"Mean Gene: The Man Who Knew Everyone's Secrets 🎤"

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

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to another edition of the RF Video Shoot interview series, Theory,
joined by a legendary voice of professional wrestling, probably one
of the most famous faces in the world when it
comes to professional wrestling as far as a TV announcer
me and Gina Okland.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Thanks for being here today, Rob, those are very kind words.
I'll slip you at twenty a little bit later on
or maybe spring for a cocktail at the end of
the interview. Sounds good by Rachman. It's actually thirty, but
that's okay.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
My very first question, no, Gauge, I'm sorry, this is
your interview actually, so, I guess the very first question
I want to ask you is We're you a wrestling fan?

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Growing up? I was kind of a semi wrestling fan.
It came on late nights on Saturday night and I'd
catch vern Ganya in Company back in the mid to
late fifties, and then I kind of followed it when
I went on to college. Matter of fact, I went
to school with a guy by the name of Jimmy

(00:55):
Rashki at NEBRASKI No, just kidding, but no. Aaron von
Rashki was down at the University of Nebraska and I
was there, so yeah, I kind of followed it, but
not like today's you know, hardcore fans, not being in hardcore,
but dedicated fans. So what is your broadcast background before wrestling?

(01:17):
What did you have? I had a significant background in
broadcast scene, all of it up unto the point I
started doing wrestling was in radio, and I worked for
some fairly big stations. I worked part time when I
was going to school on Lincoln, Nebraska. I went then
when I got out of school to Omaha, which was
a big Eiet Warren Buffet's from there, so what the hell?

(01:40):
But I worked at Koil in Omaha for a couple
of years. Then I subsequently went to Minneapolis and got
into radio in a couple of stations there where I
was actually a program director and a pure program director
one that wouldn't have to be on the air. That
lasted about one week. So I had about nine years

(02:02):
of on air experience and radio. So how did you
make it over into the wrestling world? How did that
come about? That's a kooky story, maybe kinky too, but
I'm just trying to think here. I happen to be
a salesman at a television station in the Twin Cities,
and the AWA was based in the Twin Cities. They

(02:25):
did a live show every Saturday night, and there was
a gentleman by the name of Marty O'Neill, the Irishman
from Saint Paul, who was the longtime voice of the AWA.
He had a sports play by play background and was
kind of a legitimate guy. Smoke cigars, cocktails, golf, much
of the same things that I do. So I was

(02:48):
asked to pop in and host this show because he
was ill and would be unable to make it. I
did it reluctantly, actually agreed. Reared its ugly head and
I got a couple of bucks down to the table
from Gania and I said, sure, I'd be more than
happy to do it. I didn't know jack about wrestling

(03:09):
when it comes to the holes and the moves and
things like that. He said, just sit down and call
what you see. And I think that probably is a
non broadcaster, which vern Gania is and was. I think
was probably the best advice that I have ever gotten today.
The play by play guys, you sit down and listen

(03:29):
to a match, and they're plugging this. They're plugging how
these two, became an item, and don't miss Summer Slam,
and don't miss the Great American Bash and next Friday
and SmackDown. You'll see so much cross promotion there. Those
are back in the old days. You know what you did,

(03:50):
You call the match and that was it. Right. What
are your initial impressions about vern Ghana, Well, my initial
impressions were very good. Verne gana was you know, was
an icon. He had already become a bona fide superstar
and world champion. He started out with Fred Kohler and
the Boys down in Chicago on the old Dumont Network.

(04:12):
Now this goes way back, this is actually late forties,
and he became He became one of their biggest stars,
and Verne was the All American hometown hero, if you will.
He went to school at the University of Minnesota. He
was a marine, He went to the Olympics in forty eight.

(04:32):
He was a aau NCAA champion. Hell, he had a
lot of credentials. So my initial impression of him was
the guy that obviously knew what he was doing. Only
later did we find out what really happened. For the
rest of the story, we'll talk about that coming up.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
I guess, I guess when you first got into the
business around some of the boys, what kind of.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Lens did they go to k f abu early on
or do they spartan you right away? No, not at
all they did. Kate Babe me. Verne was a very
big Kate fape guy. And to tell you the truth,
it didn't bother me at all. It was not an
insult to my intelligence. When I see two guys that
aren't gonna, you know, get within twenty feet of each other,

(05:17):
go behind a blackboard and I've seen two sets of
feet down there, and one of the sets of feet
belongs to Verne Ganet. The other set belongs to Bobby Heenan. Hey,
not the not the sharpest tool of the drawer, but
certainly it could figure that one out in a hurry.
Did anyone review early on or everyone's pretty cool with you.

(05:40):
There wasn't a lot of ribbing back then. Maybe if
guys would get a little joy juice in them, you know,
and they like to pull a rib on themselves. But
actually in that organization, the announcer was hands off. Nobody
ever pulled me around, beat me around, did anything. And
I think I think that would be a bad move,

(06:01):
even though it had happened to me later on. I
was not one to be touched or grab You wouldn't
see somebody working over Al Michael's on on Sunday Night
Football or Monday Night Football, whatever the case might have been.
And I think it. I think it lessens the dignity
or the credibility of the announcer to be to be

(06:21):
roughed up. I guess what was the hardest thing to
grasp about announcing the shows for you early on? Well,
the the I guess the hardest thing for me to
really I don't know, I'm thinking of a word here,
but to really be able to in the play by

(06:41):
play understand where the guys are going with a match
where they're telling stories, which they did back in those days.
You'd tell stories kind of like a caricature, an animation,
and sometimes you'd get you'd get as mister Foods, you
would say cross double, the guys would have a gimmick

(07:03):
or faulse finishes. And I had a tendency as an
announcer in doing play by play. I guess to anticipate
wrong thing to do. You need to just call it
as you see it. And I think that was an
obstacle that took me maybe a year or two to
get over. And once I got that straight in my head,

(07:23):
all was, well, did anyone ever give you bullets on
bulle points? N? So, who did anybody ever give you
like pointers? As far as like announcing or did you
you know what they did? And of course I became
a student of the game learning you know some of
the holes and moves, tell you the truth? I made

(07:45):
up a lot of them as we went along. I mean,
what's a deal throw right? Named after the late great
Benny Beal burn Gunn says, who the hell is Benny beal?
It's a hip toss stake down, that's it? No bill throw.
Who did you work closest with? Early on? In Aba?

(08:06):
Who did you work with close? Well? I was kind
of a one man show there. We did have a
couple of play by play guys that we've done it out.
But I'd have to say that probably I worked with
Vern closest because I was relegated to doing my job
probably one one and a half days a week. I

(08:26):
was definitely a part time guy, and I guess in
his own way, he would smart me up on the
television matches, and also we did a lot of recording
with one or two camera shoots at various arenas. We
had to go to Canada for Canadian content, so that
was very, very important to the company. What are your

(08:48):
additial memories of meeting Halkog and early on in Aba? Wow? Well,
the first time I met him, you know, he'd gotten
a little advanced work in the AWA. They were going
to bring him in as a Thunderlips type heel. He
was going to be managed by Luscious Johnny Valiant and

(09:11):
sometimes you get Johnny going. He worked off an easel
with a poster of Hogan and this was after Rocky
three had been released. This guy was working with the
Sir Edmund Francis and Lord James Blars in Hawaii. Hogan
got in about the third or fourth week, and he
had all this advanced publicity, and of course Luscious Johnny

(09:33):
had been his mouthpiece. But when he got in you
could just see, I mean, the charisma, the way he
carried himself, the way he looked, even the way he talked,
you know, high energy, and it wasn't long that the
office realized, Hey, this guy's not going to be a heel.
This guy is going to be a baby face. He's

(09:53):
going to be our baby face. And little did we
know that he would become, without any question of about
the biggest star professional wrestling as ever or probably wherever,
at least in our lifetime, your lifetime ever. See how
did your friendship friendship grow with him? Early on? Well,

(10:16):
he was kind of the new kid on the block.
He hadn't really worked in the territory as a as
a top hand. And uh, he he had. He had been,
you know, working for guys like Eddie Graham, he worked
for Vince McMahon, and he did little training with Stu
Hart Hero Matt Suda down in Tampa of course, the

(10:37):
guy that trained him. And I believe everybody would tell
you that Hogan maybe never was the greatest technical wrestler
in the world. But you know, unlike Dean Malenko, he
had all the other things going on. I think Dean
Malenko palm for pound, is probably one of the greatest
performers technically of our era. But what Hogan had he

(10:59):
had the ability to put asses in seats. And I
think you've heard the story. Uh, there was something there
that the crowd, the fans could relate to they could
sink their teeth into, they could wrap their arms around them,
and the rest of his history. Did you want to
ever give you a feeling of, Oh, you're not one

(11:20):
of the boys, since you were just an announcer around
the time period I did. I got that from believe
it or not, Sir Oliver humperd Ink. I attended a
match with my good friend, Lord Alfred Hayes down in Sarasota, Florida,
where I now live, and uh uh, Oliver humpered Ink
and Carney mentioned something to Lord Alfred Hayes. Uh the

(11:43):
uh the IAS office in in me as any uh
is a a anouncers And I says, not me, they don't.
That's because I talked Carney speak under SAand one of
two languages. How soon into this business did you realize

(12:05):
you want to do this full time? Well, Rob, to
tell you the truth, I don't know if I ever
really wanted to do it full time, because all the
time I was working in Minneapolis, I was either working
in television sales. And then I went in with a
couple of my friends and we started an ad agency

(12:25):
that specialized in retail advertising. And I liked that a lot.
I liked that a lot. Both of the guys that
I went into. Unfortunately, we lost early on in the
fight there to cancer both of them. So I then
kind of leaned when Vince McMahon came to me in

(12:47):
mid nineteen eighty three talking about this vision that he
had for a wrestling company and that cable TV was
starting to come in and there were some things that
we could do nationally. Never mentioned Glow, by the way,
but at that juncture nationally that we could do. I decided,
along with the allergy from guys like Pat Patterson, definitely

(13:09):
from Hull Kogan, that maybe it's the move I should make.
And here again money did play a role in my
decision making. It's usually does who even mean Jesse Ventura?
That was my next question, some of your early memories
of working with Jesse to body Ventur and Awa. Let

(13:30):
me as long as we're on the subject of the
Moniker mean Gene. I was never in love with it,
but I guess it served me well through the years.
We've got a few burger and pizza joints up with
the Mean Gene's name on it. Jesse Ventura was this
flamboyant guy with the BoA's and the Tide Eyes and
everything else. Who would come on and our regular show,

(13:52):
which we would do wraparounds on the wrestling was one
thing and separate and then we do the wrap rounds.
Jeff I see would come on out and he always
was a name dropper, Jesse, where have you been this week? Well,
I've been with Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones and
Keith Richard and myself were like this, God, that's impressive, Jesse.

(14:14):
Who else? Bruce Springsteen? God does? He loved me, wants
me to be his personal bodyguard. So the one time
he came in and said me and Jean or No,
he didn't say me, Gene. He said, Gene okerl Do
you know who I was partying with this last weekend?
I said, Jesse wouldn't have a clue. He said, Tom
Petty and the Heartbreakers. I said, you're kidding me, Tom Petty. Wow?

(14:39):
He says, you know who Tom Petty is? And I says, well,
of course I do, Jesse. He's a famous race car driver.
And with that that's where Jesse came up. That was
me and Jean and I am kind of stuck after that.
Did you ever think that Jesse would go on later
in life to become a mayor and mayor also both

(15:01):
the mayor and the governor. Uh. You know the one
thing that I guess I realized at this juncture in
my life, you never say never. A lot of people
thought Jesse Ventura was a kook. He was a bonafide,
you know, free spirit in in his book, Uh don't
have Time to Bleed or whatever the name. It was

(15:22):
too much information there. He talked about the Mustang ranch
and about smoking a joiner too. Through the years, maybe
maybe that was too much information. But you know what,
in Jesse, at least you knew what you got because
he didn't hold anything back. He didn't try to k
fabe anybody. He told it the way he saw it

(15:44):
and a very opinionated man, no question about it. What
are your early memories about Crusher and the Bruiser. Well,
I got to know Crusher much better. I liked I
liked Reggie a lot, a great guy. Sometimes he he
was kind of uh, between he and Dick, Between Bruiser
and Crusher, they were kind of like Walter Matt Donald

(16:05):
Jack Lemmon, the grumpy old men. Because I caught him
in the later stages of their respective careers. He was
just one real bright light that I saw in wrestling
because he knew when he got on to do a
promo on television and talk about his match, you know,
he could entertain. He was talking about as soon as

(16:28):
I beat so and so, we're gonna have a big party.
I'm gonna take all of the dollies out and we're
going to do the folk and we're gonna drink beer.
And you know, the blue collar people that followed wrestling
back then, when events were held in smoky National Guard
armories or high school gymnasiums are very very small venues.

(16:50):
It was a different ballgame. Crusher was fantastic. Bruiser was
quite the business man. He had a college background. Dick
Atlas was an ADFL player for a couple of years
with Green Bay Packers, a little short. I don't know
how he did that, but back in those days, got
away with it and he ran the Indianapolis promotion with

(17:14):
Wilbert Snyder. Bruiser and berg Gania had a very very
tight relationship going back to Dumont when they both worked
for Cooler in Chicago. I thought Dick was a very
bright guy. I thought Dick was a pretty shrewd businessman,
and he had to be because all the boys were

(17:35):
bitching about the playoffs when he came to Bruiser. But
those those are my memories. I thought as a tag
team they were great with the Cousins deal and everything,
and they kind of had that look alike, so I
thought they were great. What about Keim and Terra? Some
of your memories of working with Ken? Well? Ken Peterra

(17:57):
was working in New York when I was working in
Minneapolis for the aw A. He also went down and
worked for Jim Crockett Productions. But Ken Peterra when I
when I first saw him, he was, believe it or not,
a bouncer at a bar with another gentleman whose name

(18:19):
escapes me. Ken Peterra and oh Rick Flair, the nature
boy was a bouncer. Wow. They bounced at a place
called George's in the Park and you knew they had
the bleached blonde hair and they had it all going
for him. Plus they were, you know, both the pretty
tough customers they needed to be. Ken Peterra a good man.

(18:40):
He had some real rough brakes and literally rough breaks.
And in Milwaukee with that accidentally, that brick falling out
of his hands and going through the window. What are
your early memories of a young Rick Flaire. You touched
briefly on my early memories of Rick. Rick was a

(19:01):
student of verne Gania's. He went to the camp. He
did very well. Vern Gania's normal arrangement is he takes
ten percent of their income for the rest of their lives.
I'm sure there's a cutoff somewhere he can make book.
But Rick Flair gave him the Italian salute and went

(19:26):
down and started. After a couple of matches, I covered
his very first match in the AWA. But he went
down to Carolina kind of moved around a little bit
and got his own niche and Wow. I don't think
he could have developed that persona if he would have
been working for vern Gania, because Gangna would put a

(19:47):
lid on him. And the Flare is a wild man.
As a matter of fact, he still is a wild man.
Had a good friend, by the way, memories of working
with Nick Bocage. I love Nick. Nick was one of
a kind, second generation wrestler. Uh born and raised in
Saint Louis, spent a lot of time in southern California.

(20:11):
Uh Nick was a good, good technical wrestler. Uh. He
did a lot of a lot of high flying things,
but he could also do the uh the uh Steve
Riegal and uh Billy Robinson kind of moves. I liked
him a lot, and Uh, as it turns out, here's

(20:32):
the guy that that made his market professional wrestling, had
his little slot and made a living at it, and
a good living.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
I guess, at what point did you realize looking back now,
would you say, all right, I'm good at this.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
You know I made it. I'm kind of I've got
a little bit of an inferiority complex in that when
I when I sat around I I guess I didn't
have confidence in myself because ninety percent of the time
I didn't know what the hell I was talking about.
So as things turned out, I really didn't realize that

(21:10):
I was doing a good job until I made the
move to New York, worked with Vince McMahon and the
production values that he set up for himself and working
with the television people. I mean, it was a very
important thing to him, and we had to do it

(21:31):
in a professional way, and I could pull it off,
even though sometimes you had to. You know, your going
by the seat of your pats on a lot of this,
so you had to kind of wing it. But it
all worked out, and I said, well, maybe I should
do this for a living, and I went in and
negotiated a contract with Dick Glover about two or three days.

(21:53):
With the blessings of Vince McMahon. Memories of working with
Race Stevens and Harley Race Well, I never worked with
the two of them together. I really did not. Actually,
I just miss Harley in the AWA. Hardy was a
Kansas City guy and he was a tag team partner

(22:13):
with Larry the Axe Henny or at that time pretty
Boy Larry Henny. And that was just right before he
was in the late sixties. And then he went back
to Kansas City and the NWA as part of the
ownership group down there. Hardy also had a piece of
Saint Louis Ray Stevens. Ray Stevens, Well boys, Ray Stevens

(22:37):
is another story. There's a guy that I absolutely enjoyed.
Ray Stephens said he found out that he liked me
when we went pheasant hunting and I had a brand
new Cadillac and I drove it down to Cornfield. He says,
here's something that's incredibly He says, you might want to
get yourself a pickup for hunting. These Cadillacs aren't too good.

(23:01):
But I so admired Ray Stevens and and his talent.
Thought he was great on a mic too. Golfer. Ray
was not a golfer. A couple of those guys we're
not golfers. Ray Stevens and Pat Patterson, though I thought,
were one of the premier tag teams of all time.
And you know we've lost Ray. Ray is gone, but

(23:24):
he certainly made his mark. I don't think he saved
a nickel, unlike Pat Patterson, who's probably saved all of
his nickels. Memories of Larry Henny Oh, I was very
close with the with the acts. I liked Larry uh.
He was a resident of the Twin City, so occasionally

(23:45):
socially during the week we'd run out, we went to
one little gin Miller was a saloon where they had
dan scene and smoky bar. You know how it goes.
I expected Richard Gear to walk through the front door.
Not really, but Larry was a big, big man. He
had to weigh three hundred pounds at least, if not more,

(24:05):
And there was a little guy that came over to
him and kept tapping him in the chest doing this,
and he says, he wrestlers, you're all tough guys. Right.
Larry had on cowboy boots because he wasn't that tall,
maybe about six one or six two. He put the
two inch cowboy boots on. All of a sudden, he's
six four or five. But this guy kept bothering. He says,

(24:28):
don't screw with me. Didn't say it that nicely. Don't
screw with me, or you're going to be out of here, right.
And a guy came back after a couple of more
cocktails that started working them over again. Larry just lifted
up his leg and went right on the top of
the arch of his foot. The guy went down, and
he says, better get somebody here. I think this guy

(24:49):
man is sick. He just fell down here. I think
he's throwing up. You better get him out of here.
So he handled things in his own way, right. I
guess you seem to be more real most rusting the announcers.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Did veterans ever take that as a sign of disrespect
or that you weren't taking the business seriously or.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
Like?

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Did anyone ever approach you about something you might have
said about them on commentary.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
Never i'd been told by you know, there's a time,
there's a time for levity, and there's a time where
you've got to be dead serious. I think another Minneapolis
guy but the name of Gordon solely did it so well.
He could have fun with the product, but he did

(25:32):
such a good job of selling the angles, and he
did it with credibility, I think because he was serious
ninety percent of the time. I what would you say, guys,
fifty to fifty little levity here and there, right, yeah,
but when it came time to do business and you
had to be serious, I think I worked that pretty

(25:56):
good through the years. Looking back at Aba, who do
you think in the ring as far as like wise
had well. Nick Pockwinkle certainly had psychology. I'll tell you
who else. Matt Dog Wasshon was incredible. Crushure was incredible.
Let's let's walk through him one at a time. Matt
Dog Vashon. I was covering the matchup in Winnipeg, Manitoba

(26:20):
at the Arena there sellout every every third week on
Thursday night, even if the temperature was fifty below zero apparently,
but Matt Dog Vashon had an angle going with Jesse Ventura.
Matt Dog was a diminutive man. You know, he's probably

(26:40):
in his mid seventies now, if not older, but he
wrestled very, very very late in life. But he had
he had such a great feel for what was going
on here. We are fifteen thousand people in the arena.
He's working with Jesse Ventura and he comes over to
my announced table because we recorded these matches for Canadian content,

(27:05):
and I was just amazed. He says, give me the microphone.
You don't argue with with. Matt Dog takes a microphone.
He has the wherewithal to turn on the microphone. It
was the house mic, get the volume, walks over to
Jesse Ventura, bam right over the top of the head
and of course everybody heard it because he used the microphone.

(27:29):
He turned it off and put it back in the
mike's stand and walked away. Thanks guy. Memories of Bruiser
Birdie Bruiser Brodie to me was he was kind of
an in and out guy in the AWA. That's the
only place that I worked with him. And he had
had this reputation as being, you know, a bit of

(27:51):
a loan wolf, also a rabble rouser. He was the
guy that went against the grain. Promoters weren't in love
with him, but he had a thing in Japan that
he could always fall back on. I saw him as
a very talented guy, and he served a purpose where
somebody could bring in in these territories for the Crockets,

(28:14):
for Ghanya, for Paul Bosh and Houston, even for Vince
McMahon senior up here on the East Coast. You could
bring this guy in, have a good six or eight
week run with him, a couple of angles, and then
he was off to the races. After that he got bored.
He was gone, but truly a good hand, and he

(28:36):
like a Stan Hansen, never really working in territory, but
was always there when you needed him. And he had
a love hate relationship with Ganya. You know, the only
thing I really feel bad about is the sad demise
of Brewser Brody much too early. Now he's working with

(28:59):
Bobby Heenan Aterview. Oh God, are you serious? Where do
I start with him? I've been in this business for
thirty five years as of April, and Bobby Heenan and
myself have worked probably thirty or thirty one years out

(29:19):
of that thirty five year span together. We worked together
in the AWA. Obviously we worked together in the WWF
Round one. I went down to Atlanta at WCW and
worked down there, and the first suggestion I made to
Eric Fishchoff was he needed to get Bobby Heenan. His

(29:42):
contract is expiring, he's got a six month non compete,
but I think we need him here. I'm a big
fan of Bobby Heeni's Why wouldn't you be a big fan?
He's clever and he can show so much emotion as
a manager, there was none better. And even as a

(30:02):
color color guy on on television, I thought that he
and Jesse Kurt Hennig, I like Kurt Jerry Lawler. Uh
but uh but Bobby, Bobby just didn't want to be
a manager anymore, didn't want to go on the road,
so he wanted to be a broadcaster, and a good
one he was. I still stay in contact with him

(30:26):
to this very day. I feel bad about Bobby and
and that throat thing, because the throat cancer has essentially
taken his livelihood away. Now whether Bobby would be in
retirement now or be working, I'm sorry that might be uh,
that might be Vince McMahon wondering what the hell we're

(30:47):
doing here. No, no, no, don't puss it. Don't pusse. I'll
take it here. Hello, Kevin, Yeah, let me buzz you back.
I'm doing it interview with some people here from Philadelphia.
Thank you, Kevin Dunne, good friend. You know what I

(31:10):
do it on the golf course. I'm going to turn
it off here. Couldn't you say? Nice play? Sorry about that? Now?
Where were we? We're talking about Bobby the bringing Bobby.
The unfortunate part about this both surgery and he had
radiation and it paralyzed his vocal cords and he's learning

(31:31):
to speak all over again. For somebody that was so glod,
that was so good, that was so quick with wit,
and had the ability to put his boys over and
really take and amplify or magnify an angle, an issue,
there just was none better. I remember when he came

(31:53):
into Madison Square Garden for the very first time. We
had done a few interviews on television, and as we
can had got into week two, three four, I made
reference to him as well, you're going to be in
the garden on January the sixth or you're gonna weez
a lot of this deal too. By the time he
got to the garden six weeks later, the chant of

(32:15):
weez ol weasel, it was there already. Memory's working with
Brd alpher Gase. Oh God, Lord Elford Hayes was here again.
One of my one of my favorites. And and and
you can see the guys that I really kind of
like a Bobby Heenan a Lord Alfred Hayes. Lord Alfred

(32:35):
Hayes was so good on camera behind the microphone and
his wrestling technique, at least when I saw maybe in
his younger years he had it, but it was a
little what shall we say, lame. He certainly wasn't green.
He was a He was a journeyman. An whole question

(32:57):
about it. He wrestled originally is Judo al Hayes in
the UK and Lord Alfred Haseman. I'll tell you a
very quick story. He was on a radio show in
Minneapolis on a very prominent AM talks station, WCCO AM.
And the guy on the air said, are you really

(33:19):
a lord? And Alfred said, well, of course I am
old chap old boy. And he says, do you have
a seat in the House of Parliament. He says, I
don't currently have a seat in the House of Parliament,
but of course I had one there for sixteen years.
And the guy says, are you kidding me? He got

(33:43):
on the phone, made a telephone call the Scotland Yard,
the one that was right next to Parliament in London,
and got the guy in the phone answered the phone,
Scotland Yard precinct whatever, blah blah blah. He says, have
you ever heard of a gentleman by the name of

(34:05):
Lord Alfred Hayes. And the guy says, well, most certainly,
Lord Hayes was a member of our parliament here for
many years. And the guy says, are you sure, Yeah,
he says he was. That ended the conversation, And of
course Lord Hayes never had a seat in Parliament. We're
never even the lord. Hell, the Queen's got to work

(34:26):
that deal for you. But he sure handled properly on
the air. And the guy that answered the phone, the
officer was at Scotland Yard, was obviously somebody that knew
Al Hayes as Judo al Hayes, the wrestler, and he
made that transformation that he was waiting to be annoying

(34:48):
at a lord and subsequently run for parliament in the UK.
Memories of working with mister Sido. Mister Sida was great.
I mean the language age uh Vern always liked it.
They the Japanese switch the l's and r's off in

(35:09):
their conversation, and burn says, ask him how he likes
his fitsch, you know, he said, how do you like
your fish cooked or raw? And he would say law
and then and Verne got off on it. So, I
mean that was that was it. That was the question
I had to ask him. But Sayta was a great guy.

(35:29):
I liked him. He got out and about Minneapolis, Saint Paul,
and since that was our hometown, I got to see
him socially, which was something that a lot of people
didn't get a chance to see the the other side
as they do now today. But back then wrestlers were
very low profile. We're not allowed to get in trouble. Mike. God,

(35:52):
if you got picked up at a toll booth with
a joint in your ash straight, you wouldn't work in
that town again. Ever, I guarantee it right. How hard
did Burne take it when Hogan left the company, Well,
he took it very hard. He was mad. He thought
that Hogan had betrayed him. I knew before Terry left

(36:13):
for Japan that he was going to sever the ties
with Verne and go to New York and work with
Vince Jr. And the way he did it, though, I
think for Hogan, was probably not the correct way to
do it. I would have sat down with Verne face
to face. Hogan sent him a Western Union telegram saying

(36:37):
it's all over. I'm going to be going to New York.
Thanks for two and a half great years, but see
you later.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
When did it come apparent that to you and the
boys that Vince was expanding nationally? Was it around that hundred.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Instantaneously, even before Terry officially made the move, Don't I
say Terry hul Covid made the move. I knew that
something was going on, and already I had been in
conversation with Pat Patterson and Vince at called inquiring if
I be interested. I dismissed it at first. Number one,
because of the logistics. Most of Vince's production was done

(37:14):
here in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Hamburg, Pennsylvania, these small venues, and
I had a business to watch out for, which I
could do if I worked one day a week, but
he kind of deal with me saying that initially I
would be working three days every three weeks and that

(37:34):
would be it. So I kind of justified, at least
to myself, rationalizing that I could certainly take three days
every three weeks and basically triple my salary agreed up
in the air. So you basically wound up in after

(37:56):
that offer. I did. Indeed, I started in the up
in December of nineteen eighty three. We did wrestling at
the Chase out in Saint Louis and a little different
ballgame because we were in the tuxedos back then. I
probably remember I was always associated with the tuxedo.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
I guess there's a rumor going around that Burne Gania
offered Iron Chic one hundred thousand dollars to break Cokin
his league. Did you ever hear about that?

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Never heard about it, but I wouldn't doubt it. But
you know what, he wouldn't pay him one hundred grand,
maybe ten thousand. Job. I know Gania better.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
What are initial thoughts upon meeting Vincent Man? What your
initial impressions mister, yeah, Vice.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Junior, Oh, very favorable I talked to him so often.
We had not met in person, but sat down. He's
a very personable guy. He wasn't as guarded back then
as he is today. A lot of people have betrayed
vanc stuck it to him, so I think he's kind

(39:02):
of you know, arm's length. But in the early days
it wasn't like that. We had a lot of fun together,
partied a lot, worked hard. Of course, we were working,
you know, fifteen sixteen hour days all over the country, right,
And that build up to WrestleMania was absolutely a grueling,
grueling six months because it had to work. If it

(39:26):
didn't work, probably was all over. A lot of people
said that was the big gamble. WrestleMania won. Oh, no question. Well,
this guy has got to have very big cahouns to
be able to do that. It's all or nothing.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
We'll talk about that. You probably have some questions about
that coming up. How did Verne take it when you
gave notice?

Speaker 1 (39:48):
What the hell do you mean? Do you leave it
so you can't leave me? Did you try to offer
Vince's offer at all? Or no? No, I'll tell you
what happened there. The key to my leaving Burne said,
But Greg came in and Greg said, how can you
leave us now? We need you. We've taken care of

(40:09):
you for thirteen years. Well, I said, hell, Greg, I've
taken care of you. This guy comes up with an
offer that is substantially better, and I don't hear any
counter offers here. He says, well, so damn good, take
the job. And I did right, and no hard feelings
after that, because it was kind of like hit the bricks.

(40:30):
He thought that I'd back off on it, but I didn't.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
When everybody started leaving ABA and all the other territories
for Vince was what was the talk in the locker
room was a lot of people trying to get on
to get Evince.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
Unfortunately, Doug I was, you know, kind of at the
front end of that thing, so I didn't hear a
lot of the things. But once once guys came into
the territory, like Kurt Henning, Kurt said, when me and
Gene makes the move, it's time for the rest of
the boys to make him moved to another organization. So
there was a wholesale bailout in the first three years

(41:05):
out of the a w A. And it had to
absolutely crush crush Vern Gana. Do you think that.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
Though Vern was kind of not as pro wrestling was evolving,
Vern was kind of not evolving and was at a
lot of the talk because it seems.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
Vern didn't want to change Ver Vern liked it the
way he had it. You know, he he was an isolationist.
He had his markets. He had the Salt Lake City,
the San Francisco, the Denver, the Chicago, the Minneapolis, all
these towns and cities and some pretty good markets in
there by the way, but he also had the secondary

(41:45):
markets all the way from Minneapolis out to the West coast.
I mean, they've played Fire ago, they played Grand Forks,
may Not, Sue Falls, South Dakota, Sioux City, Iowa, Lincoln, Nebraska, Omaha.
Why why was Vern, especially.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
When a lot of the guys are leaving It was
vernever think about joining the NBA.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
I heard doors and what was the heat with Vern
and the other NBA members. I heard it was like
a big heat there. Well, I'm going to stop you
right there, Doug, because Vince McMahon was in my office
at thirteenth in Marquette in downtown Minneapolis, at Colin oakerland
Smith Advertising Marketing. We had cut our deal. We had

(42:26):
just cut a deal to go on Channel four with
our syndicated product. And this was in early nineteen eighty four.
He made a telephone call that I was privy to
because I was in my office. He sat at my
desk called vern Gangna and offered him a deal. And
it was a sweetheart deal. I'm going to talk out

(42:47):
loud here because I think it's public record now. It
was a ten million dollar buyout. It was guaranteed five
hundred thousand a year for five years or both Vernon,
Greg and why fight the battle? Join us, We'll collaborate.
We'll do this together and probably give you a couple

(43:09):
of towns to run and also give you some exposure
on national TV. Burn just exploded at the other end.
I mean, I could see Vince holding the phone off here. He's,
you know, blow it out your ass. It'll be a
cold day in hell before I ever do anything like that.
And if your father knew what you were doing, he
would cut you off at the pass right now, Wow,

(43:33):
Ben Senior knew what Vince Junior was doing, right.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
I guess one of the differences when you first started
in a typical day for TV, for Vince's compared.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
To burn Oh boy, Well, the energy was a little different,
but not that much, I guess. I would do interviews
usually on Saturdays for vern gan Ya, and then when
I left the TV station went into the advertising business.
We moved that into the week so it wouldn't interfere
with the weekend house shows, and we did tape the

(44:07):
shows as opposed to running them live. Vince, everything was
so measured, it was organized. You had all the information.
You weren't having people writing it down on a bar napkin.
I mean, it was there, very clear cut what you
needed to do. And they had to get interviews from

(44:29):
Butcher Read or you had to get from Rene Gula
or whoever it happened to be back in the old days.
These guys are going to be working with each other.
We need to get both sides of the story. Sometimes
they'd even do back to back interviews. But it was
all very calculated and as I said, measured. This guy
was organized. Verne was not organized, and that's not a

(44:53):
knock on him. It's just that he could do it
and get away with it.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
Now, he started out as an announcer I think for
earl On and then you moved to an interviewer for Vince.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Why and how did that change? And you know what
did that go about? Tell you the truth, I realized
my shortcomings and as an announcer, I wasn't really an announcer.
I replaced Pat Patterson and was a color commentator. I
am no more qualified for color commentator than Larry King.

(45:24):
You know, it might be an announcer, but that doesn't
make it necessarily a wrestling color commentator. Jerry Lawler, Jesse Ventura,
those guys were, how did life changed for you when
w w F blew up and got national exposure? Well it,
you know, it was just we're kind of operating in

(45:44):
a haze. I couldn't believe it because we did those
ongoing things before WrestleMania one excuse me, sure you don't
mind imported from Russia? Where were we before WrestleMania? The

(46:05):
MTV series, the War to Settle the Score, the Brawl
to Settle It all, the Cyndi Lapper, all the mainstream
people might got it with fives at Madison Square Garden
and all of a sudden, Piper either slammed Dave Wolf
or somebody. And here's Danny DeVito, here's Andy Warhol. Here's

(46:28):
Joe Piscopal. I mean, here's a ton of folks coming
in and I'm talking to him about our product, and
they are big marks. It was really exciting. It was
a very very exciting time of my life.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
I guess whose idea was it for you to start
doing songs when like the wrestling album came out and
pretty much make me a character Nicolet and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
Yeah, we just watched one of them today or at
the studio, and it was where where Don Morocco and
mister Fuji On Tuesday Night Titans became the comedy team
and they were going to be playing ikes, Chicken Shack
on the Jersey Shore and all these big venues. Nothing
in Vegas yet, but they had great promise. But they

(47:16):
were reading. They said, don't rehearse this. We got it
all written down, but you can read it off two cards.
And so anyway, Morocco was absolutely terrible, which made it
hilarious for Laura Alfred Gays and myself. And Fuji Fuji
is one of a kind. I mean he takes a
look at the script and he says, magnificent one. How

(47:36):
about something tropical? What it was supposed to be how
about something topical? I mean they had us bent over.
Don't take that the wrong way.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
I was actually gonna ask you, was it hard for
the guys to say serious during the scoofy segments at all?

Speaker 1 (47:54):
Well, of course the Tuesday segments are I saying that.
I mean, that's that's what that show was all about.
I mean, you've got Nikolai Volkoff coming in there with
a legitimate Russian bear who summarily crafts on the floor,
blows the audience out, had to air out the whole deal.
Iron Cheek shows up with a camel, and he'd asked me,

(48:16):
He says, what's the name of this camel? I said, well,
there's an old race even not race evens the wrestler song,
but it was called and he rode on a camel
named Clyde and glide. You know, I said, the camel's
name is Clyde. He said, Ah, you're a very intelligent man.
I'll mention that on the air. So it gets on

(48:36):
the air and calls the camel claud. Just another one
of those little things that she was an entertaining man.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
Whose idea was it for you to wear? Anny, who
was on TNT when you sang two D.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Thirty, well, I would imagine that would have to be
Pat Patterson or Terry Garment.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
As a time went on, did the success change Hawk
Kogan as far as his personality it was with the
zgo and stuff to you at least was he the
same on.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
I think it had to to answer that question very honestly,
I don't. I don't think he had to put his
guard up like Vince McMahon had to put his guard up.
Hulk made some big, big money through the years, and
all of a sudden, these kind of these these little
a burman that get into our business on the ancillary side,

(49:25):
trying to get in on the action would be approaching
Hogan for side deals and and things like that, and
became after a while, I think a constant nuisance to him.
Number One, he had an exclusive contract with the WWE,
so he had to honor that. Didn't want to get
in trouble, and these people were very persistent. He just

(49:47):
didn't need it. So, yeah, he became guarded and sometimes
because of the work schedule, he became a little down
right onwn honre you know, where he would wouldn't pup,
but he would sure make his feelings known. He didn't,
he didn't hide him right. Whose idea was a few
to team up with the Hogan and do that one
match in Minnesota? That was Hogan's. That was definitely hogas

(50:09):
I would not volunteer for anything as insane as that.
And as a matter of fact, I think you know that.
Really the big build up on that was the trinking
sessions we went through for three or four weeks, which were, uh,
we can speak candidly, right, I'm not Joan Rivers because
it was a ballbuster, right. The guys would have me
do three or four takes on a quarter mile run. Well, hell,

(50:34):
I was blown up after the first quarter mile, think
of after the fourth one. And Hogan had promised me
on the air that you don't even have to get
in the ring. I just want you standing in my
corner and I'll take care of Fuji and uh George,
the animals steal well. He cleaned house, you know, in
the opening moments of the match, came over to me.

(50:56):
I high fived him. Referee said, dang, you're in a
lot of fun, right, a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
Talk to you a little bit about mister Fuji, and
of course he's infamous for being one of the all
time biggest rivers.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
Do you ever get a rid by mister Fuji? I
can't tell you all the things. Maybe in my book,
Robin Duck, you guys are gonna co author anyway, so
maybe we can tell some of those stories.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
Have you eaten any barbecue? Pardon eating any Fuji barbecue?

Speaker 1 (51:26):
Oh? Have I eaten any Fuji barbecue? No? No, obviously
somebody has. I think I think the best story in
Fuji Fuji was a Hawaiian. We had a guy in
by the name of Killer Khan who was a Korean.
Fuji did not like him. He managed them, but he
didn't like him. And his deal was kind of like

(51:47):
the Great Muda where he would spew this this green
stuff out of his mouth. So during the two minutes
in fifty four seconds stand up interviews that we do
for these individual markets, Killer con would have to put
this green mouthwash in his in his mouth, and Fuji
would screw with him all the way through the interview.

(52:07):
He was sticking Copenhagen in there he was. He'd take
him over the head, bang him right over the head.
See how talk this man is boy's son. He can
hit him I can hit him in the shins too,
and he hit him with the cane and the shims
and finally what happened, I guess one time it's down
to Washington. He hit him so hard that he swallowed

(52:29):
both the Copenhagen and the solution, and we had to
bust the interview, but we kept it because it was
that good, and I mean it was absolutely hilarious. You
would have been it would have been down on your knees.
How real back then was the rivalry between hal Kogan
and Jesse mentor Oh, there was a rivalry still is today.

(52:52):
If you Jesse was Jesse and tell you the truth,
I think he might have done a little bit of
a knockoff on Superstar Billy Graham, which they also accused
Hogan of doing, you know, with this, but there was
a rivalry there. Jesse was on top when Hogan came
into the territory in the Awa and all of a sudden,

(53:16):
Hogan became the big deal. Jesse and Adrian bailed. They
went to New York and they didn't see each other
until Hogan arrived on the scene here in late eighty three,
and of course the big January in eighty four, where
he became the WWF World Heavyweight Champion. Jesse did not

(53:39):
like that, so that was my spot, right. I guess
we're surprised we saw more and more of your old
eight piers coming over. No, not at all. I knew
they had great talent back there. The guys were trained well,
they were, at least in the ring, disciplined. Some of
the organizations weren't run by wrestling people quite candidly, and

(54:05):
things got a little out of control. People would get hurt.
Our business is not to hurt our talent, not to
hurt each other, protect them because we're all for a
good time, have fun, make money. Right. What are the
politics like in the eighties between Hull Coogan and Roddy Piper.

(54:27):
You know, I wasn't privy to all of that, but
I know that there was some heat, some friction between
the two, and I think a lot of it was
settled after WrestleMania won, after the first WrestleMania, But the
build up, I think I think there might have been
enough legitimate heat that the boys k do they had
something going because you could really feel the tension between

(54:50):
those two even when I'd be back in a locker
room or something and one of them would walk by
the other. There wasn't a word said. Hogan wouldn't give
pipe at the time of day, and Piper, who knows
what he was saying under his breath. Both Guyso you
got to love them both because they made a big

(55:11):
market in professional wrestling. Without doubt.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
How nervous was Vince McMahon going into the first WrestleMania.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
I would have to say that Vince McMahon knew exactly
what he was in for. If this thing failed, it
would be all over. He was rolling the dice like
you wouldn't believe. Got to remember we didn't have forty
or fifty million pay per view addressable pay per view

(55:44):
homes back then. The first WrestleMania, there probably was no
more than a total of three million cable homes in
the whole country. It was sung by closed circuit TV
and little theaters and the small venues. But it worked,
and of course WrestleMania One changed the landscape of professional

(56:04):
wrestling forever.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
Whose concept? Who was the person who actually invented the
concept for Russellan wasn't Vince. I heard Roddy Piper claim
that he was part of it.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
I heard David Schultz came up with the name. Is
that true that I wouldn't know? I would give credit
to a lot of people a little bit. Since Vince
was in charge, I think he was kind of the
mastermind and creator of that event.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
Was it true that Jimmy Snooker was being planned to
be in that main event? But then he was kind
of for his troubles and whatever happened with in Allenttown,
That's why he wasn't in the main event.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
That's why it was a second Well. I don't know
if it was the Allentown incident or not, but Jimmy
Superfly snunka at one time I think had a spot
in that main event. The only thing is that Jimmy
was having so many personal problems. I think that are
well documented. His use of drugs, the fact that the

(57:03):
people in the organization couldn't truly count on him because
they thought he was operating out of the influence of
too much coke or whatever they did. Jimmy is a
great performer, no question about it. Who made the decision
I couldn't even tell you today. I've got to assume

(57:25):
it wasn't Howard Finkel. So I've got to believe that
maybe Vince made that call in that first Wrestle Media
made event.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
Was there a contingency playing with Werdorf, Piper and Hugan
in case mister T wasn't kind of go along with
the script or try to make his own.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Mister T was a very tough guy to get along
with Liberaci. Liberaci was a pro. Liberachi came dressed, he
had on a piano watch. He was very articulate. Mister T.
I remember we were down at the Helmsley Palace in Midtown, Manhattan,

(58:02):
and mister T says, pity the food. I gotta get
my head straight. I'm going out in the limo. I'm
gonna go for a ride. But helly, mister press conference,
you know, and he was getting big money, getting big money.
You were the first person ever to sing the national
anthem at Wrestlemedia. Whose idea was that I did that

(58:23):
by default? I think originally that they had a major
name that was going to come in and sing the
national anthem. That major name might have partied a little
bit with Jimmy Snuka because Along and the Short at
the eleventh hour was a no show. And as I

(58:44):
told Vince, hey, I can do this if we're not
we're not going to start a WWE event without having
our national anthem play or saying, so we did it.
Probably not my best effort, but better than as she
could say, better than nothing.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
When did you realize that w w F was now
ingrained as part of pop culture.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
That happened with the rock and wrestling connection, because MTV was,
you know, very much a happening thing there in the
in the early stages of cable television, and we kind
of fit right in. WWF was there front and center

(59:31):
part of it all, and collectively they made pop cultural history,
if you will. SummerSlam promo, when you the infamous promo
where you actually had to curse by accident with a record,
do you ever did you get meat for that at all?
Or not? Not really? You know, that was a pre
taped interview, and that was tape number one, and the

(59:55):
tape guy was supposed to queue up tape number five.
I did think when I was backstage and Vince was
at the garrittal position, which everybody in the know knows
what the garrittal position is, and got on the headphones
and said Jesse Jesse covered for Okerland. Did you hear
what he said, and Jesse came right out on the

(01:00:17):
heir and says, leave it to some full him off
guy like Okerland to say something like that on the air,
he should be ashamed of himself.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
He absolutely buried me. Wow, how crazy did things get around?
It was late eighties earlies. Actually I forgot the ring
boy scandal. It was kind of a strange thing, Rob,
I never saw any of that. I mean, I know
the ring boys were there and there were stories.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
There was an internal investigation done and people were were
put on paid administrative leave, and once the air was cleared,
everybody went back to work and it was business as usual.
If it ever happened. Uh, you know, usually where there's smoke,

(01:01:04):
there's fire. But I can't I can't document whether it
happened or not. Right, Who are your favorite the least
favorite guys I guess to interview and work with during
this time period. Well, I had a ton of favorites,
and really, as I look back at it, this question
that is frequently asked of me. I had one altercation
with Tony Atlas and Tony at that time, well, he

(01:01:29):
was real big, very muscular. He was a little tough
to work with but you know he was coming in
there and he was out of control. Tony has since
he and I sat at the Hall of Fame, and
I like Tony Atlas today. He's he's cleaned his life up.

(01:01:52):
But he was, you know, a great piece of talent,
had a hell of a body. Whether it was man
made or not, who knows. Well, No, he did TV
and you did interviews.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
Did anybody besides moltoni Alis giv problems as far as
not new problems with the company, problems They weren't able
to cut a promo and retake after retake after retake
In the.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
Con you would ask that question, well, would you guys
like to guess? I could tell you who the most
impossible guy on interviews that I had to work with
Ultimate Warriors, And you know what, if I were on
the telephone with him, I wouldn't have a clue what

(01:02:32):
he said because I never knew where this guy was going.
And I don't think anybody else did. I think the
whole thing was a smoke screen sees it in the
stars and this, but he had some charisma. His look
was a very hot deal. What was your take on
the big altercation between the Rugos and the bulldogs. I

(01:02:54):
thought that was very juvenile. It escalated into a full
scale war. You know, the bulldogs jumped the Rougeo brothers
because they apparently said that the Rougeos had done something
to them. I don't know if it was messing with
their boots, equipment or whatever the case might have been.

(01:03:15):
And then the uh the Rougeos in turn. I was
at TV that day, waited for the prettish bulldogs, Davy
and Tommy Bilington to come back into the into the building.
They jumped them and just beat the hell out of them.
I mean really beat the hell out of them. Tommy

(01:03:36):
took a look at himself in the mirror said, hey,
I believe my choppers are gone. He got his teeth
knocked out. Did you see anyone ever cracked due to
the road schedule during this time period? Did I see
anybody crack? Yeah? Oh yeah, yeah, I saw people. I'm
lucky I didn't crack. I had to spend a little
time in the couch with a guy in a white jacket, right,

(01:03:57):
but but we made it through. It was grueling. San Diego, California,
probably in nineteen eighty six or eighty seven. In one day,
I did one hundred and forty one two minutes and
fifty four second essentially three minute interviews, one hundred and
forty one in one day, standing on your feet, putting

(01:04:20):
up with the boys, being restless and everything. It was.
It was a tough deal and there were times that
you said, can I keep going on? Well you did?

Speaker 3 (01:04:30):
Were you in the locker room when a doctor d
David Schultz hit John Sossel ended Vince put him out.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
He was ten ten feet away from him. Vince will
never know the answer to that. Everybody can can suspect
they can. They can think that maybe that Vince was
taking a look at getting suppressed. Even you know, Vince
Hall was whether the press was good or bad, he
made the most of it. Make sure you spell the

(01:04:57):
names right and make sure you get ww or World
Wrestling Federation, whatever it happened to be.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
Do you think at that time, though it was good,
maybe Vince probably wanted good press, bad press, But do
you think it got too much out of control.

Speaker 1 (01:05:09):
Like in the nineties where it was almost too much
bad press? And then I think I think that David
Schultz was out of control because David was obviously on
steroids at that time and maybe back that up with
some other kind of a concoction. Right, but Stossel was
there doing I think it was an ABC twenty twenty

(01:05:31):
or dateline or twenty Yeah. Any anyway, he said, doctor
David Schultz, what do you have to say about your
critics that contend that professional wrestling is fake? Boom right.
Stossel got back up again and came back. He says,

(01:05:52):
you've got to answer my question. What about the fact
that many contend that professional wrestling is fake? He said,
this is an old open hands slack. This is legal
in the World Wrestling Federation and he immediately dropped him again. Yeah,
big lawsuit.

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):
But do you think it was the toughest guy and
maybe besides Andrew the Giant, who was like maybe the
most feared guy in the locker room.

Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
Shoot guy, that's gotta be ming king Hakku. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
He was a a Samoan tong and I believe and
he knew what he was doing. Nobody would mess with him. Said,
also was the same, and there were a couple of
other other guys, but you'd be surprised. We won't won't
mention any names of the of the big roughed up

(01:06:45):
superstars that were really pussycats in reality. Who would go
over the bullet boys with you? For promos? During this
time I worked with a couple of different people. Howard
Finkel might favorite Power Drive You nots, but on the
other hand, he was only doing a job. The most

(01:07:06):
colorful guy that I worked with on promos after he
retired from the ring was Renee Goulai. And Renee I
remember when he came to this company. He spoke no
at all, and after a period of twenty five years
hadn't improved that situation by much. But nonetheless he was

(01:07:27):
a good guy and enjoyed his company, and we got
the job done, which was the name of the game.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
How did Vince change over time with the success of
WWF At the contrary.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
Well, he knew that he didn't have all the answers.
Vince was not a marketing guy who was not a
legal guy. The way he changed is he surrounded himself
with the best people from the financial world, from the
legal world. I never negotiated my contracts after a while

(01:08:01):
directly with Vince. I would do it with somebody else
from the office, and today done by the legal people.
I'm sure they pass it by Vince. Vince says, take
care of this guy, or here's what I think would
be a real number. We should pay this guy, but
all the work is done by the legal beagles, our
favorite people. How important was your role or that of

(01:08:24):
the promo guy and getting someone over? Well, I think
that was what I was being paid for. To get
the guy over, to get the angle or the issues over.
Was part of the announcer's job. Just understood that there
were some buttons that I would have to push to

(01:08:44):
make that happen. And you know, I don't know if
I was conscientiously doing it, but it got done. During
the course of the interview, Were you there when Nelson
Tech vins, yes, what are your memories of that? I
heard a lot of screaming and shouting, and I think

(01:09:04):
it opened up with are you kidding me? Giving a
big boss man twenty five thousand and given me eight
thousand dollars? Shit, take this check back? And then it
got into a squabble. Nails was wrong on that because
name is Kevin Kelly. Actually he's got a name that
looks like an eye chart. Last real last name, Kevin

(01:09:26):
Kelly probably served the purpose well, but that was the
end of the road for him. Were the boys happy
about that or I mean as far as like you know,
one of the boys touches Vince. I never heard too much.
I know Jim Duggan was one of the guys that
went in to break it up. This tough guy though

(01:09:48):
too Nails. However, Nails is a real, real tough guy.
He's a pro bounty hunter like David Schultz.

Speaker 2 (01:09:59):
How was Dusty treated he came over by the rest
of the locker room in the office.

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):
Well, people had history with the Dusty in our organization,
and Vince had history with Dusty, and I think that's
why he came in as the American dream wearing polka
dot tights and having Sapphire be his his manager, because

(01:10:25):
Dusty had some history with all the boys, right. He
called a lot of shots, He stepped on a lot
of people's stoves, but Dusty got it over. Dusty did
did very well for himself and did very well for
the people that he worked for. Or with memories of
Randy Savage and have you ever witnessed any issues that
he had with Elizabeth Because and a lot of interviews

(01:10:46):
that we don't A lot of the guys they said
that he was very paranoid, and you know he would
put Elizabeth in the closet and lock the door, so
terribly terribly Yeah, as a matter of fact, if he
went to the gym at television, he would lock her
in the room, take the key with him. She couldn't
get out. Wow, you know that that's heavy. I do

(01:11:07):
recall one time we were doing a Saturday Night's main event.
Roddy Piper and myself talked about this recently, and what
we did is we were passing an apple, had an
apple here you probably remember, I don't. I don't recall
if it was Valentine's Day or or what it was,
but Halloween, the Halloween thing, that's it. But but anyway,

(01:11:28):
I had to pass the apple to Elizabeth and you
could hear Savage in the background going, ah, that made
me nervous. All right, Elizabeth had to pass it the Piper,
So there there might have been more heat on the
exchange between those those two than there would have been

(01:11:49):
with me.

Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
We just had an interview without Billy Jack Kynes and
he was telling us there was heat between Savage and
paper and over something with Elizabeth.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
So yeah, well he was very overly protected and paranoid.
All of the above. Memories of working with Andrea the Giant,
those were great memories. Andrea was not only a piece
of talent that I worked with, but I also got
to knowing him. Well. We have a couple of things
in common. We like good food, we like good wine.

(01:12:22):
We like to play cribbage, and we like to play
gin rummy. And you're spending a week or ten days
at a crack on the road with these guys. You're
off time. What are you doing. You're drinking, you're eating,
You're playing gin rummy and a little cribbage. Andrea was
a delight. He was a very sensitive guy. Nobody realizes this.

(01:12:44):
I was in a plane coming from Denver going to Minneapolis.
He sat up in first class and he just I
sat in the back of the plane. He said, boss,
you're sitting with me. He sat down. You order himself
a bloody mary. It was an eight am flight, by
the way, had had the eye opener, and he said,

(01:13:04):
you know, people think that that I have a great life,
that I can travel all over and everything. But people,
I know, I see them when they pointed me, little
kids laugh and say what what kind of a man
is he very sensitive. He cried. I saw him cry,

(01:13:24):
and ANDREI, if you like you, you were in good shape.
If he didn't like it, I wouldn't ask him for
the time of day. Give me a good answer. Were
you there the night? Did what you were? When a
warrior tried to hold up Vince at Somersin? Oh? Yes,
I was. What are you members of that? Well? I

(01:13:44):
remember the conversations should we or shouldn't we? And it
all came down to one decision, and that was Vince's decision.
Because it was for a lot of money. My recollection
tells me it was somewhere in the neighborhood of a
half million dollars. Was that jibe with what you understood?

(01:14:06):
If somebody was gonna hold me up? Number one, it
was wrong. Got a big pay per view event, premier event,
he wanted to be paid more money than he agreed
to right before the event, or he wasn't going to perform.
No room in this business for somebody like that, No
room in any business for somebody with that kind of
a mindset. I'll remember Jim helding for that because after

(01:14:30):
that you couldn't trust him. He could not be trusted.

Speaker 2 (01:14:34):
Did you want any check or did evince at the
wires was account of it? Was it a check because
it was a check you could just stop.

Speaker 1 (01:14:39):
Came in order? Well, I don't know about the ends
and outs of that, suffice to say he never got
the money. Any Was there someone you saw or interviewed
coming in that you thought would be a big star
that didn't make it, or even vice versa, someone that
you interviewed that said would never make it and became
a big star. M Uh, that's that's that's a very

(01:15:02):
good question. I'm sure you spent a lot of time
with that to drive me nuts. Uh. I think I
had some second thoughts about a lot of people. But gosh,
I mean I I've seen seen people come in You
say this guy, fat chance he's going to do anything,
and the next thing he's Uh. Shawn Michaels, Brett Hart, Uh.

(01:15:29):
I I always thought smaller guys had a little less
chance of making it. Brett initially was not a great talker. Uh.
He could communicate, but he stumbled around a little bit.
And I think that he was very nervous too about
what he was doing. Shawn Michaels probably try to do

(01:15:50):
too much initially, but uh, I'm very close to Sewan
Michaels today. I like Shawn Michaels. I missed him in
the UH in the a w A, but I sure
caught up with him in the WWE, and at one
time we even thought we could get him down to WCW.
But he had a lot of loyalty to Vince. But
on the other hand, Vince also was very loyal to

(01:16:11):
Sean Michaels. How approachable was vinced you at this time period?
Vince was very approachable. I could call him at the
office if I were out on the road, he would
take my call. Still to this day, I have his
home telephone number. Not that I would bother him at
home unless it was something very important. But Vince is

(01:16:35):
very approachable, probably a little less so today than he
was twenty years ago, but nonetheless he still is accessible.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
What are some of your favorite matches during your time
in WF you actually watched and you kind of were
a fan again of matches?

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
Yeah, anything that you actually watched ooh, well, of course
I was a big fan of in the early days
of the of the Snuck Up because I had only
heard about this guy and I'd seen Warner Wolf on
CBS once a month. Given the results from the garden,
I thought he was absolutely incredible. But there were a

(01:17:14):
lot of guys that I saw that I hadn't seen
before that were new to the business. Davy Boy Smith,
the Dynamite Kid, the Rougeau's. I never worked with them.
They were Montreal talent. But seeing all these guys and
seeing what they could do, a lot of people laugh
at Jacques Rougeau, But my god, he was one of

(01:17:35):
the Rougeau's. Uh he was a sergeant something. I forget.
Now what was that character's name, Sergeant Jacques Rougeau, I forgot, Yeah,
the Canadian Monopolis. I'm the Maudi. So what was your
favorite skit that you did?

Speaker 3 (01:17:56):
Because I know, I think I know my favorite skit
that you did. You know, we still repeated the Uh.
There were wrestle media. One were in the gym with
Orndorf and Piper. We told you not to come and
Warndorf puts in on your fingers and then the guy
they beat the guy up in the street that they
threw out of the gym.

Speaker 1 (01:18:13):
And he also dropped the dropped the bar on on
my hand. Yeah. Yeah, when they put up The.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
Best is when Piper walked in your face and you
did this of your face.

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
That's face. I didn't know those guys that. Well, it's
the guy that they beat up. Who is the guy
that they beat up in the street? That something that
some guy walking by he was going down to get
a hot dog and a cup of coffee and they
took him out at the knees. I was tremendous memories
of carry von Ark what he came over. Uh. Carrie

(01:18:48):
came over and was closely associated with Warrior. They hung together.
I knew somewhat about Carrie's past. I knew about the
tragic incident involving his leg in that motorcycle accident. Uh.
Carrie had a great look to him. Carrie had a
look that would rival I would say, uh, the ultimate Warrior. Uh.

(01:19:13):
I don't think it would rival a hull Cogan. But
of course he came from a family that some say
now after all but one is gone, was totally dysfunctional,
and Fritz drove the kids to all this. But who knows.
Do you ever see I never loved I never lived

(01:19:35):
in the house. Did you ever see any of the
problems with Kerry? I did? I did? I did obviously
he uh he, he liked to partake him not just
a cold beer, but maybe something a little bit more.
We were at a promotional event with a client, big
toy sponsor of ours for one of the pay per

(01:19:56):
view events and uh, one of the from the office,
Sue Aitchison, was there, did promotion. Great gal by the way,
handles stuff very well professional. She's a brit right, But anyway,
we dined at a very popular Italian restaurant. I think
it was like an eighty second and second and Carrie

(01:20:19):
was there, and of course you have pasta, you have sauce,
and by this time he was gone, so and I'm
trying to talk to the guy from LJN Toys or
whatever it happened to be, and Sue is too. But
in the meantime he's got the fork in the spaghetti
and the linguiny or whatever it happened to be, and

(01:20:40):
never make it to the mouth in the sleeves. But
I honestly think, I mean, he was a great talents,
good worker. How big in the ease were drugs in
the business? Was it a big problem? I think in
both the seventies and the eighties, these drugs were prevalent.

(01:21:04):
I think they ceased here when all of a sudden
this became the business that it was. Not to say
that there wasn't some isolated incidents of drug use, but hey, listen,
I'm I mean, I like martinis, but I had a
little bit of everything myself through the years. I was
going to ask you where you were part of here? Yeah, well,

(01:21:25):
I mean I would. I would, I would partake, but
not not to the extent that somebody else. I think
a good a good vodka martini with one mushroom one
olive can do the trick, right, your limits, right, But
but it it was a problem. A lot of things
happened that shouldn't have happened because of drug use. Not

(01:21:48):
just steroids, but I mean drug use. And by the
by nineteen eighty six or eighty seven, they pulled the
pull a string on that gone. If you're caught doing them,
if you test positive, we send you on vacation.

Speaker 2 (01:22:07):
Is there a time where you think the stress got
to you and you weren't having fun anymore?

Speaker 3 (01:22:12):
I do.

Speaker 1 (01:22:13):
I do. There was a point in time that I
think it really got to me when we came up
with this impossible feature. I didn't come up with it.
Somebody came up with it that was called face to face,
and that was trying to do a lot of mass
production and it became impossible. The boys had to learn

(01:22:38):
to do things all over again. Everything was generic, and
I don't think it was near as effective as the
straight stand up interviews for the markets. That was stressful
for me, and I could kind of tell that was
the beginning of the end. Even though I went to Turner,
Vince didn't renew my contract. Huh. I was going to ask,

(01:23:01):
how did you wind up leaving? I did? I didn't
get a contract renewal. Did you want to say, Well,
I've been talking with the Turner people, and I had
an agent at that time who was kind of directing
me in that way. And you know, after you spent

(01:23:22):
ten years in one place, thirteen years before, I said,
do I really want to make this move? You know,
I probably could have sat down with Vincent cut a deal,
but no change is good for everybody, and that change
was very good for me because I think we did
prove something with WCW. Did you leave on good terms

(01:23:44):
with Vince? Very good terms. I gave him a hug
in the office and said we had a hell of
a run together. And I think that probably kind of
set them back a little bit because guys don't usually
leave like that. You know you're gone. You're hugging me
and saying thanks for a great ten years and thanks

(01:24:05):
for a great run. Huh. Did he know at that
time that you were going to WCW or did he
did he think you were just getting out of the business. Well,
I mean, I don't know if he knew that time
that that I was going to go to WCW, But
before I had physically left, because I stayed through SummerSlam
and a couple of weeks afterwards, end of the first

(01:24:27):
week in September, and I started immediately at WCW, and
they had had to pull my chain back on oncompete
and then there were some some financial considerations that were made.
But the long and the short of it is I
didn't go on the air at WCW on TBS until
November one, leaving the first or second week in September.

(01:24:50):
I do remember that were initial thoughts on an artificial
I like KRK. He was refreshing. I didn't know if
he he really had a handle on what he was doing,
but I think he could be very personable. He was
the one that said we need you here, we want

(01:25:12):
you here, and that was kind of good good for
me to hear. It got me back up again and
a new challenge, a new challenge. Early on, what did
you notice about the differences between WCWSTV and WWST instantaneously
the television production people production values WCW they were lousy,

(01:25:39):
They weren't organized, they it was just kind of a
shoddy production. But eventually they turned the light on down
there and their production values came up with the with
the advent of nitro Monday nitrol, and I think they
looked just about as good as the Wwe.

Speaker 2 (01:26:01):
Were surprised when Vitch created the character scheme Gene. Scheme Gene.
Why would he Why would he come up with that character?
What do you think I'm scamming old people out of
their retirement money?

Speaker 1 (01:26:14):
I mean, one lousy hot line right right, and he
calls me scheme Gene. Did you did you personally get
offended by that? Or no? Why would you get offended?
The huckster, the not chow man right right? Please? Did
you ever talk to anybody in the company about it?
In w W at the time. Did you still have
contact with anybody? I did, but a very little. I

(01:26:38):
mean they had a job to do. We have a
job to do. Talk about the hotline for WW Was
it a big money maker for you or it was
a big money maker for me, But it was a
much bigger money maker for them. I took that hot
line over. It was doing approximately three hundred and fifty
dollars a year in revenue. Jimmy Ross and others were

(01:27:02):
doing it. But we got her up and running and
started promoting it on the air. And I think you
guys will always remember in my hotline n You know
all of that, right, But it ended up doing three

(01:27:23):
million a year. Wow. Did you ever feel sleasy by
some of the chief piases that you gave for it?
Or yeah, yeah I did. I did, no question. But
on the other hand, you got to have a little
bit of that Carnie in Yeah, Humpty Diddy tip the
kitty three throws for a dollar. Come on in, folks.
Sure do you think the Internet ruined the business? No? No,

(01:27:45):
I think the Internet just became another extension of the
dirt sheets, those great publications, and they were I mean,
all of a sudden there was this kind of this
this subculture that was developing because of guys like Meltzer
and folks like yourself and a Wade Keller and some

(01:28:08):
of some of these other guys. Right now, when you
first heard about the idea for Monday night Nitro, did
you think it would work? What were your thoughts? The
only thing I thought is why go head to head
with the guy on Monday night? Why not give the
wrestling fans a chance to enjoy both raw and Nightro

(01:28:29):
by going on a different night. Now that I look
back at it, kind of a genius of a move.
That move, by the way, was purely Ted Turner, Right yeah, Ted,
Ted Turner said, BS, We're not gonna go on Wednesday night.
We're gonna go on Monday night ed to head with
the guy.

Speaker 2 (01:28:48):
Eric Bischoff. We talked about him a couple of minutes ago.
Do you feel he was.

Speaker 1 (01:28:52):
In control of his product or you think like Cogan
was in his ear and then tired stories that you know,
Nash and Style Hall kind of had to control of them.
Everybody was in his ear. I think what Gery probably
should have done as I look back in twenty twenty,
hindsight probably should have put himself inside the room with
a good television producer, you know, somebody like it, Kevin Dunn.

(01:29:19):
You get somebody like that, Kevin Dunn obviously not available,
but maybe, just maybe there might be somebody out there
work those details out with them and not let the
boys and have them in the contract that they had
creative control over their character. Come on, give me a break.

(01:29:39):
Do you think Bischoff understood the business or do you
think he was in over his head? Oh? I think
he was in way over his head. I think the
general consensus. If you talk to Eric Bischoff, I think
he would tell you the thing just begin to spin
out of control and you couldn't stop it. It would
be like holding your hand up in front of a
break train. It couldn't be stopped. But I mean, there

(01:30:03):
was great success there with the nWo, but all of
a sudden, the nWo became bigger than WCW had twenty
guys over there. True, you and Rick Flair had incredible
temistry together in w CW. Why do you think that was?
Rick Flair myself had tremendous chemistry in the bar and
it just kind of rolled over into television. No, I mean,

(01:30:26):
he's a Minneapolis guy. He's I believe it or not
a little closer to my age than some of the
people I worked with. But yeah, I think the world
of Rick Flair. He's the guy, the consummate guy that
can do it in the ring, behind the camera, and
he's a proven commodity. Do you think that Hull Cogan

(01:30:49):
was a good or bad thing in the end for
WCW And I think he was a good thing. I
don't think WCW with alcohol Cogan would have reached the
pinnacle the the height that they did where for eighty
six weeks dominated the w W F the w w E.

(01:31:12):
Hogan was a big part of that. Did he try
and look out for you? There? No Hulk looked out
for himself. He did at other times the look out
for me and very close. There was a great association
between Hulk Cogan and me and Gene Okerland. And I

(01:31:32):
was the one that picked up the phone and said,
I've been told I'm going to be inducted into the
WWE Hall of Fame in WrestleMania and Hulk, I'd like
to have you present me, says Linda. Give me the calendar.
He said, I got it open I'll do it, I said, okay,

(01:31:53):
Vincir Kevin dunalll be calling you with the details. And
I mean is great. He buried me on it talking
about all the run and around. I had my wife
in the front row there. But now he's a great
guy and a good friend. What do you think of
his reality show? I think great. This guy reinvests himself

(01:32:15):
every ten years. I mean he did it initially with
with with Rocky, then onto a movie career, after the
w w E, or or during that period of time,
a television series, and now back with this reality show.
And everywhere I go, Mike Barber talks about it all

(01:32:36):
the time. A lot of things changed in WW with
the explosion of the n WO. Who boy, once that
became a bona fide hit. We had a lot of
people taking credit for the nWo, the New World Order,

(01:32:56):
Scott Hall, Kevin Nash came in, and they were the
interloper lopers as the outsiders. So all of a sudden,
they say, wait a minute, the television audience is watching
the show. Are these guys with WCW or are they

(01:33:17):
still with the WWE. I don't know. I think they
confused fans. I think the fans stuck a little time
to sort it all out. It was a good thing.
It really helped them out of control the things get
in WCW. Well, I can, I probably could give you

(01:33:39):
a laundry list that we could chew up three or
four hours of tape. But I was never really handed
in the later stages of WCW any kind of a
format a run sheet for the show until we were ten, fifteen,
twenty minutes into the show, no preparation. Where do we

(01:34:03):
go with this interview with buff Bagwell? What am I
going to do? With Scott Steiner? And the guys could
say whatever they wanted to. I mean, when Vince Russo
came in there, he wasn't the solution. He added to
the problem because the boys were going to buck him
and they knew they could do it and get away
with it. Plus he he had a little different idea

(01:34:27):
of what television was all about. Was it Fusser hitting
on Eric's constant attempts to trying to work the locker
room and the boys with different angles and stuff. You know,
at that particular point, I think Bobby Heenon and myself
had stepped back and realized that it was a different

(01:34:49):
era where maybe the tail was wagging the dog. And
I mean it was so apparent because plans would have
to be changed at the last minute. Lots of politics,
a lot of politics, a lot of politics. And that
doesn't work. If if I can go to Doug and

(01:35:12):
tell him something and go around you, you're offended and
he doesn't get what he initially wanted. Anyway, I've offended
both of you. And that's that's kind of the name
of the game. And politics ran rampant. As they would
say in w c W, how did.

Speaker 2 (01:35:30):
You wind up in the Millionaires Club angle? And memories
of feuding with Pamela Paul Shock.

Speaker 1 (01:35:36):
Mmmm, Pamela, Pamela Paul shot a nice, nice young lady,
well endowed. We all agree to that right now. But
big time airhead. Uh. And you know she played the part.
Maybe she was the smartest scale on the block. And

(01:35:58):
you know, Marilyn Monroe was a bright gall you know,
fifty years ago. She got what she wanted, but she
played the airhead to do it. Did you like winging
a part of that angle or the Millionaire's angle? Right? Yeah,
it didn't. It didn't offend me, and I was told
to do it and a good soldier does what he's

(01:36:21):
told by his commanding officer. How did Eric Bischoff change
over time? Eric Bischoff, I think believe that as time
went on that he was a genius and he was
the great creator of this thing, and then all of
a sudden he became very power hungry, being able to

(01:36:45):
tell people what to do, and if they didn't do it,
what he could do to them that he, with a
stamp of the finger could end their careers. Not so
not so one of another.

Speaker 2 (01:36:57):
Well, actually it's one of the interviews did on the
internet with a BRT with L Dandy.

Speaker 1 (01:37:01):
What are your memories of that? Do you remember that one?
Or I do recall that? Is this the one where
Brett kind of vented his spleen?

Speaker 3 (01:37:12):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:37:13):
Here again, too much information? Yeah, come back back to
Eric just for a second. Now that Eric and myself
aren't working together or I'm not working for him, he
and I have had some pretty good conversations. He can
be likable, and I think that his tenure here in

(01:37:33):
the WWE, I think he did a great job for
the company. I don't I don't think a lot of
people would argue with the fact as the general manager.
He had credibility and he certainly could play the part
of the heel without too much work.

Speaker 2 (01:37:49):
Yeah, how much leeway did you have in both w
WS and WCW as far as ada.

Speaker 1 (01:37:55):
Living well back in the old days. I mean every
thing was ad lib. I loved All American wrestling because
I wrote the script, as I said, in that studio
down in Baltimore, and UH tried tried to intertwine a
little entertainment with that. Was kind of a recap show

(01:38:16):
what's happened in the last week or two. And to
be able to talk about some of the things that
happened behind the scenes a great experience. So I mean
you you control the ad living yourself. Eventually, if it
became too out of control or too controlled by the company,
you would hear about it. I had a Tennessee to be,

(01:38:40):
what would you say, gentlemen, irreverent from time to time,
and that was looked upon as maybe something that shouldn't
be done.

Speaker 2 (01:38:50):
Jumping back to Eric, I didn't mean to jump around,
but what do you what do you feel Eric's biggest
mistake was in w CW.

Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
Was it listening to let Letting listening to the boys,
and I mean everybody, everybody that would be as big
a mistake as listening to me. But I mean having
the input. Brett Hart had creative control, Kevin Nash had
creative control over his character Hogan obviously, But I think

(01:39:17):
the big one was Bill Goldberg. Bill Goldberg somebody that
hadn't been in the business more than two and a
half or three years, and he was calling his shots.
And I like Goldberg, I mean a fun guy, great guy.
How do things chief? When Russo came over all things
changed instantly. Number one, talking politics. The boys had their

(01:39:42):
respective noses as far up his rear end the first
day of TV as they possibly could. Everybody tried to
huddle with him. Where's my spot going to be here?
What am I going to be able to do? Am
I going to be a champion? What can we do?
I've been good to you, Vince, now here's your chance
for you're gonna be good to me? Do you think

(01:40:03):
he was in overhead? Definitely. Patty Mean talks a lot
about Tony Shafani being untrustworthy and slammy. Do you agree,
well Tony, Tony was a consummate politician. Ah and and
I personally like Tony. I didn't have a lot of
problems with him, but Tony. Tony watched out for Tony

(01:40:29):
and in doing so, he had a tendency to bury
people along the way, and that's where he got kind
of the rep if you will, that he was not trustworthy.
Fulton late today, like Tony, knowledgeable, not a broadcaster, but
certainly knew a lot about wrestling. His specialty was the

(01:40:53):
Mexican Lucha Libra promotions and also the Japanese promotions. He
came out of nowhere, and I understand it's still around
today doing TNA. What are your thoughts to know Mark
Madden in your match? Ah, Well, that was an abortion.
Should have never happened. But that wasn't Mark Madden's fault.

(01:41:15):
That wasn't gene Oakerland's fault. That was Vince Russo's fault.
Who would put a piece of garbage like that on
television intentionally? And I mean, you're not going to make
any money off of it, You're not gonna draw it,
You're gonna embarrass me. You're going to embarrass Mark Madden,
who should be at weight watchers. Not that I'm saying

(01:41:35):
I shouldn't be, but I mean it was terrible did
you anything, pardon, did you say anything to the office
at all about it? Or who are you going to
talk to? Just? The only only guy I could have
talked to him have been Brad Siegel, who was the
other entertainment division head for for Turner Time Warner.

Speaker 3 (01:41:54):
Do you think at that time they were doing these
angles and matches just they were worried too much out
the byrd or the ratings of that one quarter hour
where like compromised.

Speaker 1 (01:42:05):
A product, no long term thinking at all, you hit
the nail on the head. They were worrying about getting
a Monday Night rating, or getting a Wednesday Night rating,
or getting a buy rate. But that episode down in Florida,
and I believe it was that. Maybe it was at

(01:42:26):
Dash at the Beach or one of those pay per
views where Vince Russoll went off with that shoot interview
on Hogan. I thought that was absolutely despicable. That was
the end of it. That was it was all over.
Maybe that was it. What are your thoughts right now

(01:42:47):
on Vince making good looking women and guys interviewers these
days is compared to guys with credibility and wrestling background.
To each his own to tell you the truth, I
watch Fox News, and I didn't watch Dan rather Tom
Brokaw because I liked the little leg So Hey, I'm

(01:43:09):
one of the guys and that's kind of the name
of the game today. I think, though, to get an
angle over, I think if it comes to something where
you've got to carry the load, then you got to
have a broadcaster or somebody that can can lead that conversation,

(01:43:29):
can lead that interview.

Speaker 2 (01:43:31):
Speaking of WHW, what do you think was the reason
that they went out of business?

Speaker 1 (01:43:38):
When did you realize that they were in big trouble? Well,
I knew they were in big trouble when they were
losing sixty seventy million dollars a year. I'm billing two
hundred and fifty million. The the the books just didn't
match up. But I think the real crowning blow is
when AOL merged with Time Owner and they didn't want

(01:43:59):
to have any anything to do with wrestling. As a
matter of fact, a lot of the old Turner people
didn't want to have anything to do with wrestling. But
Ted Turner said, I love my wrestling. It's the first
live programming that he had on on TBS, and he
stood by it. How did you find out about the
cell WW. I was sitting at home. I was asked

(01:44:21):
not to come to TV. And the crazy part about
it is, this is how insane this whole thing had become.
I had just signed a multi year contract that actually
long term exceeded well over a million dollars, and that
was signed with Turner Broadcasting. You get paid for it. Still,

(01:44:44):
I got paid every nickel? Nice every nickel?

Speaker 3 (01:44:47):
Is it true like some of the guys were getting
paid up until like two thousand and five, like a
million dollars?

Speaker 1 (01:44:52):
Who was it? Was it a holdberg? I think of somebody,
remember you're getting I don't know about them. I do
know about me. Thoughts on GDP. D P was a
friend of Eric Fischoff's. There was some resentment there, not
by me, but by some other guys uh in the
in the locker room that the reason that Diamond Dallas

(01:45:17):
got the big push was because he was friends with
Eric Bischoff, and that perhaps there might have been some
kind of a thing going on between the families, you know,
who might have seen I wouldn't of mind tagging in
on that. Did you talk to anyone about going back
to w after this period of time where I had

(01:45:40):
constant conversation with Kevin Dunn. As a matter of fact,
before I signed the last contract, I said, is there
anything that I could do up there? Kind of as
a oh gosh, as a I'm thinking that, you know,
some of the the old time Jack Whitaker, Dick Schapp,

(01:46:03):
you know, do kind of special features and things like
that where I could kind of glide into this thing
but still be a part of it. And Kevin, Kevin says,
I'll work on it because we'd love to have you
back here now. And Vince feels good about you and
about your work. So the next thing I knew about

(01:46:24):
six months later, Kevin said, I've got a show for
You's call Confidential. Let's let's see what we can do.
Do you think that show exposed the business too much? Well?
I think what it did, I don't know if it
exposed business. I mean, this business has been exposed about
as much as any business could be. But I think

(01:46:46):
what it did it put the office in a position
where it had to coincide with their storylines ongoing. And
I think the real great pieces that we did it
we're on stone Cold Steve Austin. I think the delving

(01:47:09):
into the tragic death of Miss Elizabeth. I think that
maybe some of the things we did with Shawn Michaels
and his differences with the office and exposing that on
the show. What does confidential mean? This is the inside track?

Speaker 3 (01:47:27):
Do you think Vince with the whole Miss Elizabeth thing,
you think maybe he knocked Luder too hard, betrayed him
in like a real negative light, especially right after that
incident happened.

Speaker 1 (01:47:39):
Well, obviously, h Lex Luger was involved with Miss Elizabeth
and it was a tragedy. And I talked to Lex
recently and in in New York, and he felt very
very bad about that. I'm sure it affected him, and
he he did the legitimately tell me that he loved

(01:48:02):
the girl. But if you loved her, you wouldn't be
feeding her booze and pills and giving her an opportunity
to do something like that or true. What are your
initial memories of conversations with Vince again when I when
I came back, Oh, they were great. You know what.

(01:48:25):
We didn't talk about the old days either. We talked
about the future. I'm I'm not a big nostalgia bo
even though we do have a lot of history in
the WWE. I go back to things like, you know,
WrestleMania one, WrestleMania three, the highlights, and there were some

(01:48:47):
low lights in there too, But no, Vince is big
at talking about the future. Vince is no nowadays for
giving his announcers lines, you know through the headsets. What
are your thoughts on that it's his show? Maybe maybe
he is. He's enough of a perfectionist that he wants

(01:49:08):
this a certain way and that's his way of communicating
with the guys when they're on the air. I understand
when Joey styles first Game Aboard and hit that Monday
Night Raw scene that he got a lot. Now, too
much of that and you're gonna all of a sudden
destroy the spontaneity that you need out of that. I'm

(01:49:31):
not being critical of him doing it because he's got
something in mind, and that's the way. Do you like
Joey's work? Do I like Joey's I love it. I'll
tell you what. He's got such a strong association with
E c W that it was kind of tough to
see him on on on Raw. But you know what,
it all worked out great. The setup was great, and

(01:49:53):
I think it was all done by design from day one.
What are you talking of? Ros Jim Ross, good guy,
could be political, but certainly very knowledgeable. Became a real
student of the game. The Oklahoma thing, you know, kind

(01:50:15):
of I think that was that came from the office.
I don't think that came from Jim Jr. Jr. And
now likes to wear the cowboy hat because he's identified
with it. You wear it on TV for ten years. Hell,
you should be just like the other guy is going
to be. I don't know if you're going to wear
at the airport someplace the crown, But Jerry Lawler has

(01:50:39):
been on TV. He's a household word.

Speaker 2 (01:50:41):
How good was it to come back at WrestleMania and
your members are calling the Battle Royal with a bob again,
the gimmick Battle Royal.

Speaker 1 (01:50:48):
How would you like to have been a Viagra salesman
in the middle of that ring? You could have scored
a fortune. You know what? It was fun and and
we we knew from the beginning that it was going
to be fun. And that's why I'd bring out those
old cliches, you know, hillbilly Jim in there, guy that
goes bear hunting with a switch. Only two ways you

(01:51:10):
can be down there in Mudlick. That was a big
old Gooden or a good old Bigan. So but it
brought out all of those you know, old old terms
and descriptions of the boys. How do things change as
far as production is compared to when you were least
in WW I think things are They prepackage a lot.

(01:51:32):
They don't do stand up interviews. When I left here,
we were doing stand up interviews, and in that respect
it changed. It's very controlled. Back in the old days,
there were so many things that were were done by
accident that were great that today it seems a little forced.

(01:51:58):
But lord knows, it's working, and there's more product out
there today than they've ever had. What are your thoughts
about being inducted into the Hall of Fame? Great honor?
Never thought it would happen. Why would an announcer go
into the Hall of Fame and being the first announcer?
We all know that. You know probably some of these

(01:52:20):
decisions are made by the office, But I considered it
a great honor. And then after the show, Vince said,
well you gave him a punchline, thank you? Right, yeah,
talk about Vince today and the change she has made
over the years. Well, I mean, this is a corporate

(01:52:41):
a juggernaut now, I mean compared to there were eight
people over on Hollyhock Lane in Greenwich, Connecticut when I
came here. We did the interviews inside this rather small,
dismal office building. I'd have holgn up against the all them.
We have a backdrop. Matter of fact, it probably was

(01:53:03):
a blue curtain. But those were very modest beginnings, and
I'm sure he was operating on shoe string. Howard Finkel
was there. He was there from day one, from day one,
Jimmy Troy, Bob McMullen. I'm trying to think, of course,

(01:53:25):
on the outside Gorilla Monsoon. Arnie Stolen a lot of
the confidence Chief j Strongbold as a both a wrestler
and an agent, so it was a very modest beginning
for him. What are your thoughtsing on Stephanie and Sheen. Well,

(01:53:46):
since I'm big on nepotism myself, I think if they
want to do it, I think they should be there.
And both have showed a tremendous affection for the business.
Do they have an understanding of the business. I think
they do. I really think they do. I'm impressed with
both of them and I'm not blowing smoke because my

(01:54:09):
age had need to. I didn't don't don't need to
put somebody over. If I thought they were doing a
poor job, I would share those thoughts with you. Also,
I think Sephanie, now that she's a mom, I don't know,
you know what kind of a role she's been playing
the company. But Shane asked something about the Madison Square

(01:54:31):
Garden Show and the fact that the response was so positive,
I realized that he's got his head into the business right.
He wants to know why. It's a good question to ask,
why why do things work? Talks about triple I worked
with him in the in the Atlanta at WCW and

(01:54:56):
very hard working, very conscientious student of the game. Yeah,
and and and and here's here's here's the one problem
he had there he was going nowhere. So when he
had an opportunity through Shawn Michaels to come up to
the w w E, I said, we're gonna hate to
lose you here because I thought he had great potential.
He had the look, he had the look. We're talking

(01:55:19):
about a triple H and your thoughts on Triple H
and you had a sidebar comment. I think about the family. Well,
we were talking also about Triple h and the family
and how modest things were in the beginning. I recall
that Hogan myself, Vince went over to Vince's rented house
in Greenwich in his rented Lincoln town car and sat down,

(01:55:45):
and Shane was a little guy. Stephanie was a littler.
Linda was there. Linda made dinner for us. We all
ate at the table, then went in and started mapping
off some plans, some strategies for the for the future,
actually writing the shows that we're going to lead into
wrestle Mania one Wow. So he put us up in

(01:56:07):
the house and that's the way it was done where
the magic happened. Yeah. What are your thoughts on the
deaths over the last few years with guys like Kurt Hanning, Hercules,
ro Hawk, Boston. Tragic, terrible. I mean, these are all
young men. The Eddie Guerrero which is the most recent,

(01:56:28):
so tragic. I mean, I've known that kid forever, a
nice piece of talent, good good young man, and I
think he turned the corner on any of the problems
he might have had. But unfortunately, in that particular instance
with a coronary probably damage from the past, Kurt Hennick

(01:56:51):
senseless and the story you were telling me about Roddy Piper.
You know, you need the pill to get you up,
you need the pill to get you down. You need
the pill to get you going, keep you going. Uh,
that's s albs, that's what That's what killed these guys, Rick, Rude,
Kurt Henny, Louis Pacoli, Uh, Davy boy Smith. I mean

(01:57:16):
to go down that list and I miss you know
a ton of people. It's it's strategy.

Speaker 2 (01:57:21):
Do you think the boys will learn their lesson or
do you think if they have the attitude and ain't can.

Speaker 1 (01:57:24):
Happen to me? I think there's a certain amount of that.
I think that's a good comment that I'm bulletproof. I'll
go on forever. None of us are gonna go on forever.

Speaker 3 (01:57:38):
Wasn't a couple of those guys, three of them were
even from Robinsdale, weren't they?

Speaker 1 (01:57:41):
Yeah? Rude, Hank and Hawk? Yeah. Yeah. Are you surprised? Uh,
guys like Coogan and Flair who have been around the
song and still on top and so actually working in
the ring. Ah, that doesn't surprise me. Those those guys
back in the old days. It probably wouldn't have let
him work to that age. But god, you take a

(01:58:04):
look at Hogan, you take a look at Flair, and
they can they can outwork some of the younger guys,
so you know they ruth, take a look at him.
He drank every night, would pitch a twelve hot dogs
between the exactly smoked the cart and the cigarette today. Right,

(01:58:25):
what are your thoughts on w W looking out for
the pro wrestling world for announcers and apparently preferring that
you don't know anything about the business. Well, I don't.
I don't necessarily agree with that. The one thing that
I found out in broadcasting in general today when I
when I broke into the business, you had to do

(01:58:46):
the cup dear, you had to have a voice, you
had to have a delivery, And today that that might
be the way things are going. Uh. They should know
a little bit about broadcasting, whether or not they know
anything about wrestling. If an individual producer feels that way,
so be it. We better educate him in a hell

(01:59:08):
of a hurry. Though, Yeah, definitely. Were you surprised to
see Brett Heart return? I don't quite understand if he
has returned though, I mean he's been inducted into the
Hall of Fame. Brett was at the Hall of Fame,
was very aloof to be and I've been very close

(01:59:29):
to him because I've been close to his father. My
son played in the Olympics up in Calgary in nineteen
eighty eight, and thank God for Stu and Helen Hart,
they put us up. My family came up there. I
got a chance to see my kid play in the Olympics.
I loved him. I love Brett. A few of the
other guys, you know, night Heart a little on the

(01:59:50):
strange side, could could be a little off the wall.
I can tell you stories. I know you can. We'll
exchange him. What made Pat Patterson a great finish man? Well,
Pat was an entertainer. I mean Pat realized this was entertainment.
You've got to give the people what they want to

(02:00:12):
make them pop. You got to give the people not
necessarily what they want, but what they need to buy
a ticket to the next event, to buy a ticket
or buy into the next pay per view. That's what
made Pat Patterson the greatest finishman of all time. Do

(02:00:32):
you think he was better than an Eddie Graham and
deporta different, different era, right, Eddie Graham wrestling, Pat Patterson Entertainment.
Eddie Graham was good, no question. Mike Graham's a good
finish man. That's the Road's a good finish man. Fulton
of Bruno Summertino in vinsit Man's relationship, well I got

(02:00:57):
I got a little bit of that because Bruno was
doing shows when I first came here. I don't think
I saw Bruno in more than maybe a dozen matches,
but he was doing some color on TV, and of course,
I mean he was bigger than life. But he did

(02:01:17):
not like the way that Vince was taking the business.
He blamed Vince for a lot of the things that
were happening in the business. Hew Steroids were being taken
in this business, in football, in other sports, and just
by bodybuilding, long before it was even hurt up here,
so you know, I mean, it was old hat, and

(02:01:42):
Bruno was very, very adamant about the direction the company
was taking. He thought it was going to ruin the business.
Too many people knew too much. What are your thoughts
on the lack of kaf aban in the business today.
You think it hurt the business or do you think otherwise?
I think it. I think it did. I think it did.

(02:02:04):
But take a look at the subculture that's been developed
by ye by the Yeah. So you think the business
could ever go back? Could it? I think it could.
I think it could pretty tough now though we smartened
up the wrong people. We should have smartened up the
TV people, not the fans. I think they would have

(02:02:26):
liked it better that way too. Out a doubt.

Speaker 2 (02:02:29):
Do you feel a good TV writer could write good wrestling?
And what are your thoughts on the writers in w
W as.

Speaker 1 (02:02:35):
Far as they were never really around the business and
they don't understand the business. And you have guys in
the locker room like Arn Anderson and other veterans that
should be doing that job you have it. Should Arn Anderson,
should Ricky Steamboat? Should Tony Garria? Uh Pat Patterson be
be writing a dialogue? I mean they can do the wrestling.

(02:02:57):
What they need to do is you've got writers. They
get the input from the office, here's what we're going
to be doing, and we'll give you the the wrestling components.
You now come up with dialogue that is going to
be You're gonna make everything work. Do you actually like
the writers as far as not as people individually But

(02:03:19):
do you think it's a good idea or did you
like it Back in the old days, when you had
one guy who was pretty much the booker, and he
was pretty much the guy I wrote everything. That couldn't
have gone on forever. It couldn't have gone on indefinitely,
having these high powered, highly produced shows. You had to
have writers. I still think there's a place, excuse me,

(02:03:40):
for stand up interviews, though I have made the suggestion
to to Vince and to Kevin Dunn that I would
like to be doing interviews that meant something, stand up
interviews in the old, in the in the in the
old way that we used to do him center of
the ring, like i'd do with a Flair, like I

(02:04:03):
do with but Hell, I mean I did them with
Tito Santana. You did them with everybody. But the interviews
would have to be special. They'd have to be a Hogan,
they'd have to be a Flair, they'd have to be
somebody from the old school. So we tie it in.
I think they were at one point thinking about that
on Saturday Night's main event, but thus far it hasn't happened.

(02:04:24):
But on the other hand, I don't think they're really
jumping up and down with the numbers on on Saturday
Night's main event. Who is the most talented announswer that
you work with?

Speaker 3 (02:04:36):
If you can name one, We're almost like, Wow, this
guy's better than me and all this I want.

Speaker 1 (02:04:43):
I'll tell you, I'll tell you who were good all around,
and I would be I would be absolutely ecstatic to
be put in the same category with the Gordon. Solely,
I thought Gordon between interviews play by play, some people
said there was no excitement or no enthusiasm in his

(02:05:05):
play by play commentary. He didn't need it. He didn't
need to scream, he didn't need to shout. He did
just a great job of calling the action. It was credible,
it was believable. But I also have got high regard
for Vince. When Vince was calling the action and I
was working beside him in Allentown, Pennsylvania and Hamburg in

(02:05:31):
those places, I thought Vince did a great job of
calling the action. My personal all time favorite that I
liked was Guerrilla Monsoon. He was a wrestler. He knew
what he was talking about, He knew all the moves.
He was a great amateur wrestler, and he was very entertaining.
Plus he was sometimes a little sarcastic.

Speaker 3 (02:05:53):
I like that, looking back at your career, can you
name one promo that you were involved with the wrestler
next to you and you were just like in awe
like that and you almost.

Speaker 1 (02:06:04):
Had goosebumps because there one promo that.

Speaker 3 (02:06:06):
You can think of right now at the top of
your head that it was the greatest thing I've ever heard.

Speaker 1 (02:06:10):
I don't think I could identify that with one promo.
But Dusty Rhodes I recall in WCW. I'm I'm watching
him and the way he kind of works. And Dusty
could build, build, build and build. He was great. Rick

(02:06:32):
Claire started out here, bring her down, go back here.
But Dusty was sitting talking about a promo and he said,
I was laying in bed with my wife and middle
of the night, and she said, what's that thumping that
I hear? And he says, sweetheart, that's the heartbeat of America.

(02:06:57):
It's coming from the dreams. Pun it through my chest
because I'm looking forward to this match with this guy.
Whatever those were, those were good. They were storytellers. Rick Flair,
Gray Hogan high energy all all the way. How about
the Iron chic. I mean, uh, he entertained me. I

(02:07:17):
don't know what he did for you guys. I don't
know if he sold tickets, but he entertained me.

Speaker 3 (02:07:22):
Well, you were there in a company though, I guess
want to she beland lose.

Speaker 1 (02:07:28):
Right, there's some people saying to finish the.

Speaker 3 (02:07:31):
Tow being thrown in and Backlan didn't. Is that just
fairy tale?

Speaker 1 (02:07:36):
Or if the Backland didn't want to lose, Yeah, that
was probably Backland's Uh enough the screws Arnold was an
office guy. Backland didn't want to lose, especially to the
Iron Cheek. But it had to be done for business
because it was the setup for Hogan coming in.

Speaker 2 (02:07:54):
Right, speaking of screw drivers, we might as well touch about.
You know, people are gonna ask why we wouldn't ask you.
What are your thoughts on the whole Montreal situation. You
think Brett handled that right and Vin's handled that right?

Speaker 3 (02:08:05):
Well?

Speaker 1 (02:08:05):
I think Brett should have been professional. He let his
ego get in the way. Who was right? Who was wrong?
It's water over the dam, out of the bridge, down
the road. And the one thing I will say that
surprised me. It sure made for a lot of conversation

(02:08:28):
amongst fans. The Internet was buzzing, the dirt sheets were loaded,
and did Brett Hart really get ft? They call it
the Montreal screwjob. Maybe it was Shawn Michaels know anything
about it. Maybe he didn't. You'd say he had to,

(02:08:48):
But it was Hebner that put the three count down
and the shoulder was clearly up. But Brett has to understand,
you got to do business. Who do you think deserves
to be in the Hall of Fame in the future.
Oh God, I've got a list of a lot of guys.
Unfortunately there's a few of them that have left us

(02:09:10):
in this world. But I would say Dusty definitely belongs
in the Hall of Fame. Rick Flair future Hall of Famer.
I wanted to see the Crusher and the Bruiser inducted,
and unfortunately they're both gone. How many dead guys can
we we induct in one year? But you know, I

(02:09:33):
think there's a lot of guys out there right now.
Ricky Steamboat, to me, is a good candidate. Here's the
problem we have. It's the WWE Hall of Fame. Do
they have to be bonafide WWE stars or former stars? Superstars?
I think now that since the WWE is where it is,
it represents the industry as a whole terry. Bunk should

(02:09:58):
be in the Hall of Fame, Punk Jr. Should be
in the Hall of Fame. And I mean I can
go on and on with that list. Who do you
think will be the next big thing in the business?
What guy? There's some guy out there right now that
doesn't have a character, doesn't have a persona. He's glib,

(02:10:21):
he's a good athlete, he carries himself well, he has
the look, he has the feel, he has that that
that charisma that you have to have, and we don't
know who he is, but he's out there. I knew
Steve Austin when he was just a fledgelane stunning Steve

(02:10:42):
at WCW with Brian Pilan and part of the Hollywood Blondes.
But when he came up with his stone cold character
with that beer, that was the real Steve Austin. That's
the reason it worked. And there's gonna be somebody right
around the corner that's going to arrive and is going
to be very very big. Do you think the key

(02:11:02):
to getting guys over is to have guys that connect
with the audience and let them be themselves. Yeah, I
think I think that's very important. I think they have
to be themselves. That the stone cold beer drinking character
is Steve Austin. Paul Orndorf told me about about this guy.
He says, he's great. He likes to hunt fish, drink beer,

(02:11:27):
occasionally have a little uh, a little goodie. But he's
he's the real deal and that's why he was so good.
Sean Michaels was a Lake bloomer Brad Hart. I mean,
he worked a lot of hard, long, hard years to
get where he got. But there's somebody out there. I

(02:11:48):
don't know if I see him right now, but I
guarantee you that the office knows somebody. I I really
thought that Dave Batista was on the cusp. He had
a setback, but I think he's going to re emerge
as probably one of the premier talents. I don't see
a lot of Kurt Angle, and I thought that Kurt

(02:12:09):
Angle was just I mean, god tag you this piece
of talent. I also, you know, think that John Cena
maybe pushed a little too hard, pushed to a fault
where all of a sudden we saw that backlash and
that has been chronicled in many of the publications and
on many of the Internet sites that you know enough

(02:12:33):
of John Cena. John Cene is going to be around,
good hard working kid, good work ethic. Yeah. Do you
go to the sites a lot as far as the internet?
Are you not? Really? I used to When I had
to steal material from my hotline, I'm like that clown
from the New York Times. I did plaguiar eyes because
I didn't. I didn't I lived in a vacuum. I

(02:12:55):
didn't know what was happening. I'd have to go to
the sites, and I would talk to a lot of people.
I'm talked to a Bob Right, I talked to him, man.
I never really talked all that much with Dave Meltzer,
with Wade Keller, but I would talk to Alex Martez.

(02:13:16):
I would talk to some of these people. If I
would have had your telephone number, you would the k
fad me on that I would have been calling you.
It's about God that Doug would volunteer every now and then.
I bet he would. Yeah, sicky. As far as the bubble,
do you think Vince's in the bubble as far.

Speaker 2 (02:13:32):
As it's concerned, with not knowing the talent that's out
there and only knowing the WWE world.

Speaker 1 (02:13:40):
They were. It's funny you should mention that because they
were saying the same thing about him ten years ago
and twenty years ago. Is he is he living? Is
he the boy in the bubble? He knows what's going on.
He's got enough people feeding him the right kind of information.
That inner circle of his is very strong.

Speaker 2 (02:14:01):
What are you feelings on guys having the cookie cutter
look now in these days in the business, as far
as being big guys having the same look? Do you
think wws different guys of different shape and sizes to
relate to the fans, like you know, I do the
butcher types now do the bunch of its sizes like
King Kong, Bundi's and stuff like that. Because right now
you watch the TV and almost all the guys have
the same, you know, cookie cutter look.

Speaker 1 (02:14:21):
Do you think that hurts the business? Yeah? I do?
Do I think you should have different and distinct looks.
Back when I broke in, there were more big, fat
guys with pot bellies that would come on out. Yeah,
dick Murdoch, But Dickie Murdoch was fantastic great. I saw

(02:14:41):
that Legends mansion in Philadelphia right between him and Wahoo McDaniel,
both old men by today's standards, but you know what
they could work. They could take an arm bar and
work it for five minutes and people would be on
the edge of their seats. That goes back to the
Johnny Valentines, the players, the hardy races. What advice would

(02:15:03):
you give to guys wanting to get into the business. Well,
I used to think I had a stock answer for that,
but today I think there's so many other components and
that you know that that that break, that big break
that you need to get into the business. I would
say I would my own kids are something that they

(02:15:24):
wanted to get into it, I say, forget about it.
But if it is a lifelong ambition and they're ready
to do it, then go to ov W or go
to Dory Punk or but get the best training you
can and then then you got to get with You've
got to watch a lot of television and I think
you take the best of a lot of different people

(02:15:45):
and you make something out of that. Right, Take a
little bit of Rick Blair, take a little bit of
John Cena, take a little bit of you know, I'm
thinking some of the more colorful guys, take a little
bit of the crusher, take a little bit of Jesse Ventura.
Bring that up to date. We don't see a lot

(02:16:06):
of that in today's world. Carlito, I think was kind
of a little bright light. I liked. I liked what
he did. Yeah, did you ever have aspirations ever to
write a book? Oh? I have. I have got a
manuscript that probably is somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve
hundred pages, and but something that I've worked at. It's

(02:16:30):
it's it's a work in progress because I want to
be able to tell the whole story. I want to
be able to have lived the final chapter when it's written.

Speaker 3 (02:16:40):
Wait.

Speaker 1 (02:16:40):
The business, well, I'm sure I'm gonna step on a
lot of toes. What's going on right now outside of
the wrestling world? For you, talk about your business means
Jeene Burgers, Well, me mean had I had a long
term arrangement with a company called Ryan Food Systems, but
they were owned by a company called Schwanz Enterprises. I'm

(02:17:05):
sure you've seen the trucks that go around on the
deliver big company, five billion dollar company, and then they
were sold to Colbert, the son of the a KKR guy.
He subsequently sold it to Allied Capital and a management
buyout group. So before the last time, I did a

(02:17:26):
new contract with him and said, if this company has
ever sold again, I have the right to terminate my contract.
Not not for cause, I just have a right, point
blank to terminate. On March the eighth of this year,
I terminated that contract. And what I am now doing, guys,
is very simple. I'm trying to put together the same

(02:17:48):
kind of a framework and do it on my own.
All this at sixty three years old, which most people
would say, what the helligan nuts? At sixty three you
want to go out and start another or business endeavor? Yeah,
I do the damn right.

Speaker 2 (02:18:06):
I guess if you're working at Independence today and you
were the same age as you were when EW got started,
do you think you would get a shot in the
w W.

Speaker 1 (02:18:18):
Yeah, I mean I think the door is open, even
though they're not looking for Gene Okerland anymore. Right, Uh
you know I I I think they're they're they're looking
for a little different nondescript character. But I mean, you've
got You've got the j R. He's here, Jerry Lawler's here,
Michael Cole and Tazit then here Joey Styles is over

(02:18:41):
on the E C W side. I mean, so there's
some still some announcers with a with the personality who
did you travel with? Oh, God forbid, I traveled by
myself alt, But I get I had the I had
the the privilege of traveling a lot with Bobby Heenan, right.

(02:19:01):
I don't know if that was by design, but we
did work together so many years, and a lot of
that is in the book, if and when it comes out.
I'm sure if I were to buy the farm tomorrow,
my wife would peddlic to somebody for a million bucks.
They'd read it and say, if I can read it
and like it, I'll pay you. And everything is in

(02:19:24):
that book. Any good roads stories you want to share
with us, any ribs or anything like that. Bobby Heenon
so quick, and Bobby loved to have a cocktail, and
Bobby wanted to fly first class. We were in I'm
thinking Salt Lake City and we were going to run

(02:19:47):
in Oakland the next day, but there was no first
class flight. There was Southwest and some other commuter airline
out there. Where you could fly in an hour and
a half from Salt Lake to Oakland, California. Bobby says, no,
we're going first class, and he says, I've got your

(02:20:08):
booked on the same flight we're going to go. This
is with WCW. This is how ridiculous it. God, we
had to fly from Salt Lake back to Denver on
United and catch a flight that had first class into Oakland.
The thing took us about five or six hours. Heenan
drank all the whiskey in the world, and of course

(02:20:30):
I was right there with him. But on the second flight,
he puts his luggage in the overhead and he's having
a hell of a time banging it in there, so
he's popping on it, and of course he's half in
the bag, and some guy walks in and says, are
you all right, sir? Bobby says, turns around, looks and says,
what the hell are you? A doctor brought me to

(02:20:53):
my knees. Any regrets, no regrets, no regrets. Even the changes,
even the bad things that happened, happened for a reason.
The changes, for a reason made me a better person.

Speaker 2 (02:21:06):
Is there anything that you want to say to your
fans out there that you might have never had a
chance to say before.

Speaker 1 (02:21:13):
Well, I'm sure I had a chance to say. I
even my critics, I say, fine, go go right ahead.
But the fans, and I've got a lot of them,
the one thing I want to say is where the
hell did you get a hold of my home address
that you're sending mail to me at my house along
with my bills. Forget about it. I moved. I'm out here.

(02:21:37):
Where do you see yourself in the next ten years.
I think I'm still going to be doing some wrestling,
you know, health permitting. But I mean I traveled a
pretty good schedule right now. Going through an airport today, gentlemen,
is not the easiest thing in the world. When they
take the moose out of my top kit for my hair,

(02:21:57):
I got hot. Well. Closing on, thank you for being
here today with us. It was a great interview and
hopefully one day we can do it again. Rob Doug,
thank you, gentlemen, and good luck to you. Best to
you Ball. Thank you very much very much. Titlematchnetwork dot
Com

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