🕵️ INVESTIGATIVE SPECIAL: Kevin Sullivan & WCW's EXPLOSIVE Collapse! 💥

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
If I asked you to name the biggest wrestling story
of the past century, what would you say? Montreal screwjob
just a promoter protecting his belt. Happened all the time
back in the day. Premature deaths tragic, but not shocking
news given some of the lifestyle choices involved.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Vince wrestles. Please.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Sixty years ago, the National Wrestling The Lions put a
grip on the wrestling business, essentially controlling it for decades.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
It was truly the.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
National standard bearer for the business. You played ball with them,
where you paid dearly. Simply put, the NWA was wrestling
in America somewhere in there. Through morphs and permutations, the
product became the WCW, standing beside its only real competitor,
the WWE, which had withdrawn from the.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
NWA years prior.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Then all of a sudden, there was one the WCW,
and its storied, celebrated NWA legacy was gone. Muchnik THEEZ
mont Eric Bosh, Rhodes, Flair, Graham, Florida, Georgia, Saint Louis gone.

(01:25):
The smoke clears from the vaunted Monday Night Wars, and
only the WWE remains.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
But how how is this decline possible.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
It's been written about as wrestling journalists and internet posters
cling to ratings and booking decisions as the be all
end all in determining the health of the wrestling company.
But now we will have the opportunity to travel that
winding road that was the WCW with a man that
traveled it for almost his entire career, both as a

(01:56):
passenger and as a driver. We will now study those
declining months with Kevin Sullivan, including a week by week
analysis for his final months as booker. This is Kevin
Sullivan and the end of WCW. So Kevin for some

(02:18):
of the background on WCW kind of the for some
of the folks that they don't know about what was going.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
On before.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Should hit the fan.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Let's go back to ancient history and just kind of
going on a journey from like Crockett to Turner. We'll
start there, and what are the differences when you've got
really kind of a homegrown type operation under the Crockets
to when Turner now comes in and he's the network boss.

Speaker 4 (02:45):
We can even go back further than that, when TBS,
Jim Barnett, Wren World Championship Wrestling out of Georgia and
I was on the first tour that left Georgia went
to Ohio.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
And Bobby Rich was a hue huge star. It was
like something we had never seen.

Speaker 4 (03:02):
We went to arenas and we were selling out and
selling out and selling out. And then there was a
time when Vince actually bought that spot.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
That's right, for a few months.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
Yet yeah, yeah, and then somehow Jim Barnett had left
Vince and orchestrated the deal between Ted Turner, who was
his personal friend, and Jim Crockett.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
Right then, when Crockett got it, Crockett used it.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
To launch a national territory, and that was when Crockett
started taking over the UWF and expanding his own territory
and US coming into the Northeast.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
All at that time was it was a vehicle of
a wrestling promotion.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
To promote their wrestling shows and shoot their angles.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
But when it was sold to Turner, it became a corporate,
corporate entity.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
And when it became a corporate entity, and they.

Speaker 4 (03:59):
Unfortunate any thing was some people that didn't know anything
about wrestling.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Came along with it.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
And because they didn't know anything about it, wrestling looks
really easy. But to me, it's a very high business
because you're still on the product that everybody knows, especially
now it's fake.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
And to me, you're trying to have these people.

Speaker 4 (04:28):
Like they go in a movie, willing to suspend disbelief.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Well, it's kind of hide when it's told over and
over again.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
So if you don't pull it in and kind of
get a little bit of control on it, and it
would be the difference between silence and the lambs and
the monsters.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
You know, you know, you know, And that's what happened,
and that's what happened.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
And I think it's because the corporate people thought, oh,
it's just wrestling, anybody can do it.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
It's not real. And that's where.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
Eventually, I'm surprised they lasted as long as it did
because they kept.

Speaker 3 (05:13):
Their hands off of it for a while. First of all,
they didn't want anything to do with it because there
was beneath them.

Speaker 4 (05:19):
Then when it became the hardest program, they decided coming
sniffing around, but they're still were keeping.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Their hands off.

Speaker 4 (05:27):
Then when it took a little bit of a dip,
they said, well, we're going to jump into this thing,
and that's when the real problems started to hear.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
But Ted himself was always a fan. You always had
an ally in Ted, right.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, we always had an ally in Ted because I
worked for Ted.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
Before TBS even went out of the city limits of Atlanta,
and wrestling was what saved them. And Ted would always
say they'd always be wrestling on my channel because this
is what made me and even when things were down
one time, and this is when TBS bought the company

(06:06):
from Crockett. He came with Jane Fonda and it met
all the guys that's on a stage and said, I
just want you to know, as long as I'm head
of this company.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
They'll always be wrestling. Well, it made the guys feel
a lot better.

Speaker 4 (06:18):
Yeah, sure, they felt secure because you know, in every
business and especially wrestling.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
In his rumors in the.

Speaker 4 (06:25):
Room mill started and we thought we were gonna be
closed down there.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
It was magnanimous of him to come to say that
to the guys.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Absolutely. But now then you've got an even further jump.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
You talk about the corporate structure, naked Time Warner coming
in the late nineties, what was that effect.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
Like Time Warner's effect was.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
Almost insignificant because I had a guy come to me
who was the acquisition guy, and he had I had
befriended him when Crockett sold it to Turner. So he
came and told me. He said, this mergeres ass backwards.

(07:12):
It should be Turner beating the head rather than time Warner,
he said.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
But they'll leave you.

Speaker 4 (07:19):
Alone, he said, But someday there'll be somebody in your
playpen that knows nothing.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
About these toys. He said. Believe me.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
They bought my company and I got the job to
be the acquisition but my company went under after I left.
So he warned me about four years ahead of time,
and it was almost four years to the day that
he wanted me that happened.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
How have you shille?

Speaker 4 (07:53):
They brought Hovey in because he had done something with
the Olympics. How have you an Air force man or
military man? But he had put together Olympic. He was
only Olympic Committee. And Harvey came in and he was
the head of the Sports and Entertainment department. But Harvey

(08:18):
let the wrestling go. Harvey had no interference at all
Brad Siegel. Harvey left and Brad took his position. Bill

(08:40):
Bush I knew Bill when he was an accountant for
the company and then Bill took over after Bishof left
and Bill. Bill had a policy where he had he
knew that there was a bottom line, but he also
was smart enough to know that he didn't know wrestling

(09:01):
per se. Bill had been around wrestling, but he didn't
know the inner workings, and he allowed people that knew
wrestling to run it.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
But he was very present for you.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
Guys, and he was very hands on and he was
a very positive influence to everybody. And the other thing
was that the wrestlers could go to Bill and talk
to Bill. It wasn't like Harvey Schiller was, you know,
almost like the Wizard of Oz. Don't go behind the curtain,

(09:31):
you know that we couldn't see him. He was in
a different tower. He didn't come to the matches. Brad
Siegel didn't come to the matches, but Bill would come
to matches quite frequently, every pay per view, almost every
night tro and occasionally he dropped by a house show,
which made the guys feel good if they had a
bitch they could go talk to.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
Rather than somebody else.

Speaker 4 (10:02):
It was a coup for the w CW at the
time to get Vince and it because the WCW felt
that they had helped the ww F tremendously. And they
called me one night and said, we're gonna get ed
and Vince, what do you think? I said, I think

(10:23):
it's a good move. I'll support you anyway you want.
And they brought them in, and I just think what
might have happened was nobody's right and nobody's wrong in wrestling.

(10:43):
But they took the product that Vince had and came
and tried to make it Vince's product, where up until
that time Vince was selling Lincoln's and we were selling
Holly Davison's two vehicles, but completely different. We weren't trying
to sell a satin. We were trying to sell Holly Davison.

(11:04):
They tried to bringing that over. And this is no
not because if they had taken someone from WCW and
brought them flip flopped.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
It the other way.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
The person from wcwho would have brought the wrestling end
the WCW to the WWF, and that might not have
worked either.

Speaker 3 (11:30):
JJ handled.

Speaker 4 (11:32):
JJ had a lot of hats, and he handled the
talent contracts, travel any bitch the guy had, you know.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
Being overworked or underworked or underpaid, and JJ was a
big ally to me because a lot.

Speaker 4 (11:53):
Of times I'd go to JJ if I had an idea,
and I'd say, this is what I'm thinking about.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
Tell me if.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
I'm just painting off the easel, if I'm doing this
for myself, does this make sense?

Speaker 3 (12:07):
And let me tell you where I'm going?

Speaker 4 (12:09):
And I'd lay out I try to be a linear thinker,
so I have something at the end, and I'd say
this is where I'm going to let me back up
and run to you.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Does this make us to start this way? So I could.
He was a buffer and a comfort zone for me.
Gary Juster.

Speaker 4 (12:35):
Actually Gary was also involved when Crocket.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
Gary was the promoter in Baltimore.

Speaker 4 (12:45):
When Crocket Promote promoted Baltimore, it was the most successful
city outside of Charlotte and.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
The closest reach to Vince's too, and we.

Speaker 4 (12:55):
Were selling out all the time when the Crocket Cup
was there to night Knights in a Row sallouts, and
I think and Gary and Jim Barnett were good friends,
and I think they orchestrated the deal with the Crockets
and Turnament. And Gary just was a legal advisor too

(13:15):
because he was a lawyer. Terry Taylor he wore a
lot of hats, an agent. He booked when I wasn't there.
He also worked in the production truck, he wrestled.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
I mean, Terry did everything.

Speaker 4 (13:41):
I mean, he was a complete asset to that company.
Mike came in because we had a meeting one night
in the dress room and there was about six of
us in. The asked it's about bringing Mike in to vote,

(14:04):
and everybody voted for Mike to come in because at.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
That time Mike came.

Speaker 4 (14:10):
His father was a genius for finishes. So Mike is
the best finishman in the business to today, the best finishman.
His father was the best finishman I've been around. So
it was by osmosis. He learned from his father, and
Mike could come up with the right finish at the
right time.

Speaker 3 (14:27):
And that's what Mike Shaw was. He was the finished guy.

Speaker 4 (14:36):
Well, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall actually changed the industry.
I mean, I can remember we got to posed because
of them, and I was one of the post and
the line that I'll never forget the lawyer said to

(14:57):
me the ww Floyd said, have you ever been around.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
Wrestling?

Speaker 4 (15:04):
When a guy walks down, you don't say his name
because we never mentioned Diesel, all right, we never mentioned.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
The copyright law you talk about, Yeah, so.

Speaker 4 (15:13):
We stayed away from that. But when they came, it
looked like an invasion. It looked like a shoot. And
this is what we're getting back to the willing spresent.
Disbelieve it. People thought, what are these guys doing here?
You know, they're not even mentioned who they are. And
we couldn't do it because the copyright. But it actually
worked for our advantage, like we're not going to put

(15:34):
them over, right and the terror we were beating Vince
at the time. But that was the turning point with
the nWo. But what really put the nWo over was
Hogan turning heel.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
He had been booed out of the.

Speaker 4 (15:52):
Arenas for about four months and I'll never forget me
and Jeane as smart as years he tried to cover
from He were in Chicago and he was dressed all
in black and he said to the omnious colors, day's wearing tonight,
not the red and yellow.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
That's why the people responding this way they were doing.

Speaker 4 (16:14):
And there were a lot of people that didn't want
Hogan to change from babyface to heel and he was reluctant,
and I've known him for a long time, even before
he was wrestling, and I went to him.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
I said, this has to be done.

Speaker 4 (16:30):
This has to be done, because when you turn back,
it's like Ali. Everybody loved Ali, then they hated Ali,
then they loved him again. I said, so America loves
to build you up. They love to tear you down,
but they love you to rise like phoenix from the ashes.
And I said, you gotta, you, gotta do this.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
And he did it. But that night he stayed in my.

Speaker 4 (16:56):
House because I wasn't gonna need me anybody in his ear,
and I.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
Drove him into the arena.

Speaker 4 (17:03):
There was no way that I wasn't having the final
saying that, but when he came and flipped it with Nash,
Hull and Hulk and six Puck. In some ways it
was the demise of the wwc WCW because they were

(17:27):
much coore, and it got so hot when we went
to the Northeast, they were the babyfaces. When we went
to Middle America, there were actually fights breaking out the
crowds between the nWo fans and the w CW fans.
And it actually worked so well that there was two

(17:54):
companies inside of one company. Right, And these guys continued
and a lot of the stuff was Nash in the hall.
They both have great minds and they came up with
a lot of stuff right. But the thing that really
turned it was in Orlando. I came up with an

(18:14):
idea when they invaded. That was the night we were
in Disney. I think we got thrown out of there
because of this. They came in and invaded and I
broke kay fabe. It was a horseman against the dungeon
of doom. Jimmy Hart ran down, said there's something in
the back, and we ran down and Disney ash. She
got calls. The police came. They thought this was a

(18:37):
legit thing. And you know, they had attack guys in
the back with baseball bats and left people laying, and
the cops were there. They want to press chargers, and
you know, I felt like saying, hey, I hope you
don't pull me over. You know what's that? Is that
a coma or is that a gun?

Speaker 3 (18:55):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (18:56):
So these guys haul in Nash. Whether the stars will
lined up, right, But they did their job better than
anybody I've seen. Right, I'm in a different mindset. I

(19:42):
wrestled Vince that to me, the titles is supposed to
be the Holy Grail. You know, we slay dragons to
get to the Holy Grail and say to the maidens
in the tower, if you just give them away and
the dragons a lizard, you don't need to go out fight.
So but that's a different mindset, and that is a

(20:04):
meaning that he's wrong. But I see that the world
title or any title should mean something, and that's what
I think is wrong with the business today.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
The titles don't mean it's nothing.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
The best indegenda match I ever sr in my life
was in the Omni about nineteen eighty three, and I
can't joyce. Grabel was the woman, and I can't tell
you who the guy was right off the top of
my head, but the bell rank she came out, he
punched right in the face and covered a one, two three.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
That's why I should have been It was a different time.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
It's on a different.

Speaker 4 (20:48):
Time because if you're trying to get people to buy
into this belief, how are they going to buy in
that this beautiful woman is tossing this ugly guy around
the ring? You know what I'm saying. I mean, and
this isn't being disparaging to women. There's a place in

(21:08):
wrestling for women for sure. I mean, and some of
the best technical wrestlers I've seen. It's a show of
the ladies, but they have them wrestle a guy and
have the guy get knocked down from a closed line
from one hundred and twenty eight pounds woman and he's
two hundred and forty pounds.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
It just you know, the people, there's.

Speaker 4 (21:31):
A difference between them laughing and laughing where it's a
relief laughed.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
This was to me.

Speaker 4 (21:39):
And again that doesn't mean I'm right right, no, I understand,
but I just think that you don't want them laughing
at your product.

Speaker 3 (21:46):
At your product. Yeah, sure, well on the Sheikh work.

Speaker 4 (22:04):
This is a funny thing. I was here last night.
I met George Steele for the first time. Been in
the business thirty seven years, been in the business forty
six years, and him and I were talking and he
said that when he used to come to New York,
everybody that used the gimmick put the gimmick in the
bag until George left the territory. A gimmick was a
sacred thing. When I was in Florida, and I had

(22:25):
the golden spike. There wasn't a gimmick used in the Carcter.
Someone might hit the guy with a chair, but no
one was pulling something out. Okay, if it's done over
and over again, then why have a lot of match Sure,

(22:48):
the ref bumps come from Florida. And one time they
had the Best of the Year of Florida on television,
and that was about seventy three, and I watched it
and Andy Graham.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Said to me, what did you think of it?

Speaker 4 (23:04):
I said, I thought it was horrible because every match
the referee got bumped. He looked at me and he
was the best finished man I had ever been around,
and said to me, Oh, I never thought of it
that way. He said, I always thought they were part
of the show. But now that you say it, maybe
it's been overdone.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
If tomorrow I got a Patre' shirt, and they better
win because they got a lot of money on them.
But tomorrow, if we're watching Super Bowl.

Speaker 4 (23:35):
And Randy Moss catches the ball and he's going in
for the final score with two seconds left to go,
and he the linebacker bumps the official. The official falls down.
The official is not looking Randy goes in, spikes the ball.

(23:55):
I drops the ball and the Giants recover. I watch
the super Bowl next week. You may watch it one
more time, but if they do it again, it's something
and the bad thing and I'm as guilty as anybody.
The bad thing about television, and you should know the
John is it feeds off of success. How many spinoffs

(24:20):
of Laura and Order have they been? Because it's successful.
Right when the referee bump first happened, it was successful,
but it was also a way to playcate. Guys, you
really didn't lose, you won, but the referee bumped and

(24:41):
you got screwed. Well, there's gonna to Terry Funk wants
to only that for this to work, the people have
to think it's an athletic contest. Well, it's like I
said to you tomorrow, we're gonna keep watching football. And

(25:01):
it's an easy way to placate people, and you can
get caught up into it. I mean I did referee bumps.
Someone said I never did them. I did them too,
because it's an easy way to set up. It's an
easy way to get heat and it's an easy way
not to have.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
To think.

Speaker 4 (25:35):
It's a friend of mine. But I even told him
I was horrified. I was horrified. Jim Ross and I'm
not particularly close. We worked together, we were friendly, but
that's a tragy what happened to Jim and I don't
you know, karma has a way of coming back.

Speaker 3 (25:59):
And bite you in the air.

Speaker 4 (26:01):
And there's a great older I try not to fuck
would come because it does.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
By you an ass, you.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Think that's just that happens when people get were they
just so competitive, so.

Speaker 4 (26:13):
Competitive, they were mad. They're mad at Jim for whatever reason.
They were just mad at him. Now, if they had
done the character without Bell's palsy and did it for
a short.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
Time, yeah, I would have left, you know, Jim would
have left.

Speaker 4 (26:32):
But you're taking a shot and a guy that's injured.
I mean to me, that showed no class. And again
it's a friend of mine, but that showed no class.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
I'm not saying that.

Speaker 4 (26:44):
One of the things about our businesses maybe we're not
there left class, and when we get a chance to
show class, we sometimes don't. And that was what we
belittled by ourselves. That'd be little w c W. Not
just them, little WCW. Because none of us had enough
balls to go to the boss and say you're wrong

(27:06):
to put this on right.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
One of the problems where Vince.

Speaker 4 (27:21):
Made is when he started recognizing us when nightro first
started and he had the Hulkster and the Hulk stuff
and all that shit. Everybody started tuning in, someone saying
what are they doing? And then we made the mistake
of giving finishes of.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
Their tape show.

Speaker 4 (27:41):
And I can never forget the night Tony Shavani said
that piece of crap Cactus Jack won the title. I
went through the roof, I got on the headset and
I said, first of all, his personal friend of mine,
he's not a piece of crap. And second of all,
you just ruined the show because everybody's going to tune
in to see the title because he's a very popular character,

(28:02):
and if Viny wasn't, they would.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
Want to see a title switch.

Speaker 4 (28:06):
I think just reinforcing Vince's show again.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
He came from there. That's what they knew. They brought
it here, they thought it would work.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Whose call was that Shavanni thing?

Speaker 4 (28:20):
Was that his own no Bischoff told him to announce
that the cas about what he's what he said about
the cactus. I don't know who's if that was whose
call that was that you just slammed the charactus like that.
But if they were going to say, they say, hey,
cactus Shack.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
Won the title.

Speaker 4 (28:38):
Don't need a tune in, But not the way they
said it. Again, we got no Sometimes we show no
class at all. There were two camps for three camps.
Do you the younger guys who were getting a push
by Vinnie? And he was right, some of the guys

(29:00):
needed a push. But the way they were pushing him
pushing them like taking Flare out in the desert. I mean,
you don't have to take psychology want to want to
understand they were actually burying him, you know what I mean.
Rick wasn't smart enough to see that. And he's still around.
You know, I was there when this company was bought.

(29:23):
They're trying to get rid of him, and he's still around. Okay,
maybe they haven't pulled the steak outs. Huh, they haven't
found the coffin. Let's go find an ego a Renfield.

Speaker 3 (29:34):
Le's fy Renfield. He alone where the coffin is?

Speaker 4 (29:36):
But guys were saying they had some mussing experience. What
is going on here? And I have a theory that

(29:57):
Vince was gonna do rope Opera. Did you ever hear
that he's trying to sell He was going to try
to sell a television program Russ and russo called rope Opera.
It'll spin off and wrestling. Maybe this was his pilot.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
Interesting, But so so with with with the factions that
you mentioned.

Speaker 4 (30:25):
So the younger guys with him, the older guys that
the established stars are starting to go now that Eric's
been replaced, They're going to Bush and saying something's going
to be done.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
You know, something's going to be done.

Speaker 4 (30:42):
Well losing an even National Hall who were getting pushed
by Vents knew that some.

Speaker 5 (30:49):
Of it was wrong.

Speaker 4 (30:50):
You know, they were getting their way on both sides,
but they could see that the seriousness of what the
nw O was was getting wadded down. The Latino World Order,
you know, I mean they added too many guys the mix,
you know, too many chefs were in the kitchen. And

(31:12):
that's when I think that Bill Bush had made the decision.
I got to do something, whether I do the right
or wrong thing, I have to do something.

Speaker 3 (31:24):
I just can't let it go.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
What about with you, with you guys backstage, what's the talk?
What's the what's the general tone to the conversations every day.

Speaker 4 (31:31):
When you get together again, guys would come to me
and that we're been in the wrestling for a long
time and say, this looks like a bad independent show.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
I mean, what are we doing?

Speaker 4 (31:46):
And again I think this isn't They came from there.
They were trying to outdo Vince at the time on
Shot TV Outshock, the Shot out track, how it started, Well,
it can't be done right, but they tried, and they
tried very well.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
But our product wasn't that.

Speaker 4 (32:07):
And it might have worked in the long run if
they were given three years. But in television you're gonna
get ratings right away now, you know, not better than anybody.
So the flip of the product. I tune in and
I think I'm gonna see Lauren Order, but the duke's

(32:30):
a hazard or on. You know, it's not the same program, right,
It's same time slot, but it's not the same program.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
What what's going on here? Well, I mean, tune it
in another time.

Speaker 4 (32:42):
It's a Lauren Or I'm not gonna turn it in
the third week, right because Lauren Arnor is on another channel?

Speaker 3 (32:49):
Like can you watch Laura Special Units? Right?

Speaker 6 (32:52):
But are there guys in in Bush's ear?

Speaker 3 (32:56):
Everybody?

Speaker 4 (32:57):
That's why I said, you know the business stuff, and
it's a parima type business, and when you're bleeding a little,
they're at you. When you're successfully back away, everybody was
in Bush's here.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
Everybody wanted him to do something, wanted him to do something,
wanted him. They had to make a change, and he did.

Speaker 7 (33:18):
On January fourteenth.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
Kevin's promoted to head booker.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
The booking committee, which correct me from Rome, consists of
JJ Dillon, Terry Taylor, Mike Graham at fer Our, Bill Banks,
Bob mold who quit him.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
On the prior but returned hearing of Russo's exit.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
Has that ring to your h Well, it would be
me and Ed mostly j J.

Speaker 4 (34:06):
Yeah, I mean me and Ed did the booking, and
uh Bill took some notes and helped out, and I
think Bob came back then.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, Okay, Now Nash is given like an assistant or
cobook a role to you to de liaison had had.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Has that worked?

Speaker 3 (34:24):
What's that? No?

Speaker 4 (34:25):
He was Kevin and I, Uh Kevin actually was the
booker and him and I worked together, and uh Kevin
has a great wrestling mind, you know, and Uh. We
worked very well together and George, what's the time with Kevin?

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Now, your initial suggestion is to get the belt on Nash. Yeah,
you eventually have it go to k Chris Benoit Uh
who goes over sid Uh in the main event for
the title.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Now, conventional thinking would say, good political decision, there's heat.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
I'm going to give the guy the belt to show
him here to play right for the team.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
Is that the story.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
That's the story, and he deserved it. He deserved it.

Speaker 4 (35:09):
Everybody came to me and said, you're making the wrong decision.
I said, no, I'm not, because, first of all, I
have heat with that group. I' would have showed him
that I'm a team player and this kid.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
Deserves to win the title.

Speaker 4 (35:23):
I also told him that after he won the title,
Nash was going to take it off.

Speaker 3 (35:27):
From later on down the line, but we're going to
give him a run. You know.

Speaker 4 (35:32):
I made no thing that he was going to be
championed forever. But it wasn't going to be a short run.
But the guy that would beat him would have been Nashes.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
Yeah, Satin.

Speaker 4 (35:56):
Guerrero, ben Wile, Malenco, Douglas.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
I was not sure if I wouldn't have done it
if I was in their situation.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
What's their fear.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
What's their fear is that.

Speaker 4 (36:15):
The ploy is that I'm putting on the belt on
ben Wab and I'm gonna ultimately screw them. And the
next week I was gonna put the tag belts on
either Perry and Malenko because I had made Eddie the
cruiseweight champion the US champion at the same time, because
I wanted to elevate that belt.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
Well, you were one of the first guys bringing Luca
doors and all that stuff.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
So yeah, but the fear was, you know, when I.

Speaker 4 (36:43):
Said, rumors in this business breed rumors, and then the
room mill starts and then the spinoff and the stories.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
And blah blah blah, it was.

Speaker 4 (36:54):
He's he's making you the world champion, but he's gonna
screw you. Have for me swallow that way. So anybody
made me the world champion, they can screw me the
next day if they want, but at least that was
world champion. I just think that they were so paranoid.
Somebody made them paranoid, and it could have been me.

(37:16):
It could have been me, but there was a connection
there and the other thing is they were the young guns,
and I was still going probably would haul and nash
guys that had drawn me money. I was secure in that.
But I was going to touch the waters with Ben

(37:37):
Wah because he had come close and never won. I
thought it was time for him to win. Everybody was
against it, but I was putting out the Olive brand stool.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
I thought it was.

Speaker 4 (37:48):
The best move for the company, and I was trying
to just do business.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Okay, now that you hear about him with lobbying for

(38:25):
his release, what are you concerns that he's got your strength.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
I'm still gonna do the right thing for business. And
do you know how haired it was for me to
bring Sid Vicious into a room who has a lot
of ego, rightfully so, and ask him to give up
in a wrestling hold and to tap out for a

(38:50):
guy I'm not sure that it's gonna stay. And Sid
told me, I'm only gonna do it because you're asking me,
but it's the wrong thing to do. And I saved
my ass because I told Sid, when you tap out,

(39:12):
make sure your foot is underneath that bottom rope. Because
I had a gut feeling I was gonna get screwed.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
Right, So that would be an ace in the hole
you could always go by.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
So the next night I had the ace in the hole.

Speaker 8 (39:26):
Yeah, Now what happens with ben Wi this night?

Speaker 2 (39:48):
He's in a show of solidarity to his friend.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
He threatens to leave. He's willing to drop the belt
in the ring. First he hands the belt over to
Nick Patrick. The titles vacated. How does it all come about?

Speaker 4 (39:59):
That day where the discussions, well, they discussed it were built.
They didn't discuss it with me, And Bill said, what
do you want them to do? And I said, the
way I see it is, if that's what they want,
let them go free country, free enterprise. Good luck to them,
or they make a lot of money. But let's not
have mono show. Let's start. Let's not promote the product

(40:23):
tonight that's gonna be on a competitor next week. Let's
make a believe let's start a new let's show the film.
The decision was made that the World Champions leg.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
Was still underneath.

Speaker 4 (40:37):
You know, SID didn't lose, so we didn't promote the
product that it was gonna compete against us, And they
competed against us very well.

Speaker 3 (40:45):
They did wonderful up there.

Speaker 4 (40:47):
They did great, and they did probably the right decision
by leaving for them.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
So now with their exit, with these guys, who are
gonna be leaving, what are the pro Russo pro Sullivan
camps now or all the Russo guys.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
Gone for the most part with the exit of.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
Those, yeah, most of them left, and.

Speaker 4 (41:07):
It was to me, it was a real pain to
me because they were the workhorses they were. I mean,
if you look at the Nitros, there were best matches
for those guys.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
So now I'm stuck. I've just lost the middle of
my batting order.

Speaker 4 (41:27):
Now instead of Manny and Big Poppy, I got Rudy,
Kazudi and Howdy Doody.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
You know. So you tell me I'm gonna fill the soul.

Speaker 4 (41:35):
And it wasn't just like losing Manny and Big Poppy.
I mean I lost you know, Fara Tech, I lost everybody,
and these guys gave me quality matches and the people bottom.
And that's why when I brought Eddie in as a
cruise weight, I made the United States Champion because I
wanted to make that belt not like it used.

Speaker 3 (41:57):
To be the junior heavyweight. Like they were not quite
as good as the heavyweights.

Speaker 4 (42:01):
I want to show that they were equal, and when
they left, they had talent went with them and there
wasn't going to be replaced, and it was very hard,
so we had to switch gears. And because Kidman did stay,
we started started pushing Kidman because he's a talent too.

(42:22):
So in some ways it worked out for some guys
that got the break that maybe they would have gotten.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Now the matches on this show, you inherited some of
the old angles. And also you've got a mess now
because you've got people leaving and stuff, So that kind
of takes those first few shows out of really being
able to gauge what you were doing as a booker,
because it was probably had decisions you had to make
when you got there based on who's gonna work and
who was But now we've got everybody in place, and
now that this is the first time we see the

(43:07):
matches are longer. Now they all have good finishes. Now
it's starting to turn. Its starting to become yours a
little more people recognizing that at all you feel.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
A little more in control. Now everybody's settled and it's your.

Speaker 4 (43:19):
Everybody's settled now, and now you know we're back to
work as usual. You know, we missed those guys and
we missed it down. But hey, it's time a little
And I said, you know, these guys aren't going to
be replaced, so you guys got to come to the
forefront and let's stout boots.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
And go back to work.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
And they did.

Speaker 3 (43:38):
That means the guys were great.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
Monday, Nitro, Los Angeles, Kevin Sullivan takes a long weekend
in the Florida Keys prior to the taping.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
This makes people question his dedication.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
Supposedly cut a vacation short to get back to make
sure he's at Nitro.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
Did anybody ever say anything about that little horseshit?

Speaker 3 (43:59):
That's a horseshit. Okay, I didn't go on vacation.

Speaker 4 (44:03):
I went on to a graduation So it was a
family affair I went to and they gave it to me.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
But the people there that wanted to use this try
to perceive it that way.

Speaker 3 (44:13):
Sure, Yeah, sure, I mean said I've said this before.

Speaker 4 (44:17):
There are some business to eat to jung, you know
what I mean, So of course they can decide anything
they wanted.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
But I had to go to a family a function
that I could.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
Miss r and I had it should be noted that's
all the lives there that's not necessarily vacation.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Is his home is there? So yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
Now it's also been said that you're at this point,
we're in January, you're booking ahead to Starkade.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Now eleven months in advance. Some of the Rousso stuff
that wasn't liked so much was the on the fly stuff.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
So now are you showing that we're gonna get back
to the basics. Now we're going to look long term
right and not short term correct?

Speaker 2 (44:59):
And and uh I are the executives be put at ease?

Speaker 3 (45:03):
Not by this?

Speaker 4 (45:04):
No, because now I got AOL and Brad Siegel was
getting involved, and it's say, it's just wrestling. You know,
you didn't do it off the cuff. This Finny did
off the cuff. My whole thing was to get Goldberg
back healthy again, because whether people realize it or not,

(45:28):
the only person that ever mentions it is Terry Funk
in his book I created Goldberg, and we've talked about
this before. Everybody forgets Goldberg. He did lose the Steve
McMichaels and I made sure they forgot about that. And
we went through and we made him what he was,

(45:48):
and he was a phenomenon. And I mean he was
not just a phenomenon wrestling, he was a phenomenon.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
Or coronic country.

Speaker 4 (45:56):
Mike Maguire was rubbing his bat on him the year
he's hitting in this every home runs. But I needed
that guy healthy again. I needed him to be Goldberg again,
and I needed to start the streak again. You know,
it's like Brady throwing the three interceptions and he hadn't

(46:16):
thrown them.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
He sneez, it's not the streak.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
You're more forgiving when when you've got a powerhouse like that. Yeah,
and are you planning the the Goldberg Tank Abbot thing
or how the abit thing been discarded completely when russol leaves.

Speaker 4 (46:32):
I always thought Tank was good on the card, but
he wasn't a wrestler, but were looking at the time.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
Also, they had mentioned getting.

Speaker 4 (46:44):
Into business with the shoot fighting people, so we had
a couple of Don Fry and a couple other guys
come over.

Speaker 3 (46:53):
We were gonna sign them. We were starting to do.

Speaker 4 (46:56):
Things with Pride in Japan, so Tank was for that
in case that happened.

Speaker 3 (47:02):
I never saw Tank as the World's champion. I never
saw Tank anything.

Speaker 4 (47:09):
Then an upper middle carried guy, you know, maybe knock
a guy out once in a while. You know, he
could put guys over, and then he wrestles someone that
means something.

Speaker 3 (47:18):
He throws a haymaker, knocks the guy out. What he's
made again for another six weeks.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
But you're keeping him on ice for when that shoe
fighting deal is made.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
Yeah, hopefully, right, yeah, right.

Speaker 4 (47:34):
With. I had just lost, like I said, the middle
of the artist, so Sid was the guy. So I
had a caption audience, so I had to put Sid
out there to wrestle, and Ron happened to be at
the time. He had been handled pretty good by Vinnie
put in a good spot. So I used Ron because
I was going to get something out of Ron, and

(47:56):
he's a good performer, and he gives Sid uh competitive match,
and he faked good physically with Sid.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
And sometimes guys it's like a football.

Speaker 4 (48:07):
Some guys that guys match up well together, they give
you a great match.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
Well they they gave me a good match.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
H Nash striped Sid of the world title because he
pinned the wrong Harris twin a Nitro. Sid then beats
Nash and Ron Harrison the Steel Cage to rewin the
main event.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
What's what's the plane with Sid?

Speaker 3 (48:32):
To get a murder for Goldberg? You know, animal against
the animal. I needed Sid to get hot.

Speaker 4 (48:40):
And when he I needed an opponent for Goldberg that
Goldberg hadn't beaten.

Speaker 3 (48:48):
And we needed the streak to start.

Speaker 4 (48:50):
And he had beaten hauled the Nash Hall and everybody
had never beaten Sid, and they get We needed to
go on from what the debacle had happened, to forget
about it said, becoming the monster down the line that
will face gold Work.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
That was it.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
This is now the full fledged return of Rick Flair
in his program with Terry Funk.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
Talk to me about Flair. You're dealings with him, your
plans with him bringing him back? How receptive is he
to this the whole thing?

Speaker 3 (49:38):
Yeah, he was receptive.

Speaker 4 (49:39):
And the other thing about Rick, which is we were kidding,
he's still around.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
He draws.

Speaker 4 (49:46):
He's Rick Flair, Rick Flair and Terry Funk. You don't
have to be a genius to write that one about him.

Speaker 3 (49:51):
It's gonna draw. You know, it works.

Speaker 4 (49:54):
There are some things that work, you know, Rick Flair
and Steamboat work. Look, Rick Flair and Terry Funk work
you know, Dusty and Terry work, so I just put
them together and Rick was very receptive, and Terry has
always been a big, big booster of mine, and they
came to my age.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
Now are any of the younger guys saying, because you
had mentioned before some of the courts that were in
support of RUSSA, now I'm a young guy in the
car going okay, yeah, funk, Claire Sullivan.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
Of course, of course they're saying that. But it's funny.

Speaker 4 (50:28):
Those guys that are saying that are the old guys
today that are still on top. They're not letting the
young kids get this shot.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
Nature of the beast, yes, the nature of the beast.

Speaker 4 (50:39):
But the other thing is, when you're young, you think
you know the business. Terry fun can talk people into
the building. Rick Flair just has to go woo and
he's over. It takes a long time to get over,
and you don't just get over by yourself. And I
have not met one person in the rest some business,

(51:02):
from Rick Flair to hul Cogan, to anybody that's as
good as they think they are. You know, we all
perceive ourselves as never making a mistake. The greatest worker
of all times you know what I mean, And that's
not true, and you need people to get you over.
And that was what I told you about last night,

(51:22):
George Steele, we're talking. I said, you know, I was lucky.
I had the best baby faces in the world to
get me over. Well, these young guys don't understand. They
may not that they didn't understand.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
It wasn't at.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
Time, but they saw they had a shot with Russo.
Yeah maybe, yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
Yeah, yeah, And I can't blame them. Hey, I was
the same way. I told you that before. I was
the same way. You're hungry, you're young, you want to
be part of the team, and you want to carry
the ball.

Speaker 9 (51:56):
Which brings us to February first thunder taping Bingham to
New York Hall Cogan return. He gets in the ring
with Oakland, Home, comes out in the red yellow and
says he's sick of seeing the younger wrestlers act like
they're big stars when they're not.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
Who wrote it?

Speaker 3 (52:09):
That was him?

Speaker 4 (52:10):
Yeah, and that came right from I guess that Russo
heat with him. And you know, again some of us
don't think and this was this caused some real friction
in the dress room.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
I mean, really did it?

Speaker 4 (52:28):
Really when he said that I died because there I
am trying to hold this thing together and his supposedly
an ally of mine went out there and they were
on glued.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
And I don't blame them.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
Did they look to you thinking it was yours?

Speaker 3 (52:44):
No, they knew. I think that most of them knew
it was Hulks. Buddy. He alienated them.

Speaker 4 (52:52):
Where he didn't you know, sometimes he could have helped
heal this wound. And I don't think he did it purposely,
but he didn't think what he was going to say
would cause that kind of reaction it did.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
What would then what was the purpose of him doing
it if he didn't think he was going to get
under people's skin?

Speaker 3 (53:13):
My boy, I think it was directly right at Vince Russo.

Speaker 4 (53:17):
I think you know it was you know, you you
try to kill me off, and you want to do this,
and you got these other kids to try to beat
me up.

Speaker 3 (53:25):
Well it didn't work up still, hull Cocher, he is gotcha.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
Speaking of unscripted.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
Promos gets us to February seventh, and Steiner.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
We're just talking about that today and uh there if.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
Anyone doesn't know, he uh he shook things up.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
He got in the ring, and he said, uh, Flair
sneaker cab instead of a limo, get his crooked yellow
teeth fixed, mentioned the original edge boy, Buddy Rodgers.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
Uh then said Flara couldn't steal his class.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
Steiner said when he watched Flair return on Nitro, he
turned the channel to the WWE to watch Stone Cold, whom.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
He said Flair had fired over jealousy.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
Starning called Flare jealous, little bastard, and a lot of
other things that weren't so nice.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Starner's told not to attend and suspended without pay. Does
your jawge drop.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
When you hear this.

Speaker 4 (54:15):
Here's a guy ranting and raven in the middle of
the ring, as big as a house, and Bill Bush tells.

Speaker 3 (54:22):
Me to go talk to him, and I gotta catch him.
He comes through as the curtain. That's just what the.

Speaker 4 (54:27):
Job I want. Okay, go catch this guy threw his
ass out. Yeah, okay, So I go up to him.
I said, what the fuck are you doing? He said,
I've got a promo on the Flair. I said, you're
not working with them. You just shared a promo and
you just told the people that you change this channel.

Speaker 3 (54:45):
What was he?

Speaker 2 (54:46):
What was he going to have there to do.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
He was gonna whoever he was gonna work against.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
He was just gonna cut a promo, Okay, you know,
one of these mindless, senseless promos that seemed to be
wrestling today every time you turn on the fucking DV.
But he was, uh, just gonna kind of promo.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
But when he kind of Flair, I mean it was
a per This.

Speaker 4 (55:06):
Thing had been personal low with him and Flair for years.
I mean when the company was first bought, Jim Hurt
wanted to make him the world's champion. And Rick, when Scott,
uh Scotty was a kid, took him and he wrestled
him and maybe he didn't give him enough. And you know,
this had been bruined in Scotty for a long time.

(55:30):
And I think that he was told some things by
Vinnie and he.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
Just went off and it was an unfortunate thing.

Speaker 4 (55:42):
And uh, you know when I when I talked to him,
he was like, he looked at me, like, what are
you talking about?

Speaker 3 (55:49):
I was just, you know, kind of promo and Flair
That's what I'm supposed to do. Now.

Speaker 4 (55:55):
I think I knew better than buy that. But he
was his story and he stuck to it, you know
what I mean.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
But it wasn't the wrong thing to do.

Speaker 4 (56:06):
But again, we're going through a time where there's frustration.
We don't know which direction the company is going in,
who's running it.

Speaker 3 (56:14):
I mean, there's so many changes.

Speaker 4 (56:16):
There's rumors every day that Bill Bush is going to
be fired, that Vince is coming back, that Eric's coming back,
that they're going to close the company, that you know,
aol is going to run the company.

Speaker 3 (56:28):
So everybody's on the edge chair.

Speaker 4 (56:30):
It isn't the greatest place, you know, I used to
I've always loved the business, but I dreaded to go
to work.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
I mean, talk to me a minute about you mentioned
dreading going to work.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
Part of what you guys had to do with these
booking meetings now, because you're part of a large corporation,
they need.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
To keep an eye on what's coming down the road.
You don't work from scripts, so they can improve scripts.
So the next best thing is they're gonna put somebody
from what's the department.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Humans and Practices and human resource and human resources in
your booking meetings with the creative team?

Speaker 3 (57:00):
Right?

Speaker 2 (57:01):
Who are I'm assuming gonna shoot down anything that sounds.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Like it might be edgy and absolutely a little dangerous,
which is what you need to do to compete with
what's going on in USA network, which is edgy and dangerous.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
Talk about that dynamic. What does a booking meeting look
like with these people in it?

Speaker 3 (57:14):
What happened? First of all, I told you the guy
that Blair.

Speaker 4 (57:18):
When it came to me, the acquisition guy I told
you about, he said to the guy in my playpen. Yes,
three weeks later they're in the playpen, right, okay, the.

Speaker 3 (57:27):
Fourth week he's telling me what to do.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
You know, now it's no more foreign objects, because that's
not politically correct the word far.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
It's an international object. Okay, do you see where we're going?

Speaker 10 (57:42):
Oh my god, ah, no, now we're having They had
said to me, no more mixed gender matches unless the
guy doesn't fight back.

Speaker 4 (57:55):
Well, I wasn't a big fan of mixed gender matches,
so I didn't care. But what have a wrestle match
with the guy who's in the fight back? And then
the of course there was no blood, even by accident,
no act of violence. Perceive violence with an object. Then
it was you know, maybe we should I'll be priests

(58:19):
and they had confession.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
Well, but at some point you stand there and go,
what do you want me to do with this?

Speaker 4 (58:24):
Well, well we got to it was when it was
time I could go home and get paid for three
years because I had a loophole that I complete control
except for home.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
So I mean it got to be a point where
it was absurd.

Speaker 4 (58:41):
And I mean, here's a guy that three weeks ago
knew nothing about wrestling, and I understand where they're at.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
They're trying to protect their so they have to justify
their income.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
Well I got kept them in control. The guy from
human resources are finally.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
Let up a little. But I mean it was a
struggle every time.

Speaker 4 (59:02):
And here's Vince with Generation X and you know what
I mean, strippers and polls and.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
May Young's breast. It was a pleasant to look at,
but it was out.

Speaker 3 (59:13):
Yeah, I mean we had that he had it all
and we're going to go the other way.

Speaker 4 (59:18):
It was like, I think that at that time, everybody
knew we were fighting that build battle, that we worked
that way.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
So a lot of the booking decisions, and it's in
it's booking decisions that we're not talking about right now.

Speaker 2 (59:30):
Some of the smaller stuff are ukare some of the
other stuff that was going on. If they take away
why I say.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
They, I mean the corporate entity takes away for the
tools at your disposal, you got to use the other sixty.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
Even if people say it's not a great booking decision, right, maybe.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
They don't understand that the corporate entity has taken that away.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
Is this true?

Speaker 3 (59:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (59:56):
Because okay, suppose you're invited to the seventh course meal,
but the end of the meal is.

Speaker 3 (01:00:06):
This fabulous rack of lamb.

Speaker 4 (01:00:09):
But I give you a wonderful salad, then I give
you the dessert. I said, oh yeah, there's no wine,
there's no coffee, there's no cognac, and there's no rack
of lamb.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
But it was a good meal anyway, wasn't it.

Speaker 5 (01:00:23):
Mm?

Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
You know, It's what I talked about it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:26):
It has to fit together, and people say they booking
the fly boy. I wish I was that creative, you
know what I mean? I wish I I wish it
was that easy for me, because I must be very stupid,
cause it was never that easy for me. I always
went out and came more forward. I had to know
where for me, I had to know where I was going.
Some people a lot smarter.

Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
I guess.

Speaker 4 (01:00:48):
But if you take those away from me, then I'm
giving you the two courses instead of seven. And I'm
hoping you're gonna buy right. This product is a seventh
course meal.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
I hope I can.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Fool your.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
Flair confronts Scott Steiner in the parking lot beforehand.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
Steiner's already angry.

Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
He got out of a meeting with Bill Bush where
he got scolded excuse me regarding the incident, told Flair
to get the fuck away from.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Him or else.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
So now WCW is considering pressing charge against him for
the threat to teach him a lesson. They're telling him
that if they press charges, put him in violation of
his probation.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
So they are encouraging him to ask for his release.
This I'm taking it. You're not a part of this in.

Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
Any way, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:01:34):
And I didn't think it was a smart thing to
release Scott Steiner.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
Please, what were the plans?

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
Well, I mean he has another guy, perfact Goldberg opponent.
Please don't let this guy go.

Speaker 4 (01:01:46):
I mean, you know, I'm gonna take the coffee away
from you next, you know, Please don't let him go, well,
let's sit them down and give him a fucking race.
I don't care, you know, make them patch it up.
I mean, do something, but don't let this guy walk
over to the competitor get I mean, this boat sinking,
let's not drop the anchor in the middle of the

(01:02:08):
boat and hope it doesn't go down.

Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
In your position, it's easy to understand why you say that.
But now from Bill Bush's perspective, where people gonna be
sill soon?

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
Now let him go?

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
Does he not understand how valuable certain workers are.

Speaker 4 (01:02:25):
He does understand, but he's gotten that crossroads too. That
if indeed Steiner did say that to Flare and they
got into some altercation and he didn't let Steiner go,
he's libel, the company's libel, and Turning had Turning time

(01:02:48):
Warner aol at deep pockets, and who knows what kind
of money Flair could have gone from that. Bill would
have lost his job. He was got in the rock
in a high place. Also, if it was me, if
it was me and I was in Bill's position, I
would have done the same thing. Build it protect himself,
because at that time there was obviously real serious heat

(01:03:09):
and I'm surprised something didn't go down that day in
the boone.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Well, I was gonna say, what, what's Flair's perspective on
this at the time.

Speaker 3 (01:03:14):
Now he's I'm sure he's thinking that something's gonna happen.

Speaker 5 (01:03:17):
Eh.

Speaker 3 (01:03:17):
You know, next time he turns around the corner, something's
gonna happen. Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
On that show February eighth, thunder U Nash strips Jarrett
of the Commissioner title. UH makes him get UH in
a match with Scott Hall where the winners the new
opponent for SID at the coming pay per view.

Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
The match was a no contest.

Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
This is just UH.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
Feeding the fire, I guess right, feeding SID.

Speaker 4 (01:03:40):
Yeah, but the match being a no contest was because
we had a problem with the finish and UH, I
hate those no contests, But the finish would have been
so watered down because there was a SID situation where

(01:04:01):
somebody was promised something and I had to honor it,
and I did it to my best my ability, but
I said, this is the last time I can to
do this.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
That's what happened.

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
So who would you have put on?

Speaker 4 (01:04:16):
Iver put others at home? Sabu was a personal friend
of mine. I brought him in. I don't know what
happened because I brought him in. I should have got

(01:04:38):
you know, like I said, I'm not the brightest bubble
in the world, but I should have got that one.
You know, everything was fine, he was going to sign,
the contract, was there to sign. He signed it, but
nobody signed it for our company because I think Saboo's
the talent.

Speaker 3 (01:04:56):
And I kept the same wise and signed. Well it
was a delay.

Speaker 4 (01:04:59):
Well yeah, they're delayer, right. I could see where this
one's coming, you know, but I didn't see it then.
But you know, at that time, there was those flights
were brutal to the guys and this one Scott wasn't

(01:05:20):
the only guy ever to do that. But again, being
a corporate I didn't. They gotta do what's right, and
they thought that was.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
The right thing.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
And another thing off the buffet table for you, Yeah,
potentially just on what rounds the one.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
That they weren't pushed to the highest ability.

Speaker 4 (01:05:47):
They saw what was happening, They saw the company couple,
they saw they would give in anything. They all won
those lawsuits. In fact, I testified in their behalf. Now

(01:06:27):
that had something to do. They were thinking they were
going to get some kind of record contract return or whatever.
And when it didn't happen, they were going to sue too,
because everybody's in line to sue now.

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
Vampero. You know again the corporation, I protect itself. So
the assid changes thing music which you did.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
You're not even in the head booking spot a month
and now you've got it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
Was it eight lawsuits? You lost?

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
However much talent you had, half the talent which you
are currently using.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Who asked to leave when they heard you were coming.
This is like nothing you've better experienced, probably, right, U.
This is a shit going under and you know that, right?

Speaker 3 (01:07:07):
I knew it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Yeah, what's your what's your motivation to work sixteen hours
a day for TV tapings?

Speaker 3 (01:07:15):
Because you know I love the business. I gave him
my all.

Speaker 4 (01:07:20):
But I also thought that in the end, if I
could get enough time and get Steiner over and get
sit over and haul National, how to get themselves over
just by talking.

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
There's four heels. I got Rick Flair, I get Terry Funk,
and I got a guy. I get a feed, I
got gold worker. I got seven pay per fews. None
that I don't have to worry about it.

Speaker 4 (01:07:57):
I get seven months by myself and get some guys
over and create some younger guys like those guys that
left that put the time in, that weren't tired and
stole the show. I could seven months to get those
kids in the same spot that had those other guys
right hopefully, you know. And I'm fighting against the stream.

(01:08:17):
I know, you know, I'm paddling water here and it
isn't gonna last.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
I was gonna say from a wrestling perspective, what you're saying.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
That I knew. I knew it couldn't last. I knew
it couldn't last.

Speaker 4 (01:08:28):
There was everybody who's you know, guys that weren't hadn't
worked like those some of those Mexican kids had been injured,
hadn't worked, but they were working in Tijuana, collecting a paycheck,
supposed to being hurt.

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
Now they're suing. You know, it's American way. You know.
I don't want to get this and the.

Speaker 4 (01:08:50):
Thing about uh, you know, the great society Lyndon Johnson created,
let's all not fucking work and get a paycheck.

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
But that's what happened.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
I'm sitting here a polling door for February fourteenth, Nitro.

Speaker 1 (01:09:09):
This is a three hour unopposed Nitro almost pay per
view quality lineup.

Speaker 2 (01:09:15):
Three main events.

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
Hogan, Flair, Funk Luger, Sid, Jeff Jarrett. Nash returns on
camera with the electric wheelchair. Added Scott Hall to the
pay per view main event, making a three way with
Sid and Jarrett. What's going to come out of this week?
What were the players for Scott Hall? Let me ask
you that where's Scott Hall going to go? Whether out

(01:09:37):
of obligation or out of your plan?

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
Where's all the.

Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
Thing is?

Speaker 4 (01:09:45):
And I may see this round Hall in Nash, a
rapid Costello, the Laurel Hedi.

Speaker 3 (01:09:53):
They played well.

Speaker 4 (01:09:54):
Off for one another, did great single, but together you know,
the magnificence and Kevin can control or could during this time,
control Scott as long as is around Scott. So my
plan and Kevin's plan was Scott.

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
Scott was going through some tough times too, So hopefully
Scott's gonna.

Speaker 4 (01:10:16):
Straighten out and you know things are gonna be okay,
and uh, we're gonna be able to get these guys over.
And it didn't this match didn't mean who went over
didn't matter. They're all gonna come out better than they
were going in because they were gonna give me a
hell of a match, and they were smart enough to

(01:10:37):
protect their own characters.

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
And whoever won.

Speaker 4 (01:10:44):
Wasn't gonna hurt the other two mm because there's you know,
top quality guys and.

Speaker 3 (01:10:49):
That's where we're going there. And the thing was you
just said about Kevin, Now have Kevin hurt? You know?
It was?

Speaker 4 (01:11:00):
It was a disaster. If you could go back in
time and say what were you done differently? Maybe when
National Hall were healthy, I would have said, Okay, let's
go back to what brought us to the dance you
slaughter everybody and say were the original take off the nWo,
go back to the outsiders and go after everybody and

(01:11:23):
then start that way with the little talent that I had.

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
But I never think that you can.

Speaker 4 (01:11:30):
I don't think you can go back with heels and
recreate the same thing. But with babyfaces you can't because
people are willing to forgive babyfaces ers because they see themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
As a babyface adds that underdog thing.

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
Yeah, yeah, Same show, February fourteenth, Sid confronts Mark Madden
backstage after the show because he says.

Speaker 2 (01:11:54):
Madden called him a monkey.

Speaker 1 (01:11:56):
Man says He said during the match that Sid's the
monkey and the middle reference to the pay per view match,
which is now a three way, so it feels he
deserves more respect than being called if the Monkey takes
it up with no Bush, it is like you said,
come yeah at this point, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:12:14):
It's like I again.

Speaker 4 (01:12:19):
The area is they're coming to work, they're making a
lot of money, and they've made plans to make this
money for a long time. But they get the feeling
that every Monday someone's gonna shut this down.

Speaker 3 (01:12:36):
And it wasn't too long when they gotta shut it down.

Speaker 4 (01:12:40):
Run, you know you they could start to smell out
and they're all saying, what am I gonna do with
these house payments? What am I gonna do with these
card payers? Or we're gonna do this private lessons for
my kids?

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
What bad? You know? So everybody was hyper suenpstive.

Speaker 4 (01:12:56):
You know what I mean, And everybody say, you know,
you could go buy a guy and say hey, good day,
and the guy would say, well what did you mean
by that?

Speaker 3 (01:13:02):
All right? You know, and that's how it was. It was.

Speaker 4 (01:13:06):
It was I'm sure it was like the Titanic when
the guys came out and played the music at the end.

Speaker 3 (01:13:13):
You know, we were part of the churus, you know,
And that's what it was like.

Speaker 2 (01:13:21):
Speaking of Sid for a minute.

Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
Now, here's the guy who's got to eventually, he's gonna
he's gonna bridge.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
You to Goldberg.

Speaker 1 (01:13:27):
Right, He's got to carry the ball for ten months
or whatever it's gonna be until you get to the
Star Game.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
So Sid's got a big responsibility here.

Speaker 3 (01:13:34):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:13:35):
It's been said about Sid it's difficult to give him
the ball for various reasons. Did you ever find that
to be the case? Did you have reservations about him
being someone that would be able to be tried and true?
For the ten months.

Speaker 4 (01:13:48):
I had heard that about Sid many times.

Speaker 3 (01:13:52):
Good night, I asked him.

Speaker 4 (01:13:53):
Put to tap out to Ben Weel. He said, I
don't think it's the right thing, but if you want
me to do it, I'll do it, all right. No
reservations after that.

Speaker 3 (01:14:03):
I think I got lost tapped out.

Speaker 4 (01:14:06):
I had none now ten months, not a line losing
the Gobert. It might have been a different thing, you know,
he might have had to get a bump and pay,
but it didn't matter at that time to me. I
just needed somebody that was that physical specimen and to draw.

Speaker 3 (01:14:24):
And fill in the gaps, and he was it, and
he was he was new for us too.

Speaker 2 (01:14:35):
Sad Vicious no shows the show. This is the show
before the pay per view. He now shows.

Speaker 1 (01:14:40):
He claims he has a concussion following a chair shot
from Jeff Jarrett at last week's Thunder, but he had
been at the nitrotaping the day before, so you concerned here,
he's just a apploy in your mind?

Speaker 2 (01:14:54):
What's going on?

Speaker 4 (01:14:55):
No, I don't think it was a ploy, because he
did take a real shot. And I even went backstage,
you know, I said, you know, it's a bad one,
and he might have been, you know, needed the time.
Mary might have said, well, I'm not I'm mental. I'm
not you know, Menthea, I'm not up for this or whatever.

(01:15:17):
But I didn't expect any problem from Sick for that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:21):
Scott Hall is planning on roughing up Terry Taylor during
an inn ring angle.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
JJ gets word of it backstage, Hall says he was
just joking. Hall is sent home the Thunder tapings that
held up for about thirty five minutes. His management decides
how to proceed with the show without him. The ring
simply sat empty while the fans waited for the next match.

Speaker 2 (01:15:40):
Do you remember this?

Speaker 3 (01:15:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:15:44):
Again, everybody say, sudden, Scott's gonna rough up Terry Taylor.

Speaker 3 (01:15:52):
I don't think so, I don't. Did he say it?
I don't know. I don't moved the betty did? Did
he get back? Now? Everybody said to it about everything.

Speaker 4 (01:16:02):
Now here's a wrestler gonna jump an employee.

Speaker 3 (01:16:07):
Again, we're looking at that same situation.

Speaker 4 (01:16:11):
If you don't send the sky home and it happens,
and it happens, and you've been waned. He owns the
company and everybody else is getting a piece of the
company as it's going down, you know, and.

Speaker 3 (01:16:24):
Some of the money's going south of the border, you
know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:16:28):
So none of those matches take place.

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
What's happened with each one in between to derail those plans?

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
Well, let's take first with with sid and Brett.

Speaker 4 (01:17:02):
Well, Brett had the concussion then, oh right, okay, so
so now.

Speaker 3 (01:17:06):
We can't work and Terry got hurt and he went home.

Speaker 4 (01:17:13):
Oh okay, So now there's two of them matches gone,
and Kevin still had the actual injury. So they goes
to tag team. Right, So again the only guys I
got u you know, crippled.

Speaker 3 (01:17:28):
It real.

Speaker 1 (01:17:29):
It really is remarkable how how little you were you
had to work with her.

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
It's noteworthy.

Speaker 1 (01:17:37):
Now for the Hogan Luger match, Supposedly there were a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:17:42):
Of finishes that you guys came up with that Luger.
This is true. How does that now? He wasn't a
guy who had created control over.

Speaker 4 (01:17:51):
And he didn't nix them because Hull ca had creative
control on his finishes, right, And I brought them in
the room. We sat there and Hulk said, how do
you want to do this? And they kicked it around
and they were both businessmen about it, and Hulk gave
Luger the option which way he wanted to.

Speaker 3 (01:18:12):
Do it, and he did it. So it wasn't it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):
Wasn't a difficult It was not being difficult trying to.

Speaker 3 (01:18:20):
Find the best way. And again hullk had can creative control.

Speaker 4 (01:18:23):
How could have actually said you give up in the
handshake and that's the match, right?

Speaker 3 (01:18:30):
So there was a working thing with it a Luger.
I want to say something here.

Speaker 4 (01:18:35):
During this whole time, Luger stepped up when a lot
of guys didn't.

Speaker 3 (01:18:42):
He stepped up to the plate. He was a team player.
I've heard a lot of people say things the different
things about look Luger, But Luger was a salvation for me,
was a sanity for me. And he deserved the all
the money he got from w CW. And he really

(01:19:03):
really I never had a question.

Speaker 4 (01:19:06):
Well, he's gonna set this finishes, he is, he gonna
chase him, he may throw something in a big deal.

Speaker 3 (01:19:12):
He was great, He really was.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
Tank Abbot pulls out a knife, threatens to slip Bigger
i'se throat. Following the Skins match, Shirvani has fed the line.
He's trying to cut Al's beard with scissors. I had
to try and cover it.

Speaker 2 (01:19:26):
What the hell's going on?

Speaker 3 (01:19:28):
That's old Tank.

Speaker 4 (01:19:29):
I said, when you're gonna go out there, get yourself
a gimmick, type of gimmick out.

Speaker 3 (01:19:34):
You know you're gonna hit him like the chic does.
I said, you know who the shake is? Yeah, you
know what to give, how to make the tape and
give that shows why to do it. Uh, I'm sitting there.
I give him the gimmick. It's time for him to
go out bollst the knife out.

Speaker 4 (01:19:50):
About fall over, So hit those tag app and again
I get the great job after the fucking run.

Speaker 3 (01:19:56):
This guy's ask some the toughest guy in the world.
I said, what are you doing? He said, I got
my gimmick. I said it's a knife. He said, oh,
it's my gimmick. I said, you gotta be shipping me.
I said, what happened to that one that was deep?
He said, well, don't look funny. This is a gimmick.
Is that?

Speaker 4 (01:20:17):
Whether it's done on purpose, I've often thought maybe someone told.

Speaker 2 (01:20:22):
Him interesting, did you get a phone call the next day?

Speaker 3 (01:20:26):
I got it that night, I mean beside that practice.

Speaker 4 (01:20:30):
Oh yeah, there's dancing now my my head, you know
what I mean. And you know I'm trying to tell
him that I pull Whodini was scissors? Didn't you see it?
To do you mention of his scissors? It wasn't a knife.
He's coming through like what a boy knife too?

Speaker 3 (01:20:46):
You know what I mean? In his hand like he said,
if defended the album.

Speaker 4 (01:20:51):
I'm saying, Jesus Christ, give me a break, at least
hide it and do something now. But again, whether it
was on purpose or not, I don't know, right because
I wasn't pushing tank away he's being pushed.

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
And do you think he would have been cognizant of
the fact that.

Speaker 4 (01:21:12):
No, I don't think he was. But I just think
that he didn't think. And I sat down and showed
him what the gimmick was, wrapped it up fro him.
But it wasn't you know, and him being a you know,
shoe fighter, maybe that wasn't enough of a gimmick for
a shoe fighter.

Speaker 3 (01:21:27):
Maybe you need a bowie knife.

Speaker 2 (01:21:31):
Ernest the Cat Miller always said on air that he
was a friend of James Brown. Someday bring him to
a match.

Speaker 1 (01:21:37):
James Brown makes announced appearance of the show, comes out
during an interview with.

Speaker 2 (01:21:40):
The Cat, why not use that.

Speaker 3 (01:21:47):
Better? To James Reynald think, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:50):
Could that have been an advertised thing on a pay
per view?

Speaker 4 (01:21:53):
Because we were going to advertise him And I said,
let's hold off. He didn't make that appearance. This was
like the sixth or seventh time. Are you supposed to
be there?

Speaker 3 (01:22:08):
So?

Speaker 4 (01:22:09):
And I'm a big James Brown fan. Teddy Long, who's
a very close friend of mine, used to put the
cape on James Brown and I said, you know, and
Teddy said, this isn't the first time Okay, So when
James came, it was great. If I know James is
going to be there. He did this, you know, sons money,

(01:22:33):
you know free, he did this for Ernest Miller. So
do I blame him for now showing up? Man?

Speaker 3 (01:22:41):
Maybe I'm not going to fit it in my schedule either.

Speaker 4 (01:22:43):
You know, maybe you gotta ride it, go home and
ride around and get my tire shot out and ride
the hop caps from North Carolina, South Carolina.

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
Forget about whether you said it or not. Is that
the sentiment?

Speaker 3 (01:23:11):
Did I say it? I'm not sure if I said it.
Is it the truth? Absolutely? Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (01:23:19):
I'd be a fool to say we can compete with
fins right now, But in ten months we could have.

Speaker 3 (01:23:25):
I mean I had beaten them in six weeks. You know.

Speaker 4 (01:23:30):
Just let me get these other kids up and running.
Let me get some heels with some heat. You let
me get them ten monster ready to eat people again.

Speaker 3 (01:23:38):
It won't be up and running. But today I'm lucky
if we can put on a show.

Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
We don't know if you're running an angle playing out
on the Saturday night show.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
They show on Nitro that night on February twenty first,
where Jim Duggan literally finds the WCW television title in
the trash, making him the new champion. I don't have
to tell you with the public opinion about the value
the title, de valuing a title is because you're a
guy who always has said, gotta value your title.

Speaker 4 (01:24:06):
Okay, this is how the things started to slip. I
didn't have this control of the Saturday night show, okay,
and the Saturday Night.

Speaker 3 (01:24:16):
She did Jimmy Hart.

Speaker 4 (01:24:18):
Oh so I didn't have control of the Saturday night show.

Speaker 3 (01:24:21):
But we had to plugged the Saturday night show one
nightro so not hand.

Speaker 4 (01:24:30):
I used to say, this's gotta tie in together, and
people used to say, well, it's a separate entity.

Speaker 3 (01:24:35):
No, it's still the Red Sox. You know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (01:24:37):
You gotta see the Red Sox play. But they got
off on this thing because we got My whole idea
at one time is to shoot an angle Saturday night
and before the thunder, before they just milk the cow dry.

Speaker 3 (01:24:51):
I want to shoot an angle Saturday.

Speaker 4 (01:24:52):
Night, carry it over for Monday, hype it all day
Sunday during the ball games or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:24:58):
So you'd have to tune.

Speaker 4 (01:24:59):
In and then maybe shoot that again and continue it
like you were a house show, so you had something doing.
But when the Saturday night show disappeared, the continuity was lost.

Speaker 3 (01:25:10):
And again this is now.

Speaker 4 (01:25:12):
Corporate saying, let's make the saturd Night show friendly again
for the kids. Let's not make so hot core. Let's
make a little bit more comical. You know, maybe somebody
doesn't have to have his hands on it. That's violent orientated.

Speaker 3 (01:25:29):
Let's go another way.

Speaker 2 (01:25:30):
It wasn't like a different it was like two different.

Speaker 3 (01:25:32):
Yeah, it was two different. Really.

Speaker 1 (01:25:37):
Hogan and Luger fight to a no contest in the
last Last Man Standing steel cage match. Even though Flair
is involved in the match, he doesn't run in, gets
lake dropped by Hogan.

Speaker 2 (01:25:46):
Hogan counts the three.

Speaker 1 (01:25:47):
Question about that In a minute, two men gang up
on Halkey, saved by Doug Dillinger, head of WW Security.
Luger breaks Dillinger's arm, and the show goes off the earth.
I just hope him get a three count chemic on.

Speaker 3 (01:26:01):
Flair because they had creative control. Good answer, you know.
And the other thing was there was.

Speaker 4 (01:26:08):
A little heat with Ogan and Flip, right, so he
got to one, two, three on Flip.

Speaker 3 (01:26:15):
He has creative control. He can do anything he wants.

Speaker 1 (01:26:18):
Now, why Dillinger as opposed to somebody you can use
with the running.

Speaker 3 (01:26:22):
Well, again, that is a mind. That's that's that's right.

Speaker 4 (01:26:27):
Doug dilling just happens to be Who's best friend Rick Flips,
So I'll beat you and I'll break your best friends
on who's head of security.

Speaker 3 (01:26:38):
It's like I told you one time when.

Speaker 4 (01:26:40):
I was UH Tag Team Partners with America Lewin and Dusty,
when I was wrestling Dusty and Eddie Graham came out
of retirement and the referee came over and said, how
do you want this finished diplomatically? Oh, the straight scoop?
I said, give me the straight scoop. He said, Eddie's
gonna knock you out, and dust He's gonna drop the

(01:27:00):
elbow in New Mark. So when you've got creative control,
you can do anything you want. So he did anything
he wanted.

Speaker 1 (01:27:20):
So the w CW creative team tries to contact Goldberg
a weekend long to discuss the plants and stuff, but
he doesn't return calls, doesn't return the pages and stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:27:28):
There's some concern here.

Speaker 4 (01:27:31):
No, his plan was, what is your big idea?

Speaker 2 (01:27:37):
You know Bill wants to know.

Speaker 4 (01:27:40):
What is the big idea?

Speaker 3 (01:27:45):
A big idea.

Speaker 4 (01:27:47):
Maybe I should carve a round object to make a
fucking wheel, Brad. The big idea is you're going to
build that didn't work for him. We laid it out.
It's gonna take us seven months to get this shit
on the fucking.

Speaker 3 (01:28:04):
Build back up. We've been f you know, we've been shot.

Speaker 4 (01:28:09):
We've been the enemies over the wall, were at the Alamo,
were f Davis taking a bullet, Jim's got the bowie
knife fight.

Speaker 3 (01:28:16):
I've gone done every fucking thing possible.

Speaker 4 (01:28:19):
But if we got s, if you give us this time, hopefully,
maybe God.

Speaker 3 (01:28:24):
Willing, we'll get this thing built. No, you have to
have a big idea. That's been a big idea.

Speaker 4 (01:28:31):
Well maybe I could have fucking got Zilla come from
Tokyo and burn a building.

Speaker 3 (01:28:35):
Now, No, you have to have a big idea. It wasn't.

Speaker 5 (01:28:38):
He wasn't.

Speaker 3 (01:28:39):
He had made his mind up. He was getting ready
to bush me. JJ.

Speaker 4 (01:28:44):
Reason why Goldberg didn't want to answer the phone was
he he was talking to dead man.

Speaker 3 (01:28:50):
He knew he didn't wanna.

Speaker 4 (01:28:51):
Have to p s listen to bullshit. And I don't
blame him, you know, listen to me, turn a pitch.
This is what we're gonna do for the next ten months.
And on my asses up the door. Bill's out the door.
And Bill came to me and said, Brad, it's gonna
give us the time. And Bill was a wonderful man.
He's a great human being. He's a wonderful family man.

(01:29:15):
Christian values are superhuman. But I told him, Bill, if
you believe that, I'll jump off this roof right now.
When I was on the thirteenth floor, I said, he
ain't given us time.

Speaker 3 (01:29:28):
He said, I guarantee you. He gave me his word.

Speaker 4 (01:29:30):
I said, he ain't you Bill, that's your problem. You
think everybody's honest, and that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:29:45):
You want to say that Terry wasn't in with the
other guy. When the other guy.

Speaker 4 (01:29:50):
Comes back, doesn't Terry come back. I think he slid
a briefcase underneath my desk work, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:29:59):
But it didn't care. It killed a lot of people
next to me.

Speaker 4 (01:30:02):
You know, he had to salute me one more time
when I walked out. But you know, he had to
do that one more time, and he blew up a
lot of people, and he blew up a lot of
people's lives, but Terry and I were close. It was
that it was his exit. I mean, come on, you
want to be on the other team.

Speaker 3 (01:30:23):
Let's go now, And I'll blame as a family and
I'll blame.

Speaker 1 (01:30:29):
How about Sting dissatisfied with the with the decisions and
doesn't want to work anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:30:38):
He doesn't want to return.

Speaker 3 (01:30:39):
To the ring. He's he became.

Speaker 4 (01:30:43):
I also think what happened was he flew in once
a week for over a year.

Speaker 3 (01:30:51):
That's a pretty good game making money he did.

Speaker 5 (01:30:53):
Huh.

Speaker 3 (01:30:54):
So then you know he had other things going.

Speaker 4 (01:30:58):
He had a limited number of dates that we've never
talked about. Some of these guys had limited number dates
you could use them.

Speaker 1 (01:31:04):
So in addition to the injury, in addition to the
mass exodus, in addition to being told you can't do
certain things on TV.

Speaker 2 (01:31:12):
Now there's certain dates that they can't work.

Speaker 4 (01:31:15):
Oh, I'm thinking Sting had seventy dates a year they
had to work, and the TV date goes against the
pay per view or a house show.

Speaker 3 (01:31:25):
So now.

Speaker 4 (01:31:28):
You're telling me, I mean they keep on adding stuff
on and you know, and you know, it was one
of these things. We took the golden goose and we
chopped it set off.

Speaker 2 (01:31:42):
Well, there are a lot of people holding that knife though.

Speaker 4 (01:31:44):
Yeah, I mean there was a lot of people holding
that knife corporately. I think if it was left alone,
and maybe if the truth of the matter is maybe
if Bill didn't put me in charge and let Vinnie
run it.

Speaker 3 (01:31:57):
It might have worked its way out eventually.

Speaker 4 (01:32:01):
But when you divide, you know, that's divide and conquer.
And then when those other guys left ship and everybody
getting hurt and dates, and it was like it couldn't survive.
It was it couldn't survive in spite of itself.

Speaker 1 (01:32:18):
Let me ask you, point plant though there's no standards
of practices, no lawsuits, nobody dislikes your booking style and
thinks that you want the old timers to only win.

Speaker 2 (01:32:26):
They say, let's give this guy a shot. They stay there.
You have cable TV exposure with Turnery says, do what
you want? Do you get it back on track?

Speaker 4 (01:32:34):
I beat Vince in six weeks when he got on
the cont when he came out and had a press conference,
said they won't be on TV in six weeks. I
kicked his ass for six weeks. I would bow and
this thing through the roof. If I had the if
I had the guys that left then while Malenko where
we're talking on the cream of the crop, Shane Douglas,

(01:32:54):
all of them, Conan, I mean the Lucha do is
we had it all.

Speaker 3 (01:33:00):
But and nw A and nw.

Speaker 4 (01:33:03):
O rather and Uh I had Hulk, I had Flair,
I had How could I have? I mean, I'd have
to be really really stupid to miss this one, you
know what I mean? Yeah, we would have won because
we were a better wrestling product. And it wasn't me,
it was the talent, right. All they needed to do

(01:33:25):
was Okay, we need to go over here. Guys, now
we need to go over here. Now we need to
go over here. And you know, they needed and everybody
needs to be told. And I'm the the reason why
I think I could go in and out of being
talent in the booking is because I understood what a
guy felt, the frustration.

Speaker 3 (01:33:43):
I wanted to be told where I was going. And
that's one thing.

Speaker 4 (01:33:46):
I would say, you're gonna do this job tonight, but
this is where you're gonna go.

Speaker 3 (01:33:51):
And I used to give him this shit too.

Speaker 4 (01:33:54):
No one's writing this down there isn't a book. They're
gonna say October two, Kevin I Love and Lost Dusty Roads.

Speaker 3 (01:34:02):
There's no fucking.

Speaker 4 (01:34:03):
Book out there, you know, So we can forget about that.
This isn't real. Let's go out there and you're gonna
get over. Whether you do the job or not, you're
gonna get over. And you're doing this for the betterment
of the company. If the company does well, we do well,
I do well, You do well, our families do well.

Speaker 1 (01:34:22):
So you had the product, you had a fractured structure,
though for the reasons we've been talking about for the
last two hours.

Speaker 2 (01:34:28):
But what did Vince do well?

Speaker 3 (01:34:31):
Vince bought that company for how much?

Speaker 2 (01:34:33):
One point eight one million dollars?

Speaker 3 (01:34:35):
One million dollars. Somebody was in on something bad seagull?
How many? How many years of tapes did they get
for a million bucks?

Speaker 4 (01:34:45):
And they're still playing me Florida Championship Wrestling.

Speaker 3 (01:34:48):
On their twenty four hour network. And if they play me,
they must really be in bad shape, you know what
I mean. So somebody somewhere got a.

Speaker 4 (01:34:56):
Deal, and I'm gonna go through the list. It ain't
Bill Bush, it ain't Kevin Sullivan, and it ain't it's
not JJ Dillon. Could have been Brad Siegel.

Speaker 3 (01:35:13):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (01:35:19):
Hogan appears in a pre taped interview to hype his
match against Flair, the Yopopy Indian Strap Match.

Speaker 3 (01:35:27):
What is that creative control? Brother?

Speaker 4 (01:35:33):
You think at this time I'm gonna worry about Yapope.
I don't even know if there's a tribe Theopopy, but
it sounded good to me at this time. Anything where
I'm gonna argue about a Yopapy. First of all, they've
seen this match two million times. Flair's never won, and
I'm gonna have him on a Yapope match. You know,

(01:35:55):
what do you do? You take the papoose and beat
it to death if you lose, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:36:00):
You know, Sid makes Tank tap? Yeah, this ends the
tank push? Is this a response to his the knife thing?

Speaker 2 (01:36:09):
You can't go no further?

Speaker 3 (01:36:10):
No, no, no, this was not.

Speaker 4 (01:36:12):
And the thing what I always try to pride myself
on is that I could separate business in my personal feelings.

Speaker 1 (01:36:21):
But in not personal but maybe saying.

Speaker 4 (01:36:24):
Now, I had to separate business and personal feelings.

Speaker 3 (01:36:28):
Businesses. Am I going with Tank Abbott or am.

Speaker 4 (01:36:31):
I going with Sid the Monster to defeed the first
Goldbrook I'm going and who does he make a tap out?
An ultimate fighter tap making an ultimate fighter tap out.
People that see alphamat fight say, oh, maybe that fuck Tank.

Speaker 3 (01:36:47):
Gabbitt wouldn't tap out to Sidfishes. Do you think that
one could be real? You know we've talked about this before.

Speaker 4 (01:36:53):
Just this much hope, that's what we're looking That was
what was always I was looking for that much hope
that this one might be real.

Speaker 1 (01:37:05):
W c W booking staff at this point consists of
Kevin at Ferrar, Bob Mold National lwnger Is booking.

Speaker 2 (01:37:14):
Now you're building around Sid.

Speaker 1 (01:37:15):
The plan is now for Sid to go over Jarrett
at uncensored beat to other people in May, in June.
Now he's gonna headline in July against Goldberg. Coldberg's gonna
beat Sid. Is he gonna beat Sid in July? Or
is that gonna go on for a while?

Speaker 3 (01:37:35):
No, he was gonna beat Sid. He was gonna beat Sid,
but losing the Goldberg wasn't gonna hurt Sid.

Speaker 4 (01:37:42):
Even though he was going to do the finish one,
two three, Sid could get up and one thing, the
heel should be able to do his lie, his way home.
You know what I mean? He could say I was
feeling good. You can look back, I didn't make a show.
I had a concussion.

Speaker 3 (01:37:55):
Bah bah bah.

Speaker 2 (01:37:57):
So now is what's what's Hogan? Hogan's in the mix
here too? Is he not gonna turn He'll go against Snuburg.

Speaker 3 (01:38:04):
No.

Speaker 4 (01:38:05):
At this point he was still wanting to be a
babyface and he was gonna be a support for Goldberg
or support each other.

Speaker 3 (01:38:16):
We'll see, And that's a pretty good mix.

Speaker 4 (01:38:20):
If you've got a Hulk Hogan who is a name
recognize and still draws people, and you can do something
in a happy strap match. But you've got Goldberg getting
guys and spiking them, and then you've moved these guys
into the Guerrero Malenko spots, these Billy Kidman's and other guys.

Speaker 3 (01:38:45):
Now you maybe haven't missed the.

Speaker 4 (01:38:47):
Beat, but you're gonna have to replace these guys, and
you're not not going to replace them.

Speaker 3 (01:38:53):
Overnight, right. Sure?

Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
But now is there pressure because now you know the
rags are headed down? Pople come to work every day
night and not sure if they're going to come to
work on Monday night. Is there any kind of pressure
for you to kind of move this along. Let's get
Goldberg back a little quicker.

Speaker 2 (01:39:08):
Let's save this thing.

Speaker 1 (01:39:09):
And of course the resistance to that is smart because
you want it, You want them to wait for it.

Speaker 2 (01:39:14):
What are they saying, Let's go desperation, we gotta do it.

Speaker 4 (01:39:18):
The other thing is, at this time, Goldberg was making
a movie.

Speaker 3 (01:39:23):
He's out making a movie, so I can't get him back, right, So.

Speaker 4 (01:39:27):
But I'm trying to get everybody back. And Okay, he
beats Sid. Sid isn't a monster yet. You know, he's
starting to become my feet tall, but he's only eight
feet tall. The other guys, they're not ready yet. The
younger guys, Okay, once he beats them, I need it.

Speaker 3 (01:39:44):
We needed time.

Speaker 4 (01:39:45):
But they had already the Hiaki had made the decision,
and they were hoping we.

Speaker 2 (01:39:51):
Would feel I've heard that today.

Speaker 4 (01:39:53):
They were hoping where you feel, because no moron would
sell that tapes thirty seven years however, for a million bucks, aulse,
she made a deal, and you wanted this thing to
flop as quick as possible so you could got.

Speaker 1 (01:40:05):
That money wanted. They wanted to get wrestling off of
the time, Warner. Yes, they want to get a real
quick paycheck for it and move on. Yeah, who was
the executive? You know, I probably shouldn't even ask you
for that, but I haven't written down, so we'll ask
you later. So now, Jerry Jarrett meets with the officials

(01:40:26):
on March ninth. Jarrett tells the Torts quote never was
there a full time position on the table. The meeting
was regarding a consulting position, not a book a role.
He said he was not interviewed to be a replacement
for anybody. Jarrett, though, said he believes that changes were inevitable.

(01:40:46):
The feeling I got was that this tremendous professor, tremendous
pressure on Siegel from above to make something happen, pressure
for changes to be made.

Speaker 2 (01:40:54):
I think change is imminent. Did you know about the interview,
did you?

Speaker 5 (01:40:59):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:40:59):
Yeah? And I knew too that I thought Jerry would
take the job.

Speaker 4 (01:41:05):
But then I realized he's much smarter than I am.

Speaker 3 (01:41:08):
He saw it delayed the land and he knew it
was over.

Speaker 2 (01:41:13):
No one could make it work, and.

Speaker 4 (01:41:14):
He knew somebody had made a deal somewhere, because you
wouldn't be doing self destruct like you're doing.

Speaker 3 (01:41:23):
And it it was just you know, I I.

Speaker 4 (01:41:28):
It if he hed, I'm sure when they sat down
with Jerry, Jerry with all his knowledge and running and territory.

Speaker 3 (01:41:36):
And everything, they offered him a pretty penny.

Speaker 4 (01:41:38):
But he said, uh, I ain't gonna get this mess
because it ain't gonna last.

Speaker 3 (01:41:43):
Hm.

Speaker 1 (01:41:45):
A great quote from you, and I want you to
expand on it cause I want it on my DVD.

Speaker 2 (01:41:49):
We need to do less and we need to do
what we do better.

Speaker 1 (01:41:53):
Said at this time at a booking meeting concerning the product, I.

Speaker 4 (01:41:58):
Said, what we're trying to do? Who is We're in
a panic situation. Okay, they're coming over one wall and
we're going to the other wall because we were afraid
they're gonna get over the other wall.

Speaker 3 (01:42:11):
You need to protect this wall. We need to do.

Speaker 4 (01:42:14):
Less rather than all this crazy nonsense. We need to
get back to personal issues.

Speaker 3 (01:42:20):
We need to.

Speaker 4 (01:42:21):
Tight lap our product, go back to what brought us
to the dance. The Lucher Doers need to do the
Lucher Doer stuff. The nWo guys need to do the
nWo stuff. Rick Flair needs to do WU help needs
to rip the T shirt off, and gold on the
Berg needs.

Speaker 3 (01:42:37):
To spike people instead. Needs to be a monster.

Speaker 4 (01:42:41):
But the under guys who are the opening of the show,
which is the most important part, they don't need to
be flopping around and giving each other because they're friends.

Speaker 3 (01:42:52):
The equal thing. Somebody's gotta get over.

Speaker 4 (01:42:54):
When a match is on, somebody's gotta get over because
if not, neither.

Speaker 3 (01:42:59):
One of us get over. That was the smintest thing
someone ever told me.

Speaker 4 (01:43:02):
When light goes on, make sure you get over, and
I did when I worked at the TV. I needed
those kids to get over, but they needed to do less.
They didn't need to do all this thing and pass
it back and forth. When I told the kid he
was going over, he needed to take command that he
was going over.

Speaker 3 (01:43:20):
It was business, and that's what it was. That we
needed to.

Speaker 4 (01:43:23):
Get back to the what brought us to the dance
rather than try to do the skits. And you know,
there was things brought up. Let's keep on doing vignettes
in the back. God, how many more were we going.

Speaker 3 (01:43:35):
To see that? I mean that used to be the
sacred Magic Bucks. You know what I mean. You didn't
see it. You always wonder what was back there we
couldn't do.

Speaker 4 (01:43:44):
I wanted to just go back and maybe make it
a little bit simpler. Maybe at that time I was
out of my mind and didn't know if I was
talking about it anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:43:51):
You know, arn Anderson has asked to join teen Package
with Flair colon Elizabeth.

Speaker 2 (01:44:01):
He refuses, he's sick of wrestling. He goes home to
be with his wife and kids.

Speaker 4 (01:44:04):
Sad to see arn Leaf, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was
a real friend of mine and I was very sorry
to see him leave. But Iron had been hurt, you know,
with the neck and the hand and dream. I'm not
sure if Medley he was capable of keeople going on

(01:44:26):
the road when his family was away, and.

Speaker 3 (01:44:29):
It was I think he did the right decision for
himself and his family.

Speaker 2 (01:44:39):
Hogan's match going on last against Flair.

Speaker 1 (01:44:43):
Going on after the world title match, is the focus
shifting to Hogan and creative control. Oh even as to
where the match goes on, all right, I just thought
it was like going over and how to go over.

Speaker 2 (01:44:58):
I didn't realize even the placement on the art.

Speaker 5 (01:45:00):
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:45:29):
Brad Siegel decides to shake up the power structure again
in the last ditch effort to salvage things. Wants to
bring back Russou and Bischoff, and work together as a
team and also beyond air talent.

Speaker 2 (01:45:39):
Bill Bush quits upon Bischoff's return.

Speaker 1 (01:45:43):
The current creative team Sullivan justin Dylon are sent home.

Speaker 2 (01:45:48):
Talk to me about that day.

Speaker 3 (01:45:51):
I was paid for three years. I just signed a
contract before.

Speaker 1 (01:45:55):
You were probably extremely disappointed that you didn't have to
deal with this anymore every day.

Speaker 3 (01:45:58):
Weren't you really disappointed? That was home for three years
fishing and diving. But the thing was they didn't make
it either. So the same thing that happened to me
really happened to these guys. You know, this was not
just me that was gotten this web of the subject.

Speaker 4 (01:46:22):
Vince and Eric got cat too and Ed.

Speaker 3 (01:46:28):
So I just think that they wanted.

Speaker 4 (01:46:31):
Out a well looked at this as wrestling, you know,
we're not even wrestling, and somebody figured, boy, if I
could make something work here for myself, I'm gonna make
it work. You know, our ratings at one time, you know,

(01:46:51):
was three and a half to five and a half
times what their best other show? Did you want to
rear that product? I mean they got shows on. We're
still doing like low two's. The next thing to us
is a point oh eight. You wanna get rid of this.

Speaker 3 (01:47:10):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:47:10):
You know, this thing is one one time when it
was hot, did a five six, five seven, five eight.

Speaker 3 (01:47:16):
You know. So I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:47:18):
There's more to this, and I think you know this,
and certainly everybody in this room understands now there's more
to this than meets the Either was some meeting that
we'll move it or about you know. It's like uh,
Chamberlain when it came back from Italy said there'll be
peace in our time.

Speaker 3 (01:47:37):
You know. I got the same thing.

Speaker 5 (01:47:39):
Mm.

Speaker 3 (01:47:39):
You know so, but it didn't happen.

Speaker 1 (01:47:44):
Now, well, since the company went with these guys, we
never got to see what the long term plan was
with Goldberg and beyond.

Speaker 3 (01:47:51):
It's so tales.

Speaker 4 (01:47:53):
Well, I figured with Goldberg, the mystique would have been,
you know, it was working so well at one time,
and I pleaded, but I had no control on that
at the time. When he got beat the first time,
just do it in the middle of the ring. Mm,
not with tasers, and just get beat in the middle ring,

(01:48:15):
because that's what they buy, and they bought.

Speaker 3 (01:48:17):
You, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:48:20):
And then after I left, and then make him a
heel who ran away for a while.

Speaker 3 (01:48:24):
Then they make him a heel that big the offer
ran away. Yeah that okay. My figure.

Speaker 4 (01:48:34):
My figure was I could get two years out of Goldberg.
But the heel that beat him my got here. You
know what run would I have with that heel?

Speaker 3 (01:48:48):
You know? And who would it be?

Speaker 4 (01:48:51):
It might've been one of those young kids in the
Rose that h opening happened two years prior.

Speaker 5 (01:48:58):
For them.

Speaker 2 (01:48:58):
You would have kept a strap on him for two years.

Speaker 3 (01:49:01):
Or whenever it didn't work. We would say I wouldn't panic.

Speaker 4 (01:49:04):
But I mean the night they beat him, we drew
over a million dollar house and forty four thousand people.

Speaker 3 (01:49:11):
I don't think they came to see old Keavy boy.
Uh you know, I don't think they did.

Speaker 4 (01:49:16):
So maybe we shouldn't beat this fucking guy.

Speaker 3 (01:49:20):
We got a million dollars out there on a fucking show.
You can see it home free. Well, we're gonna beat him.

Speaker 4 (01:49:30):
I was gonna go get back to his I was
gonna restart, make believe it never happened, restarted two year
run hill. That beats him, boy, I gotta kill him now,
I gotta kill her. That everybody says. And then I
also thought, if the guy was such a killer, I
would allow him wrestle on TV. I'd have the commissioner say,
you're not gonna allow this monster wrestle on TV. Oh no, no,

(01:49:52):
I am not gonna allow that to happen because I'm
afraid somebody's gonna get there's something gonna somebody's gonna be terminated,
and this company is not going to be liable for
you producing this on television. If you want to see
him a press on pay per view, you can, but
you're not going to allow him the wrestle on DV.

Speaker 1 (01:50:27):
What's your take on the ultimate end of WCW, which
now encompasses not just the two years we talked about,
but the entire legacy of the NWA went with it.

Speaker 3 (01:50:39):
Yeah, it was like and it's like everything else. It
was the t rex. It didn't evolve, It died.

Speaker 4 (01:50:51):
It was eaten by a broader sauce the other way around.
You know, in our hindsight, Vince still produces.

Speaker 3 (01:51:07):
Now, let me just refissit. Vince produced a great show.

Speaker 4 (01:51:11):
When he had competition, or we hit the head and
we were batling, we were all doing well. The buildings
were filled. Everybody's talking about wrestling. It was mainstream, kids
at T shirts, men at T shirts, Rustling was the
talk the boy.

Speaker 3 (01:51:29):
They talked about Mark McGuire and the bat.

Speaker 4 (01:51:31):
We had Roger Clemens coming to the we had everybody
came to the matches. When he lost the competition, he
lost the edge. You have to have an edge. You
gotta be hungry. You gotta get up and say what's
that competitive doing?

Speaker 3 (01:51:46):
Cause if you don't, you get sloppy.

Speaker 4 (01:51:50):
When he lost us and swallowed us up, he lost
probably his creative inch and in doing so, I'm not
wanting to judge, but maybe it's not the best product
you ever put up.

Speaker 3 (01:52:07):
Right.

Speaker 11 (01:52:09):
But as far as the the uh, the NWA's legacy,
it's entire history, sixty year history is now in Bens
McMahon's hands and in his tape libraries. Yeah, and it's
a place that you made NWA in in different territory forms,
the place you made your home for right since nineteen
seventy two.

Speaker 4 (01:52:27):
Right, you're there's seventy. But it's what I also said.
You know, I've never said you know, I threw fifty
touchdown passes. You know, the NWA was created by promoters
for promoters. It was a union of promoters to control wrestlers. Right,

(01:52:50):
So whether the legacy of them goes. I don't really
give a shit. You know, they to they t they
stuck together with the guys didn't. So there is in
That's one side of me. The other side says, it's
too bad, it can't go on forever. But the Negro

(01:53:10):
League folded two, you know, so I would have liked
to see in WCW go on forever. In the continuation
of WCW and our lineage of the NWA.

Speaker 3 (01:53:23):
We should have we could have done something with that.

Speaker 4 (01:53:25):
That was another thing I was thinking about doing, you know,
a historical.

Speaker 3 (01:53:29):
Point of view and bring it.

Speaker 4 (01:53:32):
But the thing is that even in today's in sports,
I was reading something where somebody didn't even know who
a baseball player, didn't know who ty Cob was. Well,
you can go in these dress rooms tonight and ask
people whom lutess they don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:53:47):
You really think, Oh, I absolutely believe that.

Speaker 4 (01:53:50):
I absolutely I asked a kid one day, do you
know who Paul E Dangerously is?

Speaker 3 (01:53:55):
He said no, And I said, do you know who
Paul Hayman is? He said yes.

Speaker 4 (01:53:59):
So you know what I'm saying, there should be some history.
We don't have a history. They're not like baseball. We're
not like football. And these guys were out there every night.
They should be a history. And I wanted to have
a part of our show, whether it was a Saturday
night where there was a history where guy sat down
and we showed all films, like Ben says, old films. Yeah,
and we showed all films and said this was you know,

(01:54:20):
logit in Rocker this as well.

Speaker 1 (01:54:22):
So if you paid a lot of money for those
old films, and you're.

Speaker 3 (01:54:26):
Very cheap at one point one million dollars in thirty
seven years, they're real cheap.

Speaker 5 (01:54:31):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:54:32):
I thank you both for being the first guest we've
ever had on any of our tapes to mention the
Negro League, but also for taking us down to your
personal journey in a time of strife, professional strife. But
it's been enlightening to us. And hopefully they say you'll
learn from your mistakes. So I hope you were an
educator here as far as some of the mistakes that

(01:54:53):
WCW and its corporate officials made.

Speaker 3 (01:54:56):
Thank you appreciate it, Ok, thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:54:58):
Thanks for watching. Than

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