comeback, like right, He
really just got up and down, up and down, up
and down, up and down and use those crazy ass bumps.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
But he also.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
He had created a character and uh, you know, you'd
see him at backstage. You'd be walking smoking a cigarette
and music would kick. He'd throw the cigarette out and
go out, and as soon as that light hit him,
he could just see that character. He you know, create
a character that was very close to his own character
that he was able to slide into really no matter
what was going on. And that's one thing he told me,

(09:33):
he said, the closer your character is to you, you know,
then you're always going to be on. You know, it's
if it's a far reach for you, then it's you know,
it's going to be hard, you know, and a lot
of times, you know, that's what happens on the promoter,
you know, determines that he's going to give you a gimmick.
You know, if it doesn't fit you, then you're pretty
it's pretty much uphill battle for you.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Right, That's true. At the time, you're also repair with
the d DP page. What are you thoughts on of
being teamed.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
Up with him? You know, Dallas is really positive.

Speaker 4 (10:06):
There were times then when I was going to quit,
you know, because says making one hundred grand bouncing right,
you know, so it's like it wasn't It wasn't that
I wasn't making money and I had a couple of
little things on the side. I was doing some collections
and stuff, so it was like, I can you know,
and at this point, wats is, you know, Watsas has
taken over and wats has got everybody out like three
and four hundred dollars night leivees, so nobody's getting paid

(10:31):
because he was one of those ex pro wrestlers that
would go into the office and tell that the mark
bosses that these guys do this for free.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
You can pay him a lot less than this to
make himself look better. Right, Did you get along ago on?

Speaker 4 (10:46):
No?

Speaker 3 (10:47):
No, not at all, not at all. I thought it
was an asshole. There was a bully. I was going
to ask you that.

Speaker 4 (10:52):
A lot of people say, yeah, he never you know,
he never messed with me, like man, I'm man, I
mean he you know, he gave me a heart.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
But actually, you know, his time went on and he
got to know me a little bit, like he.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
Was the first one that thought like, you're you know,
you could be a big, rugged babyface. Maybe that's what
you're supposed to be. And he kind of he had
some insight. You know, I'm not saying it was a
stupid guy. I just think, you know, some psychological.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
Problems teaming up with DDP. Was he ribbed a lot
early on back then, because you know a lot.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
Yeah, Yeah, he was ribbed a lot. There was one
time it was in.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
God, I can't even think of what time is one
thing it was in somewhere in Kansas City Oil.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yeah, they stripped. Yeah, he told us that.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
We just did an interview with him message he was
talking about it.

Speaker 4 (11:41):
It was funny, you though, because Dallas had like nine
thousand layers of ship on and Hump was his manager,
and they uh, you know, they they had him and
he was down and Robbie just this before Robbie was
all torn up. Robbie was so innately stung just like
grabbed him and just pulled it and like his clothing

(12:03):
exploded off of him like a rubber band. And the
funny thing was is Brad Armstrong was in the It
was in the Battle Royal and we got in the
back and he said, I don't know what was worth
seeing Dallas naked or Humper didn't take his shirt off
and give it to Dallas because Hump took his shirt off,
which was it was a sight.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
That's great, that was a good rip. We're speaking about
Mark people involved in the company at the time, what
were your thoughts on Jim Hurt? It was a punch
drunk ex.

Speaker 4 (12:32):
I mean, it's just like one of those deals with
you You're look at the.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
Guy and you're like, Okay, who put how's this guy
in charge? You know? And I forget what his back?

Speaker 4 (12:43):
Yeah, like that, you know, typical above that Turner administration.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
You know, did you see a lot of that guy's
coming for the spot like Kid Ranal.

Speaker 4 (12:53):
Yeah, I mean Kid Fry he you know, just one
after another. It was just like and that was the
whole thing. They brought Bischoff in, and Bishoff, you know,
was he was there and hired before I left to
go to New York, and he pulled me aside, he said,
don't go, I'm gonna turn this thing around. I was
just thinking, dude, you're like Ken Doll. You look at

(13:14):
a weather man, right, you know, like I didn't know
I didn't know him right right, you know, and.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
He really took offense to that.

Speaker 4 (13:23):
I found that way that that, you know, he asked
me personally to stay because he, I think saw something
in me.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
But it's like anything else, you know, at that point
I had to get out of there.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
It was the truth that you knew you were going
to WF a year before you got done.

Speaker 4 (13:35):
No, about five or six months. I was under contract,
and they, you know, and I just I just took
I took a a trip with Barry when Barry and
I were pretty good friends, and he was like definitely
in the political clique of w c W, and I

(13:56):
just said, you know, I just looked out the window
and didn't say anything. We're going up to Georgia from Atlanta,
which only about a ninety minute drive, not even that,
maybe an hour. I didn't say anything in the first
forty five minutes, and he said, what's wrong. I said,
my wife said if I don't get out of rest, and
she's going to leave me. So of course I knew
that was going to tricker right back. So when I
went in and asked for my release, right they already

(14:18):
knew his wife's going to leave him.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
And only just signed right off on it.

Speaker 4 (14:23):
And I took that release, walked to the back of
the w CW office and faxed it to JJ Dillon.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
That's great, that's awesome, because I.

Speaker 4 (14:32):
Said us for fact machine I needed. This is my
lawyer right right, faxed it right to JJ. The next
day I was on a plane up to Sea Fence,
and that night I helped shown win the IC Championship
in Albany. So within twenty four hours I had done
something and meant more than the three years.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
That I had done it. It's a turner.

Speaker 4 (14:56):
So you know, I just and we got I got
there and this is back when a big house for
WCW was maybe the Omni, maybe Jacksonville thirty five thousand
dollar houses. My first night was in Albany and I
looked out in the curtain and it was like starcap
for me, right right. I mean it was a seventy
two seventy three thousand dollars house in Albany.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
And this is ninety four dollars, not.

Speaker 4 (15:19):
Two thousand and seven dollars, so it's probably like one
hundred and hundred, twenty thousand dollars house. Now, I mean
it was probably you know, three four thousand people out there,
and I was just like, holy shit, different ball game.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
Yeah, it was. It was like you know, wow, and
you felt good because back then, I mean, it.

Speaker 4 (15:34):
Was this show. You know, that was the show that
was that was like going to the major leagues.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
How did your relationship with Sean develop? He said he
liked your gimmick and stuff. Did he contact you or.

Speaker 4 (15:43):
He contacted first of the Steiners had just came up
there and I got a call from from Robbie.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
He said he was.

Speaker 4 (15:55):
They were at a TV table I think in Green
Bay and Robbie said, hey, he says Joshan Michaels. I
said yeah. He said, would you want to be He's
looking for body guy. Would you be interested? And I said, yeah,
I get out of my contract. He said he'd like.
So that's how it started. Robbie, you know, once again
came to my rescue and he uh so, then I

(16:18):
just had to figure a way to get on the contract.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Right. So that's a little while.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Okay, before we get to w stuff, I want to
talk a little bit more about w W. What are
your memories about Harley Race?

Speaker 3 (16:30):
Great guy?

Speaker 4 (16:31):
Uh he was he managed me and like you know,
they weren't doing anything with me, but at least I
got to ride up and down the road with him.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
The next question, any good road stories and stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (16:42):
You know, you always hear the Harley stories. I remember
one time and I we wrestled at the I think
Cat Big Cat was was my tag team partner at
the time, and we had wrestled in that old armory
in Washington, d C. Like in the hood, I know
where to yeah, and uh over by State Capitol O

(17:04):
the Capital building, And so we leave and get turned
around and we're like in the hood and Harley's driving
the wrong way ninety miles an hour, and some cop
you know, just like like we we you know, it's
a one way street, and Harley just slips by this
guy going ninety right because hardly I'm not staying in

(17:25):
the hood, but I'm not staying in the hood. So cop,
you know, turns around. I said, Harley, I said the
copss Harley pulls over. Now anybody else would like, you know,
but Harley's unrolls his wondering how he could feels completely
on the offense about this guy, you know, and on

(17:46):
and on, and the cops just like.

Speaker 3 (17:49):
And find the cops is well serious, is he goes? Hees?
Is I'm Harley Race. I need to get to the
next town. How do I get there?

Speaker 4 (18:00):
The cop says, gives them directions, and Harley says, thank you.
Now anybody else would go and turn the card directly on.
Harley goes up two more streets and takes his leaves,
you know, like the cop.

Speaker 3 (18:11):
I know the cop.

Speaker 4 (18:12):
I just say, I should give a guy ticket, but
he's got such grass balls, and really does I don't think.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
It would affect them. Do you know who Harley was
or no? I don't know if he did or not.

Speaker 4 (18:20):
But I think the guy knew Harley was somebody, because
nobody's that indignant. That's not somebody. He probably thought he
was a Harley Ras, some senator, a white Cadillac.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
What about Scott Lady, memories of teaming up without Scotty?

Speaker 4 (18:36):
We did the he was Scotty the body back then him.
Dallas and we were all buddies, you know, Scottie and
Dallas and I were all buddies. We used to make
little road trips together. And those two idiots would put
a television on the dashboard and have these cords and
they had a VHS and they would watch like Roseanne,

(18:57):
or they would just you know, we go on these
road trips and Dallas is driving or I'm driving, and
they've got and it's not like you know, the old DVD.
I'm talking about thirteen inch television jammed in the window
of your car. But Dallas, when you travel with Dallas,
you know, it just it looked like Billy Zane getting

(19:17):
on the Titanic on a three day trip. He'd had
fifty seven bags. Dallas, what's in there? That's my you know,
concoction of fruit and vegetables for this juice, and you
know the rest of the guys. You know, it's just
just like one little bag, a douffle bag around.

Speaker 5 (19:33):
Now.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
When Rick Player left for WF and took the belt
with him, did you take it personal since it was
clearly a shot of trying to put the company out
of visits by him, or did it not bother you
because you were just there.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
Just during your paycheck.

Speaker 4 (19:46):
I remember thinking like, because they kind of fucked Flair,
kind of give me out right.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
So to me, it's just like I always liked Rick.
You know, Rick was always a gentleman.

Speaker 4 (19:56):
Rick was you know, Rick always to pick up drinks
guys that didn't have cash, like was you know, he
was one of those guys that didn't didn't put his
nose down to the green horns.

Speaker 3 (20:08):
And I thought it was you know, by that time,
we were all the you.

Speaker 4 (20:11):
Know, the the rebels anyway, you know, we were all
anti companies. So anything that they you know, it was
almost like he was like William Wallace.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
Right, it was like for the boys. Yeah, way to go, Rick.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Now we talked earlier about how you you know, wound
up in w w F. What are initial impressions of events?
What are your initial memories of meeting Vince for the
first time?

Speaker 4 (20:34):
First time, I mean they dropped me off right in
front of his house in Connecticut and knocking the door,
and then he came and he had an Ico Pro
sweatshirt on or black sweatpants. He was a lot bigger
than I thought he would be. You know, he's a
taller guy than I thought he would be. But to me,
it was like, you know, if you're a baseball player
and you're in the minor leagues, probably like be the

(20:54):
equivalent of opening the door and Steinbrenner, you know, being
being there I mean, you know, Bence is pretty iconic
in our business.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
But he was very nice, you know, very.

Speaker 4 (21:09):
Personal, and brought me in and JJ was there, Pat
was there, and Bruce Pritchett was there, right and they
just kind of ran, you know, and to me, it's
just like they kind of had an idea of what
they wanted to do with me, you know, six, eight, ten,
twelve months ahead of time, which they used to do
back then. And this is you know, I hear it
is basically you're talking to somebody that's that's kind of

(21:31):
a you know, almost like a god in the rest
of the business. You know, he says, this happens, it happens,
and you know, he sat there and said, basically, this
is you know, this is the path that we want
you to take.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
I was going to ask you what was promised and
as far as direction.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
To just that that would matter, you know, And you
know it was key. You know a lot of things
that were key in my career. One of the keys
were that they were under that drug screwed me, right,
you know, and I was clean at the time. I was,
you know, I'm clean now, I mean I'm right at
three hundred and three hundred five pounds, but I've taken anything.

(22:08):
So I was the biggest clean guy, you know, So
it was like it was it was Yeah, it was
just like here's a guy that's because he always is
going to want a bigger than a life guy, and
here was one that, you know, it was basically.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
Just dropped off his doorstep. Literally. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
At this point, I guess, did you say to yourself,
you know, you finally made it.

Speaker 4 (22:34):
I didn't think I really made it my mind until
I won the icy belt, you know, because back then
people just didn't win belts. You know, you didn't win
a belt, right, you know, guys just kind of winning
a belt was kind of that was that was kind
of when you made it. So I worked a lot,
you know, God, you know this is back when you're
on the road. I think I worked twenty seven in

(22:57):
the first thirty one days I was there.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
You know, when you were Shawn, did Sean guide you
and basically tell you to do this at the ring?
You know, don't do that?

Speaker 4 (23:05):
Yeah, I mean, and he was working with Scott at
the time you finished up with Martin. Then he went
to Scott. Scott was working with kids. Then when I
got there, and did.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
You know Scott prior to this or not?

Speaker 4 (23:17):
Okay, Scott actually drove up and down the road a
little bit.

Speaker 3 (23:21):
Uh in the in the in the early.

Speaker 4 (23:25):
Days, w he was diamond stud because Dallas was you
know Dallas and.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
It Yeah.

Speaker 5 (23:40):
It's Cola.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
We're a was asking you about Scott was for something?

Speaker 4 (23:59):
Yeah, I was, so he he came in as a
diamond stud and Dalla's brought him in.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
So then Dallas introduced me to him, and you guys
had off right away. Yeah, because we're we smoked one.

Speaker 4 (24:13):
I picked him up the next TV we had was
making and I had a little bit, he had a
little bit. Took a little drive up to making together
and I drank up of beers on the way to
TV and nice.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yeah, it was a good.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
Time getting back to Sean and you as far as
your relationship and you guys, you know, developed a relationship
in the ring and out of the ring, Like what
were some of the things that he told you that
you might have been doing wrong or.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
Some of the things he might have liked.

Speaker 4 (24:41):
The one thing they did was like, uh, you watch
it nowadays like, uh, somebody's outside like a manager or
something like that. They'll they'll chokes me in the rope
three or four times during the course of a match,
and it really doesn't you know, it doesn't doesn't.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
It doesn't mean anything.

Speaker 4 (24:59):
So the one thing was that they we always did
spots where Shawn to throw a guy out and I'd
come around stock stock stock, the referee would come out
cut me off, you know, right, you know, so we
always and that was one thing Sean taught me early
was you know, when you're a heel, if you do
it in front of the referee, you know, even though
there's really no rules, there are, there's the perception of rules, right.

(25:22):
So and Scott, you know, Scott was very instrumental also
because they were working together. And when I did something,
it changed the event, you know, changed the course of
the events the match. When I did something, it was
usually led to a finish. So so you know, once
again I didn't have any wasted motion and what I

(25:43):
did and it made my impact stronger. You know, Shawn
was over and I was over through association, right and
then their matches were great and you know I had
to do was catch them or something like that, and.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
So was it was. It was a really good spot.

Speaker 4 (26:01):
Plus I get to watch two really good workers at
ringside for almost nine months.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yeah, I mean it was just and it was.

Speaker 4 (26:11):
Sitting at nighttime and drink our beers and travel up
down the road and them explain, you know, why they
did what they did and why they thought they lost
the people, why they thought they got them back.

Speaker 3 (26:23):
You know, just kind of learn how to just really
put everything together.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
Now, did they give you a time period before you'd
actually go out there and start working your own singles
matches at all?

Speaker 3 (26:30):
Or no?

Speaker 4 (26:30):
They said that I would work periodically with Sean, probably
in the bigger northeast markets, right, But the house shows
like the first time I really I think I worked.
I worked an elimination match in the garden and won.
It was all unbelievable, you know. And Luger was that
was standing next to Bens and Shane. And when I

(26:51):
saw Luger later on that night and he said, they're
going to go with you man, he said.

Speaker 3 (26:54):
They just kept saying, God, the cup big he is,
the cup big he is, He's clean, the cup big
he is.

Speaker 4 (26:58):
Because we don't even test and back then, I mean
it was pretty tested once a month, sometimes twice in
a day. Wow, you know, you do, you do Philadelphia
and get tested and everybody you know, think, oh we
can smoke now, right. You go in to Hershey and
they pissed crew again.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
Anybody ever get busted for that?

Speaker 4 (27:16):
A couple of guys here and there, But I mean,
you know it was Vince uh satu is down when
when the policy came down and bench just said, you know, guys,
this is this is a shoot, this is the way
it's going to be, and these are this is what happens.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
You know.

Speaker 4 (27:30):
Fifteen hundred and three thousand, five thousand, You're gone, wow,
And that was it.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
Did you see anybody actually get fired from that whole
entire deal?

Speaker 4 (27:37):
No, no, because nobody was that stupid.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
Right exactly. You know a lot of money throw yeah, yeah, No,
he was that stupid.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
What do you remember about the night that the Bruce
brothers went after Sean?

Speaker 4 (27:46):
I wasn't there right there for that. I was in Uh,
I was in where's that now, Shoppenberg, Germany. I think
that night I remember getting a.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
Call what exactly did you hear about that? That Sean
was being Shawn and they just said enough of it? Right?

Speaker 4 (28:03):
I mean, if you hear Sean's recollection of it that
night and Shawn's recollection of it now, right, you know,
I mean, you know, Sean's a different guy.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
Now, I guess what are your memories of your series
of matches.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
With Scott Hall.

Speaker 4 (28:20):
I knew that he did like he you know, he
worked with Sean for so long. It was just like
they were an autopilot. And you know, Shawn's really athletic,
He's smaller, you can toss him around and then you know,
for them to say, okay, now you're gonna work with
this big cement mixer enough, Scott was like, oh god, right,
I don't want to work with this guy. I don't
want to smart him up. But that's the whole thing

(28:43):
is you know, you have to smart the guy you're
working with or you know you're gonna have ship matches.
And we ended up having a really good chemistry. It
was a lot different. It was more of a street
fight than it was an athletic contest. But I mean,
you know, we've worked for both of us. We had
a good run together. I had good rind you know,
and once again, you know, he's to me, Scott's the

(29:03):
best worker probably that I've ever worked with because Scott
was six five sixty six. Scott could work with Seawn,
Scott could work with kids. Scott could work with me
sid right, you know, I mean he was such a
great worker. You know, he just had some demons.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
Who are some of the other guys that you worked with?
We'll talk about Scott coming up definitely.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Who are some of the other guys that you worked singles
matches with before you Big Baby Feaster.

Speaker 4 (29:28):
When I was a heel, I worked with Brett right
at King of the Ring. Did you like working with Brett?

Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah, he was great.

Speaker 6 (29:34):
A lot of people say he was hard to work
with and he didn't really give back much or I
don't know.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
God, I mean I think if you I think if
if you respected him and didn't treat him as a
little guy, you know, I mean, I let him backbreak
on me. And you know, I think he you know,
he always said that this perception, uh that you know,
he was the hit man. He was Brett hard, and
he really was a character driven guy. And and if

(30:01):
you played to that character, if you you know, deem
that character worthy and strong, and he made sure that
you know, because he was going to beat you nine
times out of ten. So I mean, the stronger he
made his opponent the better. But for Bratt, but god,
I mean, I love to working.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
With some sat bread is overrated and I was completely disagreet.
What do you think.

Speaker 4 (30:21):
I don't think it's I think of my top three
matches I ever had in my life, he's.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
One of them.

Speaker 4 (30:28):
But you know there's the one that I lost a
belt to him and at the US Arena that was
what was that.

Speaker 3 (30:39):
Some Survivor series I.

Speaker 4 (30:41):
Don't remember, but I got to turn heel. I've got
to turn heel out of that one backfield.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Did you like the actual baby face turner? Do you
think you had more money left as a heel was seawan?

Speaker 3 (30:54):
I wouldn't.

Speaker 4 (30:54):
I wouldn't have minded it because I got over kind
of being like a dark and dirty, you know. And
then as soon as I this is a term babyface,
Vent's had me singing with the Santa had on the employees,
and that's how we opened the next round, I was
just like, you know, but I've always said that Vince,
you know, Vince will take the edge off if you can't,

(31:14):
because Vince, Vince still believes in his heart that people
want to see a guy carrying the American flag, right,
you know that red, white and blue, you know that
patriotism that all Americans. He still thinks, no matter how
many times the anti hero will surface and prove him wrong,
I think in his heart and I don't know if

(31:34):
he actually thinks that or just wants it to happen.
You know, he still wants that to happen. He still
wants it to be there. I don't think it's gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
What are your memories about working with Sid?

Speaker 2 (31:47):
We just did one with Sid as well last week
and he took, you know, highly of you.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
I love working with Sid. I mean we you know,
we never had great matches per se like work great wives.
But I think people people like to see two giants work.

Speaker 5 (32:01):
You know.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
Sid was Sid was limited and I was limited. But
Sid did enough things looked real good, and I did
enough things looked real good. He cut a good pro
He was a great promo, you know, and just he
just Sid Scott and I got Sid paid a couple
of different times. We brought him in. We brought him

(32:22):
in WWF when nobody would touch him.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
He told him w and I got him and I
got him back.

Speaker 4 (32:28):
In ww for a big contract right, you know, because
I always I mean, people can say what you want
is it's money.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
You know, he's money. SIT's money.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
I think he's gonna go back maybe the talking till
now so he'll.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
Draw again, definitely, you know, I mean Sid's money.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
Did you have any problems working because you guys haven't
seen size and all.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
I don't know, because it was we were friends, you know,
so it was always it was never you know, there
was no antagonist there. It was just like, you know,
how can we make this the best with both our limitations?

Speaker 2 (32:59):
What what do you think were your limitations at the time.

Speaker 4 (33:02):
I mean, I came into the business with a bad leg.
I'd had ninety operations before my first match, so I
mean I was, I was, you know, I was.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
Pretty gimped up.

Speaker 4 (33:12):
So but I mean, it's just it's like anything else,
you know, just you're six ten, six eleven, just not
gonna be able to do the things the little guys too.
Nor would I want to see you know, I want
to see a big guy. I don't want to see
Khalik drop kick, right.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
You know, It's true.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
Memories of the quick match you had with a bob back.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
One I'd gotten really drunk on a European trip. I
was the icy champion and like I got hammered, like
on the way to the town.

Speaker 5 (33:45):
Right.

Speaker 4 (33:46):
So we got to the town, I had my matches,
worked with Sammy and the shrinkers and we went like
ten minutes and Sammy was about the bad oft shape
as I was, but he was so good he carried us.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
We had a decent.

Speaker 4 (34:01):
Match and I got out of the ring and Tony
Gia said, you need to call the office.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
So I called.

Speaker 4 (34:10):
Uh. I talked to Bence and Ben said, you need
to come out to my house when you get back.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
We need to have a talk.

Speaker 4 (34:16):
I was like, oh man, but I was getting the
push and now you know, I got hammered over here.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
I'm in trouble.

Speaker 4 (34:25):
And this is back when we did twenty three, twenty four,
twenty five to.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
European trips on two buses.

Speaker 4 (34:32):
It's crazy, I mean, just you know, insanity, just getting
hammered every night. I mean, just you know, you have
five six hour bus rides.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
There's nothing else to do. No, there was nothing else
to do. And at least that's excuse we're using. Did
the company have a policy at all about that at all?
Or no, never had they never had a no alcohol policy.

Speaker 4 (34:57):
Maybe I'm sure they probably had what not be on
the way of the matches, but I didn't see it.
I don't think any of us did. I think at
that point that you know, they were going to the
whip so often and so hard that they just knew
that guys are going to crack just as.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
Long as you, you know, continue to perform. I think
it was okay.

Speaker 4 (35:15):
So I came home and uh they picked me up,
all the guys.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
All get the airport. It just was it was so haggard.

Speaker 4 (35:23):
You had, you know, like a whole four days off,
including that day you landed as one of them.

Speaker 3 (35:28):
And the other end was the day when you had
to travel back.

Speaker 4 (35:32):
So it's basically, you know, and I'm losing one of
those days to stay in New York City. And uh
so go to the house and it was kind of
a nice day, kind of sunny. We're out by Vincess
Pool and he came out there and he said, you know,
I said, been thinking about it. This is uh I'm
gonna put the strap on me. I'm like the strap

(35:55):
see Champ, because yeah, I'm gonna have you beat back
on at madscure Garden. So I'm thinking back when he's
I'm like, oh, just talking about dust draft, right, So
I didn't now it's just like and I'm not kidding,
it was like he was it was like he was
speaking to me, but I wasn't listening. I was already
like they're going like, oh my god, my mom's dying

(36:18):
at this point, a breast cancer, and you know, I
was praying to somebody, you know, that she'd last you know,
she lived long enough because she only said Gimian World champion,
you'll see, you'll see. And so it was like, you know,
I couldn't wait to call her, you know, because it
was like, Okay, this is going to happen.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
And it happened in November.

Speaker 4 (36:38):
I got the strap and then she passed December the
twenty seventh, So it was like a month later my
mom passed away.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
But I remember like.

Speaker 4 (36:49):
It was one of those deals where kind of didn't
tell anybody, didn't tell Sean, didn't tell anybody for a
long time because it was a couple of months coming still,
But yeah, it was and Bob did a great job.
You know, Bob didn't you know, Yeah, you know, Bob
was Bob was Bob crawled back all the way from
the ring, all the way back to the curtains, selling

(37:11):
his back.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
He crawled good, you know.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
So it was it was Bob, I guess, hard to
work with and his rematches it.

Speaker 4 (37:18):
Was easy to work with, you know. I mean, but
it was it wasn't Bob's fault. It wasn't my fault.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
It was you know.

Speaker 4 (37:25):
Then I got Jerry Briscoe handing me a modern day
script of you know you're going to do these I
was like they wanted me to chain wrestle, and.

Speaker 3 (37:37):
I just said, you got a kidding me?

Speaker 4 (37:39):
Like, you know, it was almost like it was crazy
because you know when when the when you get this,
when you get there, you think that you know, they
know everything, and the more that you learned, the more
you realize that they don't know everything. And some of
the guys don't know anything that are that are in
the hierarchy, and it's like, yeah, that might have worked

(38:02):
for future seven foot chain wrestler, it ain't gonna happen.
And we did a couple of matches. We're in Sacramento
and Bob, you know, was colin match You sent me
off and yelled sunset flip, and I senset flipped him
in the middle of the ring. If you can imagine
the visual of the cell foot guy sends that flipping back.
I came back, take yours. If I ever fucking seen

(38:24):
you do that again, I'm in the rank, he says,
got it, Because what are they doing?

Speaker 3 (38:27):
I said.

Speaker 4 (38:29):
Shortly after that, Scott Hall got a call and I said, Scott,
you're gonna work with Backland and Kevin's gonna work with
Double J. So I worked with Double J and Road
Dog and they mean they fed me and it was
you know, it was perfect.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
What are your memories of some of your matches with
those guys?

Speaker 3 (38:45):
With Jeff and to this day, I mean I could
go up.

Speaker 4 (38:51):
I could work as a six month program with Jeff
chair as beat up as I am right now.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
That easy, Yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (38:56):
Mean, he's just I think he's one of the I mean,
one of the funnest uh recollections of my career is
Jeff and I worked like five or six days in
a row in Montana during the end of the w CW,
traveling the same suburban drank beer too from after. It
was in the middle of summer Montana, and we just went.

(39:17):
We worked twenty five thirty minutes every night, I mean,
just and and you knew you were never going to
get potato, never going to get hurt.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
You know, just good time. Yeah, that's how they made
it was like it's like it's supposed.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
To be right right, you know, talking about what happened
with you and up here up in Canada, the incident.

Speaker 3 (39:37):
Yeah, he just marked out. He got up there, and
you know, back.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
Then it was like that there's almost like the Canadian mafia,
you know, like there Rougos and all those guys. Nobody
to do a job up in Montreal, Yeah, nobody. It
was just like it was. And you know in the
uh and Pat was kind of you know, Pat was
you know, silently. You don't leave the job with them.

(40:01):
So it became a situation where I got up there
and it's just like I'm supposed to go over and
they we we'll do a count out and I said, man,
count of slam. So then all that you know, back then,
I mean, you know, we all you know, it was
no guaranteed money, so everybody was pretty protected of each other.
Tak her gown in his face, Scott got in his face.
Sean got in his face. He said, I'm not going

(40:21):
to do it. So they do that, they do this
lame count out. So I called Evince that that night
and I said, I said, you can make this right tomorrow.
I'm just you know, ship's on and we were in
I think Ottawa, and uh. He jumped off the top
rope to drop a leg and he landed his ass,

(40:43):
landing on my head.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
It was just it. I mean, I was pissed as
it was. I got up.

Speaker 4 (40:48):
I kicked them a bunch of him a couple of times,
and I told him, you know, this is the finish.
I gave him the finish. I kicked him as hard
as I could. When I sent him off, I drew
him down as hard as I couldn't win. Came to the
back and he was acting like you wanted to fight me.
I just sat there and I just told him. I
just said, I said, if I stand up, I said,
I'm not gonna stop, no matter how much you tell
me to stop, I'm not gonna stop until just completely

(41:08):
just kill you. I said, if you're gonna g if
you want to fight, I'll fight. I'll have problem, I said,
but I'm not going to hit you three times and
then you say I've had enough. I said, I'm going
to beat you to death. And you know he can
act like you know, uh, Sergeant sold on in the back?
I asked Serge later, I said, you hold it back?

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Is I want to open the back? He said he
didn't want nothing to do it any He from the
office after all that?

Speaker 1 (41:30):
Or was it no that they fu love that ship
should stir all that poison.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
Did you have a lot of pressure on yourself when
you were the champion? Did you feel the pressure?

Speaker 3 (41:44):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (41:45):
You do what you can do, right, I mean, you're
smart enough the business by then and go, okay, you
know it's not my idea is I'm doing the best
I can do. I'm working my ass up every night.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
You know, what are your memories of the very first
WrestleMania that you worked? That was with that that great
ladder match, right, that was only out there for a
couple of minutes. It was great.

Speaker 4 (42:07):
You know, It's like running back a punt in the
Super Bowl. I guess it wasn't like having a match,
but it was. He was still in the game.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
Could you sense that there was a change of direction
in the company in that now more athletic guys were
getting pushes and compared to the big montra heels and
muscle baby faces.

Speaker 4 (42:24):
I think that Sean was an exception, you know. I
think it's like, you know, do you build your team
around a big manor or you know, Jordan comes along once,
very very rarely. Sean was Sean was an exception of that.
Sean was was tenacious enough and athletic enough, and he
was believable.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
And on top of that, Shawn's not a small guy.
Sean's six one, right. You know.

Speaker 4 (42:47):
People always say, oh, well, I think guy said Sean
six one. Oh, he's not six to one. I'm like,
Seawan six to one, he put him in his rest
in boots. He's sixty to Shawn's not a little guy.
Sean was probably two thirty five back then. So you
look at on in that era, I'd take a six
foot two, two hundred and thirty five pound guy. Now
he's a big guy in this business. Business has got
a lot smaller, you know. And so I mean it

(43:10):
wasn't that Sean was that that smaller, just that everybody
was so big.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
How did Vince change during his trial as far as
personality wise? Did he become a little bit more humbled?

Speaker 4 (43:22):
Now? He never sold it. He never changed. He got
his neck fused. Remember he showed up a White Planes
TV and we just sat there, me, Sean and Scott.
We just glared at him to see he came in
the back door and got some coffee and turned around
and you know, pulled, pulled over and screwed around one
of the agents and we just watched him that whole day.
And he never sold it. I was just like, that's

(43:44):
what I said. I said, we ain't no trouble because
he ain't he ain't selling it. We ain't trouble.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
I was going to ask you where you were any
of the boys ever worried that he would go to jail.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Yeah, we're afraid that we're all going to be other jobs.

Speaker 4 (43:55):
I mean there was a lot of you know they
for a while there, you know, all the papers especially
we spent so much time in the Northeast. We basically
lived in New York, right or New Jersey, and uh,
I mean you know you read the papers there and
it was like the Feds it was slammed dunk.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
He was going to do time.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
How did he change after the trial? Did he become
more cocky or no, not really.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
I mean, you know he uh that night he won
that we won.

Speaker 4 (44:21):
We were in some place in Pittsburgh, I think where
there were not Pittsburgh, but someplace in Pennsylvania. He came out,
he had a couple of sketches with us. It was
like the first time he had any cocktails with the boys.
And uh, that was that, you know, it was this
is as usual.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
I guess back then Mountain Rock he did a thing
with his home video camera.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
We had like the guy's taking drugs and all that shit.
I guess what are your thoughts on that whole entire
deal he was gonna market it? I think I never
saw it. Okay, did you ever see.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
I've seen clips of it he put on the internet,
and for whatever reason, it was never you know, put
out obviously. I guess he got, you know, threatened by
a lossit or something that.

Speaker 4 (45:00):
So, yeah, I mean, what's what's the question that when
I think about him doing that behind everybody's back, when
I think about how bad the drug.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Use was, I'll ask you about Druggis later on. I mean,
did I guess the guys didn't even know that he
was filming or no.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
But you know what, I think it would have mattered,
you know. I mean it said, hey, I'm filming this,
and I think you'd probably got more. That's you know,
it was. It was pretty wide. It was it was.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
What was the drug use like back then at that
time period, because I know, the role schedule was crazy and.

Speaker 4 (45:34):
That couldn't smoke dup okay, it should take you take
that out of the equation. It's just like, so the
other thing you can do is you can take pills
and you can drink booze if you're one of the
top guys. I mean most guys drink beer. Most guys
don't drink liquor, so you can't be, you know, a
bloated toad and drink you know, by this time, you know,

(45:56):
it takes twenty beers to get a buzz. So you know,
it's like, well, I got to work every night, so
I can't be a bloated toe with a big fat beer.
Got So it's like you say, you take pills and
just kick him in with with you know, four or
five beers, you know. And I'd never taken a pharmaceutical

(46:16):
drug in my life before I gotten the bodybuilding. I mean,
until I got in the resting though industry. What was
your I guess drug choice if you want to talk about.

Speaker 3 (46:26):
It, but I had to do. I mean.

Speaker 4 (46:32):
Well, I mean, you know, I was in that Soma era.
You know everybody Somas where Someone's were very popular. Must relaxers.
They just, you know, they whack you. Sometimes they One
night you take three as you're opening volley, and it
would do nothing. Other nights you take three and it'd
be like it was just And we had all these
different theories where carbohydrates kicked them in and pizza pizza

(46:56):
right after it and banged me, and all these theories
of what made Soma work. You know, we'd get the
Mexican bootleg ones and those were horrible. And so we
can get some script ones and two of those and
you take twelve of us. You know, it's just it's
amazing that you know, your heart's a muscle. You're eating,
you know, twenty five must relaxers a night, right, you know,

(47:17):
drinking twenty beers.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
You say you're not gonna drink once you get all whack,
you just you drink.

Speaker 4 (47:23):
But then Xantix were another one, you know, two milligram
Xanax were a popular amongst my running mates and myself
those But when I first broke in, we had placid bills,
you know, the Greenies, the seven fifties and plastic bills.
And one time a kid brought Phoeni barber Talls on

(47:45):
on a European trip, like a big fat of them.
It's just like a bunch of monkeys in a room,
like what if what if pen barber Hills do they're barbituate?
I got caffeine and they can't be that bad. We
can take what three? I'll take three before we wrestle.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
Huh. You know.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
So it was, but it was such a it was
like you were like a family, you know. It's like
a almost like a paternity, like a frat, you know,
even guys you didn't like, like you go out to
a bar and the guys that you didn't particularly and
not saying you didn't like them, because it wasn't he.

(48:20):
But I never all the time I've been in this business,
there's never been a guy that I can say, probably
really just don't like him, or I hate him, or
you know. I mean, there's been a lot of guys
I'm sure that said that about me, But I never
had that, you know, like any malice towards.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
Anybody or anything like that. It's just like you were
kind of like it was like family. You might not
have been my favorite brother, but you were you might.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
I mean so many times would be out and be like, hey, man,
what's that asshole doing over there? I don't know, but
those hockey guys from the other time are messing with
him a big nine. You know, he might not been
our buddy, buddy, but you know, you didn't mess with
anybody in that in that locker room.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
Speaking of that was in your mind, when do you
think the click was truly formed?

Speaker 4 (49:11):
You know, when we were doing those the raw was
out of the Manhattan Center and we were doing those
face to faces. It was really a time consuming and
it was like face to face in the Manhattan Center,
which was a brutal place to shoot those TVs like one,
you know, one shower locker rooms about speakers of twin

(49:33):
sized bed went from there to the Titan production place
and sat in this room that was maybe the.

Speaker 3 (49:41):
Size of the hotel room.

Speaker 4 (49:44):
Twenty five thirty guys crash laying on this indoor outdoor carpeting,
eating this processed chicken breast and Baked ZD doing these
face to faces all day long, and then you know,
running like bush killed, you know, just that, yeah, just

(50:04):
you know, I mean, and and living in that jetport
over in Elizabeth, New Jersey, hanging out at the strip
joint there lookers, you know, it just said that it
was just such a and you just had to have
I mean, you had to have some running mates.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
You just had to have some guys.

Speaker 4 (50:24):
And I was already tight with Sean when I got there,
you know, and I had already known Scott when we
first night after all. But they we got to the
jetport and uh, Sean reached back and had he bit something.
He reached it back and it was half a platico.
He bit into it and he gave me the other
half and I said, what's that he's sticking And we

(50:48):
went down and you know, Scott had some volumes. He
gave me one of those. I'd never taken any pills,
drank a couple of beers. I'm like, these aren't kicking in,
They're not doing it, and they just looked at me
and it was basically like all right, I got it.
So then it was a couple more days and after
that it was just but that grind, that grind, that grind.

(51:09):
It's just like you know, you you mentally were so
you were so stretched mentally because you had to be
on so often and just that you know that you
had to be able to shut you and you couldn't
you get home at night, and you know it was
you got three four guys in a Super eight, you know, sleeping.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
You know, I mean, nobody's making any money, right.

Speaker 4 (51:32):
TV's were fifty dollars you got paid, which you know,
good luck spending fifty bucks in the Northeast getting a
car and the hotel and food and you know you're
getting lunch.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
Meat when you go to the TV tapele at w W.
So it was like it was really different times and.

Speaker 4 (51:53):
You know, God, you know you had to be able
to shut that off and sometimes manage the only way
you could do is get a buzz. And you know,
it's just like Scott and I had a conversation months ago.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
We were talking about.

Speaker 4 (52:07):
Was there anybody that at that time on our roster
that wasn't just getting whacked every night? And we laughed
and said that we were hanging out with you know,
it was just like you know, you go there, and
you know, it would be like you walk in and
here'd come Yogo with like a tray of like fifty
shots of jack and you know, and you'd have to
And the thing was the guys would toss them all

(52:29):
over the shoulders and I went on. So you had
to do them like hold it and they gotta go
go and then you have to gargle it and swallow
it so nobody could throw the shots, right. So you know,
you do that, it'd be like, oh God, then here
come take it with another train, you know, and it's
just like but it just and it was that kind
of every single night. You know, it was It's amazing.

(52:51):
You know a lot of guys died. It's amazing. It
wasn't ten times.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
That's great.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
And one of the thing is, it's just like people
always to blame events.

Speaker 4 (53:00):
You know. It's just like I never once got a
memo saying I had to take pills, you know, I
had to stay up all night and party and drink.
I just I never got the memo. I don't think
anybody else. It's just that, you know, part of business.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
Yeah, it was at that time.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
I just think that, you know, especially that Minnesota crew.
The business is done in the bar, right right, you
know that whole Minnesota crew. Always I was in Rudo,
I said that, yeah, yeah, yeah, business is done in
the bar. That's where all the business gets done.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
Going into your match, we'll talk about the click probably
coming up again. Going into your match at Wrestle Media
with Sean, how far did you and Sean want to
push the limits?

Speaker 3 (53:42):
We wanted to have a good match, you know.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
I mean I think at that point Sean was was
really trying to get that. You know, Sean wanted the belot.
So Sean was gonna you know, he was going to
try to outperform me, right, you know, And I mean
I knew it, but it was like, you know, it's
funny when you're when you're that close to friends, being
competitive against each other is not that bad, you know,

(54:08):
because it's just like you know, he always, you know,
he would always tell me and Scott. You know, Scott,
I'm twice as good as you and Kembu three times
as good as you. You know, while we're in the car.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
I mean, it was a daily it was a daily thing,
was Shawn, and he tells how much better he wasn't
us and Scott and I Scott.

Speaker 4 (54:27):
Really, you know, but now it was and I knew
he was going to go and I knew he was
going to try to do a pace that would blow
me up, right, you know, because I bet it was fast.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
It was a fast paced match, and I was blown up.

Speaker 4 (54:42):
But I knew that if I leaned on him, I
got him in a rear chin and I leaned down
and just put my weight down. I could I could
feel him starting to labor just because I'd bend him
over enough. We couldn't catch his breath at the spot.
And then he got blown up a little bit, so
then that slowed him down.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
And but it was.

Speaker 4 (55:01):
Because I thought it was a good match.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
You know, I mean, for for that era, it was
a good I thought the one that we had in
Omaha was really good. That was no holes barred.

Speaker 4 (55:13):
Match we had in Omaha was in your house. So
we pulled off to Chan's Leigh. He used the fire extinguisher.
You know, I look at that match and I see
what E.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
C W did, And I want, do you think that
Brett Hart felt threatened at the time watching you guys?

Speaker 4 (55:33):
No, Because I mean Brett even when they even when
uh when they put the strap on me. My first
match was the Royal Rumble after it became champion and
I wrestled Brett and you know it was a tie.
You know, we went to a draw there, So it
wasn't like you know, I mean, that's the whole thing
to me. It's just like, could you imagine giving giving
a guy that the strap now and then his first

(55:55):
title offense is a draw?

Speaker 3 (55:57):
All right? That would be really for business.

Speaker 4 (56:00):
And that's what they did to me, right, And so
it's just like she thinks for the nod that you're
a guy, we're going with you, We're gonna put you
the champion for the new generation. But we're really not
going with you, right, We're not we're not sold on you,
and the office isn't sold on and should the fans be.
You know, I look at it and I say, man,

(56:22):
my entire life has always been that kind of a
situation where it's it's never just a you know, I'd
win Melotto and get hit by a truck that morning.
So I just looked at this. I've been very fortunate.

Speaker 3 (56:36):
I'll get back to Brett. So did you did you
feel that he was threatening? What did you guys are
not really.

Speaker 4 (56:42):
I mean the breast thing wasn't in so much tenure
with the company, you know, I mean, he just he'd
been there for so long. Memories and thoughts on Lex
Luger and w W. You talked earlier about him and
you got along with him.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
I thought Lex was great, love travel with them, good
good hearted guy. As far as today, are you surprised
what's happened to him in his private life? For yeah?

Speaker 4 (57:07):
You know what, it's uh, it's one of those situations
to me, like if somebody had told me in uh,
in ninety three that Lex Luger would would be in
the situation that he's in right now, I'd be like,
you're indition Like as to me, Lex was the.

Speaker 3 (57:24):
Roman Empire, you know he was you know, he had
to look and everything.

Speaker 4 (57:28):
He had everything he was, he was articulate, he was
he did he had business ventures outside the business.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
What do you think happened?

Speaker 4 (57:40):
I just think that the business is uh, it's it's
such a just a black hole, man, if you just
get me, it's just like anything else, It's just it
eats some people alive. And I think that the w
CW party was was pretty strong. I mean it it

(58:01):
rivaled anything that I've ever when we when that night
trou thing took off, I mean that it was like
I couldn't wait to go to TV on Monday for
the party. It was like, we're gonna, man, We're gonna
park like rock stars, and it's gonna start in a
minute we get there because Hogan and Randy are gonna
have beer in the locker room, right and it's gonna
be whoa, you know, and all we got to do

(58:23):
is go out and stand and Hogan's gonna kind of
promo for the last eight minutes of the show, So
all we got to do is stand right, you know,
hold on and rope whatever you have to do it.

Speaker 3 (58:31):
We can do whatever we want and then bail out
of air and go and then just go.

Speaker 4 (58:36):
And we're in maajorment following areas and staying in Ted's
Dollar in nice hotels, you know.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
So I mean it was and I just think that,
you know, when that's uh and you know he was.

Speaker 4 (58:47):
We were on the road a lot, Lexny were on
the road, traveled together like constantly and we're still doing
about two hundred days a year back now, and uh,
you know, he hooked up with Liz on the road
and they, you know, got into a romance, and I
think that, you know, when they fell in love and

(59:08):
she died, and I think that, you know, she died
right in front of them. I couldn't even and I
don't think that he recovered from it, and I don't
and I don't blame him.

Speaker 3 (59:18):
I mean, it's my wife died in front of me,
and I think it would definitely affect Did anybody know
that Liz had a problem.

Speaker 4 (59:24):
At all or.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
Anybody that was in her inner circle? Right? I know,
you know, but you know, it's like going to a
crack house.

Speaker 4 (59:33):
I look around, you know, hey, can I get canna
get a rock?

Speaker 3 (59:38):
We all got a problem, and everybody had a problem.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
I guess at what point, getting back to w F,
we'll talk about ww coming up. At what point do
you think to click game power, because is it true
that you know, at one point, you guys all threatened
strike andn Vince had to be called the house shows.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
No, I just think that that was.

Speaker 4 (59:59):
We're in Indianapolis and we called from a Cocos restaurant,
And this was shortly after that whole thing happened up
in Montreal, Right, we just we just one after another,
and at this point Hunter was with us. You know,
I think Hunter was undefeated, and we just one after another.

(01:00:21):
Talked to Vince on the phone and when he I
think as he looked at it, it was just like, wow,
that's you know, it's five matches on my car tonight.
That are you know, that would be you know, screwed with.
If these guys did decide to do something, we just
we just basically just uh in vented our displeasure with.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
Some of the things that were happening.

Speaker 4 (01:00:42):
So they came down, you know, they flew down and
we met in the hotel and then we went to
Columbus that night. And uh, but you know, Vince, remember
one time we were up in Canada and all the
guys and I said, you've got to you've got to
break this click up. And this is when we would
like of the building early and put like click on

(01:01:02):
a thing and sticking on the door, and then late
then come back later. And the guys would think like
these guys that they got their locker room. I mean,
we you know, we were looking I mean it was
you know, we were looking to get some some some
heat and we had it. I mean, you know, Sean
had so much heat. It was you know, I think

(01:01:24):
the reason he brought me into the first place was
just to really be a body guard.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
What happened with you guys in Ashen Douglas. I didn't
have any problems with him.

Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
I mean, I think that the other I think the
other guys drove him crazy. You know. He he came
in like you know, he was.

Speaker 4 (01:01:41):
He was touted like the number one pick, like he was,
you know, the big E c W star, you know,
and so he came in like, you know, pretty high expectations.
And he went out in Cincinnati and the first night
of the house show was with Kid, and Kid was
always the barometer.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
Right, you know, yeah, you could go you know and Kid.

Speaker 4 (01:02:02):
You know, Kid came back and they didn't have a
very good match, and Kid just went, yeah the double
arm pit, like he ain't got it.

Speaker 3 (01:02:10):
And that's you know right right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
So we did an interview with Shane and she and
said that he also worked Scott and Scott Sandbag and
a lot and stuff on God, that's what she said.

Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
So, you know what, I've worked with Scott, worked with
Scott after we drank forty beers a piece on the
way from Manchester. He didn't saying bag at that night,
and that was with a friend.

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
So Chris k Dido he had told.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Us also on his interview that you guys are really
hard on him and stuff like that. I guess the
question would be, why were you so hard on Chris?

Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
I don't know, because pro because his girlfriend was sleep
with everybody in the territory and he was acting like
he didn't know what's going on. So you're walking around
like a like a dumb stude. Yeah, I don't remember,
you know, that's the whole thing. Like these guys say
stuff like that. I like, I don't remember being hard
on him.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
Is it true that you came into the offices one
night and found out as champion that you weren't making
as much as a taker?

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
And Brett Oh, I might have that story from I forgot.
I really did forget. Yeah, that was I had access
to the office.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
What was your reaction? Did you speak up that out
of it?

Speaker 3 (01:03:24):
Never? Never?

Speaker 4 (01:03:25):
Now?

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
Just power right? Why would I play it?

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
You know?

Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
It's just like I had the right, had the royal
royal straight flush in my hand. I just waited, waited, waited,
and then well behold, you know, I just I and
I wrote down payments like I would every night. I
would find out what the what the house was. It
was seventy five eighty thousand dollars. Write when I got paid,

(01:03:50):
when my check came for the breakdown, and I cross
reference it. I mean, it wasn't stupid, right all a
sudden like payments you started just and so I said, oh,
this is back when. See the thing about the click
was how we had the power with Vince was always
that he could always play the boys against each other.

(01:04:13):
And we were the first group of guys that got
our summer Slam check and went, what'd you get? What
you fucking got twenty five? Grandy, you weren't even in
the match.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
I got fifteen, right like Parlor was getting more than
half the boys.

Speaker 4 (01:04:28):
Yeah, you know, so that was the whole thing. It
was just like so once you know that once again,
knowledge is power. So then it's just like you called
JJ and well I'll get Vince and Vince pull it
wasn't aware of that. Oh yeah, you didn't sign off
on it. You were so stupid. She could you look
into it, maybe give me some more money. So and

(01:04:49):
they were doing that a lot, and then all of
a sudden, you know, we get phone calls and hey
want to go ww guaranteed money seven fifty.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Yeah, I'm gonna ask you all about that coming up.
What do you remember about the night at King of
the Ring when Hogan wouldn't put right over?

Speaker 4 (01:05:13):
It was like the first time I really witnessed like
that whole uh you know that Sabadad, the you know
that that that that era of guys did. It was
just you know, that doesn't work for me, brother, But uh,
I mean, you know, at that point, we knew we
had the rumor was he was leaving and he wouldn't

(01:05:34):
do business, which was hurting our business. I mean, you
know it was it was he wasn't. He wasn't a
very beloved guy in that locker room. Hogan wasn't, and
Brett was our guy, and Brett was staying, so our
alliance was to brat.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
It was bogus. You know, it definitely hurt business.

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
What are your memories of the good friends bitter Enemies match?

Speaker 3 (01:05:59):
Which one was that Joe dream.

Speaker 4 (01:06:05):
Sean?

Speaker 5 (01:06:09):
Was it?

Speaker 4 (01:06:11):
That was?

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
That was me and Sean?

Speaker 7 (01:06:13):
But that was that another match for I think that
was doing well, That's what I was talking about was
the big one, because it's still you know, talked about today,
what the best the one from Omaha it might have been.

Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
I think that's the probably that.

Speaker 3 (01:06:28):
That's that's one of my top three favorite matches. I
was gonna that's my next question. Do you think it
was one of the best matches quy far? Probably that
was the one from in your house that it was.

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
I get You said something on a commentary of the
DVD at one time about guys today not understanding the
psychology to pull that off. Can you expand on that
as far.

Speaker 3 (01:06:48):
As pull that match?

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
Yeah, pull the matches off. We were talking earlier about
how they're.

Speaker 4 (01:06:51):
Just right somewhere and and and I think a lot
of those that easy w psychology. You know, where you
hit a guy with a pool table, you hit a
guy with a laser beam, you drop a hydrogen bomb
on him, he kicks out at two and a half

(01:07:12):
on all of them, then his sunset flip him or
small package him and beat him.

Speaker 3 (01:07:16):
You know, it's just kind of like.

Speaker 4 (01:07:22):
You can't distend the belief. You can't make the people
in the crowd go, I'm watching thank wrestling.

Speaker 3 (01:07:28):
You just can't do that. When somebody hits you, you
have to you have to register the fact that you
take in damage.

Speaker 4 (01:07:34):
And you know, these guys go toe to toe and
they go bang bang bang bang back and forth with
these you know, barefist punches and like nobody sells it,
and it's just like, okay, well, I know.

Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
I'm watching something that's bogus. I think. You know, it's
the same thing. You know, these guys.

Speaker 4 (01:07:52):
You got a guy in a pinning predicament and you
go to the top rope to do something and then
you miss it. You know, it's just like in a
bar fight and you got a guy down, you're kicking
the ship out, and you know, go jump up and
jump off the top of the bar.

Speaker 3 (01:08:06):
You know, there's just that And people always say, well,
that's because you can't do that. No, it's not that
I can't do that.

Speaker 4 (01:08:12):
I had to, you know, they made me do all
kinds of crazy stuff. I had to jump off the
jumped off the top of rope one time, and a
crappy match with Bagwell at center stage.

Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
You know, but uh, you know, to have athleticism for
the just that just to do that, it's just like
I don't know, all right, we'll talk more about that
because I'm gonna ask you some stuff about Tnah later on.

Speaker 2 (01:08:39):
I guess you talked about leaving w F and and
you know you've got an offer from w CW the
Farewell to the Click. Everybody still talks about that today
because it was shot by handheld at MSG in retrospect,
Do you think it was fair to the rest of
the boys that you guys did that?

Speaker 4 (01:08:52):
Absolutely? Absolutely. We you know, it's just like anything else.
We we helped build that place as much as anybody else.

Speaker 3 (01:09:01):
Did you know?

Speaker 4 (01:09:02):
That was the four of us that that did that
that night when the main event and semi main event.
It's the first time I sold the garden now, I
don't know how many years, eight nine years, or a
house show. So I mean that was our blood that
we spilled, and that was those fans stayed loyal to us,
and we I felt that I was, I mean, I

(01:09:23):
was leaving for money, and it was hard for me
to do because I loved where it was, you know,
I loved being in the WWF. And we felt that
we built that place. You know that we built that
together and the Click was a big part of that.
And so we went and it wasn't televised, right, you know,

(01:09:44):
it wasn't televised. It was a house show, right, you know, Yeah,
it was a house show in the garden, but it
was still a house show.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
And we asked if we could do it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
I was gonna ask how did the agency act?

Speaker 3 (01:09:57):
We asked events Vince fine, where did all the heat
come in?

Speaker 4 (01:10:02):
All the heat came because after we did it, the
boys just we'd left, we were done, right, and the
boys just start stirring it and sterring it, stern it
because now they knew the clip was dissolved. So now,
okay the week, let's go after him. Can't go out
and Sean he's got strapped. All the heat goes and hunt.

Speaker 3 (01:10:21):
Right, So.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
Memories of thoughts of when a warrior came in before
you guys left, what are your thoughts on as a person?

Speaker 3 (01:10:32):
I liked Jim. You know, he's insane, you know, fucking not.
But he's drew money, man, you know, he drew money
running the running down the ring, shaking the ropes and
doing clothes lines and he drew money.

Speaker 4 (01:10:49):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
Now we'll talk about w c W. How did the
whole jump come about?

Speaker 4 (01:10:56):
Dallas was like you know Dallas once again. You know,
it's like anything else in the business, and Dallas was
our friend, and Dallas kind of broke the deal to
Scott and then to me. It was funny because Scott
and I I didn't know because we were told to
just alter ultra k fa.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
Right. We're in the locker room somewhere, and Scott looked
at me. We're in the shower, and he looked over me.

Speaker 4 (01:11:21):
Dude, I'm so fucking out of here, looked him. I said,
I'm going to I said, I signed a deal.

Speaker 3 (01:11:26):
My mom. We just looked at each other and we
were just like, I can't hige, we're nude.

Speaker 4 (01:11:31):
But it was nice because I, you know, I was thinking, man,
I'm going to go out there with myself, and he
was thinking the same thing, but going up there together.
It was just what was Vince's reaction to you guys
both leaving? You know, My own deal was I talked
to Vincent. Uh, I went on a vacation with my
wife to the Panhandle in Florida and just kind of

(01:11:52):
did the whole soul searching because I had to. I had,
you know, you had to back then, you had to
put in writing within ninety days that you weren't going
to launch your contract role.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
So I had to do that.

Speaker 4 (01:12:03):
So you know, I wrote a really nice letter to events,
typed it up and fedexed it, but called him before
he got it and said, hey, I just want to
tell you I signed my h this paper, I signed
an effort to turn over. But I want to talk
to you in Stockton, which was the next TV. So
we walked outside the building and I just told him.

(01:12:23):
He said, he said, you minded me asking what you got.
I said seven fifty eight fifty nine fifty and he
just shook his head. And I said, if you can
manage it, I'll stay. And he said I can't manage that.

Speaker 3 (01:12:34):
He said.

Speaker 4 (01:12:35):
He said, I might pay you that I'll have to
pay every guy in the locker room. And I said,
if we don't have that kind of money as a company,
I said, I understand. He said, well, we're family.

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
I said.

Speaker 4 (01:12:43):
I said, my wife is. At this point, she's six
months pregnant. I said, I can't be an road three
hundred days a year. Right said, I can't do it.
I'm not going to I said, I'm not going to
do it. With the rest, I said, they promised me
one hundred and eighty five days a year. It's a
max And I said, it's guaranteed money. I said, I
can buy a bigger home because I know how much
money I've got coming in.

Speaker 1 (01:13:04):
I said, it's you know, I'm not living week to
week and wait for WrestleMania pay off. I said, this
is I can be almost like normal. And he wished
me well and I left.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
Was there an open door basically come back in the future.

Speaker 3 (01:13:20):
Yeah, we stayed.

Speaker 4 (01:13:21):
You know, Vince, I always said I felt that Bens
and I always had a good understanding, you know. I
mean I always liked Vince. You know, it's like anything else,
you know, use times you want to strangle him. I'm
sure there's times you want to strangle me. But you know,
I always have thought that he's you know, and I
was blessed to be a top guy. I mean, you know,

(01:13:41):
so he's you know, people that can make him money.
I'm sure he's a lot more nicer to but and
genuinely I think, I mean, I've seen the side of Vince.

Speaker 3 (01:13:49):
A lot of people don't.

Speaker 4 (01:13:50):
Haven't had a chance to see, you know, anyone his
daughter when at his daughter's wedding and he was given
his daughter away, which sometimes to talk. You know, during
that weekend it was you know, I said, different side events.
You know, there's there is a human there.

Speaker 3 (01:14:06):
With other people who came up, who came up in
the n w O game.

Speaker 4 (01:14:13):
It was Eric Bischoffs, Eric Beschoffs idea, he ran up
by me in uh Scottsdale and like it didn't sink
in and then like I went home that night, he
stayed in my house and home at night. I just
sat there like the middle of the night. I just
kept playing through. I'm just thinking, fans are going to

(01:14:34):
think that fence is invading this company. This is really
going to be huge.

Speaker 3 (01:14:40):
You know, we had no idea.

Speaker 4 (01:14:42):
I mean, of course you think that this is just
your entry level ah angle like this just to get
you in the door, and this won't last very long.
And the biggest thing was we couldn't use their names.

Speaker 3 (01:14:57):
Didn't that value at all? Yeah, I'm took care of
that though.

Speaker 4 (01:15:01):
You As soon as they said we want to go by,
I said, you know, I think to go buy my
name because I knew I don't that for life, no
matter where I went, even when I went back to
New York. You know, they really kind of wanted to
do the diesel thing.

Speaker 5 (01:15:11):
But you know, just like.

Speaker 3 (01:15:15):
I wasn't gonna get that again, I wasn't gonna be owned.
Was hoganly part of plan?

Speaker 4 (01:15:21):
No, they didn't know who was going to be Originally
it was Sting. I think Sting was going to jump
in turn, So I didn't think Hogan would do it.
Hogan was doing that movie and then uh with Lonnie
Anderson and and somebody else, and uh, I think Hogan
watched the TV and saw that train leaving. Yeah, anyways,

(01:15:42):
it's about Terry when he's there's nobody smarter than him.
He said, Manching, that's I'll hop on that.

Speaker 3 (01:15:49):
I'll be in the and it was. It was fine.
What are your memories of the I guess in the
beginning how it first played out?

Speaker 2 (01:15:54):
I mean, were you happy with the way?

Speaker 4 (01:15:55):
No, because you know there was you know, we we
and then to do these interviews and you know, he
just he's that old school ramble, ramble ramble. You know,
Scott and I were sound bite guys. We were just
we're trying to keep it real, and you know, we
were we didn't want to do it like a wrestling
We thought the thing to make it, to make this

(01:16:18):
thing work would be like the anti wrestling, anti everything.
And so the first day we went to it was
We're in Disney m gym and we did the first
black and white thing and when it was over with
halfway through, we took a break and Scott and I
went over looked at each other.

Speaker 3 (01:16:38):
We're like, fuck, man, he's killing us. He just rambling
them out. Everything was just not working. So we went
to Eric.

Speaker 4 (01:16:45):
That night, we ate some food with Eric and Terry
went back to Tampa. We were stuck in the hotel
and we just said, man, this isn't working. You know.

Speaker 3 (01:16:56):
He said, you know, Neil Pruit has got some ideas.
How you chop it up?

Speaker 4 (01:16:59):
That's they did that edited black and white really kind
of edgy, and it worked. And then that way there
and that was the whole thing to me that Eric
did such a good job of managing those egos and
making things work. I'm gonna ask you about that. Yeah, definitely,
you know he really did. I mean, it was it
wasn't a you know, it was it was definitely water

(01:17:21):
and oil with with Hulk and Scott and I.

Speaker 2 (01:17:24):
I was going to ask you as far as Eric
Fishoff is concerned. Did you guys get along with him?
Is now the first time that you guys are working
with him? As far as I liked him, Eric is
still a friend of mine. Considered Eric a friend of mine.
And I'll asked you about the politics between you know,
Ogan and you guys later on. Definitely, how did the
other boys react when you guys came back to w W.

Speaker 4 (01:17:46):
They weren't happy and the rumors, you know, I mean
we were making sting money, right, you know, it was
nobody else was making that kind of money. And I
think it was one of those situations where, you know,
every time we'd say something said, well in New York,
that's the way we do it in New York. Whatever,

(01:18:06):
just so like fuck, shut these guys out. But it
was it was different. You know, these guys worked part time.
You know, they didn't really run house shows, right, they
didn't draw.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
It was a different animal. Yeah, it really was.

Speaker 4 (01:18:20):
It was just like you know, we were you know,
it was like we were Navy seals, you know, right,
we've been pretty much battle tested.

Speaker 2 (01:18:28):
You know, what happened or what are your memories between
the match with you Scott and all the nasty boys
Jerry said that you guys worked a little bit stiff,
where Scott worked stiff with them in the ring.

Speaker 3 (01:18:39):
The one when all the ship happened. Yeah, he's such
a lie. Noh he Uh what happened?

Speaker 4 (01:18:48):
This is this is the story of this whole thing
that showed his ignorance. Jerry had a bad neck and
it was known to Scott and I and two knobs
and to Jerry, of course, who had the bad neck.
And Jerry had talked to JJ, and JJ said just
go work the match. And I heard JJ say.

Speaker 3 (01:19:10):
That to him.

Speaker 4 (01:19:10):
I was right there in the room. So we worked
the match and it's uh, Scott threw a chair Jerry
and Jerry didn't see it. It was like a bowling chair,
not a folding chair, like a plastic bruns with chair,
and he threw it and Jerry didn't see it through
the lights and it came and hit him game like

(01:19:31):
a stinger.

Speaker 3 (01:19:32):
He skidded, scooted in. You know, Scott thought he was going.

Speaker 4 (01:19:35):
To feed him the comeback, and uh, SAgs went in
and just beat him up, potatoed him. By the time
Scott knew what happened was he was bleeding because you know,
us working stiff. Jesus, those guys. Yeah, those guys, I mean,
they couldn't work light if they wanted to. So, but anyway,

(01:19:56):
they end up suing us out of this whole thing.
And instead of just as soon as you got hit
with that cherry, if he would have crumbled and said, hey,
you know, the worst thing you can do is go
after the boys, you know, he was smart enough to
realize he had a company. Yeah, you know, I think
he ended up getting like, you know, he got fired
or got let go of whatever. It was, probably from

(01:20:17):
a three or four hundred thousand dollars a year spot,
got nothing in settlement, maybe a hundred or two hundred grand,
you know, just a really poor business. And then then
and went after us, you know, went after me and
Scott and we were gonna. I always considered him a
friend up until then. I don't dislike the guy.

Speaker 3 (01:20:35):
I just think he made some really you know, he's
hit made some bad choices in his life. What happened
between you and Roddy Piper After one of the TV's
at night drivels in Boston, sat in the back. We're
going towards Mouline for a pay per view, and we

(01:20:56):
sat in the back with him and Rick and said,
you know, no matter what we do tonight, we start
this this angle. You know, can't start the match hot.
We'll have nowhere to go, and we'll have nowhere to go,
and we'll go to Moli in the pay per view.
So we all agree and we kind of get an
idea of what we're going to do. We go out
there and.

Speaker 4 (01:21:15):
Piper attacks just does exact opposite thing, and I'm trying
to cut him off, to throw him outside, and he
won't sell anything I'm doing.

Speaker 3 (01:21:24):
It turns into a clusterfuck.

Speaker 4 (01:21:28):
And we got in the back. You know, I just
I just was in the locker room and Hogan stirred
me and I went in there just to confront him,
like what the fuck are you thinking? And he jumped
up like he was going to come. So I just
opened and smacked him, you know, I just smacked him and.

Speaker 3 (01:21:46):
That was it.

Speaker 4 (01:21:47):
I knocked him down and he had want nothing to
do with me. And I felt like a bully, yeah,
because his reputation was he was as bad ass, and
you know, you know, it was almost like he've been
selling Wolf It's all this time, you know, I hit
him and I think Eric thought he was a badass,
and Eric was like Jesus, that was it because Eric thought,

(01:22:09):
now Eric thought I was insane, which I probably was,
but just a bad I mean, just you know, really
a bad decision on my behalf.

Speaker 3 (01:22:19):
You guys make amends later on.

Speaker 4 (01:22:20):
Never we've never like sat down and said, hey, I'm sorry,
you know, Rod for doing that, but we we've become friends.

Speaker 3 (01:22:29):
I mean, it's you know, don't put it behind us.
But it was just it was it was just a
really poor decision on my hel up set was Arn
Anderson and the rest of the Horseman After you guys
did the imitation, not at all. They weren't. When we
came back, it was everybody's laughing. It was funny.

Speaker 4 (01:22:47):
And then all the people and Arn's family and friends
and people like that just stirred him and stirred him
and stirred him. And you know, it wasn't done to
be malicious.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
Right, you know, Okay, at the time, why was it
so hard to get a Shawan TV time in w
c W.

Speaker 3 (01:23:08):
The city couldn't talk? It wasn't he wasn't a good
talking It was just a good worker.

Speaker 2 (01:23:15):
Were you surprised at the angle with DDP got over
as much.

Speaker 3 (01:23:18):
As it did No, because we knew.

Speaker 4 (01:23:20):
I mean, it was almost I can't miss situation because
nobody had got into us, you know, nobody had really
gotten to Scott. No, whoever that first person was was
was knighted and he was going to pull the sword
out of stone. He was. That was definitely ex caliber moment.
And the thing was that when we determined it should
be Dallas, because Dallas was getting over on his own,

(01:23:42):
you know, he was getting over. He was kind of
the people's choice. And uh, you know it was the
same old thing, you know, buddy system. He'd been there
for us. It's like, you know, okay, now you know,
time to do one for you.

Speaker 3 (01:23:56):
Which was but it wasn't just that, it was it
was the right thing to do, the right thing to do.

Speaker 4 (01:24:02):
Right guy just so happens to be a friend, which
makes it really rewarded for Scott and I. And like
I said, he had done Scott some really positive things
when Scott was down out with a child and in Germany,
and so it was it was nice and it was
great to see work, you know, and then Dallas worked
his ass off.

Speaker 2 (01:24:19):
I was gonna ask you were you guys more or
less booking. Like a lot of people say you guys
were in Bischoff's ear, and people say that you and
Scott basically we're using Bischoff as a pond during that
time period. What do you say that your critics who.

Speaker 5 (01:24:32):
Say that.

Speaker 4 (01:24:34):
Every night that I remember us going over things that
we were involved with, there was always seven or eight
people in the room and people were throwing ideas around.

Speaker 3 (01:24:44):
Now where our ideas better? And they went with them.

Speaker 4 (01:24:47):
Obviously they were, But it wasn't you know, it wasn't
that we sat secretly and whispered. We don't work like that.
But you know, we don't work like that. I've never
ever been one of those guys that lobby. I'll pay
an idea if you don't like it, I'm not going
to come to you fifty times with it right right,
you know, Just like dude, you know, because I know

(01:25:08):
how it is when people do it to you. It's
just like, Okay, I hurt your idea, I don't particularly
like it, right, you know, But you don't want to
ever say that to anybody. But it's just like if
it doesn't materialize, chances are that it's a shits or
they don't understand it, which is ninety percent of the time.
They just don't understand it. It's too it's too non
wrestling for them to understand. But uh no, I mean,

(01:25:32):
you know we had ideas. I mean, we're really into it.

Speaker 2 (01:25:35):
Was there a lot of political tension between you guys
and Hogan and you know, Bishop being.

Speaker 3 (01:25:39):
In the middle.

Speaker 4 (01:25:41):
Yeah, because see, Hogan had a real I mean, Hogan's
deal was I mean it was so ridiculous in his favor,
you know, I mean you could they gave him a
contract that he had, Yeah, and not only that, like
he got paid like certain amount of dollars for every
pay per view, whether it drew or not, and so

(01:26:04):
he was always on top. And you know, it was
just it was such a create Like when I later booked,
I mean that that alone, that that contract killed me.
As you couldn't you know, you couldn't get a hold
of them, couldn't get a hold of him. He'd come
in at six o'clock, showing on at seven o'clock or
eight o'clock live, and he'd just say he's in five

(01:26:24):
segments and he says, bro, it doesn't work for me.
And here you are scrambling. You know, it's you know,
people think it's so easy. It's just like, man, those
segments are timed and you know you've got to come
up and then you've got to get guys to fill
those spots.

Speaker 2 (01:26:37):
And how m attention did that cause between you and
at none?

Speaker 4 (01:26:42):
Because that was his deal, right, you know he was
smart enough to have that deal. I mean, that's that's
not between the terry and I. That's between whoever signed
the papers, right, you know, God bless them. I've always
said that God bless anybody that can get more money
than me, get my spot.

Speaker 3 (01:26:59):
God bless you. Go for it, because I'm not going
to I'm not going to sit and lunch you.

Speaker 4 (01:27:03):
So if you're better than I am, you're smarter than
I am, you're you know, you're better at this game
than I am, then than God bless you. But yeah,
I haven't seen many guys that get over me, you know,
get over on me.

Speaker 3 (01:27:15):
What about the Giant?

Speaker 2 (01:27:16):
Memories of your matches with the Giant, and there was
I member that one night you were supposed to put
him over and you didn't show up for the match.

Speaker 3 (01:27:23):
Yeah, I didn't put him up for the match.

Speaker 4 (01:27:24):
I didn't show show up for the match because I
was in North Scotstal Hospital because I had a regular heartbeat.
But I've also had a couple of knee operations, like
an elbow operation to get out of doing a job.
I mean, I'm going to the knife not to do
a job, you know. I mean that's I mean my
m O in this business is one thing Nash won't
do is jobs. Who hasn't beat me? You know, who

(01:27:48):
hasn't beat me? You know these things were Eric's calling me.
I'll fly at the job. Send a private jest, Dude.
I'm in the hospital, my tests haven't come back, and
I'm going for a nuclear pet scan in the morning.
I don't think I put a nuclear dye in my
heart just so I don't want to do a job
as a giant.

Speaker 2 (01:28:08):
So I guess my question would be, do you think
that the art of dout your job and helping get
someone over is lost today and pretty much misunderstood?

Speaker 4 (01:28:17):
Yeah, I mean, I but you know it's like the
It's it's like the Steve Austin Dale where it gets
the TV one day and there's, hey, you're going to
lose the brock Lessner, right, you know? It's like, well,
I'm sorry, arely in a business that's supposed to create
like revenue, Like, couldn't you get some money out of
this instead of give it away for free non advertised?

Speaker 3 (01:28:40):
Right? You know?

Speaker 4 (01:28:41):
So as one of the boys, you know, sometimes you'd
be like okay. But at the same token, I've been
on the other side of it where you're sitting in
a room and there's nine guys in a room trying
to put together television and no and all nine people
have writer's block. Nobody's coming up with an idea. You've
got to get something on paper because you've got to
get it action. You've got to do this, and sometimes

(01:29:02):
shit comes out. That's just what happens in a creative process,
because it's not like you're writing an album and you're
sitting around and you've got nine, twelve, fifteen months to
put some songs down. You know. It's just you've got
to put something down, and you know, and back then
we had it was a three hour show that we
were doing. But and it's just from a creative standpoint,
it's it's it's a it's an I mean, you got

(01:29:24):
I always look at things. I think that was that
was good for me because I really had to have
a different respect for the creative aspect now.

Speaker 3 (01:29:33):
As far as you know we're talking about Also, this
goes back to what we were just talking about a
second ago with the politics, Like was there a lot
of struggling between you, Scott and Hogan for power and
creative control at all?

Speaker 4 (01:29:43):
Or was it we didn't have There was no there
was no chance for us to get creative control. I
know that we knew that we had a cool factor,
like we were hip, and he just wasn't hit right,
you know. So I mean it was like, you know,
either we could we could smart him up to paulp
Fit to pop culture, and then he could smarten us
up to how to get more money.

Speaker 3 (01:30:03):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:30:03):
It was like it became it became almost a synergy
there that you're like, because there was so we got
several big like raises during the time of this, Like
we found out how much he was really making one
night when we were all fucked up, and it was
just like what you're making that? Well, well then we
went into Bishops and we're going to quit lunch you
bump our pay.

Speaker 3 (01:30:23):
So how that worked out for you guys?

Speaker 4 (01:30:24):
Hey, we got a huge that was that big six
and a half million dollar contract we got or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:30:31):
Do you think Hogan used you guys at all or
do you guys feel that you ever used that?

Speaker 4 (01:30:34):
I would hope so, I mean, but we'd be the
only ones in the business that he didn't, right, Yeah,
you know, I mean that's just kind of way it works. Yeah,
I mean, yeah, I know I used him big time.
And when he walked down an Island joined us, right,
I mean that was that was you know, when you
went to Napty and all those other places. I mean,
if you were standing next to Hogan with the same

(01:30:55):
shirt he had on, you were you know, whether they
knew you or not, they knew who the hell he was.
You know, if there's anybody with a higher Q rating
than Hogan.

Speaker 3 (01:31:04):
Getting back to Scott Hall, you know, around this time period,
there's like lots of rumors that is a I guess
behavior outside the ring and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (01:31:13):
I know, he's your friend, stuff like that. So I
don't know how deep you want to go into this,
But when do you think Scott's abuse to like alcohol
started getting out of control and maybe affected business.

Speaker 4 (01:31:22):
I think when he got divorced Okay, when he when
he got divorced, and you know, because I think a
lot of times that family really kind of keeps you,
you know, tight.

Speaker 3 (01:31:32):
So I think when his divorce was and then it
was a back and.

Speaker 4 (01:31:36):
Forth thing after that for years they got remarried, bah
blah blah blah blah. I just think that he got
you know, he got into that, and uh, he'd always
had a tendency to lead that way. But I just
think that when there wasn't somebody there to really say,
don't do this, don't do that, don't do this, and

(01:31:56):
he was just kind of you know, I just think
that the demons finally got him.

Speaker 3 (01:32:03):
Did anyone ever say anything to you about it, like
at the time, saying, oh, yeah, I was, you know
I was, and you guys pretty much just tried to
do what you could. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:32:10):
Well, like I've always told people, and I've tried to
help Scott numerous times. You know, you know, I watched
God for twenty hours. Sooner or later I got to sleep, right,
and he knows that once you go down here, you know,
he's a vampire.

Speaker 3 (01:32:23):
Maybe have proud Do you think Eric Bischoff runs or
was in over his head?

Speaker 4 (01:32:29):
I think anybody would have been you know, I just
think that there were so many egos and seeing Eric
had always since day one, had been fighting Uh Turner,
you I've been fighting the time Warner people. The only
reason Eric got that Monday Night spot was they were
sure that it would fail against Fence. They could finally

(01:32:49):
get rid of pro wrestling.

Speaker 3 (01:32:51):
That was the key to it, Like, yeah, you can
have it.

Speaker 4 (01:32:53):
You want to go ahead and head against him, Yeah,
you'll fail, and we can finally get rid of pro wrestling.

Speaker 3 (01:32:58):
And then it was his success.

Speaker 4 (01:33:01):
I mean that, you know people, I mean it's like
that there's a book about the death of w CW
that just I've never read it because it's just the
wrestling people live in such a bubble that they don't
realize that there was a dot com crash, that AOL
came in, took over time warrant, that a seventy three

(01:33:22):
dollars stock drop to fifteen, that AOL sold everything they could.
I mean, they sold the Braves, the Hawks, they sold everything.
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:33:31):
But I booked WCW to its death. I personally did it.

Speaker 4 (01:33:36):
Not the dot com crash, not you know, AOL merger,
none of these these things that took over. I was
in the there when when Bishop knew that man, it
was just a matter of time before they're going to
pull the plug out because they wanted to.

Speaker 3 (01:33:50):
You know that that.

Speaker 4 (01:33:53):
Guy came in what the hell's his name, Jamie whatever
his name was. I mean he he specifically said I
am going to get wrestling on TNT and they brought
him in.

Speaker 3 (01:34:04):
He was had a programming So it was like, this
is great because we'll lead to my next question. What
do you think should have been done differently WW to
avoid the collapse? Would events you know, basically took over
in the ratings and all that the.

Speaker 4 (01:34:16):
Number one thing we should have DoD they got so greedy.
Thunder was it was the worst thing you could do, right.
Thunder was our you know, it was our waterlough. I
mean just doing Thunder was just it was just a
nightmare and it was you know, it was it was
a momentum killer because it was it was a branded

(01:34:38):
product that wasn't it wasn't taken to the same considerations
the Nitro show was. It was taped just yeah, just
a horrible, horrible idea. Taking Nightro to three hours was brutal.
You know, they just they they just bastardized it. You know,
do you think it over exposed the product? Absolutely? Absolutely,

(01:34:59):
it was not. There's nothing spending when you booked it.
You were booking, you know, almost ten hours of original
program in a week for all the different you know,
and you gave a lot of stuff away from that,
everything you had to Yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (01:35:14):
Was gonna ask did it become frustrating when the nWo
kept expanding to with different members?

Speaker 3 (01:35:19):
You know, it started out with no it was.

Speaker 4 (01:35:21):
It was actually kind of amusement for a while because
it was like a weighting how do we get somebody
over throwing a T shirt?

Speaker 3 (01:35:27):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:35:27):
You know?

Speaker 3 (01:35:28):
And it worked.

Speaker 4 (01:35:29):
It worked for a long time and uh then it
was like the Mexican World Order. Then it was like
seventy five World Orders on our show.

Speaker 2 (01:35:38):
Play had his luncher.

Speaker 3 (01:35:40):
Yeah, you know, so it's just.

Speaker 4 (01:35:43):
But I look at it, I say a name, Uh,
I can't name an angle in wrestling that that had
legs like that. I think that that just that just
continued and anytime every surfaced and always it would have
worked at w w F.

Speaker 3 (01:35:56):
When we came back and they wouldn't have broke this
up about that coming it was that thing was It
would have worked when they let I guess Scott Hall
go for a little bit and get time off.

Speaker 2 (01:36:08):
Well THEND you going on TV and campaigny.

Speaker 3 (01:36:09):
From the return. Nobody told me I couldn't all right,
did you get heat for that at all? All the time?

Speaker 4 (01:36:15):
But they never told me and will fire you if
you say this, because then I was going to go
into my freedom of speech and you know, yeah, and
it was. It was good for TV because it gave
us that just gave us that perfect for the was
it was, it was what they wanted. Then they then
they started, you know, Russo came in and basically told me,

(01:36:35):
you know, bring up Scott, Scott, bring up Scott, which
was great for.

Speaker 2 (01:36:38):
Him knowing that he's gonna come back eventually. Yeah, how'd
you like ventures working with Vince still?

Speaker 3 (01:36:45):
Like I mean, I still work from that. You know,
he gets it.

Speaker 4 (01:36:49):
He just like he just always has somebody pulling, you know,
he never gets to do what he wants to do.
He always says somebody monitoring. When he came up to
w W, you know, we had a standard and practice
guy sitting in our booking room. You know that just
really Kabash not He was into stuff that you would

(01:37:11):
even try to throw out. So it was he got
there and realized that, you know, it was, Yeah, it
wasn't gonna work.

Speaker 2 (01:37:21):
A lot of people say, people like yourself and Scott
gave Bill Goldberg bad advice when he came to WW.

Speaker 3 (01:37:26):
How do you respond to that?

Speaker 4 (01:37:28):
We gave him bad advice. We gave him our agent
and he went from making seventy five grand about three
million a year.

Speaker 3 (01:37:34):
Well that's bad advice. God give me some right.

Speaker 2 (01:37:39):
Were you surprised when Brett shut up?

Speaker 4 (01:37:41):
No, we had a favorite nations. We were so glad
he asked for three million. We were making one three
We got a favorite nations in our contract. Really sure
bring bred in? So you got yeah, yeah, we'll take
more money.

Speaker 2 (01:37:55):
People say that you and Scott tried to play politics
with him behind the scenes and try to hold him back.

Speaker 3 (01:37:58):
Is that true at all?

Speaker 4 (01:37:59):
Are didn't even work with him? I don't think I
did want angle with Brett, But I think Brent was
with me for a while. We read at the n
W and Brett was in it, right, I remember that?

Speaker 2 (01:38:10):
Is it true that I guess you guys tried to
be cogan a commissioner.

Speaker 4 (01:38:12):
At one point I wanted to when I was booking,
I wanted to make Coga a commissioner.

Speaker 3 (01:38:17):
Why did that never come about?

Speaker 4 (01:38:18):
Because it killed it killed that whole money thing in
his contract where he got, you know, so many hundreds
of thousand dollars for the pay per view and this
and that, and you know, it was a great idea
because you know, he was he needed some time away
from the ring, but I still wanted to use him
in six or seven segments of the three hours, and

(01:38:40):
all of a sudden, you know, I just wanted to
get some like almost I was gonna make him a
president right where he's gonna be the president of World
Championship Wrestling, not the commissioner.

Speaker 3 (01:38:51):
Do you think it worked? Oh?

Speaker 4 (01:38:55):
I think him in his suit would have been pretty sweet.
And then and you know, and he could and it
looked like he was going to be the good guy,
but he you know, underneath it was actually you know,
stirring the ship. He gave you a catalyst to write
your TV off of. So we just had to make
Flair crazy instead.

Speaker 3 (01:39:16):
Did you like that angle? With the whole work Flaire?

Speaker 4 (01:39:18):
Like I said, you know, we couldn't do anything that
had sex in a the standards and practice wouldn't let us.
We couldn't do anything that that had any kind of
alternative lifestyle or anything. I mean, you just you know,
we were so bound to what we could do that
the only thing we could do.

Speaker 3 (01:39:35):
Was was comedy.

Speaker 4 (01:39:37):
And comedy in a restent show really doesn't work. But
if it's your only avenue, I mean it's it's basically
you have to look at it and what our avenue
is that we're going to be able to entertain with, Well,
we'll be able to use comedy, we'll be able to
use violence, we can't use sex.

Speaker 3 (01:39:54):
Going back to Brett real quick? Did he change it
all in WW as far as like, uh, you know
what he once was?

Speaker 4 (01:40:01):
And do you think I think that what happened to
him in New York changed Brett had nothing to do
with w W. I think that Brett was so loyal
for so long and when they screwed him, I just
think that it broke his hard Do you think w
W must use them all?

Speaker 3 (01:40:16):
Absolutely? What would you have done differently? Brett have a run?

Speaker 4 (01:40:23):
He could there was a heel factory he could, you know,
he could have done He could have went through me,
Scott Hope, and he could have There could have been
so many guys that he were you know, he would
have been out.

Speaker 3 (01:40:35):
I wasn't book What.

Speaker 4 (01:40:37):
Are your memories working with Sting? Great athlete? Steve never
was you know, never loved the business. It was never
you know, he liked it made him a good living.
But Steve, you know, Steve was fun. I mean, he
liked to have fun out there. He was a great athlete.

(01:40:57):
He was really easy, he had great fire, really good fire.
And he's always been a really good friend of mine, right,
you know, so I always enjoyed just hanging around. He's
on a few guys that makes me laugh.

Speaker 3 (01:41:09):
How about Booker t I thought it was great, good athlete?
Was it true?

Speaker 2 (01:41:15):
You and Scott we're on double secret probation at all?

Speaker 3 (01:41:18):
We're gonna yeah, we're in double secretation a couple of times. Yeah, yeah,
we were in.

Speaker 4 (01:41:25):
We got pulled. We we used to call it get
pulled in the office. We get pulled in the office.
Every couple of TVs.

Speaker 3 (01:41:31):
We told you he sent home.

Speaker 4 (01:41:34):
I actually sent Scott to rehab right at one time? Yeah,
they sent him the rehab.

Speaker 2 (01:41:42):
When I guess Eric Bischoff was demoted and Vince Russo
came in. Did you see the politics between both of
those guys and what with Jelsey?

Speaker 4 (01:41:51):
I thought they worked pretty well together, you know, I
thought that I thought they worked well together under circumstances.

Speaker 3 (01:42:00):
Eric.

Speaker 4 (01:42:00):
You know, Eric has an ego, but Eric's not Eric's.
You know, he's pretty easy easy. You don't lie to Eric.
Like if you tell Eric, Eric you're prick, I don't
like you. Obviously you're pricked too, and that night is say, hey,
prick wanted to get a beer. Eric's that kind of guy.
So it's like, if you're honest with Eric. I mean,

(01:42:20):
there's a lot of times Eric and I argue with
Scott and Eric, but we are We always liked him,
We always respected him. I always thought he had to
You know, Eric has a really good mind for it.
It's hard for you. He has to visualize. If he
can't visualize it, if it won't work for him. But
if he visualizes, you can if you can explain it
and make him visualize it, and he has to visualize
it like you'll see it on a TV screen, which

(01:42:40):
took a while for me to understand. You can explain
it to him like that when he can actually see
he's so visual, he's just like damn and then he
and his mind will always enhance the idea. He really
he's got a really good mind for the business. I mean,
name name a person in this industry that's had it's
McMahon on the ropes.

Speaker 3 (01:43:02):
There isn't anybody, do you know?

Speaker 2 (01:43:06):
People say that they had no idea who's in charging
on WW?

Speaker 3 (01:43:09):
Is that accurate? People knew who to go to. I
knew who to go to.

Speaker 2 (01:43:17):
What are your thoughts on Kevin Sullivan's book are During
the time Risso sent.

Speaker 4 (01:43:20):
Home, Kevin was great when we came in. Kevin knows
how to take to book heat. You know, Kevin is
really good in booking heat. If you want to get
heels over, he'll book heat and he'll book it to it.
Just absolutely just just gags you that you want to
watch that babyface make a comeback and they they actually

(01:43:44):
pulled it, you know, they we started giving back earlier
than he wanted to, just because the baby faces were
all in the Bishop's office crying show after show, how
much more heat than they're going to.

Speaker 3 (01:43:56):
Get on it? And that's them And say that's not ready,
because this whole thing was.

Speaker 4 (01:44:04):
You put you know, the heat was like putting air
in a balloon, and as the balloon rise, you know,
you had to get more and more heat on it.
He said, when he gets five feet off the ground,
you don't want to start taking air out of it.

Speaker 3 (01:44:13):
You want to get all the way up. And that's
how much.

Speaker 4 (01:44:16):
You know. Then the higher you bring it, the longer
it takes for that that balloon to get back to
the ground. And then he said, then the heat's done,
and you got to recreate the heat.

Speaker 3 (01:44:24):
So that was his thing.

Speaker 4 (01:44:25):
And men, when he when he explains that to you,
and you know, especially when you're heel like work, Yeah, exactly,
more heat good for us, No bumps.

Speaker 3 (01:44:36):
Members are working with Tory funk great.

Speaker 4 (01:44:39):
I got There's very few pictures I have like up
in my house or anything, but I have a picture
of Terry bleeding with it hit me with a chair
in my house.

Speaker 3 (01:44:50):
I always thought that he's one of the he's a
really good guy.

Speaker 2 (01:44:54):
What are your thoughts of tank out of it? And
did anyone ever feel that he was gonna start shooting
on people in the middle of the hatch at all?

Speaker 3 (01:44:59):
Or it was all business. He was all business. They
did somebody he's Scott.

Speaker 4 (01:45:04):
Robbie smacked him one day and like he was in
their audience and Robbie punched him, you know robbiecause Robbie
was I don't think that many guys would beat Robbie Steiner.
He's all beat up now and old in the school
board guy. But yeah, Robbie was a Proby was a
pretty good measure of stick. And you know, I think
they kind of had a little tit for tat And

(01:45:26):
I didn't see Hank or Tank come in the back,
and I said, Tank from much kids back and leave
that night.

Speaker 2 (01:45:32):
So in an interview, you once said that Scott and
yourself were just big dicks in regards to the NW overs.

Speaker 3 (01:45:39):
Can you expand on that? He got to the point
where it's just like because everybody was.

Speaker 4 (01:45:49):
Everybody was so uh, the quagmire was so deep and
everybody was working their own angles that it's just like,
you know, it's one of those deals, like all right,
well very is going to be a dick.

Speaker 3 (01:46:01):
Then watch this, you know, watching you ain't seen dicks.

Speaker 4 (01:46:05):
You know, we'll really be dicks, right, you know, we
won't go over matches, We won't go over interviews. We'll
just go out there and shoot on you shoot interviews,
say whatever you want to say, Berryer, Yeah, like you don't.

Speaker 3 (01:46:17):
Want to work, that's what I want work with you.

Speaker 1 (01:46:20):
So we're just I mean, there's a substance abuse problems
going on, and there's so many things going on with
with with everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:46:28):
But you know, I was at a point in my life.

Speaker 4 (01:46:31):
Man, I'd come home and be out to dinner with
my wife and you know, fall asleep, you know, Selwis
or something like that at the dinner table, and.

Speaker 3 (01:46:40):
You know I was that was a mess. So I'm
gonna I'm gonna say, man, it was just the drugs.

Speaker 5 (01:46:46):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:46:47):
The drugs would be.

Speaker 2 (01:46:50):
A lot of people we talked about earlier on about
your book, and it was a big part that killed
ww And you already kind of respond to that. But
how do you respond when people say that you beat
Goldberg too early?

Speaker 4 (01:47:01):
I wasn't booking when Goldberg got beat. That's the one
thing that I love, you know, It's like, you know,
I took go over like in February, I'd beat Goldberg
in December, you know, right, I beat him in December.
I started booking like February thirteenth or sixteenth.

Speaker 3 (01:47:16):
Or something like that. He's just like, Ohash Nash, but
it starts book.

Speaker 2 (01:47:20):
I wasn't even booking, you know, so the timetables are
pretty much all.

Speaker 3 (01:47:25):
Worked for Bill.

Speaker 4 (01:47:27):
When Bill tells the story, I was booking, right, you know. Yeah,
but this is the thing that people people say, oh, yeah,
well you beat Goldberg. I don't know, man, I was
at the building every night when they were chating Goldberg sucks.
You know, I'm like thinking, Okay, so he's your he's
your top babyface. I never heard him chant Austin sucks.

(01:47:49):
You know, he's your top babyface. He's undefeated, He's now
the New York Yankees. And it wasn't like I went
out there and had a babyface baby face beat him
clean match. We ran in more, shit, did more to
fucking protect him besides Sam Oswald shooting from the book
depository right right, and then fucking that. And that's and

(01:48:09):
I did it for And then I turned around and
get the belt away for four days later, five days later. Yeah,
because I wanted to run with the strap and I
wanted the merchandise. I looked like the biggest douchebag of all.
It's funny though, you know, I mean, how was how
did that get me over? Explain how that gets me over?

(01:48:32):
I suffered way worse than.

Speaker 2 (01:48:34):
Bill does without That's my next question actually coming up.
So in retrospect, do you think that the one finger finished.

Speaker 3 (01:48:40):
With Hogan was a good idea?

Speaker 4 (01:48:42):
Would have been if Bill would have put his hand
through a limo a couple of weeks later because he
got all pissed off because Scott said something on TV,
and he would have done it. He would have mowed
through all of us to finally get to Hogan. Beat Hogan,
get the strap, get another run. You know, we had
seven months television planned right there, and he lost his

(01:49:04):
head and put his put his pist through a window.
Whose idea was it for the I guess the one
figure finished. We all just kind of threw it around.

Speaker 3 (01:49:14):
Did you think it was good for business? Or well
put us where we needed to?

Speaker 5 (01:49:21):
You know, right?

Speaker 4 (01:49:22):
I mean, to me, I went from kind of Wow,
I got this win over Goldberg, and I'm I'm like
soul search and I find out that it wasn't a
clean wind. Geez, how can I make this right off?
Wrestle Bill again? Bill gets arrested because of something he
does with Elizabeth. I know you're behind it, Hogan. This

(01:49:43):
whole big crowd in the Georgia Dome thinks you're gonna
see this this battle. I'm gonna beat Hogan's ass, and
I laid down.

Speaker 3 (01:49:51):
People got.

Speaker 4 (01:49:53):
Still pissed about that because it worked. It worked because
they're pissed. They're fucking pissed. Is like, fuck you guys
me and I hate you for it. It wasn't because
what they wanted to see the Nash Holding battle. Look,
I would have been that would have been a barn burner.

Speaker 2 (01:50:12):
How do you respond to erk Bishoff in this book?
He calls you a big leads and what are your
thoughts on that?

Speaker 3 (01:50:18):
I mean, say whatever he wants to say. Do you
know why it feels like that? I think I had
lost my desire, uh, you know too to perform at
that level.

Speaker 4 (01:50:38):
You know I did, I did?

Speaker 3 (01:50:40):
I did.

Speaker 4 (01:50:41):
I mean, it was It's not like it wasn't justified,
you know, but it's the same the same token. It's
like anything else. Weren't too many guys in that hierarchy
working harder than I was. You know, I was still
doing house shows.

Speaker 3 (01:50:59):
So speaking of them.

Speaker 2 (01:51:02):
You also worked with Scottie Steiner a lot around this
time period. What are your memories of your matters of Scotty?

Speaker 4 (01:51:06):
This is fun to work but good athlete, believable get
heat on you. He was like to I was, you know,
he was always a light worker.

Speaker 3 (01:51:18):
Do you think what went down at a betch between
I guess it was beast great American beach was in
the best beach between Jarrett Hogan and Russia was a
big work.

Speaker 4 (01:51:27):
But do you think it was a shoot? I always
felt it was work. But I'm a wrestlers or anything
that happens out there, I think it's a work. Including
the Brett Hart thing, I still think it's a work. Yeah,
I think parts of work. I think they turned it,
you know, I think it was because when you watch

(01:51:47):
that tape back, they show u events come out staggering
like he's been punched.

Speaker 3 (01:51:53):
That was a titan. That was a w W e uh.

Speaker 4 (01:51:58):
Tape and wouldn't show himself in that light unless he
wanted to show himself in that light.

Speaker 3 (01:52:03):
So that had a work aspect of it.

Speaker 4 (01:52:07):
You know. I think everything's work. It's always you know
what I mean, It's just like it's much money that
we're just gonna shoot.

Speaker 3 (01:52:20):
I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (01:52:23):
I guess at what point did you think to yourself
from a business standpoint, things were just spinning out of
control and whw And when you heard that it was
final deal for sale? How shocked were you.

Speaker 3 (01:52:34):
It was up for sale?

Speaker 4 (01:52:35):
But it was up for sale too, you know, Bishop
had brought a bunch of Bishop brought a group of
guys that I would have paid, you know, tenfold events paid.

Speaker 3 (01:52:46):
Are you shocked if he didn't get it?

Speaker 4 (01:52:48):
No? Because they didn't want wrestling right. It wasn't about them,
you know, it was about them getting rid of it,
you know, whatever, it didn't matter to them. They just
wanted to get rid of it. They just didn't want
on it. They didn't want to go to the Cable
Ace Awards and say, so, what's your number one radi
of program? Another one raded program was wrestling. Even when
we were at our demise, we were still the highest

(01:53:10):
rate original programming they had, right, you.

Speaker 2 (01:53:14):
Know, how did you find out that finally bought ww.

Speaker 4 (01:53:20):
Somebody called me and said McMahon bought it, and they
said you're going to come to the last show and
Panama City or whatever, they're all going to be And
I said, nope.

Speaker 2 (01:53:29):
Did you actually get to watch the final met truck?

Speaker 3 (01:53:31):
No? Did it? How did your contract situation work out?

Speaker 4 (01:53:37):
I had thirteen or fourteen months left when he bought it,
so I just and I it was like my biggest year.
You know, the contract was backloaded, right, So they come
to us and they say, we'll buy We'll give you
half your your contract. I think my last year was

(01:54:00):
were a little over that, and we'll give you a
million dollars fifty cents and a dollar. Then we'll give
you a million dollars guarantee.

Speaker 3 (01:54:08):
On top of that. And you know, you can go
back to work. And let me get this right, I
can sit.

Speaker 4 (01:54:12):
At home and make all my money or I can
give it back and go back to work and make
the same amount.

Speaker 3 (01:54:19):
All right, it makes no sense? What like, how about this?
How about I just stay at home and didn't get
it all? Yeah? Exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:54:26):
You know in a lot of marks man, I think
God bless Dallas. But Dallas get back half his Mike
because he wanted to go to W. W. Booker did
it too.

Speaker 2 (01:54:35):
So he basically set out and how much time recent
off were you?

Speaker 3 (01:54:38):
Thirteen months months.

Speaker 4 (01:54:39):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:54:40):
Do you think you would have been a part of
the new WW if Eric ever bought it?

Speaker 5 (01:54:45):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (01:54:45):
Yeah, I was counting on definitely. I figured you'd get
another five year round.

Speaker 2 (01:54:51):
Were you surprised that Vince Dion to keep it as
a separate entity?

Speaker 3 (01:54:56):
God?

Speaker 2 (01:54:56):
No, you just knew that he probably didn't want anything
competing with him yours wanted.

Speaker 4 (01:55:00):
I mean to me to this day, any guy that
came over from that territory, you just beat him, you know,
just he just made sure that they looked h as
insuperior to his talent.

Speaker 2 (01:55:12):
As possible eyes you had to do it for business.

Speaker 3 (01:55:16):
I guess I looked at it too, and people said,
what you would you do? I see?

Speaker 4 (01:55:19):
You know what? Uh, it's like that after the Civil War.
I'm sure that you know the Confederates weren't you know, Hey, yeah,
over smack my guy around the TV wasn't gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (01:55:32):
Did you hear anything about the guys in the locker
room from the CW going over there and how they
were treating stuff? Yeah? How did you wind up back
in them?

Speaker 4 (01:55:42):
They wanted to do the NW angle and I think
Hogan was in and Scott was in, and they said
they were going to do it. I said, I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (01:55:55):
I guess after the three of you guys appeared on
TV together for the first time again, did you guys
know that Hogan was not going to work as a.

Speaker 4 (01:56:01):
Deal that was that didn't That didn't transpire till the
night before WrestleMania.

Speaker 3 (01:56:08):
What was your reaction to that?

Speaker 4 (01:56:09):
Fu, It's they paint us in the corner if you're
taking one of our guys. You know, the original plan
was we were going to beat Austin and then Hogan
would lose to Rock, but we would come down and
beat Rock, you know, beat him up afterwards, get some
heat on him, and I'd be the last thing you
see WrestleMania, be the n W standing over Rock. That

(01:56:31):
was the original the game plan that I was told.
And then day of day of WrestleMania, Scott's losing, Hogan's
turning baby face, and him and Rock are making a comeback.

Speaker 3 (01:56:42):
I mean, Scott, when we come down, what was your
reaction to that whole scenario? I knew right then, Yeah,
I just you know, he sucked us in.

Speaker 2 (01:56:52):
So how did a vincetreat you guys this time around?

Speaker 4 (01:56:59):
I mean, you know, he's a pretty good poker face.
I mean, I think it amazed. I think it amazed
everybody that we were over as we were.

Speaker 3 (01:57:09):
When we came back. Is that why do you think
he might have killed it all real quick?

Speaker 4 (01:57:13):
Or oh they thought when we were in Chicago and
Rock and Hogan went Knows and Knows that they would
chant Rock and they chanted Hogan. You know, there's a
picture we did the TV and Joe Lewis and we
left Hogan in Austin Lyon and then the whole crowd standing.
You got guys, I mean, I don't blame you Rock

(01:57:34):
or Steve. You got guys that were there that that
took that company from when it was almost you know,
wasn't on the ropes, and took it and helped build
it back to the number one wrestling company. And here
you are telling, you know, these two top guys, we're
going to let these guys beach in. They're going that
these are the guys that almost put us own business.
They're going to go over. Why Why are they Why

(01:57:56):
are they get to go over?

Speaker 3 (01:57:58):
Right?

Speaker 4 (01:57:58):
You know? And if I was Vince and Steve or
Rock gave me that same, I would say, you're right,
I do have to be loyal at you, So, I mean,
I don't. I don't hold any any grudges. I just
think that it could have worked. We could have made
money there, but it didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:58:17):
How did the w W boys react to you guys
coming back in?

Speaker 4 (01:58:20):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:58:21):
I heard didn't know what he wanted us back?

Speaker 5 (01:58:23):
Really?

Speaker 3 (01:58:25):
Yeah, but why would you?

Speaker 2 (01:58:27):
It's not like we're coming in midcard all right exactly?
You know, So what are your thoughts about us? I
guess Steve Austin is it pretty sure that he didn't
want to work with any of you guys.

Speaker 4 (01:58:40):
I think he would have worked with me. We're really
good friends, don't. I don't know that he was particularly
fond of work with Scott.

Speaker 3 (01:58:49):
You know, Steve was guy. Steve was an impoint in
his life. Then said he was going through some ship personally.

Speaker 4 (01:58:54):
You know, he'd been he'd been carrying that that wagon
out there for a long time, you know, with no
time off, you know, bad neck. You know. Steve's really
you know, was really beat up when we got up there.
He was tired, been through a lot. You know, man
can only take so much. He's tough, He's a tough

(01:59:15):
soun the bitch. Steve's a good guy. Steve was on
his wits ends, and they just wasn't a good wasn't
a good time for us to come in. Wasn't a
good time. They just beating him with Jericho. Jericho had
beaten him in the Rock the same night to get
that unification belt. I think he was upset with that.
He thought that that was going to diminish, you know him,

(01:59:35):
and then for us to come in and do you know,
beating him down again, I think that he was, you know,
just it was a wrong time for us to come in.
I don't blame Steve at all. Steve's always been nothing
but a pro one of my dearest, dearest friends in
my business. Ah, So I understand everything that he went
through during that time period.

Speaker 2 (01:59:55):
Hell Scott's mind frame during all this when he went back, you.

Speaker 3 (01:59:58):
Know, we're supposed to work ten days.

Speaker 1 (02:00:00):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:00:01):
I was supposed to work twelve days a month. It
was my maximum, and we had gotten it where he
was going to do ten and I think he worked
twenty three the first month. He's got cacustody of both kids.
They basically fucked him so royal, you know, I mean,
they just they lied. They said, you know, we were

(02:00:21):
not going to overwork you. And it was just like
we were at it every house show.

Speaker 2 (02:00:25):
Could you guys have said, you know, contractual, we're not obligating.

Speaker 3 (02:00:29):
Yeah, but it's like it's the same old thing. We're
just we're on our way to WrestleMania. We really need
you guys right when this is over.

Speaker 4 (02:00:38):
You know, when this is over, you'll go back to
your regular schedule. We'll make it up to you. Yeah,
yeada YadA.

Speaker 3 (02:00:46):
And you know after WrestleMania he gets hurt. Oh he's down.

Speaker 4 (02:00:50):
Can you pick up the slag?

Speaker 3 (02:00:51):
Right? It's always going to be like that.

Speaker 4 (02:00:53):
That's just sets the nature of the business. I mean,
it's it's a talent driven industry. You know right now
they're in trouble because they've got a ton of talent.

Speaker 3 (02:01:00):
Yeah, you know, so just what are your thoughts on
the Rock?

Speaker 4 (02:01:06):
Really didn't get a chance to be around him that much.
I know he's a great athlete, you know, really just
a really great athlete, great charisma, good fire.

Speaker 3 (02:01:18):
Yeah I didn't. I didn't get a chance to really
know him that much.

Speaker 2 (02:01:23):
What happened to Night and Philly where you tore you're
a quadrucet.

Speaker 4 (02:01:28):
I went to go across. I think I just caught
back at Earl's heel a little bit and just rotated
my foot. I want to punch bubb off, and it
just man just rotated my foot just enough. And you
know that that I have so much scar tissue on
my knees. Anyway, I just think that it just.

Speaker 3 (02:01:44):
The tour.

Speaker 4 (02:01:46):
Was a man, right, I think, yeah, I think that
you know the thing was is I just came off
my bicepi and torn. I didn't have my gear there,
and they you know, I got to TV and what
me and Sean went to the Powerhouse General we're training
and my cell phone rang. It was Stephanie and she said,

(02:02:06):
can you work tonight? I said no, I'm not clear.
I'm not medically clear to work. She said, I really
need you to have this ape man blah blah blah blah.
And I said, I said, I don't have my gear here.
She said anywhere you can get it. So I called
Disco Inferno was back in Atlanta. See if you can
get my gear. He sent everything except my right knee brace.
He couldn't find it.

Speaker 3 (02:02:26):
I blew my right in the end. That's great. If
you do not get hurt that night.

Speaker 2 (02:02:33):
I guess what do you think Vince would have done
with the whole scenario with you guys.

Speaker 3 (02:02:37):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (02:02:38):
I think it would have worked, you know, because it
would have been I think anything they would have done
anything the team, me and Sean, it would have worked,
you know, especially Hunter would if we would have done
like a click thing, right because we never did a
click thing, we would have done that. I mean, it's
just I think I think people there's that natural orgy

(02:03:00):
that friends have when they're out. Like I think one
of the things that they got Scott and I was
when people would watch and they they knew that we
were actually friends.

Speaker 3 (02:03:08):
Yeah, it was just like, you know, you kind of
finished their sentences. There's a there's a there's just that
it was natural. Yeah, it is.

Speaker 4 (02:03:16):
And it's a quality when when guys spend that much
time together for so many years, and you know, everybody
likes a good buddy film, you know, and it's just
it's a buddy film every week.

Speaker 2 (02:03:30):
What are your thoughts on I guess you're you're series
of Triple H and are you shocked at how he
rose to the power?

Speaker 3 (02:03:37):
Why what I he was was brought into business by
the masters? Right? Why would why?

Speaker 5 (02:03:42):
Why?

Speaker 3 (02:03:43):
Why would I not think that he would be smart?

Speaker 5 (02:03:45):
Now?

Speaker 4 (02:03:46):
He you know, you can't determine who you fall in
love with, but he's, you know what man he is,
he got he's gotten. Of all the people I know,
he is genuinely probably one of the nicest human beings
I've ever met in my life. Comes from a great family,
great values, doesn't drink, smoke, doesn't do anything. I mean like,

(02:04:11):
if I had to pick somebody for my sister to marry,
it would be Paul, right. I mean, he is just that,
he's a sincere really doesn't like bad mouth people. Doesn't
We'll give you an opinion, give you an honest opinion.
But and then it's like now it's like he's like
the Antichrist. I mean when you talk to people, it's
just like like he people actually think that, Like he

(02:04:32):
sits around and just like I'm gonna fuck this guy
over that guy. He don't care. You know, he's worried
about what he's doing. I'll say, well, what would he
I don't know, I don't know where that's going. I
don't know, you know, could your magic going home and
talking business with your wife? All that he doesn't do
that there's too stupid to be the Antichrist.

Speaker 3 (02:04:55):
What are you talks on?

Speaker 4 (02:04:56):
Johnny E says the fact he's fucking ignorant. I think
he's a fucking stooge. This will probably helped my employment there. No,
I think he's a stooge.

Speaker 3 (02:05:08):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:05:10):
I'll just say one thing, he hired the wrong one
legged man. Okay, I mean that's I don't have to
say anything else.

Speaker 3 (02:05:20):
You know, what are your thoughts on? Well, I guess
going back to Vince real quickly, how did Vince change?
I guess from the last time he saw him personally.

Speaker 4 (02:05:31):
Last time I saw him, when you went back the
second he looks so much older to me. You know,
he looked like, you know that he'd been through some
he'd been through some some battles.

Speaker 3 (02:05:44):
You just see he was a lot and you know,
just he was getting older.

Speaker 4 (02:05:51):
You know, I often think, you know, like I, because
I've been successful and had money. You know, the other
peop my family that aren't as fortunate sometimes came to
me for things right, and a lot of times you
feel you feel financially, you feel responsible for people that
are in your family, and say, my family is you know,

(02:06:16):
seventeen eighteen people, and maybe eight of them are somehow financially.
I'm kind of response for whether they live in a
house of mine or something like that. And to think
what it must be like to get up every morning
and have several hundred people that you're responsible for, and
of those several hundred people, they've all got twenty or

(02:06:36):
thirty people in their families that they may be you know, mean,
to have that much pressure on a daily basis that
he's responsible for. You know, people sometimes they look at
this and they go, oh, well, you know he did this.
It's like, dude, you know there's times he has to
you know, he has to make a decision that you know,
this guy is gone. This guy's gone, this guy's gone.
He meets those families, he meets that wife, he sees

(02:06:58):
those kids. You know, I said, people don't look into
what you know, they just as I say, it's the
wrestling bubble. They see this guy on TV. In a
realize when this guy runs, you know, for a lot
of times for more years than not a private business. Now,
of course it's public, and with going public, of course
there's a lot more wealth, but there's also a lot.

Speaker 3 (02:07:19):
More responsibility, a lot more pressure. When they went public.

Speaker 4 (02:07:21):
I saw the drastic change in him, you know, because
now Events always had to answer events. Now Events has
people that he has to answer to and he has
to be accountable for. So that, you know, I think
that I mentioned in retrospect he would try. He would probably,
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:07:40):
There's a lot of money and billion dollars, but.

Speaker 4 (02:07:44):
I don't know he made say, you know, effort, I'll
just I'll keep it, probably keep in my company, right, Yeah,
but it's so much it's so much bigger now than
it was when I was there, even when I came
back in three or whatever. It was just from a
worldwide market, you know. I mean they got offices in
a lot. I mean it's really you know, it's such

(02:08:06):
a bigger company, right, you know.

Speaker 2 (02:08:08):
Is it true that you actually were offered an office
position and turn it down?

Speaker 3 (02:08:13):
Yeah, but it was you know, I knew what it
was going to be. It was it was going to
be eventually, you know, hey, you know, be some much easier.

Speaker 2 (02:08:21):
You're Stanford, right, they want to get an office or
a road age or.

Speaker 4 (02:08:25):
I would have been a road agent. I would have
been like a part of creative which pure up there.
And you know, I talked to Michael at that time. Michael,
Michael Hayes was going back and forth with Atlanta, and
I just I thought about it, and I said, Noah,
I said, you know, because I don't want I mean,
I live on the beach, right.

Speaker 3 (02:08:47):
You don't want to be up there. It's all New
York and traffic. I live in a town man that
if I drevet ten miles a day, it's a lot.
Are you surprised that Shawn's return since retiring, No, because.

Speaker 4 (02:09:00):
Sewn Sean really I hit a lot of years off,
you know, and he always one thing about Sean boy,
he'd take the summers off. He'd finds some ailment or
something that every summer he'd take the summer off. So
he had a lot of gas left in his tank.
And then he you know, he didn't when the money
got good, he was you know, his back was bad,

(02:09:21):
you know, so I think Sean, you know, Sean needed me,
you know, not that he was hurting for cash, but
it was just like he didn't get that, you know,
he didn't get those million dollar years and everybody else got.

Speaker 3 (02:09:33):
How close was Sean ever to coming to WW and
joining never never, never, never even crossed his mind.

Speaker 2 (02:09:41):
Whether everybody talks recently to bring back.

Speaker 3 (02:09:43):
The nWo to feud with d X. I think that
was more Internet driven. I was under contract with What's
hen a.

Speaker 2 (02:09:53):
Do you regret any of the things you've done in
your past looking back? God, I regret a thousand things.
Anything that stands out in particular.

Speaker 4 (02:10:02):
Could have been a nicer person, you know, could have
not took as many pills, could it not? You know,
could open the door for that old lady in Chicago
when we're getting on the rental car and we said,
fuck her, it's freezing. And there's a lot you know,
there's a lot of things that in your life that
you do. I mean, yeah, we've got a lot of things.
I haven't been the best husband, you know, I haven't

(02:10:25):
always been the best friend. But like I say, I
never got up any morning in my life and said,
with malice, I'm going to do something to screw with
this guy. I'm going to do something that you know,
there were times that in the course of a day
that you know, that friction occurred, and you know, I
equate this business to being on the pirate ship. You know,

(02:10:49):
you just just sleep with one eye open.

Speaker 3 (02:10:51):
In all times. It's just, you know, this business is
just what it is, and it just.

Speaker 4 (02:10:57):
If you don't turn somewhat hard and be somewhat aggressive,
you'll you'll never make it to the top. I mean,
it's just the way the business is. It doesn't take
you very long if you're anywhere. I think the number
one thing that you're going to do when you go
to any environment and say, okay, what can hurt me?

Speaker 3 (02:11:14):
How do I survive? And you know, however, you have
to survive.

Speaker 4 (02:11:19):
And then once you once you realize that you can survive, Okay,
now how can I flourish? How can I become successful?
How do how do I make it to the top. Well,
in this business, man, we've always equated to a shark tank.
If you're not the biggest, baddest great white, you know,
if you're some little lemon shark, that great white's going
to bite.

Speaker 3 (02:11:37):
You in half.

Speaker 4 (02:11:37):
So you've got to you know, And that's just the
way it is. And I didn't make this business. You know,
it was like that before I got in it. So
I mean that's just you know, you get in it
and you realize that's the way it's going to be
and you know now that I'm at a different point
in my career, it's it's like that that I can't
even believe that that guy existed, Like that's not I

(02:11:58):
don't look in the mirror, didn't see that guy anymore.
I mean, and he's not there. Like I couldn't recreate that.
I couldn't, you know, I couldn't be that aggressive again,
it's just not there.

Speaker 3 (02:12:10):
I was gonna ask you, do you still feel that
you could be a big drawl in today's world wrestling?

Speaker 4 (02:12:14):
Or no?

Speaker 3 (02:12:16):
Why is it not health? How did you wind up
in TNA? Been friends with Jeff for one hundred years?
Whose idea was it?

Speaker 2 (02:12:28):
The feud with the X Division guys when we first
came in there?

Speaker 3 (02:12:32):
It was mine, I went it was always a first
idea of Madden. That was with Mark Man. Yeah, Madden
always said that it was one of his ideas. It
was the Cruiserweight Bully.

Speaker 4 (02:12:43):
And uh, Scott Holly's the kitchen every every every televion
television it would be like Eric we going over Finish
seven and Scott Helbout cruiseweight Bully and Eric Cruisewey Bully
thinks it was Madden's idea originally, and and uh, I
think it would have worked if I was. I'm just

(02:13:05):
so beat up, right, you know, I just you know,
it's funny. In my mind, I can still go, but.

Speaker 3 (02:13:13):
I can't body wise. Body wise, I can't.

Speaker 4 (02:13:15):
I could work, Like I said, there's certain guys I
could work with, right, you know, there's certain guys I
could work with. But those guys, those those young, quick,
athletic guys.

Speaker 2 (02:13:26):
Is that part of the reason why you never had
your match? I guess the ball off matches, I had
my shoulder up, right, that's right.

Speaker 4 (02:13:32):
I didn't want to do a job. You know what,
I can do a job or go under the knife
and not wake up. Maybe it neverthe my wife and
son again, I'm.

Speaker 3 (02:13:41):
Just not gonna do the job exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:13:43):
So I guess, how do you answer critics who say
that you've done nothing but hurt the credibility again on
the ex division.

Speaker 3 (02:13:50):
Guys, I don't see how I did it. I never
beat anybody straight up. I cheated. I came in and
beat them up after they lost matches. It's it's the.

Speaker 2 (02:14:00):
Perception is this people don't understand the business.

Speaker 4 (02:14:03):
And yeah, but it's just like, Okay, why does it work?
It works because you're actually fucking gonna hate me.

Speaker 3 (02:14:10):
I'm a big.

Speaker 4 (02:14:10):
Bully, right, you know, I come across like that. So
guess what, then it's time for me to give the
give it back, you know. And I could have worked that.
I could have worked super strong with those guys and
not gave them anything, you know. I mean, I tried
to give them something to show that they were more
that they you know, they were more athletic than I was.

(02:14:31):
But I just couldn't give them the match that I
could have five years ago. So that was where you know,
I should have just grounded them. I should have pounded
them and grounded them. I should just beat the fuck
out of all of them, you know. I should have
just done that, went through and went through and went
through and went through them. Because honestly, this is what
I tell people. Okay, it's a shoot, which one of
those guys kicks my ass?

Speaker 3 (02:14:53):
None?

Speaker 4 (02:14:53):
Right, none, I hit one of those guys with one shot.
They get what they're gonna do. True, So what so
what are we talking about? I kill the credibility? How
do we kill the credibility of it? There's a reason
why nobody nobody knows who the fuck Ring of Honor is.
You go into that, you know, there's a reason nobody
knows who it is.

Speaker 3 (02:15:14):
Who are they? I don't know who they are.

Speaker 4 (02:15:16):
I know this half of our guys, but I only
know our guys because our guys are on TV. I
don't know who those guys are. But you know what,
when I watch Alex Shelley and like, uh, Sanjay do
that chain cool chain wrestling ship that they do, right,
I think that's amazing.

Speaker 2 (02:15:34):
I was gonna ask you, what are your thoughts on
some of the guys.

Speaker 3 (02:15:35):
You know, I think I think those guys are amazing.

Speaker 4 (02:15:39):
I'm such a fan of those guys, of Alex and
of Saban and Sanjay and Jay.

Speaker 3 (02:15:47):
But I think that what you have to do is
you know that great.

Speaker 4 (02:15:52):
I mean, there's a reason why people don't go to Iowa,
Iowa state and watch They'll watch it there in Iowa.
But you put that on national TV and I We're
gonna watch it. You can't even get people to watch
fuck Hoe Camp.

Speaker 2 (02:16:06):
Going back to the ex division guys like you just
mentioned all those guys names, do you feel that they
need to learn more psychology? And I think spot spots
spot spot spot and tell a story more in the ring.
But I think they're learning, right, I think, are you
helping these guys?

Speaker 4 (02:16:18):
I just I point out little tiny things like, you know,
somewhere in that match, you've got to do a double
double down, right, you know, don't mean just double down,
crawl over one to kickout just occasionally, but if nothing,
you can't get kicked in the I mean, but at
the same time, they're not given enough time to do it.

(02:16:40):
That's when Saban worked with Sense and Detroit for that
with the Cruiser. They had a great match, you know,
that had a really good match because they had twenty
two minutes to tell a story where they could sell.
We got an hour TV and nine hundred guys on.
It looks like a fucking swarm of bees half the time.
What do you think is gonna happen? You guys get
the second hour. I think it's a basting through by show.

(02:17:00):
I think that our talent is really really good. Our
young talent's incredibly I mean, they're just there's some brilliant
and and the guys and some of the guys, I mean,
I think Shelley's upbreakthrough guy. You know, he gets it,
he gets the stick. He can work, he can work
through four different styles.

Speaker 3 (02:17:20):
What are your thoughts about Jump Small Jump. He's like
I like Joe because he's he's like so uniquely different.

Speaker 4 (02:17:29):
You know, it's not the big you know, for for
a while, every guy and I call it the Ohio
Valley Express. Yeah, the bodybuilding just big gassed up guy
with with he's tatted from head to toe. Right, I
mean that's every guy that was in that whatever that
was that w Right, Yeah, everybody was just this big,

(02:17:50):
tatted up bodybuilder.

Speaker 3 (02:17:51):
It was just like every guy that came in and
I had these horrible prison tattoos.

Speaker 4 (02:17:56):
All over and I was just like, god, you know, uncle,
And I saw Joe and I was just like, Okay,
now there's completely and it's works believable definitely, you know.

Speaker 3 (02:18:09):
And he's a sweetheart. He's a great guy. What are
your thoughts on off Kardangle.

Speaker 4 (02:18:15):
I mean, he's when he's one of the few guys
when I left that I would still watch on w
W programming. Believable, he's believable. He's also he's he's funny exactly.
He can, he can, he's a he's a good character.
He's very he's very entertaining and he's got great credibility.

Speaker 2 (02:18:35):
Do you feel that our teen can keep what they're
doing you one day or do you think they're just
two different animals And No.

Speaker 3 (02:18:41):
I think that they can. I just I think that.

Speaker 4 (02:18:44):
It's just gonna it's it's a slow process. I think
the cars are doing a good job. I mean, they're
not just spending money and you know they're they're they're
keeping within a budget, they're keeping it.

Speaker 3 (02:18:54):
I think that they've actually turned.

Speaker 4 (02:18:55):
A prop in the last couple of months from when
I've heard you know, so, I mean I think that
I think that they've got a business plan. I think
that they're that the progression and growth is slow but steady. No,
I like being part of TENNA. I'm really excited for them.

Speaker 2 (02:19:11):
What were your thoughts on Dusty's poking on in TEENA
That was horrible that it just was.

Speaker 4 (02:19:19):
It was so dated, you know, he we you know
it's number one, your demographic is it's Fox Sports Network,
So it's only in like the twenty seven largest metropolitan areas.
It's who's who's actually getting the programming. It's in other words,
you're you're an urban you're doing an urban show. That's
where it's being shown, and your commissioners on a hay

(02:19:42):
bale in the back of the pickup truck with Daisy
Duke girls. I mean, if number one, if you don't
even know what your demographic is, that you're that you're
you're selling to, I mean that alone with it, you know,
would it just tell me? Okay, this guy is completely clueless,
but you know, just any beetle and he beat every
baby face except his son.

Speaker 3 (02:20:02):
Yeah, how do you like working with all ja evil?

Speaker 5 (02:20:06):
Like Jay?

Speaker 4 (02:20:08):
He's a sweetheart kid, good attitude, good, he's a good
athlete and you know what people say, you know, well,
how does he you know? You guys have pigeonholed him?
Now he's in this Oh man, it's just like when Kate,
when Cain did, when Glen did the Diesel characters. But
he did the Diesel and he had and so he'd

(02:20:28):
learned to work like I did, and he did like
to take that, he like did the taker brother thing
and learned. So we learned like two different styles of
two different guys that have both been successful that from
that got his own. Sometimes you got to put somebody out.
He's much to Chase nineteen twenties old. It's just like too,
it's not like he's forty two yars old.

Speaker 3 (02:20:48):
We made it. We made it in The Black Man
Cheese all. He's young.

Speaker 4 (02:20:52):
Sometimes you got to teach a guy to be a
character in order to find somewhere out of there he'll find.

Speaker 3 (02:20:57):
His own character. Whose idea was all that? I watched
him do it. I watched him do the character.

Speaker 4 (02:21:03):
One day he was doing they all the young guys
do these incredible phone pranks. They call people and you know,
they'll call nine hundred numbers and Sonji will be the
Indian guy and they're really funny.

Speaker 3 (02:21:15):
I mean, they just amuse himselves.

Speaker 4 (02:21:16):
So then you're doing the Macha Macha was calling different
guys and I said, God, but when he does it.

Speaker 3 (02:21:22):
You know, he does all the mannerisms. You know, so
just like so, I said him, I said, can you like?

Speaker 4 (02:21:29):
I said how much? He said said next next time
I saw him, he like went out the ring and
did the punches and threw somebody off, did the elbow,
and I said, I said that this is perfect.

Speaker 3 (02:21:40):
You know, we're wrong with this.

Speaker 2 (02:21:41):
Randy actually called him, Yeah, that's.

Speaker 3 (02:21:43):
What I heard. So and I heard that Randy said
it was cooling over.

Speaker 4 (02:21:47):
I love it as somebody that could, I mean, let
me that well and do me that well, and and
be athletic and.

Speaker 2 (02:21:55):
Looking back on your career, not saying that it's over,
but I guess who are your favorite and the least
favorite oponents.

Speaker 3 (02:22:04):
Favorites were Scott Brett Sean.

Speaker 4 (02:22:12):
I think working against Gold because it was always had
that kind of shoot feel to it.

Speaker 3 (02:22:19):
Did you understand the business? Do you think enough? But
you know enough?

Speaker 4 (02:22:26):
I think you know he's another guy. I mean god
for what was in the business three years. I mean,
you know, a pretty good damn run.

Speaker 3 (02:22:35):
You know, I'd say best ribs you've ever seen. We
didn't really talk about any ribs. Really, it's always shipped.
I think the ship ribs are always the best one.
Tammy Sandwich that was probably that was.

Speaker 4 (02:22:49):
Me kid, I just I just produced the feces. Kid
Kid actually put the ship in their food.

Speaker 5 (02:22:55):
That was That was That was.

Speaker 3 (02:22:57):
That was a rough one.

Speaker 4 (02:23:00):
I mean remember one time the guys put it up
Pie ten in the shower and each guy took a
dump in it. It was like eight or nine guys
took a dump in it. I did not participate in this,
and they put it in Medusa's bag and then did
the shaking base and Madusa never sold it. Wow, and
then that was after that nobody bothered, right, It's like

(02:23:22):
she didn't sell it.

Speaker 2 (02:23:23):
So it was like, what's your I guess, stand out
road story from all.

Speaker 4 (02:23:27):
Areas stand out roads? Okay, this is this is one
of my favorite stories of all time. We're we leave Indianapolis,
I think it was, and we're in a we used
to come Hoset bands, a fifteen passenger band we used
to rent.

Speaker 3 (02:23:44):
It's Waltman. Uh, I'll go from the back of the
back of the van forward.

Speaker 4 (02:23:49):
It's Waltman, then Scott and Shawn Michaels, and then Hunter
and I in the front and I'm co pilot Hunter's driver.
We've had probably a case of beer. Faull's complete sober
right with hat a case of beer. I think there
was some Jack Daniels in there. And we've all taken
some gimmicks. We while taking some somas, and everybody's ever

(02:24:12):
seen somebody that is when they take to me so much,
you you go into the soma shake.

Speaker 3 (02:24:19):
So we pull in.

Speaker 4 (02:24:21):
It used to be an old day's end but it's
now something else, and they used to have those things
called Tasty Worlds or whatever.

Speaker 3 (02:24:27):
It is like a restaurant connected to the front of
the hotel. So we pull in.

Speaker 4 (02:24:32):
As we pull in, we pull like we pulled to
the back side of it off a side road. So
we pull like we're almost like back towards the kitchen
when we park. So we get out and we all
finish our beers and we put the beers on, you know,
you know, on the curbs and wherever.

Speaker 3 (02:24:49):
We're all laughing.

Speaker 4 (02:24:51):
Walk around the corner, which is a blind corner of wood,
walk down the other side, which is blind, and there's
the glass opening of the door that sticks out. It's
like a little atrium before you go in. We pile in,
and when we do, there's probably twenty twenty five cops
having some kind of a meet and greet this restaurant.

(02:25:12):
And we all come in like the Bob Seeker story
with the hair just you know, and we do our best,
you know, but we're in. Now it's like we walk out.
I mean, we're not going to make it fifty feet.
So we get in there and I tell Hunter, I said, Paul,

(02:25:33):
I said, go out.

Speaker 3 (02:25:34):
Police.

Speaker 4 (02:25:35):
The beer, Get the beers up, get the beer that's opened,
get it, put it in the back of the vand covered.

Speaker 3 (02:25:41):
Up with the bags.

Speaker 4 (02:25:43):
So he goes back out and this is like Paul
would like always wear like slacks and a sport coat,
like he always dressed nice on the road, restlessly, you know,
look like you know, some mullions. So he goes out
and comes back and I said, he said, God, he said,

(02:26:03):
he said, there was like fifteen beers laying. The kid
had one on the car next to us. I mean
it was just like, you know, so, uh, We're in
there and we order our food and the cops are
just I mean, you can just you know, they're just
glaring at us.

Speaker 3 (02:26:22):
Anythink anywhere you guys work pretty much.

Speaker 4 (02:26:23):
Well they one of them said something and Scott's said
Russell or something like that to the guy. And I'm thinking,
oh god, this is but slowly, kid his pill start
to kick in. He's closest to the door. So Scott
gets him out right, So.

Speaker 3 (02:26:44):
He comes back. Kids in the in the van. Kids
sleep right, he said, he's passed out. Scott comes back.
So I'm sitting.

Speaker 4 (02:26:54):
Like this and then Shawn's here, the glass windows here
and then Hunter's here and Scott's here and we eat
their food and.

Speaker 3 (02:27:03):
I look over at Sewn. Sean's going into the shakes right.
He says, big man, you're gonna have to help me
out here. I'm thinking, oh man.

Speaker 4 (02:27:12):
So about this time, Scott's gets up. Scott Bumblefork's through
and bumps into some stuff. He's pretty bad. I'm not
feeling any pain, but I've got the advantage of being
the heaviest. So I look at Hunter and I look
at Seawan, and Sean's just he's it's gonna be rough
when I get him up. I get him about halfway
through the door, and I hear what the cops say,

(02:27:34):
Fuck that, that's it, and they all get up and
they're gonna rest us all right this place. They're putting
the cuffs on Sean, and I just said, no, he's epileptic,
and they're like what they said, He's got two options
and he goes to hospital or he goes to jail.
I said hospital, right, So.

Speaker 3 (02:27:54):
The ambulance comes. They put Sean on the gurney and Shawn,
you know.

Speaker 4 (02:28:00):
He did.

Speaker 3 (02:28:00):
He was out of it.

Speaker 4 (02:28:01):
I mean, he was gone because we drank that jack
Man by about the thirty minutes we were in that
thing that Jack hit everybody's system.

Speaker 3 (02:28:08):
Man, it was like, oh, and Hunter's stowing sober because
he was the wheelman.

Speaker 4 (02:28:15):
So we uh, they come and they slammed the back
of the van, opened it, but looking with flashlights, there's
nothing in there. Kids passed out. They're like, what's wrong
with him? He's just tired. So uh, I said, I'll travel.
I'll go to the hospital with Sean.

Speaker 3 (02:28:33):
They took us to.

Speaker 4 (02:28:34):
I think we're going to Louisville or someplace. That night,
we're like left in that. It must have been like
Woods took us at the University of Louisville hospital. So
we get there and Shawn's like kicking out of it,
but he's still pretty whacked, right, So the doctor's asking
him questions like what days and he sounded like a

(02:28:54):
billy goat and I'm laughing, you know, I'm standing there
and I'm laughing the doctor. It was so funny, thinking, dude,
he just took some pills. It's going to kick out
about thirty five minutes. Don't sweat it and h But
this is the what's funny is like Hunter just like
start traveling with us. And this is like happened like

(02:29:14):
five times and eight nights that something's happening, and it's like,
you know, somebody all but one of us almost indeed
one night and it's just like you know, he can't
even picked us up at the at the hospital and
he's just looking at me like you gotta be kidnet.

Speaker 3 (02:29:31):
You guys, this is how you guys live night Like
you've got to be kidding me there.

Speaker 4 (02:29:36):
I can't travel with you guys. I'm like, I know,
we'll calm it down.

Speaker 3 (02:29:41):
Because we couldn't lose our wheel. Magic don't leave us.

Speaker 4 (02:29:46):
The guy that was that was a story man that
just when you think about it, just like I've thought
so many times of recreating that, like just a movie
would be Yeah, it would really be hilarious. I probably didn't.
I probably didn't do a justice and telling it.

Speaker 2 (02:30:00):
But did you ever feel pressure to do stories at all?
Or is it no pressure to do what steroids?

Speaker 4 (02:30:06):
No? I never felt I mean just part of the business. Yeah,
I mean I did them on and off. What I
didn't do I didn't do them. But I think the
I think the last last time I did him was
oz right, and then I came when I came back
when I tore my bicep. I did them because they
told me. You know, in my age, i'd come back faster,

(02:30:28):
which I think because I did.

Speaker 3 (02:30:29):
Him, I tore my quad.

Speaker 5 (02:30:31):
But what was that?

Speaker 3 (02:30:34):
I guess your favorite time in your career. I mean,
there's so many different I mean, it's like a favorite moment.

Speaker 4 (02:30:51):
It'd be hard to beat the back when in mass
square guard just from a just from a mark standpoint alone,
just to be you know, and it was different than
to be the w w F champion.

Speaker 3 (02:31:06):
The belt didn't switch hands very often.

Speaker 4 (02:31:08):
It was that was that was pretty big. I mean
I would I would never have thought that that was
gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (02:31:15):
So that that was that. That was That was about
I had to pick one moment.

Speaker 2 (02:31:21):
Honky tuk Man has called you out a lot online.
Have you ever heard any of his promos about you
do see okay, Champion of all time? Any thoughts on
that or I don't know what.

Speaker 3 (02:31:39):
He said burg and stuff like that. Who doesn't get
in the line of hockey talk. Who'd you ever beat?

Speaker 4 (02:31:47):
That? Mean?

Speaker 3 (02:31:50):
Do you think the business could ever boom again like
it has in the eighties and nineties? Oh yeah, yeah,
I think so and cycles.

Speaker 2 (02:31:58):
Yeah, are you surprised that Hogan and Flare still wrestle today?

Speaker 4 (02:32:04):
Amazing? I was talking to somebody the other days. Do
you remember in nineteen ninety when we were sitting in
the locker room, going one of these days, those two
fucking pricks would be gone, and this will be honest, I.

Speaker 3 (02:32:12):
Said, here it is.

Speaker 4 (02:32:14):
You know, we're both out of the business. Basically, we're
not wrestling. Were these two guys are still wrestling?

Speaker 2 (02:32:21):
What are your thoughts on newsletters in the internet.

Speaker 4 (02:32:27):
My only problem with newsletters and the internet is it's
it's the same as food critics from movie critics. You know,
it amazes me that a guy can say this guy's
a good worker and not a good worker when he
doesn't right, Yeah, this guy's a good surgeon.

Speaker 3 (02:32:46):
It's not a good surgeon. It does apparent to what
how many surgery you have you done?

Speaker 1 (02:32:51):
Well?

Speaker 3 (02:32:51):
I've done none? Right, you know, it's just like best
work in the world's Hogan, he made the most money.
It's fake. It's fake. The only thing that are real
is the miles and the money. It's a good quote
for a book. Would you ever consider reading a book? Never?

(02:33:12):
I guess maybe a fiction.

Speaker 2 (02:33:16):
Is there anyone you never had a chance to work
with that you wanted to work with or you wanted
to work.

Speaker 4 (02:33:23):
I think.

Speaker 3 (02:33:29):
Got no right. Who is in my ear that I
didn't get to work with? Pretty much everyone?

Speaker 4 (02:33:35):
Yeah, I mean that works. Let me think, me think
for a few seconds. I would love to work against
the Iron Cheek. I'd worked Iron Cheek tomorrow, Woul I
would love.

Speaker 3 (02:33:48):
To We just did an interview with him about three
weeks ago, and it was insane. It was awesome. A copy.
He's so, I made my first road trip in the
business with Chic. What are your members of that?

Speaker 4 (02:33:59):
I'm eight minutes and we landed, eight minutes into the
trip and I smell weed. I'm driving SID sitting next
to me, Dutch Mantell's sitting behind the SID.

Speaker 3 (02:34:09):
I smell weed. I turn around and you know, Conn, says,
Fox said, who is in charge? Your bronnie? I said,
I'm not as your bronie.

Speaker 4 (02:34:19):
She of course not, Baby, I said, Chic. I said
about keeping that down, man, He goes, I got to
come on, he smokes. We stopped, We're gonna go now,
we're going even work out. He stops and gets a
six pack behind again and then splash some brute on
and goes to gym and does like one thirty five
or two reps.

Speaker 3 (02:34:37):
That was his work. It's classic, amazing.

Speaker 2 (02:34:40):
What are your thoughts on the lack of Fave today
in wrestling?

Speaker 3 (02:34:43):
You think it hurt the business? Fuck? No, I don't
think so.

Speaker 2 (02:34:46):
I think the business is pretty much already exposing.

Speaker 3 (02:34:48):
Yeah, I mean, but I don't know what.

Speaker 4 (02:34:52):
I was talking to somebody the other day and they
said that when Vince blew that that car up the
other day or whatever, that.

Speaker 5 (02:34:59):
Like the the.

Speaker 3 (02:35:02):
Phone boards went off like all over the place in
the town hospital. FBI. You think there's still den marks
out there.

Speaker 2 (02:35:11):
Do you think the nWo could still work today?

Speaker 5 (02:35:15):
Nah, it's bad.

Speaker 4 (02:35:17):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:35:18):
We have to be later, you know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (02:35:21):
It's almost like the Horseman. You know, how many times
do you do the Horsemen? But you know, if you
put together like with with with the production qualities you
have today, especially with Vince's library of the guys, that
he could put together some incredible package and then make.

Speaker 3 (02:35:36):
It almost like the Fantastic Four and take like four.

Speaker 4 (02:35:40):
Guys that were as up and coming guys like almost
like the new generation like these, don't take guys that
are established. Get four guys that you know that really
you think can do it, and let those guys grow
together as a faction and you know, and and do that.
I think that's the way you do it. This is
the new But then you know, and I would have

(02:36:01):
rick as their mouthpiece. Yeah, take make Ricky the mouthpiece
and I think that would work.

Speaker 3 (02:36:07):
That would work. That's a good idea.

Speaker 2 (02:36:09):
What are your thoughts on on John Cena and Batista,
who are pretty much the flagship wrestlers today.

Speaker 4 (02:36:15):
I've really grown to appreciate and respect Seena. I think
that you know, he's he's a he's a pret damn
good hand. I mean, he's I like him. He's a
good guy. I've never heard anybody say anything negative about him.
Hunter said, he's just a sweetheart.

Speaker 3 (02:36:32):
Do whatever.

Speaker 4 (02:36:32):
I mean, just you know, he's one hundred percent company guy,
which you have to be to be that that, you know,
the bearer up there, Batista, I guess he said, I mean,
I don't lot of really don't watch your program. You know,
I'll watch I'll watch Sean Russell. So I got a
chance to watch Sena wrestle at Seawn.

Speaker 3 (02:36:54):
But I don't ever watch Mac Downer.

Speaker 2 (02:36:57):
I just you know, he's got a lot of heat
on us for different reasons.

Speaker 4 (02:37:01):
But you know, yeah, he's on top, right, I tell you,
it seems like I'm sure that the guys a lot
of hate seeing it.

Speaker 3 (02:37:11):
I'm sure of it. You know, that's just that that
goes with the territory.

Speaker 2 (02:37:17):
Would you ever like to be entered into the w
A hall of fame?

Speaker 3 (02:37:21):
Doesn't matter? What do you think is wrong anything? Yeah,
exactly what do you think is wrong with the business today? UFC?
Do you watch it? Yeah? Yeah, I watch it. I
don't even watch box.

Speaker 2 (02:37:42):
Do you think that's one days? Well, the ratings for
Peter was already better than wrestling.

Speaker 3 (02:37:45):
Do you feel like people are gonna watch that and
then go watch wrestling and say this ship's you know,
horrible compared to you know what?

Speaker 2 (02:37:52):
We can watch UFC and.

Speaker 3 (02:37:53):
Well, I see. My whole thing is this that.

Speaker 4 (02:37:57):
A lot of people think a lot of smarts think
the closer the pro wrestling emulates mixed martial arts, then
that'll be the key to pro wrestling. The closer becomes
there's no comparison. So because you know, that's fake.

Speaker 3 (02:38:12):
Right, you know what I mean. Look, I know he's
done it in New Japan and that company went to hell,
and you know that it's pro wrestling. It's fake, right,
you know it's it's not real, that's real.

Speaker 4 (02:38:24):
You can't ever compare the two because this one's always
going to fail in comparison because it's you can make
it as simulated as you can, like you know, unless
you're going to take pro wrestling and give it the
exact same technical advantages that you use in major motion pictures.
Shoot it like that, shoot it with you know, all

(02:38:44):
those different angles. You know, if you're gonna shoot it
like that, than fine production quality can make it better
than a fight. Because mixed martial arts, nine times out
of ten guys sitting in the in the in the
rest position or in half guard or whatever, it's born
and ship, right, you know, So if you can do that,
that's fine.

Speaker 3 (02:39:02):
But but you've got you've got to separate the two.

Speaker 2 (02:39:05):
You know, how did you land yourself in on movies
The Punisher and stuff? How did that all come about?

Speaker 3 (02:39:11):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (02:39:12):
You know, it's just every every couple of years, like
you know, it's every couple of years, like when I
was early in my career. I did Turtles that uh
muting Ninja Turtles too, because I needed somebody to carry that.
They had built this giant costume for the shoot, super
shorter character, and the guy they had there couldn't carry it.

(02:39:33):
It wasn't big enough to carry it, wasn't strong enough
to move the actual capable like weighing ninety pounds. So
they just look, we're looking for a guy that could
basically carry the costume. So I got in that, and
from that I got a little part and a couple
of other small things. I got a couple of television shows,
and then I got into wrestling, and you know, other

(02:39:54):
things came along. But I was making so much wrestling that,
you know, so the offers you in the movie business,
you know, to get one hundred thousand.

Speaker 3 (02:40:03):
Dollars from a month's works great.

Speaker 4 (02:40:06):
I've been losing money right in the in the heyday
to give up, you know, to give up a month
of my salary.

Speaker 3 (02:40:14):
So then's like Sabertooth. I was offered that.

Speaker 4 (02:40:18):
I had to turn that down because I was in
the middle of a run with ww Then when the
Punisher came along, they weren't doing anything with me.

Speaker 3 (02:40:28):
In New York and I said, and they said, you
know what to cut your hair? And I said, what's
the matter.

Speaker 4 (02:40:33):
Yeah, I just told him I was going to cut
my hair. I actually I offered it to do it
on a pay per view with Curse, but they just,
you know, at that point, I was, you know, I
was so.

Speaker 3 (02:40:47):
Unliked. I guess that they disbled it on TV. I said,
you know, I'm fine. My neck was bound on top
of that, so I said, you know what, I said,
I'm going to go ahead do this movie.

Speaker 4 (02:41:02):
And then when the movie's oversee they got for me
and they pimmed it hard, and I said, all right,
well while you're waiting, I'm gonna get my neck fixed.
So I got my neck fixed and time ran out
and the Jim ROSSI man, he said, I said, what
would you do? So he said, man, Kevin is to
just get out of here.

Speaker 3 (02:41:21):
Catch out said don't stay here. He said, I don't know,
do you? I said, goodnough for me. So I went home.

Speaker 4 (02:41:32):
What is in the future for Kevin Ash, I don't know.
I hope I get some movies, you know, I'll stay
a party in a hopefully we'll get two hours I'd
love to commentate. I think that's I think that's that's
the natural progression that that I would do.

Speaker 3 (02:41:49):
To commentate.

Speaker 4 (02:41:50):
I'd have to change my style because I understand it's
it's completely different when you actually commentate. Besides guess commentate.

Speaker 3 (02:41:57):
But h no, I like to stay a part of
the business. As long as it doesn't it will never
consume me. Again, what do you do today?

Speaker 2 (02:42:06):
As far as like, like, what's a I guess A
typical day for Kevin ash.

Speaker 3 (02:42:12):
Too. Good day for me is if it's school.

Speaker 4 (02:42:16):
It's like during school, Okay, today, I got up this
morning and took my son to basketball camp.

Speaker 3 (02:42:23):
Normally I would go to the gym. From there, i'd
come home, uh or have lunch. Probably my wife would
probably meet me out because I'd be I would.

Speaker 4 (02:42:32):
Have lunch someplace. Then uh, come back to the house.
We usually go through the mail, like do whatever you
other business wise, then uh, pick up my son, mess
around with him till dinner, have dinner's family, watch some TV,
have a glass.

Speaker 3 (02:42:50):
Of wine with my wife, go to bed, do it
all over. Just yeah, just normal. Just fans.

Speaker 4 (02:42:55):
Be a fan.

Speaker 2 (02:42:56):
Is there anything that you want to save to your fans?
Out there that you never had a chance to say before.

Speaker 3 (02:43:01):
I killed.

Speaker 4 (02:43:06):
No. No, I mean, you know there's I have like
a fan base out there, and uh, I think that
when you're in the in your prime, your run, you
take them for granted. And now that it's you know,
my runs, my run's basically over. And you go someplace

(02:43:27):
and your fans show up and they like got something
from like ninety one that they kept and they wanted signed.
I don't think they realize how much that means to you,
you know, especially now, it's just like wow, Like there's
so many times I was signing and people to bring stuff,
and like the person that's in charge of signing is

(02:43:47):
like trying to rush the people through. I'm like, fuck,
wait a minute, I want you know, I want to
look at that and seen, I want to look at this.
This is bringing back memories.

Speaker 3 (02:43:55):
I did that. So we had a European program with
Scott on the cover.

Speaker 4 (02:44:00):
We were fighting each other for that and it was
like in nineteen ninety three or four something like that,
and you know, Scott was young and so handsome and
it looked like two little babies on the cover this thing,
you know, and I just looked at that man, and
it was just like it was such a days of boom.
I was just like I just went right back to
the bus, like well, you know, drinking the corona is

(02:44:22):
and I just thought, man, I said, you know what
I said, there's people have to say if you had
to do it over, would you do? It's just like,
how can you change anything? Because you know, you change,
you know, It's almost like that those movies where you
change with Butterfly, right, you know, you change one thing,
and you know, change one thing. Maybe I don't have
a son, you know, maybe that changes. So I mean

(02:44:43):
to where I am right now, I'm pretty happy the
way things turn out. My house is not great.

Speaker 3 (02:44:48):
You know, I'm beat up.

Speaker 4 (02:44:52):
You know, it's hard for me to get around, Like
you know, the idea of going to an amusement park
or a theme park and walk around all day and
these knees is you know, it's a viking and calling people.

Speaker 3 (02:45:04):
Yeah, yeah, you know, I think it had a lot easier.
But it was some damn tall you know.

Speaker 4 (02:45:10):
But I've lost a lot of weight, you know, and
I let my hair go gray, and I just you know,
because for a long time it was just like you know.

Speaker 3 (02:45:18):
By do my hair.

Speaker 4 (02:45:19):
I look at the mirror, man, I still my face
really hasn't aged. So I think I'm thirty five, and
I think I can do a lot of things I
can't do right, you know, I let my hair go
gray and get up in the morning. I'm just like, hey,
you know two more years, dude, You're fifty, just like
you know. So I'm happy to where I am. You know,
I have regrets of things I've done and mistakes I've made,

(02:45:42):
but all those mistakes have brought me to hear all
the lessons. I haven't made a major mistake, you know,
in a lot of years. So I think I'm finally
in my late forties, grown matured.

Speaker 3 (02:45:57):
You know what was the last major mistake?

Speaker 4 (02:46:05):
Rush into a massage therapy thing and rear ended somebody
because I was so impatient about two years ago, and
I think I asked Treth of my scaring shit old lady.

Speaker 5 (02:46:17):
I hit.

Speaker 4 (02:46:20):
But yeah, just that that still sometimes, you know, you
just not taking a breath and saying I drove and
we did the family vacation a couple of weeks ago.
I rented a band and we drove up to Michigan
to see my family.

Speaker 3 (02:46:35):
And stuff, and.

Speaker 4 (02:46:38):
It's like, you know, these guys would drive by you
in ninety miles an hour, and I've had my crew
set on seventy five and lo and behold an hour
and twenty minutes later, you know I passed, you know
I passed him, and hear the city is weaving in
and out of traffic in Cincinnati. So I mean I
have learned to be more patient. You know, I watched

(02:47:00):
the thing one time. I was on one of those
inspirational Christian shows. I was watching, and the guy said,
I always remember to halt, which means never be too hungry,
never let yourself get too angry, never let yourself get
too lonely, I never let yourself get too tired. If
you do those four things, you'll make a lot less

(02:47:22):
mistakes in your life. So I mean, I think that's
hungry for anything, too hungry for money, sex, whatever. But
I think if you just take life or what it is, it.

Speaker 3 (02:47:32):
Just you know, you live a lot longer. The fuck
do I know that?

Speaker 4 (02:47:38):
I'm titlematchnetwork dot Com

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