💥 "Candido Chronicles: The Man Behind the Blonde Bombshell!"

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to another edition of the RF Video Shoot Interview series.
Today were joined by none other than No Gimmicks Needed
Chris Candido. Hello, Is that a gimmick? E?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Or yes it is? I just I know none needed.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
I didn't say I wouldn't take if they.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Want to round.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
First of all, I guess you're a huge wrestling fan
growing up and stuff like that. And you're you're your uncle, grandfather.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
And grandfather of the famous Popeye. Well he was very
over in my town.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Right, So you're a big rustling fan growing up, And
why don't you tell us about your background as far.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
As being a fan.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
First, I met my grandfather's actually my my stepmother's father.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
I met him.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
I was when I was when I was five years old,
and he was a guy who was in my dad's
house trying to sell them Venetian blinds or something like that.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
I was looking because of very odd feel.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
He was real big, and he had his hair was
bleached blonde, and he was all bent over and hunter
and he was talking like I gave you a nice
out of behind zam.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
I'm like, who is this weird guy to my dad's house?

Speaker 3 (01:09):
And he come downstairs and I just happened to be
flipping the channels and Andre was on.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Doing an interview with Vince and he starts talking. He's like, oh, actually,
John and Fina was live it in Montreal, and I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Like, why is this Venetian blind guy talked about this
big giant with this big afro.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
I had no idea what I was wanted.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
I had to be turning the channels when he want
And then he starts explaining to me, and my dad
told me who he was. And it happened to be
like a couple of days before they were in the Garden.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Andre and Andre were Killer Khan bathling.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
With Morocco and and he said, well, I could you know,
bring you to see this stuff?

Speaker 2 (01:39):
And I which I had no idea what it was.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
I just watched it for a minute and he brought
me to that first show and I just you know,
got in love with it immediately.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
And then he would bring me to the Garden every month.
We'd go to the Holland Hotel first where the office
used to be, and we'd meet Arnold Skull and uh Grilla.
Monsoon he would bring us in through the back door
and stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
It was.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
It was, It was the coolest thing just said. I
started meeting these guys, they were just like, you know,
larger than life, and it was just what I always
wanted to do.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
From that moment on, was he actually working on the
shows too or is he just getting no?

Speaker 3 (02:04):
He retired in like seventy six and then went on
to do many Every every old guy I meet, they
was have a different story.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
Age.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Your grandfather still selling countertops, he's still making Venetian blinds.
He's still a postman, and he only had some other
kind of you know, crazy thing. But after he retired
he worked with when Angelo SUBOLDI like building a couple
of rings and agent thing on some like Jersey like
sea towns and stuff like that. But then he was
you know, at this point he was naturally Microwaves and J. C.
Penny and but then he started hanging around you know,

(02:32):
more and more, and and he would just bring me
just to see those guys. And then I would start
getting into the small like local shows by myself, like
I had met like you know, Larry Sharp and Pat
Passers and bring me.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
In and they like let me put up the ring.
And then some of the you know guys, I remember,
I think that was probably like ten. I remember like
growing around with Moondog Spot, which was just you know,
which is really.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Strange, right, So actually, I what age did you say,
all right, I want to actually do this. I want
to be a wrestler.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
From that very first show that that I went to,
I just knew that that's what I wanted to do,
even though it was the first show I was seeing
so for a half hour of it, you know, on
child nine the week before, and that's just what's what
I wanted to do. But then me and Balls, who
were friends since you know, since Childhood, found out about
these shows in Brooklyn that were being held. This guy
El Savage had like a basement but with a still

(03:17):
high enough barely for a ring, and the I don't
know if it was actual it's not Gleasones.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
The gym now, but there was something that said Gleasones
the gym. I don't know if the guy just happened to
steal a sign and hang it up or something, but
it was a building right by, like a train trestle
went right by, and we were like fourteen, and we
started taking the train.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
I would tell my mom sleeping over John's how John
stay sleep over my house and we take the train
up there and then take two subways to get these
buildings in Brooklyn, and they, for some reason let us wrestle.
At fourteen years old, I wrestled Black Gordon mean my
first night there. The me and Balls wrestled the Headhunters
the following week. And it was a real small little
building and they were playing Spanish music the whole time
and doing commentary in Spanish while you were working. Frankie

(03:53):
Williams was there, Jose Estrada was there a few times,
and for some reason us they let us work and
they would give us like hot dogs, and then they
would give us, you know, they would like start giving
us like shocks and stuff like that, and we'd take
the train back all hammered.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
At fifteen, he was pretty you know.

Speaker 4 (04:09):
What year was that about late eighty seven eight.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
It was it was seven to eighth grade, so like
so eighty six.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Eighty six, so he had no professional training at the time.
It's just pretty much well.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
And every every weekend, well, I go to see my
father on the weekends and he takes me to my
grandfather's house and we put the TV on and we
watched Georgia and Florida and all that stuff, and then
he'd moved the coffee table out of the room in
the TV room and we'd start, you know, goofing around.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
He really didn't smarten me up at the time, but
we would just be going through you know hols and
he'd be you know, hitting me and stuff, and then
my my poor grandmother would have to come in and
he would go ahead and you're like, you grabbed me
in a headlock, and i'd top the risk block ab
up and he'd like look at my hair and my
portram had to walk around, so I'm pulling his hair
and he pulled my hair and then you know, he'd
like go to he like, you know, go to shoot

(04:53):
him off, and he's gonna hold onto my hair and
pull me back in. So I figured, well, I want
to you know, press my show him I'm tough. So
I go to shoot him off to the ropes of
the wall next to the TV and he's run and
he pulled me back in, and I wanted to show
him on top.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
It was like, came in hard and I hit him
right in the back. He just flips out, like get
a little fuckers.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
I was fourming me on.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
The back and stuff, and that was my That was
my my train and it was just kind of like
on the job stuff after that.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Right Now, as far as getting with Larry Sharp, did
Larry take you under his wing at all? And did
you have to pay for for anything with training there?

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (05:21):
My, Larry kind of trained me because his first match
was in Wildwood against my grandfather when he first broke in.
So when I want I heard about the school, my
grandfather brought me down and Buddy Rogers was still there
at the time, so I got to I didn't know
what it meant at the at the time, as I
did later on, but it got to you know, to
me to be in the ring with Buddy Rodgers. And
then Larry would let my grandfather bring me down every

(05:42):
week after the class was over and he would work
out with me. And then after that, I just started,
you know, riding down and get rides from guys like,
you know, like Eric Simms and my next door neighbor
and handsome Jimmy Shoulders and other guys who were old
enough to drive at the time, and they drive me
down and Larry we just kind of let us go
in the ring and do our stuff. And some of
the other guys that were there you know before me,
like then and uh Scottie and Ray Otisy, they would

(06:03):
work out with this a little bit and.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Help us out. Scotty, you Reien Raven, Yeah for those
at all.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
As far as like balls, was he a wrestling fan
or did you get him into like the business? As
far as like watching.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
It, he was a kind of a wrestling family went
to different grammar schools. We looked on the opposite sides
of the town.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
And so I was on the I just moved to
this town and I wanted to my mom's like, oh,
you got to meet friends, so be on the baseball team.
I didn't know how to play a bass. I didn't
like baseball, had no idea. I was a little, short,
fat kid. And then they didn't have a uniform in
the fit me. So I had a Rodney Piper t
shirt on it. They put me like in far, far
right field where nothing's ever going to come anywhere near me.
So I'm standing out there and there comes this big behemoth,

(06:37):
just you know, great big beard, gigantic, three hundred pounds man.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
It was Balls in fourth.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
Grade, riding up on his bicycle and like, and he
starts talking to me and he's like, oh, you like wrestling.
I'm like yeah, and starts saying oh, he watches the
show and he wasn't as insane as we later became.
And a ball comes flying. He's like, he's like, what
are you doing? Like a play of the team. He's like,
there's a ball coming. I remember, just didn't miss it.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Being the conversation, it was like, yeah, remember last week.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
But wh he proably took my mid off was through
in the air, you know, hoping somehow imaginally that the
ball would go geto the mitt And that was when
myself and Bald Mahoney's a friendship began.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Now as far as like the first real legitimate indie
show that you started working on where you know you
could say that you know, you knew if you had
an understanding the business, when would that take place?

Speaker 3 (07:20):
Well, those shows that we were, we were doing that
when we were young. We kept doing them for I
mean for a number of years. They weren't necessarily I mean,
they weren't legitimate in that.

Speaker 4 (07:28):
There was were they shows.

Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yeah, there was no there was no commission and there
was people like later on reading Cactus' book that Georgia
spotted that he mentions in there who was he was
working those shows at the time.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
And I remember him telling me.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
And John the same thing that he told Cactus that
he wrote about in that book, that he was, you know,
the champion of Guatemala and Ecuador and he runs tourists
here and there. At the time, you know, we're fourteen
fifteen were mesmeris by the guy. Literally did we realized
that guy's fifty years old and he's wrestling in the
basement below a bar, you know, so it really couldn't
have been all that great. But I mean there was
people there that, you know, I mean, obviously were better
than fifty year old kids we got to learn from.

(08:01):
But then Larry Sharp started using my grandfather as a
manager and they started running some towns together.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
Uh so then they put me on the show.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
Was the night that that I met Tammy, actually, and
I remember sitting in the stands in the afternoon with Larry,
my grandfather and Dennis, and Larry's going over the show
and he said, Noll, We're gonna put the junior belt
on Candido.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
And Dennis is sitting right in front of me and
he goes, who the fuck's Cannito? And I said, that's me.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
He looked back, he was like, he's the guy you
did and let him, you know? And he was I thought, man,
let the guy's a kind of a jerk off. Only
we became like, you know, best friends after that day.
But that was I guess my first real show was
a like June of ninety the one that was an
actual real show.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
Yes, okay, how did you eat time? She was at
the show? I mean, was she a fan or she
was a.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Fan when she was a kid.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
And somehow her sister knew, you know, the professor Elliott.
Yes for you guys don't have the pressor elliotts a
guy who he worked at shake Steady and worked in
Madison Square Garden. He became an usher and stuff, became
friends with all the boys. It's like when she was
a she was a kid, her sister would take her
like to the Howard Johnson's by the Metal Lane and
stuff to beat the boys. And she was like, you know,
ten twelve years old, stoff get ale to reres and everything.

(09:08):
And her sister somehow stayed in contact with Elliot Christmas
cards and stuff like that, and the show was in
there town. So this guy called and said, hey, you know,
I'm here near you. I haven't seen you in a
couple of years. It's like, oh, I'll go by. So
she called her sister, called Tom. He said, Hey, this
Elliet guy. She's like, you know, in the high school.
She said, last thing he wants to do is go
watch wrestling and see a guy named Professor Elliott, who
was kind of cool when you.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Were nine, but after year about ten and a half,
you know, he's kind of a goof right, you know.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
But so anyway, so she had ended up going anyway,
and and I wrestled Johnny Hotbody, and I remember having
Johnny down. I'm like, hih and I was real, i
mean eager. I wanted to go. And I'm like, Johnny
wanted to this. He's like he's like, no, move me
this way. I'm like, what is it. He's like, look
at the girl in the white over there. I'm like, dude,
you're thirty something years old. She's in high school, you know.
But after the show we just kind of got to

(09:52):
talk him and stuff was, you know, when everything was
everybody was exiting, and she didn't realize that I was
the tremendous professional athlete that I was. He just thought
I was apparently a good looking, you know, high school
on the end. But then when she realized that I was,
as of that day.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
A world champion professional athlete, I guess she was just
awfully Smith.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
What do you think your your moment on the indies
that you would like to look back on and say,
you know.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
This is when you made it dom When Dennis brought
Cornett Hit to manage me a few times and and
we just really kind of clicked and he and he
really helped build my confidence up and stuff. And then
he managed me for two shows and then good Heart
ran something and.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
He had Lawler and Eddie Gilbert there, who I had
met previously when he would come in for Dennis and stuff.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
But I wasn't actually on those shows. I got to
meet the guys and everything. So Dennis took me and
Tammy to play this Ribbit's restaurant in Philly, and Court
introduced me to Eddie and Lawler and stuff, and I said, yeah,
I'd love to come down to Memphis. And later, as
I found out in Jerry's book, he wanted me to
come down figure and I'd bring Tammy.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
So it Jarly got me booked. He got me booked.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Me doing anything, No, she.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Was, she was.

Speaker 3 (11:02):
She was like, you know, just like taking pictures of
me and stuff and trying to you know, just and
take my matches, like and watch him and see what
I did right and wrong. And then ended up she
would take a picture of everybody's matches, and Bill after
was like paying her like, you know, five bucks a
picture if he printed or something like that. She got
the centerfold the one time of the rock and Roll
getting tart and feathered by the Heavenly Bodies.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
That was her picture and stuff. And so he sat there.

Speaker 3 (11:23):
For dinner and then you know, and Eddie said he
you know, talked to Lawlor and really try and push
it on him. And then a couple of weeks later,
Jerry called me and said, you know, you want to
come down to Memphis.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
What was that like, going town Memphis? Yeah, your first
big break?

Speaker 3 (11:34):
Right, Yeah, that was my and you know, and everybody
who had already been there that had that was back
in Jersey, like Ray Ote and stuff, was like, man,
you're you know, you're gonna start down there and this
and that, and Ray was a great talent but I
think he thought he was gonna go to Memphis and
be on TV and make money and then come back
and immediately be somebody who's not necessarily obviously the way
it doesn't work. But I just wanted to go down

(11:55):
there because being who my grandfather was, never you know,
really an over fella, but he was always like before
the Johnny Rods generation, he was always the opening match
at the Garden, so he got to wrestle like Terry
Funk's first match when he came in and stuff. So
I always kind of envisioned myself as for some reason
that seemed cooler to me, Like I always wanted to
be the guy to not necessarily be, you know, the

(12:15):
starup make other guys look good. Like when I was little,
to me, my brother would like want to play wrestling
and stuff. He know, he would always want to be
like Big John Study, and I was always pretty boy
Duck Summers.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
You know. I was always wanted to be the guy
to make somebody else, you know, look good. So I wasn't.
So I knew what Memphis was all about.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
I knew I would go down there and learn and
not make a hell a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
So I did went down there and starved, but.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Learned who was booking at times on Deer lawler.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
Eric Embry actually remember Jerry Jarren had taken the summer
off and he did it angle with Waller where Jeff
Gaylord was the Texas Ranger and had hurt him and
he was still coming in and out.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
But Eric Embry was doing all the booking. And my
first night, I.

Speaker 3 (12:50):
Mean, I was just I'm just immediately at high school,
he said, I worked with the Texas Outlaw number nine
or something like that, and he said, well, you're a
baby face. I said, I'm a hard baby face. But
look at you. I looked like the quintessential sorry maybe face.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
I was a.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
Small, bleach blonde, young looking kid. And I said, well,
I'm not very good out. He said, you'll be fine.
I went out, I came back for the match. Eric
said what do you think about being a heel? And
so the next night I worked with Danny Davis and
we just blocked up and I'm just listening and and
he goes, well, either.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Here or not.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
I said, yes, sir. He goes, well, tell me something.
So I'm like, okay, we did a little something. I'm
getting heat on him. And he's listening again. So I
called something else and he said, no, called something else.

Speaker 2 (13:30):
He says no. I'm like, God dear, this guy's gonna
kill me. That's something else. He went, Jesus no, I
said one more thing. He goes, okay, why we went,
And we went and did it and we got back
and I was like, man.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
I'm sorry if I was doing something wrong. He was like, no,
the stuff you had, your ideas were finding. But we're
gonna have to be here. This is our first week.
We're gonna be here the next six weeks together. He's like,
you know, try and remember that and we'll we'll use
it then, you know. And so that kind of was
being opening my eyes too. I mean, I wanted it
was my first break. I mean, to me being from
the Clements flea market, New Jersey, also being in the
Louis of a Garden. Regardless of the fact that there

(14:01):
was only eight people there, it was still, you know,
a big deal to me getting to be on ESPN
and doing the Live Memphis TV and so I really
wanted to go all out. But I mean, the whole
time I was there, I don't think I went to
the top rope once. But guys like you know, like
Danny and Bill Dundee and stuff really really helped and
taught me.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
That's where I met doctor Tom, and there was.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
Something about him that just kind of like when he
talks to you, he talks like in circles and he's
like almost like he's like a prophet or something. You know,
he just he's he does. He doesn't tell you exactly
what he wants to say. You have to kind of
really read into it. And it took me a number
of years to realize stuff he told me when I
first met him. It took me five years ago he
was trying to say. But he really kind of took
me under his wig and helped me out a lot too.

(14:39):
There was a good, good bunch of guys there.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
What about your loll or?

Speaker 4 (14:41):
What was he like?

Speaker 3 (14:42):
He wasn't around that much when I was there. He
had could they did the angle. He was hurt, and
he was just kind of in and out he was.
I mean, he was cool to me, but I didn't
really get to be around him all that much.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
Though. My only good Jerry Lower story from when I
was there. He came back one night in Louisville and
all the heels had to hit and take the pile
driver and as a as a joke.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Apparently he was as a joke. I didn't realize at
the time because I was just happy to be there.
He said, Oh, whoever takes the best bump a boat
is your ten percent of your pet and left. So
Eric Emry went and got pilot drive and uh text
Salinger went, Saboo went, and then it was like Gypsy Joe.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
And then me.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
And when I told I rolled out and Gypsy Joe
is as El grande pistolaro. You were leaning together the
e god man.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Can you know?

Speaker 3 (15:24):
That was a cool bump and laughing. He was like, man,
he goes. He was like, yes, you won the money.
So I'm thinking, oh, damn, I won timpithone.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
So I went down and I then I got my
four dollars from the king. I got my ten percent
of Mike on my pay and he went ahead and
gave it to me.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Is this, uh the territory where you kind of learned
in the psychology of the business and stuff.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, you had no choice to because the guys were
I mean guys that were already kind of getting up
in years and they really didn't want to. I mean,
for which is I mean smarter. Then you think they
at that point you think they're lazy. Now that I'm
kind of in, you know, in the same boat, you
realize that they're just being smarter. I have to go
to the same towns, you know, every week, so you
can't do all that stuff. You have to try and

(16:03):
tell people difference. It's very different than what it is now.
So they they didn't They couldn't physically do all that
kind of stuff, even if they had the ability to.
It just wouldn't make sense to go ahead and just
and blow your lead every week. But you're gonna be
back in the town and did five six days, so
you really really, you know, learned psychology.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
I mean guys like and the guys took the time.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
We would get Jerry Jarrett bought Waaley Jennings tour bus
and would we would all meet at the Kmart parking
lot in Memphis at two o'clock in the morning on
Thursday and drive all night with the tour bus to Dallas,
go to the supportatorium, do TV, turn around and drive
back in the morning, just some time to get off
the bus, get into the studio, go on Live TV,
do Live TV, then drive to Nashville that night, and

(16:42):
the whole time on the bus that was the Grant
Learning Experience. Guys like Robert Fuller and you know, Eddie
Gilbert would go with us sometimes, and you know, and
Doctor Tom and Gipsey Joe and they would just sit
up all night. They were guys who just obviously they
were down there making the money that you know that
we were. They they were obviously doing it not for
the notoriety of the bunnies, because they love the business.
They would just set up with me all night on
an eleven hour ride back and forth to Dallas and

(17:03):
just really you know, school yall and what stuff was
all about.

Speaker 4 (17:06):
How long were you down there for Memphis?

Speaker 2 (17:08):
It wasn't It wasn't very long. It was barely five months.

Speaker 4 (17:10):
Five months.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
You mentioned sab was down there, right, Was that the
first time he met?

Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yeah, the first that's the first time we met. I
remembered the first it was he was there. I was
there two weeks and when he came in and we
got back from Dallas, showed up a TV and there
was you know, this new guy. He was really skinny
at the time. I mean, we all were, and we
were off with you know, young plus as longer we
stayed there. The skinnyear we got and he's putting on
a pair of.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
Zubas and he was like, first, put some money.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
He wraps duct taper on his leg because he rested
with no shoes to kind of make it that Genie
pant and him.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
And Judge Dread had a tag magic.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
Judge kind of screwed up a couple of things, and
Sabo came back and was just like young, Like who
was this little dude screaming with this big, gigantic monster.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
And then all of a sudden, Judge Dread opened his
mouth and goes, I'm sorry Sam his little voice, and
it was the strangest thing.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
And then we ended up riding together to Louisville the
following uh the following night, and he was like, you know,
he's like, when's when's payday? So it's usually you know,
on on Wednesday. He goes, oh, he was, you know, well,
how was it? And I think I had only gotten
paid so forth for my first week because they hold
the week back. I said, well, I got ninety nine bucks,
and apparently he thought I meant per night that was

(18:15):
for the entire week.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
So he got his first in Evansville. He went and
got his evelope and opened it up, but he was like,
donnas can't be. He went talked to Eric Embery. He's like,
he's like, I can't do this. I gotta go. Eric
went on, can'tl driving home, and then he.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
Called chief and she told no, that's the way this
stuff is, you know, and just to go ahead and stay.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
But he was just we became really tight down there.
We just had a really good time. We drove.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
He had this really really big yellow Cadillac that had
like funny Hornlit had to what they call it the
Duke's the hazard horn. He would make that sound and
stuff and his his last night I had the table.
But we were in tells Tell City, Indiana against Robert
Fuller and Bill Dundee and Bill would make him do
the Chris Cross spot and then stop and then he'd
he'd point up and said, but would look and Bill

(18:57):
will step on his foot.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
You have to sell his bare foot and step on
his other foot. There was hair and his face woul
due to come back. He just walked back all man.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
He's like, now you you just stand there all angry
because he just he wanted to be I mean, he
wanted to be the sheik.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Still, he didn't enjoy doing any any comedic stuff. But
I mean it was there that we became became friends.
And then when I came home, it was like a
month later.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
We were in talk to each other like every day
just because we're both trying to get both so we
were in the same boat, sit there and talk and
ripe about.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
There's no work and bitch about this and that.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
But then he called me and said, uh, Kevin Salvan
had canceled an FMW to her, and you know, so
she said, oh, you know, bring a little blonde buddy.
So he kind of got me over there and and
then we you know, we hung out there every day too.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
Before Japan. You mentioned going down to Texas was up
for Fritz.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
No, it was.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
It was it was part of the us w A thing,
Okay when there were Yeah, we just took the bus
down there and there was and there was no there
was no Dallas guys there.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
Okay, it was time. Gary Young would just like come
being because he was a local guy. And I think
that was pretty much it, right.

Speaker 5 (19:52):
I remember that, like since I was your first like
territory working at who was like the one person that
you met you were like, Wow, this guy's really cool.
And who was like the one guy like wow, what
a deck. I can't believe you true to me like that.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Uh, Doctor Tom and Eddie Gilbert were definitely the two
coolest guys. Yeah, that was the biggest dick. Truthfully, there
really wasn't anybody that was a Nashole down there. Gypsy
Joe scared me sometimes, you.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
Know, like he I didn't meet him as we were
in separate locker rooms, you know, the majority of the time.
But I really didn't get chanced to meet him until
one night in Nashville when I worked him and I
got him in the ring and I said, well, there's
this this guy is an old rickety fellow. I didn't
know that Algorondze Pistolero was Gypsy Joe. I knew of
a Gypsy Joe, who at this point you figure would
be would be dead, you know.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
And so he backs over to the cornering and I
was like chotting me, motherfucker. So I'm like, damn, I
want to the other guy.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
Plus everybody down there work kind of light, you know,
So I hit him, He's like, you still be pussy
and grabbed me and just beat.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
The leaden trapping out of me.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
I mean so, I mean, he wasn't he wasn't a
dick per se. He was just kind of tough, and
he scared me a few times. One was close to
when I was going home. I was driving by myself,
like a long trip, and I just had to go
to the bathroom. But I pull him to waffle house
to pee, and I here yelling and I'm walking around
the thing, and also the glass.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
There's there's Gypsy Joe, who had.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
Just signed himself out of the hospital after he had
gotten shot with a bullets still in him. He was
going Japan in two days. He just left the hospital
and came to TV. He showed everybody a scar and stuff.
He was apparently working in Indie Town nearby. Came to
the waffle house and a bunch of guys were in there,
you know, saying stuff. So he opened his mouth whatever,
like you guys ain't chet out of kill all you
wont fuckers. So I walk in, I'm like God, and
all of a sudden he looks past them to me.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
He goes out. Now motherfuckers.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
There's like four of them guys and you know all
you know, big fat flannel shirts and chew and stuff.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
He goes like, now, what're you gonna do it? Knock?

Speaker 3 (21:30):
Candido's here too, I'm going now they're getting fucking killed both,
you know, but both of us. He was a cool guy,
but he was It could be scary sometimes.

Speaker 4 (21:37):
What was the road schedule like as far as traveling.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
Memphis Monday and a lot of guys stayed in stayed
in Nashville, but I stayed in Memphis.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Why I don't know. But Monday we were in Memphis.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
Uh, Tuesday we drove like six and a half hours
to Louisville. Then after that we drove that night to Evansville,
like three hours. Worked there Wednesday. Thursday was a spot
show somewhere, so we drive back like seven hours up
the Western Kentucky Parkway to Memphis.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
Work a spot show around there.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
Thursday, Thursday night, get on the get on the bus,
drive to Dallas, do the SPORTATORYA on Friday, come all
the way back that night and run off the TV.
Off the bus, go to TV Saturday morning, go to
Nashville Saturday night, three hours away and then Sunday you
were off sometimes, but a lot of times Eric Hembery
started being getting booked for grit Rodgers in Indiana because.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Eric was getting the dates.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
But Eric had no car and I had a car,
so I would get to drive my boss to uh
to rip Rodgers' indie shows in Indiana and Eric they
was doing a gimmick with Tech Salinger was leather face
and Text with us too.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
Me and Text lived together for.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
A while to budget Lodge in Memphis for the It
was like one hundred dollars a week and we had
to stay on the top floor and you had no
maid service. They had to do your own, you know,
your own sheets and everything like that. The whole time
we were staying together, probably you know, a little over
a month. Text didn't only wash his not wash his sheets,
didn't wash his clothes, had a big bundle clothes on
the floor were just like grab stuff out of it
and stuff. And then they finished him up as Tech

(23:00):
made him leather face. So Lawler said, he's like, you know,
he's like he got a k favre.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
But we don't anybody knowing because the same people come
to all the shows and stuff. So we would get
a room on the.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
Other side of the hotel and he had stole the
sheet and cut eye holes in it, and he would
carry the chainsaw and I put a chain on his
neck and we'd be like walk him out to the
car and stuff. Just I mean, like any time of
the day, like not just going to the town. If
we're going to the to the store, going out like that,
because we're like, yah, we better listen. I don't know
they were ribbing us or if they was that scariest
back then at work. Then we got the car and
you walking into the building and there was always like

(23:29):
the same rats and stuff in Louisville. And he's like, hey,
Chris hay Tax take me all told James, how you
doing with the stuff on.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
And everything like that.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
You talked about FMW went over to Japan. How different
was that working over in Japan and the States.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Well, my first night there, I knew that Kevin Slaloman
had canceled.

Speaker 3 (23:46):
That was the reason I got to go. I didn't
necessarily know that I was now taking his spot. So
my first night there, I was in the main event
of the street fight with Onita. So I'm scared to death.
I mean it's it's the boss, and I don't know
what Nessilia's street fight and fmw entails. So I just,
you know, had my jeans on and looked like I
would going to a bunk house match, pulled my knee pads,
a both my jeans, and you know, it was kind
of ready to go. And some guy comes run in

(24:07):
and he's going, no paint. I'm going, oh right.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
I didn't know what he was saying, and my immunit
starts playing there telling me and going no, no, no,
you paint like I paint what. So the refrequently he goes, no,
you need paint on your face. For that big Titan
who was a moment later, he was paying stuff on
his face.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
So he came over.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
He was to brush with this white paint on he
was doing, and he just made a lightning bolt in
the front of my face. And that was my first night,
and Anita was I was not. I mean, he was
the boss, and I did what I could for me.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
We just kind of walked around the building, holding each
other by the hair and running each other into the walls.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
It wasn't all that. Once we did that, I'm like, well,
this is supposed to be the best gut here. It's
gonna be kind of easy.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
And then the.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
Only hard part every night was was Rick would have
fun paint in my face and I can't. I'm touching
with like my eyes, and he would want to get
like real intricates in my eyes.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
Be wartering up.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
He rubbed it off, but I never know what it
would be until I was done. He made like a
big batman thing he did when it looked real horrible,
like the Jaws with the sharks come out under the
water like that. I had that on my face one day.
I didn't know what he was putting on till he
was all the way done. And then Sabu did like
two barbed wire matches there and apparently he had no
blade left, so they took the free shaving razor from

(25:15):
the hotel and broke that up and was using that,
and apparently he thought it was not gonna He was
worried it was not gonna cut him well enough.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
So he's like killing his port.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
So that's where those main big disgusting scars are all
from that one match and that one incident. And he
comes back from the barbed wire match and we had
to do a running and clip the wires down and
rap Ondine in the wire and then his music hits
out of the blue.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
He comes and starts bumping us, so he bumps.

Speaker 3 (25:38):
Horris Boulder, bumps tight in Billy Anderson, and I'm like, well,
this is this guy who is charging us with bob
wire on him. I'm not getting paid off awfully well.
And he starts chasing me to crush me with bob bar.
I said, screw that, and Kawasauki, the door just opens
and you're right to the right on the floor.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
So I just ran around.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
He had locked him closed door and he was beating
on it to run into a barbed wire. I was like,
you're not doing that for what he was and I
knew I wasn't coming back around because he needed American
heels that were great big guy, which I obviously was not.
But then Sabo came back and he's and he thought
it wasn't cutting him, but it was cutting him so deep
that it was like it was like white styropham stuff
like hanging out of his body. And he was like,
oh my god, oh my god. He was like, get

(26:15):
your camera ready. One, two, And our rooms are always
right next to each other.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
So the showers and those cheap hotel it's like you know,
your sink is connected to it, and they would showers
your butt up against each other.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
I'd hear him screaming taking the tape off when he
don't have to go in his room, and he would
like hold his stomach, stuff.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Stuff the styrophall whenever it was back in.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
I would just wrap him back up in tape all night,
and then for dinner we'd put hot water in the
sink and put like didnty more beef stew would down
to move around in the hot water and then as
a wobe deep.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
After there, he came back to the States, obviously, and
where'd you go from there?

Speaker 3 (26:48):
I think it was just stuff back around, you know,
back around here and working for guys like you know,
and did Jersey and New York and then that Edson
in Baltimore started doing some kind of stuff. So there
was the indies were I mean busy for then, you know,
being a kid and stuff. But it wasn't all I
mean I started doing stuff for like the for the
Ciboldes that i w CCW stuff. One thing I did

(27:11):
did for them we did TV in in Hamburg, Pennsylvania,
and so we're gonna do being angle.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
You're gonna come out from underneath the ring to show
you here for the first time.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
That's all right, So the intermission and they put me
in a garbage can on a thing with stuff from
the ring and wheeled me out and rolled the canunerneath
the ring. I'm laying undneath there for quite a few
hours when I hear my cue, I come out, go
to the top ropen. Tommy Dumer was working with Lombardi.
I went ahead and jumped on Tommy. Me and Lombardi
beat him up, and then came in Duke the pitt
Bull Snyder, who I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Everybody's heard of.

Speaker 6 (27:42):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
He went ahead and came in and we set up
our big tag match return when the When the TV
aired no less than five years later, finally and I
see it. I'm like, why is this on? I had
never seen it previously, and it's all these years later
and they just showed me all of a sudden, out
of blue, they're showing the match all of a sudden
because kennyel was on the Tubborough.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
He must have come here out of the locker room.
I spent five hours runneth the goddamn ring that day.
That was my Sabald's experience. But there was a decent
enough amount of indie work around here at the time.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
It was timing still going to shows with you other time.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Yeah, she hadn't started working, and she was just going
and still doing the bill after picture stuff and you know,
and taping my matches and and she would like get
the like you know, or the nineteen eighties boom box
and the two VCRs and the TV and somehow it
was making me like like tapes to like send down
and try and get work and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
Now I remember seeing you back and I think it
was like eighty eight eighty nine backstage at the City
Center and you're setting up in the rings.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
Not right, Yeah, well I'm climb bike.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
Bill's another guy who my grandfather worked with in the
Carolinas for a little while, and I got in contact
with him and and he would, I mean, you know,
he'd let me come down and for free, you know,
and put up the ring and then you know, and
then he would let us you know, roll around in
the afternoon and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
You know.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
So that was it was just cool because those guys
seemed a lot cooler at the time, so I gues
it was like late eighties. You know, we weren't allowed
to go to the WWF shows anymore and do that
kind of stuff because it became what it was. So
the NWA guys were, you know, we're a lot cooler.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
I mean all the boys.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
I remember, like Tracy Smothers, I think that was it
was like eighty nine or something right when he was
there and we did the ring in Wildwood and Kevin
Soltan was trying to get me. Kevin's old and Mickey
Morton but I didn't really even know Ricky yet. We're
trying to get me on the show because Big Josh
or something was.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
Not showing up.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
I ended up not working, but they were. They were
all really cool guys trying to help me out. I
remember talking to Tracy and some kid walks in who
was waiting for ticket. He's like, man, are you a wrestler.
Tracy's like, yeah, man, I'm wrestling. How you doing, kid?
And I goes which one are you? Ultimate Warrior? And
then I was like, oh my god, the side Ultimate
Warrior and stuff. And the next day we're at the
Metal Lands and me and Handsome Jimmy Shoulders are working
out in the afternoon, and Tracy came out and he

(29:49):
was like, man, I gotta work out with somebody, and
I want.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
To try the spot.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
So being Tracy worked out for about an hour in
the jam packed you know, empty metal lands like doing
the afternoon.

Speaker 4 (29:57):
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
From there. At what point did you go to Smokey Mountain.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
It was the end of ninety two. I think we
went down.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
Yeah, Christmas of ninety two, I was at my grandmother's
house and Tazz was at his mom's and me and
Tas spent the whole night on the phone bitching that
there was not any work going on. We said, you
know what, said next week Cordett has like five shows.
You want to just drive down and we'll just show up.
And I said, yeah, what the hell?

Speaker 2 (30:25):
We called it?

Speaker 3 (30:25):
And today where he was like, I don't know if
I could use it, He's like, we don't care, We're
coming anyway.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
So Tammy road with us. We went down there.

Speaker 3 (30:30):
In the first night, were in Farmville, Virginia, and he
put us on the first match and me and Taz
went to Johnny Rod's school and the gardenstap Parklay was
closed because if the snow was so bad. I had
just gotten a new car for the first time in
my life, and I had it for a day and
I drove it on the closed garden step parkway almost.
I mean, they would have arrested you had they've seen
you driving, but luckily no cops were out. The snow
was like nine feet tall.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
I met Tazes at the gym and we went over,
which is the exact wrong thing to do. We went
over this match step by step by step and move.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
By move, and we did every move imaginable to mankind.
We went in farms of Virginia and did that match,
and the people didn't make with sound.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
They just stared at us, like who are these idiots?
And we came back all tired, down to breath, and
Cornett was like, Dad, was goddamn great. If you were
to fuck in Mexico City, it was much this.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
And doctor Tom and Tim Horner go out and they
did the headlock and the same big spot my grandfather
did with me. The top rist lock of Tom grabbed
Tim Warners the air and the place went nuts and
he was like, he was like, you're You're a different place.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
And had already being in Memphis. I figured I should
have known that, but I was, like, you know, I
was so excited once.

Speaker 3 (31:34):
Again to bed back to the you know, indies, now
get another break. I figure out, at least, you know,
I'll show I can do all this stuff again. The
wrong thing to do, but when it, you know, when
it had did it anyway. And then the next night
they used to towns again and I did a couple
jobs as a mass avenger to uh Jimmy Golden at
the at Freedom Hall on Johnson City, and it was
like on one of their bigger shows. It was a
pretty good house. And corner says, okay, you're on first

(31:55):
with Jimmy Golden. I was the the avenger and he
goes finishes a drop kick. I mean, like, you know,
I still now be cares us about doing a job.
Especially was Jimmy Golden.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
I was the avenger. I said, Jimmy Golden was finished.
Was a drop kick. He was just watching Jimmy go old.
He was a drop kick.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
And the place went went crazy. And then the the
end of our couple of day run there. It was
after a big show in Knoxville. Cornette took us to
this rib place on the on the water there and
he says like, I got an idea. He's like, I
need you know, I need a girl to do this thing.
And and he was like, I can't pay you enough
for you to move down here.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
I was like, I don't care. I'll move.

Speaker 3 (32:31):
I'll live in my car and just want to He's like, why,
I don't want to do that to you. I'm like,
please do it to me. He said, well, I got
this idea and f Tammy she would do well she
ended up doing and she was like, well, I'm going
to school. I don't know how to how to do it.
He's like, well, just give it a shot, because he
like you might be right for it. We went ahead
and move down and we would and that TV she
would go out and you know, would cut her promos
and stuff like that, and all the boys are kind

(32:51):
of looking at me because I'm there, but I was
doing jobs as the master vender on the TV and
she was obviously in an angle.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
So the scar Upstrom was like, dude, the hell's going on?
And I'm like I don't know. I'm just I'm just
working and keep my mouth shut. And then you know,
Cordon had the the idea came in with the there
was Carlos a belt, so I would stay after the
TV was over it to cut my promost like I
was sending him in, you know by the mail and stuff.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
Was there any jealousy at the time between you and
Timmy not?

Speaker 2 (33:17):
No, I mean it was.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
I mean I knew that the spot that he had for,
you know, a blonde, bitchy girl norhood manager very well
couldn't be mine, you know, because I'm not all that masculin,
so I don't I couldn't pass for a girl. I
could be a bit sometimes, but I mean, you know,
it just it definitely you couldn't have been my spot.
And I mean I knew something was gonna be coming,
and I really didn't care because I was just I
was just in the ring. I didn't care what I

(33:40):
was doing as long as I was in there doing something,
you know.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
And it was only supposed to be a six month
deal for her.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
Tony Atlas was supposed to be coming in for her
to manage him in the South would be a real
teated deal with a young white girl manager. The big
black guy that would be you know, water on you know,
terrorism down there. But Tony's wife or some of the
time would let him do it. So every week you
would go out and I try to recruit somebody else.
And we were doing that because Jim didn't know what

(34:06):
still what to do now, and then it ended up
doing thing really turned Brian.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
Lee, right, what are some of your early memories of
Smoking Mountain? Some of your main programs down there.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
My my first program was.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
With Tim Horner and we did the thing where you know,
I was cry baby and bitch and moan about stuff,
and he did a deal on night and he said,
you know, he was just saying, you're the because I
came with the Dennis Carl Loozo's belts and I was
the real World champion. And I did promo saying every
week I talk about guys I'd beat, and I would
thro out names like Hogan, Flared Sliger, and I would
always throwing somebody else.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
But you guys, look who j R. Benson is there?

Speaker 3 (34:37):
That guy I would I would throw his name in,
and there was throwing, like, you know, just stuff to
entertain myself, just to be because I was supposed to
be an idiot.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
So it worked out kind of well. And then Tim
Warner said, you know, he's supposed to be a world champion.
You know.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
I bet it was Robbie Eagle, who was later on
The The Maestro. He said, I bet you can't even
beat beat this guy. I said, probably you have a
match if you won on Smoking Mountain TV. He said, nun.
I said, then, like you think I can't beat him? Like, yeah,
you know what it's like, you can't beat him?

Speaker 2 (35:02):
And uh and in fact, I bet he beats you,
and it does beat you.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
You have to wear the baby bonnet on, you know,
until you another match on TV. So I commenced to
wamp in the hell out of Robbie Eagle. And here
comes Tim Horner in ready to hit me and then
drops the elbow on Robbie. So I got dcutes and
there and how I had to wear this big blue
baby bottle like the on the like the cow has to,
like the cow wears on the milk or whatever the
cod of she's a big thing. And Cornett's like, you know,
so now you gotta wear it like I just to

(35:27):
eat the house should and stuff.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
But I wore everywhere.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
I'm going to the Kroger's, you know, I'm going to
get in my car walk like had the bottom on
all the time. I just you know, and then from
there I had to we had to wear the uh.
We had a diaper match, a baby bottom match, all
that kind of stuff, and then we finally when the
blow off was the diaper one and I couldn't figure
out where I was going from there, and hadn't just
been in Memphis for those few months I figured out
how stuff went. So I you know, that night we

(35:49):
did the diaper match, I told, you know, Jimmy, I was, man,
thank you as much for having me and everything. He's like,
where the here you going? So well, I guess I'm
I'm done? Am I gonna do? He's like, no, you're
just getting started. He's like, I don't know what we're
gonna do with you yet. Because Tim's a cool guy,
but he like he never got the push in the
bigger companies, and Smoky Mountain was based in his hometown. So,
I mean, so I was a young guy who was

(36:11):
willing to do anything and bump like crazy for him
and wear diapers and stuff. So I was kind of
buried this point. I mean, I really had no heat
left because nothing else could be done to me. So
he wanted to keep me, possibly because I mean he
liked me, but then he needed Tammy too because he
was getting over so well. So they're trying to think
of something to do, and Tracy's mother's just volunteered, you know,
don't let him leave because he let have him beat
me on TV clean next week. And that was I mean,

(36:32):
so Tracy was, I mean, had nothing for him volunteering
to do that. I don't know what I would have became.
I probably would have been back up at the rout
thirty to Flee market with deadnis.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
You know, how did that As far as after that
with Tracy? Where did that lead in the smoking amount?

Speaker 2 (36:45):
So we me and Tracy did those ladder matches and stuff.
That's There's Razor and Sewan were doing him on the road.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
I think Shawan and Reas were doing him to kind
of to practice doing him apparently, and so Jimmy hadn't
seen him and wanted us to do him. So so
me and Tracy were doing stuff that at the time
was kind of was innovative, but Jimmy was the money
down there wasn't great, so I mean, uh, and it
wasn't He didn't want to spend somebody else's money, which
it was being backed by wherever Rick Rubin or the

(37:17):
music gull and stuff.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
So we always had the same the same ladder.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
He'd like fifty these matches with the same ladder that's
now all bent up and sharp on the edges.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Were taking broomsticks to it so it wouldn't fall apart
and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
Great, so weird, having a lot of fun, and then
me and Brian Lee worked with the rock and roll,
which was work with Ricky Morton was one of the
coolest things of all time. He's just everything he does
is just so perfect and smooth. The first time I
got to work with him, I was just from memory
because I watching a thousand times want to do all
these Ricky Morton Bobyan spots.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
And he looked at me like I was out of
my mind. He was just like, we're not gonna do that.
But then you started calling stuff in the ring that
was you know, almost as you know, as fast moving
and stuff and blowing the hell. I was blown up
being a kid in shape. It wasn't doing anything yet
except I mean I didn't even drink a beer at
the time.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
I was doing nothing except wanting to be you know,
the most in shape I could be. And there's Vicky.
He was, you know, smoking cigarettes before the match, doing
Lord only knows what else. He was never a physical
specimen and just putting the circles around me. He was
just you know, everything he did was just so perfect.
And then they put me and Brian together. That's how
me and Timmy are the being together too. And Timmy
went from working with tracy'smothers, who I mean, Tracy wanted

(38:22):
to help get her over.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
So when Brian would lean Tracey deal.

Speaker 3 (38:24):
With the ropes, Timmy would come and smack him, and
the camera was right there. Tracy was just like just
lay it in and she would be smacking him.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
And Tracey's harder, harder, harder. She's smacking hell out and
the point like her hand is like you know, like
red and blue and like throbbing and stuff. So then
we go.

Speaker 3 (38:38):
She goes from working with Tracy to working with Ricky Morton,
and so Brian hold Ricky Morton over. She comes and
just slaps and Ricky Mooreton just completely stops selling, jumps
up in the air and goes, don't ever touch me again,
and went and went and tied down to Robert and
brought her in the back and showing her how to
properly slap without without touching the guy. Though still to
this day when she wants to do a spot with
the slap, she was like about.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
Doing the Tracy or the Vicky, you know, and all
they have.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Their choice from there teaming with Brian. Did you like
actually teaming with Brian or did you like working singles?

Speaker 3 (39:08):
You know, I was thinking of this the other day
because somebody made something about me doing some kind of
uh tag thing, and I thought, man, I you know,
I'm really more of a singles wrestler, but I'm but
I'm really not place I've been.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
I've really been in tags. And Jimmy wanted me and
Brian to be a team.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
Kind of along the lines of Buddy Landell and Butchered,
where Buddy was a little shit star and you know,
and Butcher had stated back there and you know, Buddy like, hey,
you know what, tell how you had a bench five
hundred pounds and talk at United. It was just so
it just the size difference and me being a little
wise ask and Brian, you know, being big and tough
was kind of you know, I mean, it was it
was good for each other, you.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Know, right right after that run, where'd you end up
at or did you stay there for a little bit longer?

Speaker 2 (39:49):
After after Brian left.

Speaker 3 (39:52):
Me and Bobby Blaze did the stuff for the US
Junior Beltmerre. I threw him in the lake and all
that kind of stuff, And that was where me and
Bob would sit and watch Japan tapes. When we saw
a library and Ben want to do that top row
power bomb, so I used that uh down there, but
we were doing the tarn feather matches and we wanted
to get to move in. But being the intelligence kids
he were, it didn't use it for a fittage power

(40:13):
Bombay Blaze off the top rope and I still lost
the match.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Minutes later after he somehow recut, so he got up
a bit.

Speaker 3 (40:18):
Was was Asidine and Thanksgiving night when it hazards Kentucky
and Kevin Salvo comes back and Raven about the match,
but said, how the hell would do that move? And
then you get beat by a school boy a minute later,
you're you're an idiot. He's screaming as a screaming at us,
but the funny party's yelling.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
He's like, you stupid fucks. I can't believe he did this,
That you're killing the fucking business. That makes no goddamn sense.
And up he goes on, let me back, I hand
go stab somebody with a spike.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
After after it was during the Bobby Blaze thing, Dory
and Terry had come in. We did some stuff in Marietta,
and I was starting to be around Junior a little bit,
and he got me booked for BABA. While I was
in Japan, Tammy drove up to visit her mom. You
picked up and Looguardia and we went by the Mental
Lands to see doctor Tom. And and that night was

(41:08):
I met Bruce Pritchard and I met Pat Patterson when
I was a kid, when he knew my grandfather. I
was going to introduce myself to him, and they were
cool and whatnot. And then that night we drove home
to Knoxville.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
By the time we got home, there was a message
on the machine from Bruce saying, go to Knoxville Airport.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
There's a prepaid ticket. You're having a meeting with Vince.
So it was we went right to the airport. We
went We're singing Vince the next day and he said, well,
you know, I have possible ideas for you, you know,
take these contracts.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
To your lawyer. I'm like, to my fucking lawyer.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
I'm like, I'm contract. I was ready to cut off
my right arm and give it to him, you know.
But then you know, we got home and I was like, man,
do I you know Boba had offered me like ten
weeks a year. I was like, well, do I want
to go and do that and still stay in Smoky
Mountain where I really kind of felt at home, or
do I want to you know, do this, I mean,
go where apparently you wait your whole life to be

(41:57):
a WWF And the thing that made me, you know,
choose that as they were given, given both of us
a job, but it was it was a I was
a very annoying person to live with it at that
point because you figured it'd be in a position where
all these people watch it.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
But I was real scared. Didn't know what the right
decision was to be right.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Didn't in the back of your mind the day time?
Did you say maybe they just want made for Tammy
or was that ever in your in your head?

Speaker 3 (42:18):
Yeah, I'm sure, I mean I thought it, and Vincy
was said to me, and that that meaning he was like,
you know, he's like, you know, would you be up
to set eventually we split you up.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
He's like, you know, she could be a big star.
You can have a job which you can be a
big star.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
I mean it just made sense because I mean there's
hundreds of wrestlers and there's only been a very few girls,
and by my none that were ever nearly Any is good.
Tresha is finally starting to do promos somewhat well, but
they're but they're scripted out right, you know. Where then
like when you did the God Would thing where she
got slopped, you know, Jim Ross said, you got you.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
Got five minutes.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
You know you hate Phineish and love him, you love him,
you hate me, get slopped, And that was all the
direction we got. And it was like the tape, you know,
and she went out and and did it. So I
mean I'm sure they, you know, have we not been together,
I don't think they would have, you know, followed me
as much. But at the same time, I mean, you know,
I was I was a new guy that people were
you know we're talking about. So I think I at
least you know, helped my own Jimmy.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Was cool when you told him that you gave your
notice there basically, Well.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
What I had found out later was that Shane McMahon
actually had called Jimmy couple months earlier and he k
famed me on the whole deal because he wasn't done
with what I was doing yet. But then, you know,
he hadn't, but he knew. But by the time we
left the bettle Lands and we're driving home, he had
already known that we were there and that they were
called and stuff like that, so he was he was
cool about it.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
He just said, you know, can you finish up and stuff?
I mean, And I was not any rush to get
out of there, especially after you signed the contract.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
There was no guaranteed money, but just the fact that
you were under contract they started mailing you. It wasn't
it was like two fifty bucks a week, right, But
I was making four hundred bucks for Cornette, plus two
fifty a weeks for me week for her from vans
at her seventy five bucks at night for Cornette.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
At the time, I thought I was like like a millionaire, huh.
You know, So I was just I was still to
death to be doing that.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
But then and I had to stay to drop the
NWA title, because Dennis really went out of his way.
I mean for what the belt meant, didn't mean, it
still meant something to me, you know, to get it especially.
I mean they couldn't given it to Eddy Gilbert, that
couldn't given it to Tracy and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
They ended up, you know, doing it for me. I
didn't want to just walk out without losing it back.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
So that's when we went to the Peel's Palace and
I did the thing for Dan, which stands up there
with the NWJA title, the Quiloaturum, the omni Peel's Palace, bar,
and grill.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
That's what you think of the National Wrestling Alliance Championship.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
Also, you talked a little bit about going over Japan
to work for Bob Again. What was that experience like
that was?

Speaker 2 (44:34):
I mean it was cool.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
There was guys over there that were that were great too,
like Doug Furnace and and Phil the Farm were there,
and those are guys like kind of ended up hanging
out with. Even though Phil was a was a real
party and I was still totally straight at the time.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
He just was. I was just so InnoMed with the
way he he'd work and one night Johnny Smith knocks
on my door. He's like, well, I need your help.
They come out and Phil's in the hallway just sound asleep.
So he drug him into his room. The next and
then we had a dragon mount onto the bus and
he's totally had it.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
We're trying to get food into him, so we're showing
Oreo cookies in his mouth and he's like spitting out.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
The Oreo black and white mixture over his face and like,
oh my god. We're trying to can't fake Joe Ogucci.
So he doesn't get any trouble.

Speaker 3 (45:14):
He gets in the building and goes out and just
worked like a match that I mean that, you know,
just blew everybody away, you know, and me and Johnny
Smith works against Doug and Field one time at the
other time.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
I think it was the best match that I had had.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
But Stan Hansen had taken a liking to me because
I wasn't going out and party in and stands a
very straight guys. He was like, hey, fire plug, come
hang out with me. So he brought me every night
like his sponsor would buy his food stuf. So it
was kind of cool getting to hang out with Stam
and then he ended up being a little hot at
me towards at the end of the tour. The night
before Budda kom Hole was the last night. The night
before that, I was in the sixth Man with Spivey

(45:50):
and Steve Williams against Stan, Johnny Smith and Johnny Ace.
So they said, you know, listen, let's time and take
it easy because tomorrow is the big shows. Let's let's
for him to stand when he gets to the bing
and throws his hat and you know, rope and stuff.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
Let's get it by us, you know. And then when
they go ahead and announce our name, let's all go
do the stany handsome deal.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
So I'm like, all right, cool. So they were announcing,
not like one by one, but they would say your
name's like fast together and so they say our names together.
I go to take a step forward to do the
stand at handsome, Spidy and Doctor will take a step backwards.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Spikey throws the rope on my neck. Stan puts the
hat on my head and they walk backwards. I'm going
to the ring and stand hands, hits and stuff, going
like and I just look at here come stand hands
and his eyes barely looking at me and just beat
the living hell out of me. Nice.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
So now you're back in packing the States and stuff
like that, your working province. What was that experience like
in the beginning, Like, what are your initial impressions of
the FED.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
I fucking hated it right off the right off the
fucking bet. I hated it. They because here, you know,
I was now you know, Memphis.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
I'd learned something from from the guys, but I really
wasn't used well enough and done anything with being as
young as I was to really learn how much learned
about stuff in the ring, but not much more. But
really I hung out with him a lot, and and
and for some reason, guys like Cornette, even though he
learned how to be more diplomatic a little bit over
the years, but like Eddie Gilbert, those kind of guys,
for some reason nabbered me because I just always wanted

(47:11):
to be you know, like I said, like Doug Summer
is the guy to make somebody else look good and
not be the star. But guys like Eddie who they were,
they were you know, like rebellious and bump as system
and stuff.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
Well, as a kid, you.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
Think it's cool to be fucking rebellious, and later on
in life I realized it wasn't all that all that smart,
but at a lot of Jimmy's matterisms, you know, came
off on me because I just thought, I mean, you're
very you know, stuff was off on you when you're
a kid.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
And I was still in like, you know, twenty years
old twenty one thing at the time. So we get
to UH.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
Vin starts flying us back and forth from Knoxville to
uh to New York.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
Tam starts doing the Live e Van news thing, and
they didn't know what they were doing with me yet.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
Then they said, we have some great characters. We're gonna
fly to the New York office to get your costumes made.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
And so Lady's put me in this a powdered blue singlet,
but a big thing on the front, like a big
explosion or something. I'm like, what the hell am I
I said, Oh, you're We don't know the name of
your character yet.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
But remer Vince did that deal with that Brady Boone
with the mask like a thunder cat kind of thing.
He wanted to be somebody to be like a Mighty
Mouse character, a short you know, like fire plug kind
of guy. And I said, I said, I'm a horrible babyface.
And then you know, I don't really do a lot
of high flying stuff. I mean the stuff I was doing.
I did some stuff at the time that was, I
mean cool for then, but I mean nothing that was

(48:25):
all that spectacular.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
And I just knew I was not a good baby face.

Speaker 3 (48:29):
Now it's different because when you're established, I mean, you
can just do your same shit, and if you're doing
it to a heel, people cheer you.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
But I just I wasn't confident in it. So our
first night at TV, we were didn't even have a
name for us yet.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
We were Chris and Tammy teen's spirit and we went
out and she was formerly a cheerleader, but this was
much earlier in life, and you have a partner doing stunts,
the guy throwing you up usually knows what the fuck
he's doing.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
I had no idea what I was doing. So we're there.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
All I have to do and I'm made this fucking
stupid cape and these Shazam things on my arms and stuff,
and we had to go out and her I ended
up looking pretty much the same. We had to go
out and all I have to do were practicing this
entrance and I'm just getting hot. I'm like, I'm here
to fucking wrestle, not do an entrance, which I mean, now,
I understand that that was much more important than the
match was, but I just was a wives ass trying

(49:15):
to be a rebel better. So I'm walking around and
I'm kicking my cape and blowing my nose in it,
and I'm cursingly corn it.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
He's like, what's wrong with you?

Speaker 3 (49:23):
I said, this is when I yelled like him all
of a sudden, be kind, I get a Southern accent,
and the stupid motherfucker. Then benegul A comes and gives
me and Renal Rggins the match. He said, we just
want you to have a mattress do a bunch of
spots that don't make any sense. I said, why the
fuck am I gonna do that? I took all this time.
I think I kind of know what I'm doing. You
want to just do something that makes no sense? And
they said, well that's what Vince wants. I said, well, why, Well,

(49:45):
it's not my fucking job to ask why. My job
is a deployees to do it, though you're told, But
me like a dick, he asked why they're apparently gonna
cut it up and make a music video out of
the something the show me doing some cool things. I
didn't really have any cool things I did, So me
and Reno Riggins went out. Tavy did our entrance.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
That was horrible.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
My cape like flopped over my face and I couldn't
fucking get it off. And then me and me under
a bunch of spots, go under a leap frog and
he slips and he tore his groin.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
It was just it was fucking horrible.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
So then we go home and Jim Ross was like, well,
you know, we'll give you a call. I'm like, man,
these checks are gonna stop. I'm not going back. Like
maybe Bob all take me back and I'll just stay
here in Tennessee. I was so fucking hot and uh,
and then he ended up calling me. He was like
six o'clock in the morning, and bay Landell had called
me at like five point thirty for what.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
I don't know. I was like, buddy, I'm sleeping on
the phone. Four a half later, I'm like, what the
fuck do you want. It's Jim Ross. It's like, oh
my god. He's like he's like you okay, Like I
thought it was bay Landell. He's like, well, fuck, why, hey, buddy,
I don't but at six o'clock in the morning and
he's like, he was like, how do you feel about
about not being a heel?

Speaker 3 (50:47):
I was like, oh, thank you so much. So we
went back up and they gave us, you know, our
new our new gimmick and which I wasn't thrilled with
being called a skip. But but again, I think it
might have been smarter for me to have stayed in
Japan and stayed and smoking mount a little bit longer,
because well, my work but have been good enough to

(51:07):
be there at the time. I wasn't mature enough to
be there, you know, you needed to really understand more
of what was in the bigger picture. Uh, to have
have done it, to do correctly. Had I just you know,
maybe kept my mouth shut and paid more attention to
just going off the handle immediately, it might you know,
I might have enjoyed it better.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
At the beginning.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
It ended up being being fun though, Like when me
and Barry Harts were working on the road and we
got to the King of the Ring and Pat Patterson, Hey,
he said, you and you and Barry are having you know,
some really good matches.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
He goes, how do you feel about doing it? I
hang up with him. I said, I'd feel great about
doing anything.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
He goes, well, you know, he goes, tomorrow, we have
the great idea, but you have to lose to Barry
and Pat.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
Patison's here trying to tell me why it's okay to
lose to Barry Harwitz. And I said, I said, I will,
you know, I said, I'll gladly do it. We went
ahead and did it, and he beat me. Now I
was supposed to get my wind back like on the
second hour, which is gonna be take that. That same
day and me and Barry and Pat were sitting there
and we were like, then could we keep it going?
Figuring because Barry wasn't used all that often back then.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
He said, man, if we keep as going, I can
like get booked because nobody had to be guaranteed.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
You just got paid if you worked.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
So and I mean I was working a lot at
the point at the time because I was new and
there was only so many of us employed there at
I'm not like like now, but Barry, you know they
needed to get booked.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
So he said, yes, let's you know, keep let's draw
it out, so we ended up getting a few pay
per views out of it, and you know.

Speaker 3 (52:23):
It was probably what I mean, the best thing was
ever happened to me. And that was when I started,
you know, enjoying myself.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
There right who'd you travel was on the road there.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
There was. We went through a lot of different stages.
You know.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
When we first started it was a real motley crew.
There was like doctor Tom and del Rey with the
Barbarian and man tar.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Uh. After that we uh we rode with, like with
Hakushi and Spacoli and Lex and Davy.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
We rode and we rode with for a while. And
then when Shane was there, it was me, Shane, Tammy
and PJ. It was you know, I think that probably
we were We were always with PJ and always with
Louis and then for a long time with David. Lex
were our longest partners.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
Right right when you started teaming up with Tom pretchick
Bo was that like the body Donna's.

Speaker 3 (53:11):
I felt we had remained you know, kind of kind
of close. But Tom's always like he was like a
real real private guy.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
Like I was the only guy in Knoxville to ever
walk past the threshold, the threshold of his door into
his apartment and that's as far as I got. I mean, he's,
you know, he was a he was a bit of
a strange bird back then. Tom was you know and
Nia and I was just.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
So happy to get the team with him because we had,
you know, become friends, and I had admired his work
and I always thought he.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Was so you know, underrated for as good as he was.

Speaker 3 (53:37):
But I felt so bad that he had to come
in a guy that I looked up to, had to
commit and shave off his hair that he loved and
kind of looked like me. And we got to and
Bruce had called me and said, we're gonna put you
in Tom together, and I was ecstatic about it. We
get to Hershey Park two days later and uh, he
gives me Bruce because me this video cameras.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
You gotta go with Tom to the barber shop. I said,
for what. He goes you're taking something. I'm like, what
are we doing. Tom's like, just shut up and follow me.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
And he walk into the barber shop and they sit
down and some ladies looking his hair, going, oh my god, sir,
this beautiful hair.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
Oh it's so nice. What do you need done? I'm
sitting behind him. He goes, is I need to look
like that?

Speaker 3 (54:15):
And my job will sit there and videotape it, just
for the Pritchard Home family reel him getting his hair
cut off and almost like on cue Bob Becklin, who
was a We rode with him for a little bit too,
but he's a he's a fun guy, but he was
always mister Backlin. I mean he was out of his mind.
Bob comes walking in. I don't know if he was
what he was getting cut. He had no hair on
his head. Hardly he comes walking the door, dur in

(54:36):
the middle of it, constantly in the bow tidy on
the airplane, wouldn't even lean against the back of the seat,
he just be sitting like this time he comes walking
in bow tying one. He's tidy, his hair cut and
it's it's it's on the tape that Bruce still has
his walks in. This is at a trot lean abomination
about this yelling just turned around and walked out.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Fantastic ineed So as far as the body DNA stuff,
were you four against it?

Speaker 2 (54:59):
You didn't really like the idea? No, I with Tom,
but I felt bad because me and Louis were really
on a roll.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
We had some done some good stuff with the Guns
with Akushi and Barry, but then they turned Louis babyface
and we kind of both knew that after our little
very short deal like two weeks was over, that he
didn't know what they were gonna we're gonna do with them,
and I was I was still dea have to be
team with Tom because we were so close, but I
felt bad for Louis more than anything, but I knew
I could learn more from working alongside Tom, who were

(55:29):
some of.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
The guys that he worked with.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
When you worked with Tom, there wasn't many teams up there, man.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
We worked against against the Guns, the Godwins, and the
New Rockers.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
We had some classics with the Bushwhackers and Techno Team
two thousand, Eric Watson, Chad Fortune, but it was pretty
much the Guns and the Guns and the Godwins, and
then we did those four man deals with the Rockers
in there too.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
From there, where'd you end up? I mean, you're still
in what led your departure?

Speaker 3 (55:57):
Me and Tom were working with the Guns in the
Garden and at the Royal Run. When me and Tom
we did a deal where Tammy took a bump off
the apron and Billy went out like he was being
the cowboy gentleman kind of guy.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
You go see how she was.

Speaker 3 (56:13):
And me and Tom jumped off with the dreaded double
axe handle to the back of Billy's neck.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
And the next couple of days like, man, my arm
has killed me. I have no feeling on my arm.
My arm is now numb.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
I can't lift it. He ended up we had broken
his neck with a dreaded double axe handle. When then
they went ahead and came back and we're working with
them and we're in the garden. Was like I think
August ninth or something like that, sixth or ninth, and
they did that deal where Bart hold you other the
side slip and Billy came with the with the leg
dropped from the top, and it was the end of
like it was like a long run. It was like
thirty forty days or something like that. And the house

(56:43):
was just the shits. Everybody was tired and lazy and
probably half so mad up to and I ended up
taking the bump and I and I cracked. I cracked
my neck and they took me to the to the
hospital and they said, you know that I broke the
spinest process off of my C four and C five
and had a fracture in my C five, and so
I was laying at home, you know, scared to death
that I I mean not really not too much cared

(57:04):
about my neck were than I thought. I was not
gonna you know, lose my job, and but they put
me on the talent Pool payroll, which just got paid
on the side of the house.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
So like, you know, like our spot, I'm on the
card being in you know, in the middle there. If
we were on like a on a garden show, we
can get like you know, like you know whatever, a
couple of thousand bucks. And some shows like Delmar, California,
I remember, we got seventy five dollars, and.

Speaker 3 (57:27):
So talent Pool was like, you're paid on the house,
but you're not on the show. So you're getting like
twenty bucks for his shows for that so it was
not really you know, money coming in. I mean, she
was getting paid, but they would still cut us, you know,
almost in half. And and then you know, I said, man,
and I said no, I said, I'm okay, I can
still you know, come and work.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
So Bruce calling today, we put the belts on.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
They had put you know, Tammy to the deal where
she went with the godwins, then with the guns, and
then she stopped managing and fired the guns that whole
deal and do any other stuff with her and put
the belts on Davey Owen.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
So I said, you know, they need to have a
good matchup. We have no fucking teams. Can you work us?

Speaker 3 (58:00):
Yeah, I'll be fine. So you and Tom worked with
Davey nowhen at the Hershey Park. That was night the
task came over the railing with the Fear, the Fear's.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
Task all that kind of stuff, and uh so they said.

Speaker 3 (58:10):
Well, well, you know, we're gonna repackage you and this
and that, and uh cause Tom, for some reason aother
they were phasing him out of even working. But he
got the job, you know, teaching the guys. So he said,
we're gonna, you know, we're gonna repackage you and this
and that. But Tom was moving from Houston up to Stanford,
so he was gone. They let me run the school.
So I had, like you know, Acca mall Breck was
the bractus of Mark, Henry and Rocky in the in

(58:32):
the class.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
And then when Tom came back. I was there with
him for like a like about a month, and I.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
Would go to TV and they were like, okay, you know,
skipping uh the Sultan, you know, you get cam l clutched,
you know, skipping this guy, you just get beat.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
And I didn't care about getting beat.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
But I was like, man, how are they gonna repackage
me if I'm just still on TV every week, you know,
getting getting beat, and the and your money was still
depending on how often you.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
Got booked and just being the job guy. You don't
you know, you weren't getting booked. So we were. And
in Indianapolis I brought and they wanted me to lose
to to Cactus whether just when the mankind thing was starting.
I said, oh, maybe it's the coolest.

Speaker 3 (59:09):
And me and Cactus had some pretty good matches and
Jerry Brisket, so we really don't want a good match,
so I know it's not supposed to be competitive, I said,
but can I just get in, you know, like one
one thing and maybe you know, I bump him and
put them on the top, go over the fact start,
have him give me the the a com mandible gimmick
right up there and just bumped me right off with it,
and you know, and I.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Tapped me out or whatever the thing is. He's like, ah,
that's too spectacular.

Speaker 3 (59:30):
And you know, and I wasn't already in the right
front front of mind then, cause we were all experimenting
with things, and I was already pissed off at you know.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
At JID. I was in my still at a Gilbert
rebellious mode. So I'm like, if they don't, you know,
they could just use anybody to fucking just go in
there and get fucking beat. They're just fucking with me.
So I I called Paulie right from the production room
and say, man, can I start work. It's like start
Saturday if you want. So I'm quitting.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
And I wanted to Vincent and gave my notice, and
as in the middle of doing it, Jim Moist to
the production room. He's like, Candy, don't haul ease on
the phone for you, And they weren't. Vince wasn't gonna
let me give my notice. Not that I was that
valuable to the company, but you know, I said, well,
I'm done. I'm gonna go work for somebody else. He thought,
for some reason I was gonna go to WCW and
do something clear the heat with me and showing this

(01:00:13):
stuff at then that I was gonna go and say
something like now I'm just gonna.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Go work for Paul.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
He was like, oh, I take it easy, you know,
And there was, you know, no hard feelings. But I
left obviously the way I left was, you know, was
the wrong was the wrong way to do it, as
I I mean, they were letting me still, you know,
work at the school and training the guys, which is
a job that now I was trying to get and
couldn't get that I have when I was twenty four
years old.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
So I mean everything pretty much everything I did up
there was incorrect, you know. So I mean the whole
time I was there, I pretty much all everything I did,
betted to talking I did in the ring was wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
We're talking about WWF and your departure and stuff like that.
You mentioned briefly that you had a heat with us Sean.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
What was that all over?

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
Well, we were more when you our names are together,
were more known as not getting along. But there was
a majority of the time, I mean we rode with
them guys too for for a while, and the heat
with Sean just started because I mean there was the
rivers about him and Tennu, but it started even.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
Before that, just because he can be a dick sometimes,
you know.

Speaker 3 (01:01:09):
And it started one that we were in Springfield, Massachusetts
and there was a lumberjack match with Shawing and Brett,
and you know, all of a sudden the outside and
the finish was that Sewan takes the bump over all
the heels in their baby faces. We all go with
our guy and just just Owen in Davy, I think
we're supposed to get to Seawan and throw him back

(01:01:29):
in for Brett to beat him.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Well they go into the spot in the match and
well here comes Shawn.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
He flied, takes some big bumb over to the top
of the land, right up my feet and now Phineas
not the fastest man in the world, is way over there.
I mean it's not his way. I could have ran
and got him, but he falls at my feet. Davy
and Owen are over there, like, you know, fucking around.
It was where's the house shows. They're fucking like, you know,
playing practical jokes on each other or something. I'm well, damn,
somebody better kick him. So I fucking kick him. And
he looks up and starts yelling at me. The stops

(01:01:55):
selling and was hot. We got in the back and
they one, two, three kids to the same think he
was next to me, so we both put the boots
to him. He got back and the screamed at both
of us, which in the big picture of things. As
as I got older and when I went to ECW
and I was I mean, not in his saving role,
but like a guy who was higher up on the card,
and we were going through problems there and guys lower

(01:02:16):
on the car would do something stupid, and I was
a hot head toos. I'm so sometimes you would yell
at somebody, but when somebody yells and yelled at you,
you acted and you fucking yelled back, which you know,
didn't really get over with him too well. And then
he so he thought I wanted to fight him. So
we're going out to the parking lot that night and
he's like, oh, you want to hit me?

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
Hit me, and like, you know, and Vince and Hunter
like holding him back, and I'm like, I don't want
to fight anybody. I'm like, but don't fucking yell at me.
You know, I was wrong, I was. I was wrong.
What the fuck you want me to do.

Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
You landed right at my fucking feet, and we just
became you know, a business was really bad at a time, so,
I mean, everybody wasn't making fantastic money. I mean, and
and there was all the pressure was being put on
his shoulders because he was the guy who was supposed
to be drawing the houses and just through no fault
of anybody's there.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Just there was not many people there. So I guess
he was feeling the pressure of being in that spot.

Speaker 3 (01:03:06):
And it was a spot that he felt he deserved
for a longer time than you know, like he's finally
getting a shot he thought he deserved here. I was
a young, abrasive guy pretty much the same.

Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Well, I think we didn't get along because we were
too much the same person. We were both we're both young,
and we're both fucking wise asses, and we both thought
we were really good at what we did. But he was,
you know, a couple of years older than me, so
was ready in that spot, and I was in the
spot that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
He used to be in.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Is the young guy underneath the people are kind of same?
Is good?

Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
So when the guy above you, who was supposed to,
you know, was the top guy yells at you that
you're a dick right back to him.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
So we just we just did mix. Well after that,
what was the.

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
Actual story with him and Tammy and and I mean,
how would you deal with all that?

Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
Well, it's, first of all, when here's a girl in
the business, you're surrounded by guys who are on the
road for a long period of time, who were also
a full of testosterone.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
And we're from the very.

Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
Fact that side of some point in our lives we
say that we want to be professional wrestlers.

Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
Were obviously something fucking mentally wrong with us. Okay, that's
number one.

Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
You get all those guys and you put us together,
and we have to travel around together, and you know,
in a cosmetic business and stuff, you know, I mean,
there's different people act different ways.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
And then you throw a few girls into the mix.
But back then you threw just one girl into the mix.
I mean, there was gonna inevitably be something said, and
you have nobody else.

Speaker 3 (01:04:26):
I mean, you're a guy in the road, you have
your wife, your girlfriend's home, and may not be a
rat in the town that day. You have to look
at somebody and she's the thing closest to you. I mean,
so there's gonna nevily be boomers and stuff saying and whatnot.

Speaker 2 (01:04:38):
But the thing with Seawan is is he is. He
was twenty four hours a day of the Heartbreak kid.
He wasn't just a guy who played a character.

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
He was you know, he thought or whether he really
did think of whether he was just doing it just
to fuck with me or just be he you know,
legitimately tried to act like the Heartbreak gay twenty four
hours a day. So, I mean, at first it didn't
bother me because it's just it's common sense that it's
gonna be gonna be said. But we were together fucking
twenty four hours a day. I mean, even when I'm

(01:05:06):
in the range, he's right bucking next to me. So
I mean, if the only time anything does.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Happen and they have the tape of it, there was
also a goat involved, and I'll sell it to you
for a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
But I mean, so there is no tape of her
and Shawn, because there's rumors that there was a tape.

Speaker 3 (01:05:20):
No, OK, well if there wasn't, wouldn't somebody have it?
But all people, wouldn't you fucking have it? And if
you did, it wouldn't it be in your newsletter get
make it?

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
You'd be fucking selling it basically, you know, So the
rumors of hearent sewn are pretty much not true.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
Well, I'm gonna put it this way.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
I mean, I would, you know, like to believe that
it that nothing happened, if something like I'm sure if
something did happen, they're not gonna fucking tape it, for
God's sake.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
I mean, that would be just stupid to fucking you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
But there did, ever to the point where you actually
had to question Tommy on and be like, yo, this
is what I'm hearing.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
No, I mean, well you question your I mean, people
are married for forty years and like you know, and
they go out to dinner with their secretary or something,
the wife gets hot on. There's just if there's a
human nature, so I mean, especially and being you know,
and being young and an abrasive too. I mean, so
of course we questioned it, and it caused arguments between
us and stuff like that, But I mean there's none

(01:06:11):
she could have done about it. I mean, the stuff
was gonna be said because she's she was the only girl.
Plus she was the top girl, and showing's the top
guy so like, and you know in the smart fan's
eyes too, I mean, like people would be yelling stuff
to me because now has it made no sense for
the girl who was like the top growing business, Why
the fuck is she going.

Speaker 2 (01:06:28):
Out with Skip? You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:06:29):
It just it didn't seem like a fucking like a
perfect match to anybody, you know what I mean. But
you know, you couldn't get around stuff being said it
because obviously it was gonna have to happen, you know
what about the Davy boy Smith rumors.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
There's old rumors about her and Davy Boy.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
Yeah, and I didn't even hear that one until like
until recently, and the poor guy'slready.

Speaker 3 (01:06:46):
Been gone for quite a long time. We wrote it
with Davy all the time, you know, and we were
we were always together. But Davy's not the David wasn't
even the guy that would like you know, he never
like ratted around or anything like that either.

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
You know, Diana would legitimately be able to kick his ass.

Speaker 3 (01:07:02):
She she stretched me me dustin and stone cold one
night in the cow Palace in San Francisco in like
thirty five cents, Like Stu was teaching me those moves, skiff,
Can I show it to you?

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Yea?

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
She put me in it, so try and get out.
I tried to get out and she boom had me.
And then Dustin's like god doom did to him and
stee As you guys are fucking stupid. I don't Davy
didn't fuck around with with anybody.

Speaker 1 (01:07:25):
All right. Now, as far as you talked about Paul,
himmon earlier on how you were talking to Paul and
how did you get.

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
To know Paul, Well, I know we're in some since
I was I was a kid hanging around putting up
the rings and him hanging out taking pictures and stuff
like that. And when my grandfather and now we're the
Larry were running together, Paul was doing the wrestling press
international stuff, so I mean I would help him like
type this shit up. And then he was even then,
I mean, how were not that much older, you know
than me. He was still a com manic at eighteen.

(01:07:54):
I was like, okay, you take these two and you
go these are the last two. Last last night, I'd
sell them and then I'd go back at two more.
I woke in the same building, you know, out the
cart at high school gym trying to sell the programs
and they were always the last two left for three
hours that night.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
You know. So I had known him for for quite
a while.

Speaker 3 (01:08:07):
We had remained friends, and I was doing the rings
up with Klondike and Gordon WCW.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
He was there, you know, and he would help me.

Speaker 3 (01:08:13):
Out and stuff like that, and you know, and you'd
and you see he was He would call like at
strange times. I still kept this, you know, the old
answer machines have an actual cassette tape.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
And yeah, he left me a message.

Speaker 3 (01:08:22):
One night we did a there was the show in
Asbray Park that I that I went to and and
did the ring and Gary Jester had Tammy like doing
the ring jacks and stuff like that, and that was
in their show that Vickey, Morton and Vin were trying
to get me on.

Speaker 2 (01:08:33):
They ended up not working, and I was kind of
fucking haunt about it, you know, and not with those
of my feelings were hurt.

Speaker 3 (01:08:38):
So I got home POI left me like this five
minute message that I still kept, and when I get upset,
I still said there listening to it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):
So I went like that it's Paulie did sometimes tears.

Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
Me up, but it was a different time when you
came into the company. I think your first match was
with Mikey right for uh November, remember with Spike? Okay,
Spikes right, that's right. What are your memories of a Well,
I knew a.

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
Lot of guys there already, from being you know, local,
you know, local guys like Taz and stuff like that.
The Spike, I didn't know, and I remember that, you know,
I have to kind of I have to get over
somewhat strong. I'm coming from being a skip, you know,
and Sabou was just like I just can squash and miss,
and then Tass like, oh.

Speaker 2 (01:09:15):
He's a good guys. But we only had a couple
of minutes.

Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
So Spike said, you know, whatever you want to do,
go ahead and do it. So I you know pretty much,
I mean I that was when I first time I
had give him the power bomb. Bobby Blaze was that
night from the top rope the Spike and he just
fucking flew. We had done it in WW, but nobody
wanted to take it from me because I was never
gonna win number one anyway, so I couldn't really use
it because who would be able to get up from it?
As I later, as I learned that night with Bobby

(01:09:39):
was the wrong thing to do. I plus the rings
in WW at the time were so hard. But the
Survivor series when they had the there was the body
Donnas versus the Horror Whitis underdogs and one two three
K was winning and I was the last one nominated
before him, and Marty was beating me. I said, man, Marty,
I said, you beat me with this. He's like a
top rope power bomb.

Speaker 2 (01:09:57):
How do you do that?

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):
Like, we stay up there in your power bomb me?
If you want to go out, gonna try it. He's like, no,
I stayed up in power by me. Okay when we
went back to sleep. We went out and but they
just did the move perfect, and then we just started
doing it because we would get heat because we have
those four man tag teams and Jack Lander was like,
you guys got nine minutes, Like how could you go
nine minutes with the whole entire tag team roster and
things like So we would just go in and just
go through our spots fast weekend, which was again the

(01:10:19):
wrong thing to do, but just being wanting to bump
the system so much, we'd go ahead and do it.
And like the first time mentioned in the match, Mamady
would fuckingower bomb me off the top rope just for
the sake of getting it in and for having fun,
and we'd still end up, you know, staying through the
whole fucking match.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
What are your different questions of about the East w
Locker Room?

Speaker 3 (01:10:36):
It was well coming from place. When I left w D,
I wasn't, you know, a real happy fella, you know,
I mean I was.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
I was.

Speaker 3 (01:10:43):
I was aggravated by you know which I like like
back again, and a lot of it was my own fault,
but I still wasn't in a real good mood. So
I went from being around guys who a lot of
them I didn't get along with, well theas the guys
whold matter I didn't get along with the time to
guys that where everybody was like you know, was like
was a family and real cool.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
So I mean it was, it was. It was like
a whole new place, you know, really like night and day.

Speaker 1 (01:11:04):
Has Paulie changed over time as far as when you
came to w and now he's your boss?

Speaker 2 (01:11:08):
No, he was.

Speaker 6 (01:11:09):
He was.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
He's always been fucking strange. He was never any different.

Speaker 3 (01:11:12):
Remember my little brother, he was uh he was like
he was fourteen years old and he came with me
that first night I worked with Spike and Paulie's sitting
here and he's.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
Like, now it's like you have the ball, take the ball.
And Rod and I came back.

Speaker 3 (01:11:24):
I mean, he popped me up and we're in the
car away home. My brother's like that paul guy is
fucking weird. I mean, but he's always but he has
a way of getting in your head. You know, he's
he didn't treat me, you know, there was no balls
in play relationship. He was still a friend, right.

Speaker 5 (01:11:38):
Right, Seeing that you were friends with Carl Louso did
what I was Dennis's opinion when they dropped the NBA
title with Shane Douglas, since you were close to Carl.

Speaker 4 (01:11:46):
Loose car Loose at the time, like what was what
did he what happened about?

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
What did he think? He was flipping out about it,
right of course, But I mean ended up being good
for me because that's how I ended up getting the belt,
shating through it Downy did the other tournament and put
it on me right when I went to Dennis called
me so heartbroken that I would leave w w F
and go to Paulie and not go to him because
you can call be my bookers, be your booker. You're
run once a month? What am I gonna? What am

(01:12:11):
I gonna do? You know?

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
I mean, I I don't know how to be a
fucking the booker. I but you know, I need to
work often and make a living. And he was like
he was a little hobby. We didn't talk for you know,
for a little while. He would really this feeling would
really hurt that I would go ahead and you know,
Paulie instead of ex coalper promotions.

Speaker 4 (01:12:27):
Did he know that he was getting set up that
night of that NBA tournament or now that he had
he had.

Speaker 3 (01:12:33):
Heard about it, but of course he didn't want to.
He didn't want to believe it. And then he thought
it was all part of it. I ain't wid him
to the interview and everything afterwards like that, but uh,
you know, after it was done in two days past
and he realized that he really was fucked.

Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
But but that that was you know, that was like
oil and water. Dennis and Todd and Paulie were just
not made to, you know, work together. Right.

Speaker 4 (01:12:55):
What was your impressions of Todd Gordon?

Speaker 2 (01:12:57):
I really never got to know him, know them all
that well.

Speaker 3 (01:12:59):
By the time I got there, he was you know,
he was hardly ever around and he was only around
like in Philly, and he kind of hung with his click,
you know, with like you know, saying, man, those guys
and uh, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
And I hung with my guys.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
Now was ECW.

Speaker 4 (01:13:11):
It was a lot that you were in ec W
when I first started, we were. Poully wasn't in at
all when you were in No.

Speaker 3 (01:13:17):
Well any Gilbert brought Paully in like as a manager
and you know and helped him, you know, had Polly
helping us do promos and stuff. And me and Johnny
Hotbody were the Suicide Blondes and where the Eastern Tag
Team champions and then go to go to Smoky Mountain Salatory.
Blomo broke my arms and they put Chris Michaels hot
Body like a three birth thy three of us.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
But he had.

Speaker 3 (01:13:40):
It was supposed to be blonde, and we tried to
make it blonde and he was just coming out like
red and orange and he didn't really have a lot
of hair on top.

Speaker 2 (01:13:47):
He was nervous, so and he said, you know what,
just to put it in jet black. And he just
pretend it's blonde.

Speaker 4 (01:13:54):
Well, now, when you came back after the Spike thing,
what was like your first program?

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
I did a deal with with Mikey where me and
Mikey worked with the Eliminators, and I did a couple
of spots with John and Perry and then tag Mikey
and and then you know, do the thing when he
came to tag me, you know, I had something in
my eye and this was you know, I was fixing
a turnbuckle or something. So that sudden November to remember
for me and Mikey.

Speaker 3 (01:14:14):
And then we then I worked with Spacoli a few times,
and that's how we kind of leaded into me and
Shane and Brian Lee doing triple threat deal together.

Speaker 4 (01:14:24):
Whose idea was that.

Speaker 3 (01:14:27):
Now that uh uh ben Wan Malenko were gone, Shane
still wanted to have a triple threat right, and and
that was you know, in the way PAULI put it together,
just ended up me and me and Brian, And it
was fun with me and Brian had been together so
much before already, so we really knew each other well.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
So it was always you know, Shane defended the title
and me and.

Speaker 4 (01:14:45):
Brian had tag Magic didn't you come together?

Speaker 5 (01:14:47):
Didn't you fight? Like did you work Spacolia as Brian
Lee and Spaccoli? They had that match in the arena,
and then didn't you come down or something?

Speaker 3 (01:14:53):
We taped the commentary and on the phone's basement where
I was sick, and by then I always very much comings.
I asked Joey if I can do commentary, you know,
because they were both former partners of mine. So that's
when I when I ran in and we'd beat on
Louie and then here came the pitbulls, and then there
came to Shane and we beat the three of them down.

Speaker 2 (01:15:11):
That's when we finally did our you know, three finger salute.

Speaker 4 (01:15:14):
Right, what was Shane?

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
Did Shane?

Speaker 4 (01:15:16):
What was Shane's opinion about how you left WWF because
he left the same way. Did you guys have that?

Speaker 2 (01:15:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
We we had the fucking miserable bitching thing together. We
would sit there and you know, bitch complain about stuff
all the time. So we were so we were perfect together.
We were two miserable bastards.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Right now, did you have a hard time being on
the road and Tammy being separated from your nose?

Speaker 2 (01:15:37):
She wasn't on the road anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:15:39):
They would just bring her to TV and then they
would just send her to like you know, appearances and stuff,
and she would then she would go to the studio
and do all the voiceovers and some on camera stuff
in front of the blue screen map and she.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
Would only go, uh to make the TVs.

Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
You would still go to some of the shows I think.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
With her, right, yeah, they why I don't know, but
they were still giving me tickets to go to TV.
I don't know if it was they were doing so
much with her, and and Paulie was very secretly on
the on the payroll, so maybe you know, they're like, well,
what do we do about this be able? She gonna
leave because we'll have a lot of stuff invested in there.
And Pauli was like, well, if you just fucking let
Chris come to TV and this is I'm my I'm

(01:16:14):
just assuming this and let him act like he's doing something,
he'll be happy.

Speaker 1 (01:16:17):
Say.

Speaker 2 (01:16:17):
They stuck me in the pre tape room.

Speaker 3 (01:16:19):
I would sit with like you know, Downtown Bruno and
you know, and they gave me like and they gave
me furness and Lafonic. Again we ended up together to
like help teach them how to do promos. I doubt
there was ever a fucking film in the camera where
you know, they probably the cardboard count of the guys
there and they're like this, make it seemed like I was,
you know, I was doing something. I never got paid
for anything. When they still let me go to the
TV with there and gave me the tickets to to
go and hang out. And the weird thing was everybody

(01:16:41):
treated me much nicer.

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
Than I was gone then. You know, then now I
was back, but not.

Speaker 3 (01:16:48):
Really working for him and uh and which made me
which was probably a dumb thing to do, to have
me go and do that, because although I got to
hang out in a different way with the Jim Rosses
and stuff like that, because I just kind of insinuate
myself into places I probably shouldn't have been, but for
some reason, they let me do it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
So I became kind of chumming with them.

Speaker 3 (01:17:06):
And we're in Calgary when Taka and Saske had that
match to the Calgary Stampede, pay and Jim Walls King
he said, you know, we really like the stuff you're
doing on Palli's TV. And now these guys coming in,
we're gonna do a light heavyweight thing, and you know
a lot of you know, Indie like heavyweight guys, and
you know, we just want to come into that same
character and stuff. And me being the fucking dick that
I was, you know, thinking I was important because I

(01:17:27):
got to work at EATW and hang out at the
back of TV and give guys to a fucking empty camera.
You know, I was like, you know what it's always been,
you know, a big man territory. The bell's just not
going to work. So I really don't feel like coming
in like I was hot shit, Like you know what,
I really don't want to.

Speaker 2 (01:17:42):
So that was kind of, you know, another asshole move
I made.

Speaker 1 (01:17:44):
Right now, you actually help Paul with a lot of
booking to at one point, or you helped wreak storylines
and stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:17:49):
Yeah, we would.

Speaker 3 (01:17:50):
I don't know if it was just because I could
put up with Paul more than other people. I mean,
it is something I always wanted to do anyway. I
mean I just every minutum my life kind of revolves
around this business. I want to learn everything I could,
and Paulie likes to just babble constantly twenty four a
day about wrestling too, So if there was somebody that
didn't mind sitting on the phone with him from three
am to six am, then you know, then so be it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
And you got to help him out do stuff. So
though I was, I freely volunteered to do that. And
then I go to the studio and help him do
the TVs and stuff. And I mean Dreamer was always there,
Shane was always there, the other guys that really really
wanted to be involved in, you know and learn more stuff.
So and so that was fun.

Speaker 3 (01:18:25):
And then because I was still going to Vindu's TV's,
Paulie had me, you know, I would like when we
did the thing when Sabu and Rob or w w
F and they had the banner and stuff like that.
I mean I went to the office, you know, and
they gave me the banner. I would I was kind
of like a because because I was around those guys
more often. Although Paulie could have done it very well.

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
Without me, I was just around them. So I kind
of got to like tied mess back and forth. I
thought I was fucking hot shit, you know. And we
went to Montreal with the Shawn Brett deal that night.
Why we walked in, I mean I had no reason
to be there early, but Tammy had to be there
a little bit earlier. We walked into actually he was
over and Vince starts yelling, where have you been? And
I'm looking around, like, man, he's hot at somebody. I'm

(01:19:06):
talking to you, where have you been? I don't know.
It's a bingo hall. I don't know why.

Speaker 3 (01:19:12):
He's like, where's that tape? I said, I don't know
what you're talking about? He goes, we have we held
the production meeting, got up for you, like for me?
He's like, guy and walks away. I'm like, what the
hell I going to call PAULI from the production room.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
If you mess my dude. Vince is yelling at me
about some kind of tape call me back.

Speaker 3 (01:19:26):
So I'm just standing by the curtain watching him. Took
all this stuff up, and Tony Chimmel the regnows that
comes over. He's like, where's Candido. I'm like, I'm here.

Speaker 4 (01:19:32):
What.

Speaker 6 (01:19:32):
He goes, there's a Raoul on the phone for you,
one of them. I go, hello, you know, like this
is I said, who the fuck's Raoul?

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
It was? It's me. I'm like, Paul, what the fuck
is wrong with you? What's going on? He's like, well
there was before.

Speaker 3 (01:19:51):
I know then to remember, we had cut a promo
because it was there what they call their survivor series.

Speaker 2 (01:19:57):
Like Gang Rules or something like that.

Speaker 3 (01:19:59):
So we were some promo like knocking that whole thing,
and apparably they were gonna air our promo on to
Viagras series to help us plug Themertremember, and Paul had
just told me this, well, why didn't you He's yelling
at me about.

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):
Some tape he goes, he goes, well, and he goes there,
he goes they're doing.

Speaker 3 (01:20:12):
Something with Showing and Brett. So I didn't think he
want to be bothered by it. So I was like,
and this is in the afternoon.

Speaker 2 (01:20:18):
I'm like, what are you doing with Shawing and Brett?

Speaker 3 (01:20:20):
So, I mean, I don't know if I don't know
if the whole thing was was you know, was really
your work or it wasn't work, but there was apparently
PAULI knew something underhanded and tricky was going on.

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
Right, What are some of the ideas that you were
actually responsible for in ECW as far as like your
booking concepts that got used.

Speaker 2 (01:20:39):
There was there was It was never ideas.

Speaker 3 (01:20:41):
It was like it was like I was like, he
let me do finishes and stuff like that, and it
matches where like one of the things about people like
oh ECW Paoli was a genius this and then he
was a genius. Then he let the boys do what
they wanted to do. I mean we never there wasn't
a guy who would come and say, okay, you're doing this,
this this. We would just get together and put together
our own matches, put together and stuff. But when stuff

(01:21:02):
mattered at certain points and certain things need to get across,
PAULI was like, maybe if you know you just like, hey,
tell the guys you know, have him about to try this,
you know, and then that It wasn't like office guy
would have fucking pencil by my ear and the paper,
you know, walking around trying to be important. But we
would just sit there and come up with I mean
nothing that was ever. I would write something out and
give it to me and say, okay, we'll do this.
It was always like a like a like a team

(01:21:23):
effort of we'd sit around eating Chinese food at run
befoone in the camera guy's house with you know, a
dreamer and Shane and Pauli and we would all just
throw stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):
Out and with all of us together, it just would.

Speaker 1 (01:21:33):
Become something, you know, as far as actually Tavia would
come to some shows too, right.

Speaker 3 (01:21:37):
But yeah, she was, you know, enjoying herself more there
than she was and to be at the time actually
too because another thing we didn't realize at the time,
but they were trying to what they were trying to
do with her being on the single now and the
Entertainment Tonight and almost crossover stuff. They were trying to
get her to be a crossover person, like they offer
her the Playboy deal previous disable but she said no,
not because she was upset about the Playboy thing, but

(01:21:58):
it was because they kind of I told her, you're
doing it and you're gonna do your food and full
duty for this money, this amount of money for portal,
this amount for this wasn't like, hey, do you do
you want to and plus she was like didn't want
to do you know the I think in her mind
she really did kind of want to do the like
the other stuff and not.

Speaker 2 (01:22:15):
Just do wrestling.

Speaker 3 (01:22:16):
She enjoyed being on the Entertainment Tonights and doing other
TV shows and all, but I was like, you're not
a fucking actress.

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
You're the female. Jim Cornett, You're he'll manager your this.
And I would constantly be on the phone.

Speaker 3 (01:22:25):
Are you with Jim Ross? Like why is she doing
fucking She was come out with modeling the fucking T shirt.
You can just get some stupid rap to do that.
I mean, she should be.

Speaker 2 (01:22:31):
Fucking, you know, managining, cutting promos and stuff. And he
was like, that's not what we're doing. And but never
sent to me.

Speaker 3 (01:22:37):
By the way, who the fuck are you to be
calling me and yelling at me We don't even fucking work.
He put up with a lot of bullshit from me.
But so she enjoyed herself more U CW. Because Pollie
kind of gave me free reign to do what I wanted.
So she would come and you know, and I mean
not for any payday, just you know, they would use
her in my finishes and all kind of stuff because
when people see me, they started cheering for her, chanting

(01:22:57):
her name anyway. So when you know, when she would
come and you know, run out to get the you know,
to get the easy pop and some kind of false.

Speaker 2 (01:23:04):
Finish, it was just it was fun to do.

Speaker 1 (01:23:05):
Did ever value you what?

Speaker 3 (01:23:07):
When they chanted her name? Or not at least they
were fucking chanting something. I mean, the c W crowd
can be you know, they could be pretty stiff. Well
they I mean they always I mean chanting good stuff
to me too. I mean, I mean later they would
say some pretty dansky shit, but like when I first started,
they you know, skip his dad and chanting my name
and stuff. But I mean, how could they not fucking
cheer her? She was the hottest thing in the fucking business.

(01:23:28):
I would how how could they expect them not to.

Speaker 5 (01:23:30):
Say it when she first when she was out there,
when you were with the company, and she still was
with WWF and she would like come out on stage
and everything like in between. Did she get he from
WWF because it was all over the internet I think
at that time, and was Paul kind of like telling
her to go get seen kind.

Speaker 3 (01:23:46):
Of No, she would go, I mean she just going
like a baseball hat and jeans, would just you know,
sit up there with guys.

Speaker 2 (01:23:52):
We were friends with, looking Paz and Bubble and stuff
watch the show. Because she would jitimately likes good wrestling.
She was seeing more good wrestling and these w she
was a WWF right. She would get heat because.

Speaker 3 (01:24:02):
When they were doing, like the the Live Wire show
that there was naturally it was actually live on Sunday
mornings and they would do the deal where you know,
fans would call in and it was it.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
Was it was a shoot live.

Speaker 3 (01:24:12):
Sometimes Kevin Dunn would call in and you know, try
and plant questions to get the people talking about they
want them to talk about. But they would let one
or two people through for real, and they would start
asking stuff about, you know, other things, and she would
like mention my name. They asked me about like, you know,
how come WF doesn't have cruiser weights like WCW.

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
And she's like, I don't know, that's stupid. I think
they should have guys like you know, and mentioned my.

Speaker 3 (01:24:31):
Name along with ben Wan Malanko and stuff, and they're
but there in the control room like, oh my god.
And I remembers Collie was there with me that day
and we're just rolling around laughing because we were just
fucking heat seekers to begin with, you know. And then
it was the day of November to Remember and the
like welcome to Live Wire. Tamia is like that's gonna
be November to Remember weekend, like Jim Ross sucking throws
like Jesus Christ, you guys always have to fuck around,

(01:24:53):
Like I guess, I don't know what are some of
the matches don't really stand out in your car and
your CW.

Speaker 1 (01:24:57):
And like anything with land Storm.

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
Or I mean, Lance was was always fucking fun.

Speaker 3 (01:25:03):
I think that doesn't get I'm That's the thing I'm
hunted about it that she doesn't get get noticed as much.
Because me and Lance as a team, I think we're
such a perfect match, because Lance being zero personality as
he had at me being so fucking retarded and trying
to be over compensating for it, and you know, and
the deal we hated each other, but still we're a
team and would work a tag match and then go

(01:25:25):
right into our fucking singles match in the middle of
a tag match, you know, nail each other and do
a spot with with he you know, we'd bump each other,
then our the opponent would come and we'd nail there
and go back to fight each other. It was just
I think it was a It was a great story,
and it was just so much fun to work with him,
and the guys were getting to work against, like Tracy
and Guido and then those kinds of I mean it
was just I'm kind of upset that he gets overlooked
a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:25:47):
Basically after a CW he stayed there until the end.
I mean, did you see it going?

Speaker 4 (01:25:51):
Well?

Speaker 2 (01:25:52):
I was. I was kind of there till the end.
Paulie for whatever reason. I don't know if he was.

Speaker 3 (01:25:57):
He always he told me this, but what comes out
of his mouth and what he really thinks are too
usually completely different things. If he's really even thinking anything
or if he's just talking these I mean, I'll tell
you this. He treated us fantastically. I made more money
with Paulie than I did with WWF.

Speaker 2 (01:26:12):
I mean, at least as far like as a guarantee
basis right, And and we were all taking jobs to
try and help the company out because we all wanted
to stay there. Well yo, yea team.

Speaker 3 (01:26:22):
So when I started doing the travel stuff and using
my credit cardinal, I mean I would win my bill
with Hungry Month.

Speaker 2 (01:26:28):
I mean, I would, you know. I mean, America Express
gives you like a copy of the actual tickets long
comes stuff. I mean, I hop everything and kind h
my shit out, I go and give it to Pail.
He just flip to the last page, right, you check
every month. I mean it was like fifteen grand, twenty grand,
like nobody Deal'll just throw it in his funking bag
and never look at it again. And the checks never bounced.
I mean until the end when I got stuck with
a lot of the stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:26:48):
I mean, he was, I mean he treated us all,
you know, really really well, and I mean it was
it was a it was a blast over there.

Speaker 2 (01:26:55):
But then he was treating me.

Speaker 3 (01:26:57):
Like like he was saying, like, oh, you know you're
supposed to I want to just do the TV, so
I need somebody to run the shows on the road.
Why are the boys going to listen to you? And
you know, when you're getting fucked up? I said, the
entire fucking locker room is fucked up. I said, you
know there's uh Robin Saboo did a photo shoot for
High Times magazine with nine pounds of pot foot away
from us, And you're yelling at me for doing.

Speaker 2 (01:27:18):
What I'm doing.

Speaker 3 (01:27:19):
And I don't know why he, you know, got on
my case and nobody else's I don't know. So he
suspended me a few times and would still pay me
while I while I was while I was off, and
then I brought me brought me back. I did the
deal with U where Clean brought me out and did
the thing with with Taz. I came back one time
and worked in Saboo and I'm ever to remember, and

(01:27:41):
I was, and he just was paying me the whole
time and only using me sporadically here and there. And
I don't know what his real reason for it was.
I've tried to talk about with him a hundred times,
and somehow it winds up. He tried to make an
analogy that Cyclone Negro and Pimperofpo had a.

Speaker 2 (01:27:55):
Chain match once in Dallas and thing, and I'm like,
what the hell are you talking about? And by the
time he's done talking, it's six seven hours later, and
all I want to do is go home. So I
don't know what the reason was ever for it, but
I thought it was going down at the end.

Speaker 3 (01:28:07):
But ready by this time, I, you know, my brain
wasn't wasn't always working, so I wasn't realizing the fact that,
you know, that checks were slowing down, that I wasn't
being used, and I was so I you know, I
was I was pretty much just you know, just have
my coherent when it was time to go to work,
which became less and less for whatever reason. The rest
of the time, I didn't really I didn't even know

(01:28:28):
what was going on much, you know, of anything.

Speaker 5 (01:28:30):
When Tammy finally got let go of WWF, did you
like her when she was on the road full time
with you?

Speaker 4 (01:28:36):
Did Polly take her right away?

Speaker 2 (01:28:37):
Or yeah? Well she and I never got fired that.
I quit and she she quit also in order to
the offen and said, look, are you not having fun
here anymore? She's like, no, I'm really not your muscle.
We're gonna do this with you. I want to do this.
And we left the meeting, you know, and we're already
fucked up. I tell me, got downstairs to the car
and we're like, fuck damn, you know what we had?

(01:28:58):
We were going to the heat wave of pay per
view and like, let's just fucking quit on the on
the pay per view. So she came to the ring
with me that night and Joey Spile said she's now
full time with us, and paper went off the air.
Everybody was in the ring. She cut a promo saying
no fuck them on the Earth ECW and Paulie said, well,
what did you make with Vince last year at your
merchandise and everything she told him. He said, Okay, that's
all I'll give you, and he fucking paid her.

Speaker 3 (01:29:18):
And she only had to go to TV and go
to whatever house shows she felt like going to, and
otherwise she was just you know home.

Speaker 1 (01:29:25):
When was the first time you actually started using drugs?
And how'd you get introduced in all that stuff?

Speaker 3 (01:29:31):
I was like, super super straight because I figured, Fuck,
if I want to be in wrestling, I gotta be athletic.

Speaker 2 (01:29:35):
I can't like drink or anything. God damn, what the
fuck you know? You can't do that if you're gonna
be afreshonal wrestler. And then we uh, when we went
to WWF, we kind of hear things, but we were
still so new that we got k faded and all
of stuff, and everybody was doing.

Speaker 3 (01:29:50):
But then Tammy got her tit's done for the first
time and their doctor gave her a Paul big sample
back and just samples.

Speaker 2 (01:29:56):
I vikingd it. She was like, I don't need these.
I mean we would have.

Speaker 4 (01:30:00):
Been a year later.

Speaker 2 (01:30:01):
We've been fucking fighting over I'm trying to get to it.
So we were like, Tom, do you know these things are?
Do you want? He's like but give to me like you.

Speaker 3 (01:30:08):
And then we were It was a time that we
were riding with with showing on the kid and Scott
Hall and stuff like that. I was like, fucking man,
I heard I can't sleep And Scott's like, did.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
You ever have his ANX? And I'm like I'm like no,
not really really, don't you know take anything?

Speaker 3 (01:30:22):
And he like gave us one and we're like fighting,
should we take it or not? And I'm so I'm
like yelling at her like I don't think we should.

Speaker 2 (01:30:29):
She's like, well, what are you guys? I don't know
what do you?

Speaker 3 (01:30:31):
So I called Tom, like Tom, did you think I
should do? He's like, yes, give it to me. I'll
get rid of it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:36):
And then and then we were in uh.

Speaker 3 (01:30:38):
We were in on Prince in Prince George Island and
I had to go from Prince George to Vancouver, Vancouver
to Toronto and go through customs and then take up
our backs again and go from Toronto to Newark and
then go from York home.

Speaker 2 (01:30:51):
And that was the first time I ever took anything.
Davy Boy gave me a big zixt bar in Prince
George Island. All I knew was I woke up to
my loving room floor in Mattawuana, New Jersey, and that
started a little bit of a run there.

Speaker 1 (01:31:05):
As far as like w w F is when you
first you know, got into the drugs and stuff like that,
it was pretty much.

Speaker 2 (01:31:13):
It it's almost it sounds bad, it almost is a
necessity when you're working that often and taking that many bumps,
especially in that ring then was so fucking hard, and
the travel was just like made no particular sense. You're
from you know, like Seattle, Binghamton and fucking.

Speaker 3 (01:31:28):
San Francisco and then here and too, and you're so
just so wrapped up when you you know, you come
out of the ring and stuff, you can't go back
to the telling Cloyd Drive and go to bed and
you gotta be at the airport at seven o'clock in
the morning.

Speaker 2 (01:31:39):
Any of this you didn't help going to bed.

Speaker 3 (01:31:40):
And then you know, and I was never a big
upper guy, but you know, but then it helped, you know,
kind of helped getting up and then helped not hurt.
And then it just stuff that becomes a Habit just
becomes a habit, you know what I mean, whether it's
taking something or just you have a routine that you
do during the day just becomes I mean, if you
do something regularly, just becomes habit for me. And when
your schedule was to get up, go to the airport,

(01:32:01):
go to the gym, fly somewhere, go to this, it
just became part.

Speaker 2 (01:32:03):
Of the habit.

Speaker 3 (01:32:04):
And it's and I don't think there's anything wrong with
it if you can control it and do it properly.
But I just later on found out that I couldn't
control it and do it properly.

Speaker 1 (01:32:11):
I was gonna ask you, what, what do you think
made drugs so appealing to you?

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
Because they're they're fucking fun.

Speaker 3 (01:32:19):
Seriously, I mean, if you can't go to sleep and
your body hurts, if you take something to go to
sleep and you wake up and your body feels better.
But then also, like I said before, everybody in this
business is a fucking misfit. Well, I just started in
Tena the other day and me and Raven and Scott
Hall and Conan were sitting Everyone's gone from lunch and
wants to sitting at the table together.

Speaker 2 (01:32:38):
Kevin Nash walks up, He's like, what the fuck is
this an NA meeting?

Speaker 3 (01:32:42):
And that's what we were actually sitting there talking about
because now all of us are no longer doing that stuff,
but it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:47):
Helps us sit there and talk about it and you know,
a joke about hey, Marion, we did this and.

Speaker 3 (01:32:51):
Blah blah blah, because it makes you almost feel like
you still are having fun. And the guys that can
still do it and not get in trouble and not
fund themselves up, I mean, you know, more power to them,
but I just it was just I just couldn't stop
at a certain point, Like like those sulmas.

Speaker 2 (01:33:08):
If I if I had two makes your body feel fine.

Speaker 3 (01:33:11):
You do get a little buzz, and you're there's always
something you're always as much fun as we're supposed to.

Speaker 2 (01:33:16):
Be having us we're doing something that we love for
a job. There's always something that you know in the
fact of your head, like, oh man, I'm not getting
used right, I'm probably gonna get finished up. I'm plably
gonna do this.

Speaker 3 (01:33:26):
We're a strange bunch of people, you know, So something
that kind of levels you out, it makes you feel
better and stuff, and you know it's sometimes sometimes helpful,
you know, But it's just if I have two summers,
I'll take two. If I have a one hundred I'll
take a hundred. I have a thousand, I'll take a thousand.
You know, I can't regulate myself.

Speaker 2 (01:33:42):
Right right now.

Speaker 1 (01:33:43):
As far as I'm gonna ask a lot of questions
about drugs coming up, But as far as Tammy taking
drugs and getting into the scene, I mean, she wasn't
really in the ring taking bumps or anything like that.
She was, you know, traveling, but it wasn't a crazy
travel schedule.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
What do you think, Well, it was a crazy travel
schedule when it started because we were still doing like
forty day runs, home for three, gone for thirty. But
there was still was like pressure on on her to
be the top girl in the business, be a fucking
you know, one hundred and five pounds, do everything fucking right,
look like you're the old Stacey Huber got heat or
something called months ago. They wanted to do an appearance
when she got to the building and she's like, no,

(01:34:14):
because the girls can't drive three four hours, get to
a building and go straight and do a meeting because
they don't look the way they're gonna look on TEENA.
They get there and that's and that's pressure on you,
right And then plus you're around everybody else doing it
and your husband's in the room with you doing it.
It just could you know, it rubs off.

Speaker 1 (01:34:31):
It was the time you're doing stuff in w W.
I fat what you told us when we did our interviews. Yeah, okay,
so basically when you got to ECW, you were already
into the drug scene and stuff like that. Is it
true that Nicole Banster's husband was pretty much one of
the guys that brought the heavy drugs around the locker room?

Speaker 2 (01:34:46):
It was just pretty much no, Nicole Basses's wife had
some had some stuff, but we were never like a
real heavy drug people. And we were like, you know,
like a pain pill thing, you know, and and mostly
the fucking Somas were are deal. But if you have
a Bob Bass would come around with you know, like
the new bite and stuff like that. I mean he
always he always if he needed something, he always had
he always had it right right, So what was your

(01:35:07):
drug A choice?

Speaker 3 (01:35:08):
Would And yeah that's for somebody that that's the wrestling
drug a choice for some reason, And I didn't. I mean,
and it's it does it kills your pain better than
vikings do. It gives you, you know, a buzz that's
kind of a happy feeling thing.

Speaker 2 (01:35:23):
But then it's like after i'd stopped taking for a while,
I hurt myself and probably was like probably like four
months if I a beck from Porto Rico. I hadn't
taken anything, and a guy had give me like three
of them, and I didn't want to say be a dick,
like I don't take it. I made away from me.
He was like, here, man, I take it. I'm looking
at him. Took me like a day. I'm like like, man,
I'm not gonna be a real fucking scum bag if
I take these now, I'm not gonna be able to

(01:35:44):
stop again, and you know, and I was like, you
know what I mean, but I can. I gotta go
to the gym, and that Kurt's if I just take
one of them, it's not gonna do anything. And I've
look and took one and before I mean, I you know,
I could take you know, like six or eight before
I go to the ring, and just like feel good,
I took like one and I started getting like a
little well and I just fucking through the other two
out because I was like I didn't like the fucking woe.

Speaker 1 (01:36:04):
But I knew it about ten more minutes. I would
like it, you know, as far as let's see you
needs to w how out of control with the drug.

Speaker 3 (01:36:15):
Scene it was, I'll tell you this, then this, I know,
and everybody you know k fabe, Oh, I don't do
this and that.

Speaker 2 (01:36:24):
I was writing with Taz for a while and Taz
does nothing. I mean he was, he drinks coffee.

Speaker 3 (01:36:29):
I mean, so if I kept writing with with Taz,
I might never have ended up in this in the situation,
if what he hadn't got ahead and called the police
never happened. But but pretty much everybody else and everybody
else had.

Speaker 2 (01:36:41):
Their thing of choice, you know. But I mean when
people are you know, falling off fucking ceilings, their tables
on fire, you know, shit hurts.

Speaker 5 (01:36:48):
Oh yeah, what was the boy's opinion when like with
Louis Pacoli dying and everything like that that.

Speaker 3 (01:36:54):
You know, what's what's bad about it is I mean
me and Louis were close long before we got WWF together,
and then what happened to him as hard as it
should have hit us, I mean we're all, you know,
crying and sad and it's still you know, and it
bothers you when you when you think about him. But
as much as like right then, all of us like

(01:37:14):
Rob and Sabu myself there were that close to them, should.

Speaker 2 (01:37:17):
Have you know, let's never do this again.

Speaker 3 (01:37:19):
And like previous to him, like Eddie Gilbert helped me
out so much, and Buddy Lindell called me one day
and you know we after we lost Eddie Puertorico, that
too should have been a wake up.

Speaker 2 (01:37:27):
Called it as bad as it was. It just you
were like, well, damn, you know that's that's horrible. We
lost a great friend. But you know, let's make sure
we never take you know, a thousand a day anymore?
Here you want five? You know that's it was. It's
insane thing. That's just the way it was. It has
to be something that just clicks in you for whatever
reason to make you want to stop or not be

(01:37:47):
as stupid.

Speaker 1 (01:37:48):
Did any divesans ever come up to you and say, hey,
you got a problem. You know you need to stop?

Speaker 2 (01:37:52):
No, Because the difference is is I mean and I
mean it did cause me problems.

Speaker 3 (01:37:59):
But I think the fact that for whatever reason, I
got labeled as like the poster child of the fucked
up wrestler. I think because like some guys were you know,
too bigger names, you can't make an example out of them.
Some guys nobody gives it about it, so you can't
make example out of them. I was kind of right
in the middle, where, well, he'sn't you know, a guy's
supposed to be real good, it's supposed to be great,
so we can use him as the example because it'll

(01:38:20):
it'll prove a point, but at the same way, it
won't fuck up business.

Speaker 2 (01:38:23):
I think that's why I was, you know, I was
kind of used.

Speaker 3 (01:38:26):
But it's just but for some reason, after we started losing,
you know, guys like Eddie and Louie and Art Barr
and the perception started to change and the offices started
to get nervous about it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:37):
But the veterans never said anything because look, the veterans
they were. That was the way it was back then.
Everybody was a party and constantly.

Speaker 3 (01:38:46):
You know, it's so they couldn't go ahead and tell
us don't do it, because they were you know, they
were go ahead and right. I mean, like I just
would Terry a few weeks ago when we were talking
about stuff, you know, similar to that, and you know,
he said, gun damn.

Speaker 2 (01:38:59):
It was like he's like don't tell Vicky about you
this Christ and I god damn seventy six, I almost
hockey the NBA belt or some dad come a cocaine.
Think he would kick my ass if she knew this
thirty years ago. I just don't tell her. He's like,
I just drink beer down. So I mean everybody, I mean,
everybody's done something.

Speaker 3 (01:39:17):
You know, when in Smoking Mountain there was you know,
like Ricky Morton and stuff like that as a heavy
part year and no one thought anything of it because well, fuck,
he's Ricky Mooreton.

Speaker 2 (01:39:26):
He could do what he wants to do and go
out and still tear the house down.

Speaker 3 (01:39:29):
But for some reason, once you know, the death started
to hit, you know, the people outside the business got
on more. So that so when when then the fans
started hearing about it, because I'm sure everybody's not you
know common knowledge that I mean, like you read Dynamite
Kid's book when he had to go through and get
and get Terry to go to the bus. And Terry
had like one boot on throwing up all over himself

(01:39:50):
and was you know, running around naked and drunk and stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:39:53):
And he was the NBA World champion at time, and
he told Dynamite Kid, and how you coming to be
an NBA champion? You got to be a huge fuck up.
I mean the fans are doing back there because there
was no Internet. There was all right stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:40:02):
So but once stuff started to get out, and you
know that people need something to chant at you when
they become smarter. So that was part of the problem too,
that veterans can never say anything to us because they
all did it.

Speaker 2 (01:40:13):
They just you know, were able to hide it.

Speaker 5 (01:40:15):
Do you think that pretty much the wrestlers that have
been the sadwich just because of the Internet and smart
fans and everything. It's everybody knows about it. But it
was probably like with the drinking and all that in
the seventies and eighties, like the roof brick flair and
everything like that.

Speaker 3 (01:40:27):
I mean, like my grandfather tell me stories, you know
him and Freddie Blasting and Fuji and stuff would do.

Speaker 2 (01:40:32):
I mean, he was out of his mind. I was
on my thirteenth birthday.

Speaker 3 (01:40:35):
He had to show an oldipan New Jersey and brought
me to the hotel afterwards and then started slaughter. Was
there like Larry Bam Bam Ted Patty and guys, and
he was trying thirteen.

Speaker 2 (01:40:44):
Years old for that night and he's trying to get
me a rat. I'm thirteen years old and this is
my grandfather now, you know. And so they were all
divine erks.

Speaker 3 (01:40:53):
Yeah, it was a whole once everybody really started to
find out about the inner workings and stuff, and people
got you know, I don't know the smartest the right word,
but that's what we use.

Speaker 2 (01:41:04):
It's that's what kind of started that whole ball rolling.

Speaker 1 (01:41:06):
I was gonna actually ask you did you think you guys?
Were you and Tammy were skateeboaded by poli at all?

Speaker 2 (01:41:11):
Yeah? Okay, he like what he had Tammy do that.

Speaker 1 (01:41:16):
I was gonna ask you about this.

Speaker 2 (01:41:17):
I mean it was it was like a heavy cell
on it, like, man, this would be great, Like how
was it gonna be great? He was like, well, you'll
either make you a you know, a sympathetic figure and
tell your story and stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:41:28):
But for some people just didn't want to believe what
she said was true and it but it was when
people get back on you, you know he's talking about
I mean stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:41:35):
He was like, listen, starting to get too heavy, you know,
just tell me to back off. And she talked about
stuff that I mean that she doesn't want to talk.

Speaker 3 (01:41:41):
About, like stuff with her with her niece and her
mom and all that kind of crap, and you know,
and he and he aired it, and like I saw
Cornett's shoot interview. But when I was in Puerto Rico,
Pablo Marquez had a tape of the thing you did
with Cornett and we were staying at Pablo's for a
while and he had no TV except fucking one perto
Rican channel. Watched him in cornette since it was so long,
and watched it four or five times a week. Like

(01:42:01):
PAULI was, must have not been a friend to us,
because while you do that to a friend. But he
asked us beforehand if we do it, and we said yeah.
He said, well, it could either be great, you know,
or it can blow up in our faces. But the
keyword was our faces. I figured that meant him too.
And when it just kind of backfired, it just kind
of backfired on us.

Speaker 1 (01:42:18):
Looking back on it, would you have not wanted to
do that?

Speaker 2 (01:42:21):
Well, looking back on it, if we were, we weren't
really trying to be straight. We were just trying to
be straight enough that we would not get in any
fucking trouble and be labeled as fuck ups.

Speaker 3 (01:42:31):
We still didn't want to be straight. We still wanted
to party, but just didn't want anybody to know about it.
Had I truthfully been wanting to be straight, then I
still would have got ahead and done it. But again,
that was so many years ago, and you're not as
mature as you are as you get older. So if
I know now what I knew then I was still
I would. I would still do it, but I would
do it smarter then I was. Just you know, half

(01:42:52):
the time you're fucked up, and then when you're away
if you're under fucking Paulie's spell.

Speaker 2 (01:42:56):
So there was not one point a day when you
were in your right friend of mind right.

Speaker 4 (01:43:00):
Any of the drugs and other drugs, steroids.

Speaker 5 (01:43:01):
You can look at different guys in U c W,
with their physiques and everything, what's your opinion on them?

Speaker 3 (01:43:06):
Well, people ask back steroids in messling. I don't know
anybody I want even now, fucking Spike Wood's kind of good.
I don't know if anybody who's not on, you know,
I'm seriously, I don't know one fucking person that's not.
And I'm people. You can look at the obvious, the
obvious people who are, but I mean they're on a
lot more than just steroids.

Speaker 2 (01:43:23):
There are on fucking growth and a lot more steroids,
and and train a lot harder.

Speaker 3 (01:43:27):
I remember, and you know in in Memphis, Uh, somebody
mailed me fell from a pember that the spider on
the head bangs.

Speaker 2 (01:43:36):
He mailed me some stuff down to Memphis, and Bill
Dundee's wanting to buy half off me.

Speaker 3 (01:43:41):
And I mean, and Bill, I mean, he was kind
of a it was a stout little fellow, you know,
five foot five but got the biggest five foot five
you have ever seen. He would just do the fucking
that we old Bob Backlan we don't do a little
rubber things.

Speaker 2 (01:43:53):
But I mean, he's not a guy. When you think
of steroids, you don't immediately think of superstar Bill Dundee.
But he was.

Speaker 5 (01:43:57):
You know, everybody, what's your opinion of his son? You've
known him probably a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:44:03):
Jamie's fucking good.

Speaker 3 (01:44:05):
I guess I want to say Jamie's great, but again
that's well because you're a fuck up like Jamie. But
we were when he came, When Jamie came to WWFS,
when I was just going to the TV's and we
would walk into the lunch room and it was me,
Jamie Wolfe and Tracy smothers, and we'd get our lunch
fling and we'd walk toward a table and we were
like the.

Speaker 2 (01:44:20):
Fucking heat click. We'd come in and people be like, huh.
The day Paulie and we were in Delaware somewhere and
Paulie and Tommy and a couple other guys came to
the TV and that day they had they had passed.

Speaker 3 (01:44:33):
Out memos leave before saying we don't want the guys
wearing any other investling shirts.

Speaker 2 (01:44:38):
People were doing.

Speaker 3 (01:44:38):
Run ins wearing like golden gym shirts and stuff, and
because the guy in California used to hook up all
the boys with shirts and let us train and stuff,
then there was heat between him and somebody, so like,
we don't want you wearing just golden gym and stuff
on TV anymore. We don't want you wearing anything with
like a like a name brandge and like a Knike
or stuff, and no other companies wrestling stuff, you know,
going through town.

Speaker 2 (01:44:57):
They said it looks bad. Now there's like the dress code.
And then they didn't want somebody to do w F
wearing somebody else's shirt, cause why would you wear that
shirt if you're a w w F guy, you had
to be a superstar. And Jamie Wolfie wrongly being used
on on Raw, and I loved him, and I was
that was I was getting to bring in guys that
I wanted to bring in.

Speaker 3 (01:45:12):
So I brought in Tracy, Tommy Rich, Tommy Rogers. I
brought him Jamie and Wolfie. So they get the memo
and they was mailed to.

Speaker 2 (01:45:18):
Him and were going to Raw. They came that weekend
with us and ez W.

Speaker 3 (01:45:22):
And then that Monday, we're all going to the Raw together.
So we get there and Jamie Wolfe, Tommy Dreamer pulls up.
He goes ship you got shirts going Tommy's trunk and
they're just putting on.

Speaker 2 (01:45:31):
I'm Jamie had like an eliminator shirt and ropy fucking
got whatever like a team tag or something, and and
and they walk in and somebody looks at him. They're like, like,
we just got a memo saying don't do that, you
know what, like Nald Skull or something like. Look at
these guys like like, fuck y'all fucked you weren't fucking
w that was just you know the way they were
with That's kind of what I was too. We just

(01:45:52):
looked for fucking problems and we thought it was cool.
But I mean, it took me this long to finally
start making come back. And Jamie and I talked about
a year ago. He called me over my mom's house.
I think up the number. I have no idea this
is to my mom. She goes, there's a dune d
on the phone. I figure it's just somebody ribbed me.
You know, I got low, and he fun, can you
know what's going on? Like, Jamie, how you got this number?
He's like, I know how to find you. Motherfucker. I said,

(01:46:14):
what do you do? He said, well, I'm out of jail.

Speaker 1 (01:46:15):
It's good.

Speaker 2 (01:46:16):
I said, you're still working sometimes. I got a great gimmick.
Now you know what I'm doing. Daycare who off their kids.
I haven't spoke to them, bokes with them since I
don't know how well that that is going.

Speaker 1 (01:46:29):
But what was the drugs seem like?

Speaker 2 (01:46:31):
In W? It was not as it was pretty much
as rampant as MECW. But ECW we were so vocal
about it, you know, and w w F, you know,
we people were a little bit a little bit quiet about.

Speaker 3 (01:46:46):
It, but everybody was was, you know, was doing something.
There was more or less the some was to go
to bed and liking it because you're heard were in
ec W.

Speaker 2 (01:46:52):
There was a lot more.

Speaker 3 (01:46:54):
So the schedule wasn't as bad, you know, the bumps
were were worse, and it was just and it was
a lot more. We didn't have to try and hide anything,
you know, everybody who just did what they wanted right
looking out in the open.

Speaker 1 (01:47:04):
Did anybody actually ever refuse to work with you guys,
I guess because if you were out of it in
w all.

Speaker 2 (01:47:08):
No, that's one thing I never did. I never went
to the fucking ring fucked up ever.

Speaker 3 (01:47:13):
I mean, there was a couple of guys like Shane
didn't want to work with Sadman because he was drugging
one in there. I've worked with Samon a thousand times,
never at ECW except maybe one or two little lines together, and.

Speaker 2 (01:47:23):
We never even really talked. We were at ECW. We
just there was no heat.

Speaker 3 (01:47:25):
We just were in different little groups. And we were
in Michigan a couple of years ago, two three years ago.
And also we just like they made.

Speaker 2 (01:47:31):
Us for some reason. Sabu's cousin there.

Speaker 3 (01:47:34):
The Captain Eddie made me and Samman the fiery baby
faced tag team, and we just kind of just clicked
and we're like.

Speaker 2 (01:47:39):
Why did we never hang out together?

Speaker 4 (01:47:40):
They're there?

Speaker 2 (01:47:41):
He's like, because fucking Shane was a dick. He didn't
like me. We just and sad Man.

Speaker 3 (01:47:46):
I got the groin surgery probably two years ago now,
now I had worked for Frank Goodman.

Speaker 2 (01:47:51):
That night. He was like, who do you want to
work with?

Speaker 3 (01:47:52):
I work with Samon's he just got groin surgery today.
Knone you gonna work with Samn, I said, because I
know he'll take care of me. He's dangerous only to himself.
That's right, you know, like him and Sabo both, but
they'll take care of you no matter what. But no
one ever like, yeah, I never went to the ring
fucked up an ECB at least not at least it
was not more fucked up than anybody else was, And
there'd be nobody there saying I don't want to order them,
because there was nobody that was totally straight beside Taz anyway,

(01:48:15):
And me and Taz never had a problem with each other, right,
I think you wrestled Sabou one time in New Orleans?

Speaker 4 (01:48:21):
Is that real hot building? Didn't she injure your ears?

Speaker 2 (01:48:23):
No? The ear was was in Boston. Sabu had his
spike in his boot. He was spiking me on the floor.

Speaker 3 (01:48:29):
I wanted to put it into his boot and it
kind of came out as tongue as laces and uh
him and Robin and do the rolling thunder on us.
Sabu came over the top and instead of doing the
Arabian lade drop, he did the Arabian Solma.

Speaker 2 (01:48:41):
My toe got caught and fall as it fell on
me that he came out with his boot hit me
in the ear and the spike was sticking out and
it cut my ear.

Speaker 3 (01:48:49):
It was hanging by my ear low and I knew
something batter and having to get hurt, but I didn't
know it was that bad. So I just started like
trying to do my terry fuck flop around like a
fucking fish. And I saw I looked over and I
saw tan me on top of.

Speaker 2 (01:49:00):
The wall the Revere Dog Track. Everybody's peeking out and
so her eyes like I grabbed my ear.

Speaker 3 (01:49:06):
I'm like, oh, I feel blood squareing now. Robin Saibo
put me in lands on table like hit the head
like this, and I'm holding my ear, going, oh shit.
Lancecer just looks over, very calmly with his tremendous personal
He goes, what's wrong. I think my ear is off
my head.

Speaker 2 (01:49:21):
He goes, we'll get off the table, dude. I just
got up and walked into the back and then I
fell down and then I was like, then I was scared.
You know. At first I was like, oh, hurt, but
don't be viable. Then I know something's wrong. Then I'm
a big pussy. I'm like, oh my god, my haar
loft my head. So you know, we had the fake
EMTs that were always not in ECW.

Speaker 3 (01:49:38):
Well, Balls comes running thinking it's the fake ones that
are on me, but they're really emptys were there.

Speaker 2 (01:49:43):
I don't know. I guess a dog got hurt on
the racetrack or something. So they come on and looking
at my ear. Balls comes over and just his might
has been over for two hours. He's still fucking juice
point out of his head. Four hundred pounds sits on
my chest.

Speaker 5 (01:50:00):
Yeah,

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}💥 "Candido Chronicles: The Man Behind the Blonde Bombshell!"

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

All Episodes

💥 "Candido Chronicles: The Man Behind the Blonde Bombshell!"

Stuff You Should Know