June 18, 2024 • 10 mins
The greatest Intercontinental Champion in WWF history is coming to Omaha next week to hit you with a guitar!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Scott Voorde, I got alongside acatalog and joins us now here on news
radio eleven ten kf ab Honky talkMan. Welcome boy. That's some sweet
music. I'll see how you are. That's a that's a classic oldies song.
(00:22):
There. Tell me about the writingof that song. Uh, Jimmy
Hart, you know, Jimmy Hartwas my manager and uh and he he
was part of a musical group,uh in the sixties, in the early
seventies, and and he did alot of the music for the w w
W W Wrestlers back then, andand uh, we needed a song,
(00:43):
and then he sat down and puta pen to paper and came up with
this thing. And uh Rick Darregersplaying guitar on that song, and so
uh yeah we uh we went inthe studio and did that thing, and
uh it's been a good one.Yeah. I and you'll have to excuse
me. I know it's called thew w E now, but I I
(01:04):
just refuse I'm gonna call it theWWF and the world. Well, yeah,
that's that's fine. I don't youknow. I've been you go out
and there you do all these NowI'm in the Hall of Fame and I
do all these comic cons around theworld and and signings and and uh.
After I got put in the Hallof Fame, I thought, well,
(01:25):
should I put that on the whenI signed, I would put a lot
of times I would put WWF Hallof Fame, and people say no,
no, it's ww Okay, takethe take the paper, throw it away
and start over. But I've adaptedto it now. Yeah, I think
it's the term. It's it's basedon the age of the person asking for
your autograph. And there'll be alot of people lined up next week and
at the Mid America Center. ButI love talking with wrestlers of your vintage
(01:49):
and your former partner, Greg theHammer Valentine was on the show a few
years ago, and I want toask you about this as well, because
you started pre halk Hogan. Imean, you came up in the late
seventies when you were out there likeyou and Coco Beware were just out there
literally beating each other's brains out,getting legitimately injured, going from town to
(02:12):
town, making no money. Andthen a few years later, here's the
explosion led by HAULK Hogan and allthe great champs of the early eighties,
and next thing you know, there'smoney. There's Rick Deringer in a recording
studio. You're doing wrestling albums,everyone is doing pay per view WrestleMania.
What was that like for you inthat whole transition in your life. It
(02:37):
was really different than it took off. You know, when you say it
took off fast, it really did. I was working in Pensacola and Mobile,
Alabama down there when I developed thisHonky tonk Man character, and then
I took it to Calvary, Canada, where of course the famous Brett Hart
and Stuhart family is from. AndI was working there, but I had
(02:59):
ran Across and Brutus Beefcake in theearly years in the in the late seventies
down there, and we shared anapartment and and everything, and none of
us making any money, and lowand behold up in Calgary's fifteen twelve fifteen
years later, they came through withone of their big shows and I was
(03:19):
watching on TV like everyone else andreally amazed at that that that how the
fans were reacting to wrestling at thattime. And I was given the opportunity
to go and be part of that. And I'll tell you what it took
off like you wouldn't believe action figures, toys, games, sold out crowds
(03:40):
every night, twenty thousand and thirtythousand people wherever we went, turned people
away, and that was a grind. Two hundred shows in a row and
you know, three four days offand keep going. But uh, you
know the the end result was itpaid off? Yeah, and you have
the well, I think it's sincebeen broken here just recently, but your
(04:01):
reign four hundred and fifty four daysas the Intercontinental Champion. For those who
understand wrestling, they've heard this phrase. For those who maybe aren't as familiar,
You're not the heavyweight champion of theworld. You're not the tag team
champion of the world. What theheck is the Intercontinental Championship? What is
(04:23):
that belt? Anyway? I thinkit was developed as like a a mid
belt in between. You know,the tag team always supported the Hulk Hogan
the heavyweight champion, and they neededsomething obviously because we were doing three towns
a night and you would need anotherchampionship in another town. And that's kind
(04:47):
of how it came along. Andthere was a long list of great ones,
Tito Santana, Greg Valentine, Donthe Rock Morocco and Pedro Morales and
I was just in the in thelist of a few guys, but I
stole the moniker from Muhammad Ali.I'm the greatest of all time, and
I have continued to say that,And the more you say something on radio
(05:10):
and TV, the more people willbelieve it. And Buddy, wherever I
go now they say you're the greatestof all time. I said, I'm
the greatest inter continental champion of alltime. I used to meet the longest
raining but then that was finally defeatedafter thirty years or thirty five years.
But I'm still the greatest of alltimes. Well, don't forget the person
you took the belt from. Mylittle nine year old self was dismayed.
(05:33):
Let's see, I think I wasten years old, ninete eighty seven,
i'd have been ten years old.You took out my favorite Ricky the Dragon
steamboat for the Intercontinental championship. Iwas crushed. Yes, after you were
well, let's go back here aswe talk with the honky Tonk man.
You it was was it decided foryou or you decided that you're gonna be
(05:55):
someone who hailed from Memphis, Tennessee. You had the sideburns and slip back
care and a guitar which I neverlasted very long. Uh, And you
were going to be out there kindof on an Elvis persona in the WWF.
How did that come about? Well, I took I took the I
had this character in mind, thissleazy, slimy, grease ball type guy
(06:17):
that would you know, hung aroundthe honky tonks and bars looking for fights
on Saturday nights down in the South, and and and the character came to
mind it on a song by JohnnyHarten and in the late send there of
sixties and mid sixties. I'm ahonky tonk man. And anyway, the
words in that song exemplified this kindof character I was wanting to portray.
(06:40):
And the jump suit. I hadthe sideburns and the black hair, and
the jump suit was given to meby some wrestling fans who thought it would
be a great thing to do becauseof the black hair and the sideburns.
I wasn't going to do it.I had no intensions of being on the
Elvis care character. And one ofthe wrestling promoters in Pensacola he saw the
(07:04):
He saw me with the jump suit, the black hair and Sadburns. He
said, can you play a guitar? And I said no. He said,
well, good, that'll be better. I've got one. You'll hit
this guy with it next week onTV and we'll be off and running,
and I'll be darned U that allthese things were kind of given to me.
But then I put it together andI made it work. And Vince
(07:26):
McMahon from WWE, he loved it. He liked the character. He wanted
to be a good guy. Ideveloped it to be a bad guy like
like you said, it broke yourheart when I beat Ricky's the Dragon Steamboat.
You cheated. It just killed abunch of ten year old and every
ten year old out there wanted tokill me. So I did a good
job at making people not like Met'ssee. That was all right though.
(07:47):
I always liked you, and evenmore so during this conversation. We got
a couple more minutes here with theHonky Tonk man. What was your level
of fandom before and for Elvis Presley? And have you ever learned how to
play the guitar or do you justsmash them? I never learned anything.
(08:07):
I learned the two chords. Butif you can't progress the chords, and
the people in music business know whatI'm saying. If you can't do chord
progression, you can't play it.I figured if I ever learned to play
it, it would be it wouldn'twork anymore. And I've had people that
are great guitar players come to meand say, you have to know how
to play, because no one canfake it that bad. And I said,
(08:30):
believe me, I do not knowanything about it, but it's worked
well for me. And you knowI've had some good hits with it.
Yeah. Well, yeah, Idon't care who you are. You get
hit with a balsa wood guitar,it hurts. Did you ever smash anyone
with guitar? And as soon asyou made contact, thought, oh,
that I hit them in the wrongplace, the wrong way. That's not
(08:54):
We're going to have to talk aboutthat. No, but I made sure
I've hurt myself a lot of timestrying not to hurt anyone with that.
And and uh, these were justoff the shift no matter where we were.
They put them on the ring trucksor or they'd send someone out to
buy them in the afternoon at astore and I would take them in and
(09:15):
do the little dental work on themand fix them. But no one,
No one was ever injured, nomatter what some of the restlers say.
But every time I was ever hitby, when someone would take it away
from me, they hurt me.So I know what it feels like,
but I never no, I mean, everyone was always fine with it.
Man. I could talk to youfor days about this, and then we
(09:37):
could start talking about golf, becauseI know you're a big time golfer.
We probably talk about that for twodays. Yeah, well, my golf
is like my guitar play. Sobring your clubs to Omaha. We got
some world class golf courses when you'rehere next year. I'm sure you know.
I've not been in Omaha years.I've not been to Council Bluffs and
in more than years, and I'mreally looking forward to it. This is
(09:58):
what I do now. I dosignings with the other wrestlers around the country,
around the world, and I dothese comic cons everywhere and they're great
events. The fans are just fabulous. Everyone has a great time, and
of course I get to meet someof these stars out here that I've looked
up to over the years and getto be around them. It's the oconexpo
(10:20):
dot com, the website for OmahaComic Con next Friday through Sunday at mid
America Center. Theoconexpo dot com whereyou get a chance to see Michael Rooker,
one incredible actor, Guardians of theGalaxy, U Mississippi, Burning of
so many great movies. Liney Quicklyand Bernash, you're gonna meet my friend
Teresa Cassidy out there and we can'twait to see you as well. The
(10:43):
Honky Tonk Man, thank you fora lifetime of entertainment and we'll see you
next weekend. Well, thank youso much. All look forward to seeing
everyone. Have a good time.Scott Boy Mornings nine to eleven, our
News Radio eleven ten Kfab
Scott Voorde, I got alongside acatalog and joins us now here on news
radio eleven ten kf ab Honky talkMan. Welcome boy. That's some sweet
music. I'll see how you are. That's a that's a classic oldies song.
(00:22):
There. Tell me about the writingof that song. Uh, Jimmy
Hart, you know, Jimmy Hartwas my manager and uh and he he
was part of a musical group,uh in the sixties, in the early
seventies, and and he did alot of the music for the w w
W W Wrestlers back then, andand uh, we needed a song,
(00:43):
and then he sat down and puta pen to paper and came up with
this thing. And uh Rick Darregersplaying guitar on that song, and so
uh yeah we uh we went inthe studio and did that thing, and
uh it's been a good one.Yeah. I and you'll have to excuse
me. I know it's called thew w E now, but I I
(01:04):
just refuse I'm gonna call it theWWF and the world. Well, yeah,
that's that's fine. I don't youknow. I've been you go out
and there you do all these NowI'm in the Hall of Fame and I
do all these comic cons around theworld and and signings and and uh.
After I got put in the Hallof Fame, I thought, well,
(01:25):
should I put that on the whenI signed, I would put a lot
of times I would put WWF Hallof Fame, and people say no,
no, it's ww Okay, takethe take the paper, throw it away
and start over. But I've adaptedto it now. Yeah, I think
it's the term. It's it's basedon the age of the person asking for
your autograph. And there'll be alot of people lined up next week and
at the Mid America Center. ButI love talking with wrestlers of your vintage
(01:49):
and your former partner, Greg theHammer Valentine was on the show a few
years ago, and I want toask you about this as well, because
you started pre halk Hogan. Imean, you came up in the late
seventies when you were out there likeyou and Coco Beware were just out there
literally beating each other's brains out,getting legitimately injured, going from town to
(02:12):
town, making no money. Andthen a few years later, here's the
explosion led by HAULK Hogan and allthe great champs of the early eighties,
and next thing you know, there'smoney. There's Rick Deringer in a recording
studio. You're doing wrestling albums,everyone is doing pay per view WrestleMania.
What was that like for you inthat whole transition in your life. It
(02:37):
was really different than it took off. You know, when you say it
took off fast, it really did. I was working in Pensacola and Mobile,
Alabama down there when I developed thisHonky tonk Man character, and then
I took it to Calvary, Canada, where of course the famous Brett Hart
and Stuhart family is from. AndI was working there, but I had
(02:59):
ran Across and Brutus Beefcake in theearly years in the in the late seventies
down there, and we shared anapartment and and everything, and none of
us making any money, and lowand behold up in Calgary's fifteen twelve fifteen
years later, they came through withone of their big shows and I was
(03:19):
watching on TV like everyone else andreally amazed at that that that how the
fans were reacting to wrestling at thattime. And I was given the opportunity
to go and be part of that. And I'll tell you what it took
off like you wouldn't believe action figures, toys, games, sold out crowds
(03:40):
every night, twenty thousand and thirtythousand people wherever we went, turned people
away, and that was a grind. Two hundred shows in a row and
you know, three four days offand keep going. But uh, you
know the the end result was itpaid off? Yeah, and you have
the well, I think it's sincebeen broken here just recently, but your
(04:01):
reign four hundred and fifty four daysas the Intercontinental Champion. For those who
understand wrestling, they've heard this phrase. For those who maybe aren't as familiar,
You're not the heavyweight champion of theworld. You're not the tag team
champion of the world. What theheck is the Intercontinental Championship? What is
(04:23):
that belt? Anyway? I thinkit was developed as like a a mid
belt in between. You know,the tag team always supported the Hulk Hogan
the heavyweight champion, and they neededsomething obviously because we were doing three towns
a night and you would need anotherchampionship in another town. And that's kind
(04:47):
of how it came along. Andthere was a long list of great ones,
Tito Santana, Greg Valentine, Donthe Rock Morocco and Pedro Morales and
I was just in the in thelist of a few guys, but I
stole the moniker from Muhammad Ali.I'm the greatest of all time, and
I have continued to say that,And the more you say something on radio
(05:10):
and TV, the more people willbelieve it. And Buddy, wherever I
go now they say you're the greatestof all time. I said, I'm
the greatest inter continental champion of alltime. I used to meet the longest
raining but then that was finally defeatedafter thirty years or thirty five years.
But I'm still the greatest of alltimes. Well, don't forget the person
you took the belt from. Mylittle nine year old self was dismayed.
(05:33):
Let's see, I think I wasten years old, ninete eighty seven,
i'd have been ten years old.You took out my favorite Ricky the Dragon
steamboat for the Intercontinental championship. Iwas crushed. Yes, after you were
well, let's go back here aswe talk with the honky Tonk man.
You it was was it decided foryou or you decided that you're gonna be
(05:55):
someone who hailed from Memphis, Tennessee. You had the sideburns and slip back
care and a guitar which I neverlasted very long. Uh, And you
were going to be out there kindof on an Elvis persona in the WWF.
How did that come about? Well, I took I took the I
had this character in mind, thissleazy, slimy, grease ball type guy
(06:17):
that would you know, hung aroundthe honky tonks and bars looking for fights
on Saturday nights down in the South, and and and the character came to
mind it on a song by JohnnyHarten and in the late send there of
sixties and mid sixties. I'm ahonky tonk man. And anyway, the
words in that song exemplified this kindof character I was wanting to portray.
(06:40):
And the jump suit. I hadthe sideburns and the black hair, and
the jump suit was given to meby some wrestling fans who thought it would
be a great thing to do becauseof the black hair and the sideburns.
I wasn't going to do it.I had no intensions of being on the
Elvis care character. And one ofthe wrestling promoters in Pensacola he saw the
(07:04):
He saw me with the jump suit, the black hair and Sadburns. He
said, can you play a guitar? And I said no. He said,
well, good, that'll be better. I've got one. You'll hit
this guy with it next week onTV and we'll be off and running,
and I'll be darned U that allthese things were kind of given to me.
But then I put it together andI made it work. And Vince
(07:26):
McMahon from WWE, he loved it. He liked the character. He wanted
to be a good guy. Ideveloped it to be a bad guy like
like you said, it broke yourheart when I beat Ricky's the Dragon Steamboat.
You cheated. It just killed abunch of ten year old and every
ten year old out there wanted tokill me. So I did a good
job at making people not like Met'ssee. That was all right though.
(07:47):
I always liked you, and evenmore so during this conversation. We got
a couple more minutes here with theHonky Tonk man. What was your level
of fandom before and for Elvis Presley? And have you ever learned how to
play the guitar or do you justsmash them? I never learned anything.
(08:07):
I learned the two chords. Butif you can't progress the chords, and
the people in music business know whatI'm saying. If you can't do chord
progression, you can't play it.I figured if I ever learned to play
it, it would be it wouldn'twork anymore. And I've had people that
are great guitar players come to meand say, you have to know how
to play, because no one canfake it that bad. And I said,
(08:30):
believe me, I do not knowanything about it, but it's worked
well for me. And you knowI've had some good hits with it.
Yeah. Well, yeah, Idon't care who you are. You get
hit with a balsa wood guitar,it hurts. Did you ever smash anyone
with guitar? And as soon asyou made contact, thought, oh,
that I hit them in the wrongplace, the wrong way. That's not
(08:54):
We're going to have to talk aboutthat. No, but I made sure
I've hurt myself a lot of timestrying not to hurt anyone with that.
And and uh, these were justoff the shift no matter where we were.
They put them on the ring trucksor or they'd send someone out to
buy them in the afternoon at astore and I would take them in and
(09:15):
do the little dental work on themand fix them. But no one,
No one was ever injured, nomatter what some of the restlers say.
But every time I was ever hitby, when someone would take it away
from me, they hurt me.So I know what it feels like,
but I never no, I mean, everyone was always fine with it.
Man. I could talk to youfor days about this, and then we
(09:37):
could start talking about golf, becauseI know you're a big time golfer.
We probably talk about that for twodays. Yeah, well, my golf
is like my guitar play. Sobring your clubs to Omaha. We got
some world class golf courses when you'rehere next year. I'm sure you know.
I've not been in Omaha years.I've not been to Council Bluffs and
in more than years, and I'mreally looking forward to it. This is
(09:58):
what I do now. I dosignings with the other wrestlers around the country,
around the world, and I dothese comic cons everywhere and they're great
events. The fans are just fabulous. Everyone has a great time, and
of course I get to meet someof these stars out here that I've looked
up to over the years and getto be around them. It's the oconexpo
(10:20):
dot com, the website for OmahaComic Con next Friday through Sunday at mid
America Center. Theoconexpo dot com whereyou get a chance to see Michael Rooker,
one incredible actor, Guardians of theGalaxy, U Mississippi, Burning of
so many great movies. Liney Quicklyand Bernash, you're gonna meet my friend
Teresa Cassidy out there and we can'twait to see you as well. The
(10:43):
Honky Tonk Man, thank you fora lifetime of entertainment and we'll see you
next weekend. Well, thank youso much. All look forward to seeing
everyone. Have a good time.Scott Boy Mornings nine to eleven, our
News Radio eleven ten Kfab
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