Ep. 394: ECW's Living Dangerously 2000 (Part 1)

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If you all be a classic pose Boss is two thousand or twenty twenty
four of the year of living dangerously You tell me, I would say there
about equal maybe around these parts. Thanks to the random draw, We're back
and the realm of extreme and the land of extreme. It wasn't too many
weeks ago, boss that I said, Hey, why aren't ECW shows in
our random hopper draw? And I just had to fucking like say, well,
you know what, let's just probably won't happen right away, Let's just
see what let's just throw them in and and just fucking go with it.
My surprise, you jumped in with both feet and we drew a show that
I'm sure you enjoyed deeply but is also full. Tell you they definitely it
definitely moved up to its ECW standard. There which extreme cringe worthy waste?
Oh my goodness, Well, I'm sure you've been waiting days and weeks to
deploy that one ECWD Living Dangerously two thousand and say that you will about the
show, it is replete with historical significance. I'm sure you appreciate that.
No, I don't. I mean the historical significance is that it pissed me
off. Dusty Roads at an ECW ring Why he was he was amazing?
Huh he uh. I mean again it comes back to really to the to
the TNA stuff in a way, believe it or not. When you've got
these these legends who are older and they still and and Terry funk in some
ways how they need to prove their worth, and so they got to get
in down and dirty with what's current. And it just I can't help but
feel sad and a little sick to my stomach. Yeah. Yeah, they
didn't have to prove their worth. They had to find a way to pay
the bills, especially in Dusty's case, Well, they had to find some
kind of worth I suppose, and released from WCW and was sort of casting
about. And as we'll get to it, it's a moment in Paul Hayman
hiring Dusty Roads to come into CW in two thousand that the Rhodes family really
appreciated because budgets were getting very tight. The American dream wasn't wasn't the American
dream in two thousand? You know, he was not. He was more
like his son now, he was an American nightmare. If being able to
I don't know, a four year mortgage is part of the American dream,
then Dusty was about to really put his moniker to the test. Nah,
But his old buddy from back in the day, you know, from old
buddy might be stretching into it. Can I say you know, we had
a great run. By the way, you know, we had a run
of no ECW shows for three years. Has it been three years? Three
years? Been wonderful. I mean, I don't know. I don't know
if TNA is worse or not. It might be equal talking about TNH right
TNHTNA. I mean, you know, general, I'm shocked that you didn't
enjoy the new Jack viit rhymes match. I mean, if you're good.
I don't even know where to begin. It's a serendipitous an ECW show is
going to get why because we just talked about Greed and Dusty coming back at
the end of the Dying Days and sort of got a glimpse into that period
of Dusty's life and and him meeting some him having some more greed with a
trying to find you don't get another job, right, And this ECW run
really starts that period in chapter of Dustiness. So there's that serendipity. Greed
has Mike Awesome and Lance Storm and several others who fled this precise ECW.
This is close to the final show at ECW, certainly is in terms of
pay per view for Mike Awesome, but also Lance Storm would be leaving for
WCW quite soon after this as well. That's kind of crazy, Like I
guess I didn't realize how little they were actually in WCW before it died.
I know, I thought lan Storm did all of two thousand in WCW.
Then I looked at this show. I was like, wait a minute,
it wasn't until like June. I don't think that he made the jump.
That's crazy. As we'll talk about Mike Awesome. Certainly everyone knows he made
the jump in April because it went down in history, and it went down
in a courtroom, his right departure as ECW World Heavyweight Champion for the greener
grasses of WCW, and Paul Hayman in increasingly desperate mode getting a lot more
litigious about folks leaving Saboo as well try to leave in two and he stood
in the way with lawyers on that one as well. So stressors starting to
appear. Of course, ECW is at the point now where they're straight up
mocking their network television partner TNN by putting Don Kallis, I mean the cyrus
of the virus network representative characters that that network is a heel to the one
of a kind DCW fan base. It is. It is one of the
most self indulgent, obnoxious and like I just I felt kind of just kind
of weird and ikey. It just didn't sit well with me. The whole
show, well, that storyline, how it played out on this show,
Like I don't know the whole I don't know what happened by the time,
I'm sure, but it was just like it just felt so icky, do
you know what I mean, Like it just felt weird and desperate. Yeah,
especially in retrospect knowing that it all fell apart between Paul and TNN,
and if you're following the sheets at the time, you certainly knew that it
wasn't all paradise. But what basically is happening is, I mean, who's
on TNN in two thousand and September. And so Paul kind of gets a
whiff of you know what, We're just sitting here as proof of concept for
wrestling on TNN, and they have no intention of actually leaning into us.
They're just trying to see if wrestling works in their network so that they can
make a huge offer for WWF. And that's kind of how his side of
the narrative has gone down in history, and so you see those frustrations expressed
by making the network a heel on ECW Television and almost and als we'll talk
about quite literally daring TNN to throw them off the air before the contract was
up. Wow, before they had delibered all contractual episodes. Wow. I
feel like that's a big disconnect for ECW fans because as smart as they were
quote unquote is tied into the behind the scenes as they were, I'm not
sure that they were as ready to go to war with a network as Paul
Hyman to tell himself, as fans were like, I mean, they don't
really give a fuck, Like can we just see some action please? Like
that's enough. That's kind of a little like you know, you've got to
be ballsy, you know, Like I don't know, I mean, I
don't know's you're either you're either really really stupid or you're really really ballsy.
Yeah, to do that kind of thing. Yeah, it's probably both.
I wouldn't say really stupid. Paul. Like when Paul knows something isn't gonna
work out, he starts healing the other side that most people in wrestling.
That happened staying power figure that out. They figure out, how can I
make this isn't going anywhere, but before it becomes a parent anybody that is
collapsing, how can I make a heel out of the person that kind of
one up to me in this situation? Right? And I think that's where
St. Paul realizing that they're not going to thrive on TNN and what can
we do? But it was it was so interesting because living through this and
watching ECW as it was happening, I feel like it never really set in,
like, yeah, people hated don Kallis because just he's he's a natural
heel walking around him you look at his face, right and the way he
talks and all that, and that's why they put him in the role.
But I don't think they ever like hate it TNN. I don't think they
ever right. And I don't think the fans, you know, as much
as they were all about ECW getting on pay per view and really about the
company succeeding and getting clearances, I don't think they were so tv nerdish to
turn on. I don't think it made any sense to turn on the company
that was putting them on national television. I think that was sort of like
the fans never really bowed Cyrus for that reason and never really connected that what
he was doing what was supposed to be somewhat of a representation of what was
actually going on behind the scenes between ECW and TN. Yeah, just like,
what's this guy doing? This guy talking about fuck? This guy's that
he's a jerk, He's he's a geek. You know. It just feels
Yeah, I don't know, it just feels weird. It's a very weird.
It just like it's like, I don't know, I just it just
felt petty and stupid. Steve Carrino, Yeah that's a name. Go ahead,
the weird looking annoying and he's okay. Actually I don't mind, right,
don't. I've been really looking forward to the chance to talk with you
about Steve Greenough because he's he's a kind of wrestler that, like, I
really have no idea what you're gonna think of him. I really don't,
because I didn't. I don't. I mean, we've seen him before.
I don't hate him. I didn't hate him. I actually I actually admired
him in a way for the amount of shit that he took from Dusty,
Like in terms of brutality. So there was, there was. I didn't
hate him, he was all right. I mean I like that, you
know, I I I know it's extreme. I get it and stuff.
But I don't know that whole thing with the wife and you know, uh,
Sandman's wife and hitting her or not hitting her, but like telling her
she's a whore, and I don't know it. Just you know, I
listen there there, I am the last person who should be criticizing any sort
of like derogatory terms towards anything or anybody. I admit that. But when
it comes to when it comes to a when it comes to a sort of
a genre maybe or something that is not used to kind of going that far
down by like it just kind of it really hovers in the PG thirteen era
area rather, you mean the wrestling business, the wrestling business in general.
That when you start using a million F bombs in one show and saying fuck
this, you're a whore. Da da da da da, it just it
seems like I don't know it, just it doesn't work for me. Yeah,
it doesn't work for me at all. And because you know what,
it reminds me of a lot. I remember when so I remember I saw
some right after I graduated Emerson. I was living in LA Some of my
friends in the class behind us came. We're out the next semester and then
they were doing their stuff and they you know, a bunch of actors and
they were doing an acting showcase at a at a theater and I went to
go see it, and they were just there's a mentality of we're going to
do it because we can do it. And so they were doing these scenes
that were very adult, very sexual, like pretty much, I'm gonna say
I saw ten scenes and they were and I'd say like eight out of ten
had to deal with very very physical let's see how far we can go sex.
Yeah, you know, like they're they're making out and they're like touching
each other and like a girl's got a shirt off, and it's something like
I don't I mean, listen, I'm fine with that. But when you're
kind of like when you're been, when when you've kind of been uh uh
set up to not it's like it's like watching a show on NBC and like
it's like watching SVU for example, and they actually show a scene of really
significant rape. Yeah, and it's hardcore like it's almost because it feels like
gratuitous, Like I don't. You've you've proven that you don't need it to
succeed, So why are you doing it? Do you know? I do?
I do. I think one of the things that's interesting about our generation
is we took all the way to its extreme, the idea of insulting prudes
as a drawing card. Yeah, right, we've seen it all. We've
seen the most extreme violence, we've seen the most extreme porn, we've seen
the most extreme curse words. We've seen the most extreme and it's old hat.
It's old hat. And I'm not sure if it wasn't a nineteen ninety
nine or two thousand, to be frank, it may have already passed.
But certainly, as we sit here now, like there's absolutely nothing you can
do to make our generations say you've gone too far, except you know,
you know, potentially offend our current political sensibility, which you know kind of
changes every five to six years. There are certainly third rails. I'm not
suggesting the third rails, but like that's different third parties. What you said,
I heard that, I heard a third party. I think it's time.
There was a time for Jesse the Body even tour to get back in
the race, but they won't let him on the debate stage. That's the
problem. You know what, I'll debate, you know what, I'll debate
via zoom. I don't care. I want him to do one of those
Robert F. Kennedy Junior simulcasts where he's debating them on a screen, but
he's like, not in the room. Yeah great, but I would love
if they had, if they had a whole a bunch of podiums, and
then on Jesse's they had like a screen. Yeah exactly. Well, he
can't cross the borderies Jesse the Body of in tour on you know, Live
from Mexico. I promised to come off the grid if I win. You
know, he sat home all pissed when Haulk did the RNC speech. Oh
you know, yes he did. One guy's stepping up again, trying to
take another thing out of my hat. I say it's time we put a
wrestler in the White House, brother, exactly somewhere into yup. A light
goes on in a darkened room, President Dude. So as he does this
be called by the way, President dude or President Brother. Well, Steve
Greando's game certainly was digging into that. He didn't just say that barrel for
sure. That was how he he got noticed on his promo sol though interestingly,
at first he got noticed by going around the indies before he c W
signed him as the King of Old School, mister anti hardcore. So his
gammick was, you know, just chewing and shit talking the weapons use in
extreme violence that the indie scene was becoming characterized as he wouldn't directly criticize.
She try to be ironic, I know, because by the time he got
TCW and and well we'll talk about it and hear from him on it and
shoot interviews that he's done when they realized how great he looked with color on
that blonde air, all of a sudden he was bleeding more than anybody else
in easy other while still playing the king of old school character and taking chair
of shots and all that shit. So that's what he c W does to
you, you know, like you can you can come in and be noticed
for the gam that speaks against it. We saw it with Mick Foley,
remember during the lapsed funk. That was his gimmick. Yep. Yeah,
the fans were so unforgiving and the fans have just you know, watched my
sacrifice and given and giving me nothing back, and so fuck you, I'm
just gonna do drop toe holds and all that. And that's the that's the
kind of the funny, you know, that's the funny thing about it.
Like that actually is in a way more interesting, And it's almost like that
gimmick got Steve Creano more heat backstage with ECW locker room than it did the
fans in the ECW buildings, who I'm not sure of course, were fully
cognizant that he was doing the smaller and he's doing this. What are you
doing? Man? What are you doing? That sounds like a shot at
me? Brother? You can see Taz, Oh my god, Oh yeah,
you can see you can see him. Just fucking uh. Tazz is
not on this show. He's already in WW, but he is. He
is part of the spirit of what's left over his departure Inarchy Rules In September
of nineteen ninety nine, as Danny Doring put it, who was someone who's
on this show and broken and the team Taz you know ECW Training School said
what when Taz and and the Dudley's but Taz mainly left. It was like
the father left the ECW locker room. And when dad leaves the ECW locker
room, there there is drugs, there are rats, there is fun,
right, yes, in the locker room. Yes with that that that really
deplorable woman there, elektra Oh, I kill she's getting it down. I
can, I can, I really don't want to. She was on the
Sopranos. You know, she was one of the one of the girls in
the strip club that Tony Soprancars. She was. I mean, listen,
any girl who lived in New Jersey was in there? Is that not?
I am thinking she did something else? Yeah? Did nothing else? All
right? Yeah, you damn right. So look look look fucking rock hard
tits like that. She's going to be in the Sopranos. Yeah, they've
been commoditut right. Those tits are for commercial use only, yeah, exactly.
You know you don't get those unless you have a business, unless you
have a ten ninety nine related to your tips, exactly, and tell you
that, you know what, and those tits are going straight to the home
box. That's among other boxes. So it's E C. Dub and you
know the thing you're talking about, you know what the offensive and sort of
like that show you saw where they were going way too like gratuitously into it.
And again, it's not because it offends us. It's because we've been
offended to the max. It's over well, it's only you know, it's
not even Matt, it's that it's that instead of actually, this is what
it is. I'm I'm, I'm I just it's just crystallizing your thesis here,
Yeah, in real time, it's not what really what it comes down
to is this does it serve the story? Does it serve the story?
Because listen, you can't have the Departed or or Good Goodfells without eighteen thousand
fucks in there. Yeah okay, so so, but does it serve this
wrestling story for Paul Haymen to come out and drop like five f bombs and
two sentences or scream at the Hall of Fame this year suck my fucking dick?
Yeah right, you know like it. But he said that. I
just like had a look on my face like yeah, like really when right?
Because you know what it does is it calls attention to itself and it
doesn't actually serve anything. It doesn't it doesn't move anything along. Well,
it's said in the absence of a direction, right, these things that Steve
Kreno is saying in this flashpoint moment at the beginning of the pay per view
where he calls out Sandman's wife, who's front row of course, Lourie Fullington,
a long time GCW on screen character, as well as their son Tyler,
who's there as well. It all it is is a promo that Steve's
cutting, Steve Creno's cutting to get around the fact that they're not going to
actually deliver Sandman versus Rhino in a match is advertised in the TV Title Tournament.
They're going to do an angle instead where Laurie gets speared through the table
by Rhino, and then it just sort of, you know, the tournament
moves on from there, and then Steve Kreno goes on to work with Dusty
Rhodes, which has nothing to do with the promo he caught on Lori or
any of the heat lines that he delivered to Sandman's wife. So yeah,
this is sort of like him saying it, I don't know, I don't
know. I wish there was more meat on the bone as far as what's
been said about this angle and why it happened. As you'll hear later in
the episode, we tried to get an answer from the Sandman, and that's
like try to get an answer from a I mean, I'll tell you what
the answer is worth a visual, all right, that's all he's CCW guys.
Man, they're still in the wild, you know, they're still out
there, and like wild know what you're gonna find. And we've done some
mining on this episode for you. Let me tell you we have done some
mining in the in the land and the mines of extreme But yeah, that's
that's pretty good example. I mean he's just saying these things, you know,
to kind of get a reaction and a rise out of these people for
a segment that really served to do nothing but perhaps distract from the fact that
they weren't going to deliver sanman Vers Rhino didn't you right? That's that's just
it, like it just yeah, and and and and it's more about look
what I can do. I'm gonna say, fuck, yeah, you know
what. I'm not looking forward to that coming back when WB gos to Netflix
in January. I don't talk about serendipity we're at the exact point now in
twenty twenty four visa the WWF rod jumping to a new network that that we
were in this time period of two thousand as they were wrapping up in USA.
What they're gonna do, you know what they're gonna do. They're gonna
have They're gonna have an adult version and a clean version probably you know,
they're probably gonna have them where they have all the swears kind of bleeped out
or whatever, and then they're gonna have one that's just that's tvm A.
Yeah, yeah, i'd imagine so. And I'm sure the wrestlers were chomping
at the bit to to finally be able to use the language of their favorite
HBO Prestige TV. You know, fuck this ship. And when Rock said
fucked like ten times in March before WrestleMania, was like, oh boy,
here we go. There's gonna be the new thing who says fuck yeah.
Look, look, you know, you know I mean, and you know
whose idea is going to be to uh to have two different versions of the
show. It's Dwayne's. Oh yeah, Dwayne's gonna call Dan's gonna Dwayne's gonna
call a power play with the board, and Triple Ith is gonna sit there
staring and just kind of arms folded, not saying a word, trying to
play it cool as mostly could, but you can't. But you can't help
but notice the brow on his head just fucking getting so tight, like the
like when the Grinch has an awful idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know, and it's like almost one of those old blade wounds is just
gonna fucking burst open, sort of bleeding from the crevices. Yeah right,
and uh and and he's just you know, face is gonna beat red.
He's gonna be sweating it great, So that was creative thinking. He's looking
for those like did he just say that lines? You know what? Another
one is that he deployed on Dusty around this time period. What he told
Dusty, I know, you cut Magnum's break line so he wouldn't be a
threat to you his top baby face. Oh my god, that's okay.
I'm okay. I was fascinated to the reaction. That was all right,
that was all right, well, because you know what, because again it's
towards dustus, it's towards Dusty. It has it has resonance. But like
but like saying, you know, you know Dusty's wife is a fat whore.
Okay, told my mom, big deal. Fuck let me tell you
you want to disarm somebody in a rat battle, call your old mom a
whrror before they do. There goes like thirty percent of the material right there.
Yeah, exactly, Well, speaking of your mom. We have sat
down, although I'm not sure it's dropped and Wrestle Mamia yet available to Moti's
only at Patreon. The nineteen ninety nine Living in English Lead TV title match
between Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn. Yes, yes, what was surprising
about that? And that hasn't dropped yet. No, when it does,
listen closely because I happened to sit in for that session and it was your
idea, that was your on it. That was your idea. That was
your idea. By the way, too, that was your your I I
I I said to remember W match me c W match and you that was
a that was whate you thought of. And I picked this one because I
was thinking, all right, what's a match that I think shows a side
of ec W that boss doesn't think about what he characterizes the company at the
time. I like that you did it about me too, That's what's funny.
Well, yeah, I was thinking, like what what can get a
reaction? It's not just the same. You know, the ECW sucks and
I still kind of thought you would shoot on it. But tell tell me
what you thought of that match. I think that was good thought. I
thought it was fine. It was, it was it certainly I had much
more of a of a story being told, and it was, if I
if I remember critically, it was a little it was it's a little flip
floppy for me. Oh yeah, but most of his offenses, you know.
But yeah, but I don't but I don't mind Van van Dams as
much because he doesn't usually do it. It doesn't come across as for the
sake of flip floppy. Yeah, Like I get the I get the vibe
that he that he is, that his moves have more impact when he does
something like that. But I don't think I hated it. I don't really
don't remember. Well, you were saying like, that's like kind of the
best DCW match i've seen. Yeah, you're right, yeah, all right,
that's sort of yeah, I would say that I definitely would agree with
that now, and so it definitely was a real It was a real match,
you know, it wasn't It wasn't eighteen thousand chairs getting fucking thrown in
the in the ring and for the sake of no reason, really, just
for the sake of having the power to do that. Yeah. I think
the difference is often, is it two guys in there who can work for
any company and are just doing ECW style spots to please that audience, or
is it a match between two guys who couldn't work anywhere but ECWS at that
point in time. Yeah. Yeah, witness Vic Grimes taking the ultimate plunge.
You know, witness a fucking idiot like like road kill, not a
fan, not a fan. Well, what's his face? What is it?
I mean, it's everything, It's a face. It's his gimmick,
Like I don't chickens what. I just never understood the thing about e c
W where I thought I always thought ECW was supposed to be this not only
the extreme, like to be what what wrestling fans wanted to see, And
I didn't want to see goofball gimmicks and I didn't want to see it in
an ironic way like he just felt stupid. Well, there was this right,
there were the mainline characters that pushed the promotion, and then there was
like the undercard like let's amuse myself kind of gimmicks for sure, but it's
not I mean, okay, fine, but I mean I just I wasn't
amused. I thought it was stupid. Yeah, yeah, that was That
was definitely a thumbs down. And they had different ideas for those two coming
in. I'm trying to remember what roadkills one. I know, Danny Doring.
At first they were thinking of as a porn star character and and you
can kind of see a little bit of that and the way he carries himself
at ECW. But by the time he got to television, they had already
unveiled Valvenus on WWF, so they kind of tacked away and just made him
someone that fucks ring. Well, they could have done it. They could
have done it and then just had it actually show him fucking have videos of
him having sex. I suppose that was an option. Yes, that's extreme
after all, Yeah, not quite as extreme as you know. Rob Black
would take the concept an actual porn producer be extreme when it has to do
with your extremities, that's true. Yeah, I don't deny that, although
I want to. Yeah, and so you know it goes. It goes
in the direction of I think a Scotty Anton who's on the show, the
former Scotty Riggs who carries Rob Van Dam of the ring. You remember that,
yes, I do. He Vandam had broke his foot, as we'll
talk about, his ankle early in two thousand, leading to this whole TV
title tournament because after the longest TV title reigned in ECW history, he kind
of look at legacy defining one. He had to relinquish it and that was
supposed to be heat and by the time the ankle healed up, he would
come back for a world title run a belt he had never won an ECW,
which would have been pretty pretty money. And you can kind of taste
the set up here on the show and the television around it. They ever
got to it, of course, but with Scotti Riggs, they had him
come in and do the American Mails clap, not because they thought the clap
was cool, because they thought the ECW audience would see it as something that's
like so obnoxious that he's doing this in front of us that we almost like
him for it. It's similar in that insider where you kind of play,
you know, for someone that's not a main event talent. It's just,
yeah, that seems weird. They're sort of like this, like this kind
of baseline understanding that the fans are going to get a lot more inside references
than I think the fans actually did, I mean get it. Here's the
thing, whether they get it or not. Do they want to? They
want to, and they're on the road so much more, and they're going
to brand new markets. You know, it's not like DCW Arena fans anymore.
And that was one thing Todd Gordon said about Paul Hayman in his book,
like, really Paul got really uncomfortable when they had to push beyond that
the greater Philly area in New York and Queens. Like sure, he didn't
really want to go to these new markets, but mostly because of the cost
involved. But also, you know, you're getting a crowd that's showing up.
Yeah, they might know ECW and that it's violent and hardcore, but
you can't count on them getting all those little fucking references, you know,
right, you can't count I have to. There's some stuff you can do
that continues the storyline or continues the way you're doing things, but you also
have to have other stuff that that sets it up for a new audience.
You know, you got to have stuff that's going to grab them, you
know, surprise me. To your point about sort of like, you know,
going as offensive as possible, that surprised me. So South Park,
right, you want to talk about something that defined the era that we're looking
at here this week, South Park, that's that's the limit tester. Sure.
And of course on Comedy Central, all the swears would be bleeped.
Yeah they'd still say them, but they'd be bleeded. But if you watch
it on demand now to your point about you know, mature non mature streaming
options, the focks are all over the place, the ships are all over
the place. And I hadn't realized this. I just happened to watch an
episode and I was like, this is actually less funny because how how the
swears aren't bleaped you know, That's the thing. Sometimes it really is like
sometimes the humor is in the fact that it's it is bleeped out, you
know, because you know that it's like they're breaking the fourth wall in away
and there and their share wearing something that was they said something so quotan,
you know, extreme, that we can't actually play it on on the air.
And if the network doesn't feel it needs to be bleeped, then why
should we feel it's riskue? Right, you know, it's interesting, but
all that is part of the soup that is discussing ECW here at tlf But
say thoop data here you saying thoop and I'm on the show. I need
to drink some thoop. Well, perhaps Dusty, you can enjoy a ladle
from the cauldron of the TLFX games. Ah, we've unveiled the brackets and
we've amended the brackets after your feedback. No no, no, no,
no, no no not there said no, that's what you thought. But
really there were issues there, There were some those issues. Those issues pre
existed, yes, well they did, but they actually came into play in
regards to you know, the the UH issues and the the gentlemen who are
participating in the thing. You know, again, I didn't make this clear.
I didn't really feel like it was my place. But the warrior,
the lapsed warrior was indeed, you know he was. He was injecting me
with growth hormone in order to do a better impression of him. But I
did I he get caught and I just, you know, I just had
too much pride and maybe I didn't have enough self respect to bring it up
and and and and and you know, admit it. And uh maybe I
was groomed, you know, maybe that was the case. Not making fun
of grooming, definitely not. Definitely not uh definitely not with some of the
hairdos on this show. Klondike, you know, Uh, I don't.
I don't know if this made mainstream news. But he, you know,
he created a h laps Klondike created this kind of maze, this glass maze
where anywhere he went in this may this like kind of glass tunnel, a
maze thing on the record or show that you just said, lapsed Klondike,
by the way, and now I'm hungry, go ahead, right, you
know, And and I guess so much, so many hookers had shipped on
it that he just couldn't get lost. So that happens. And then last
for a lapse Jr. He you know, he smoked a bowl and in
the tub of and was a tub of barbecue sauce. And he's still there.
Still he's still mar he's still marinating for all I know, And he
could go on for a couple more days, you know, and then they're
gonna put him the smoker. So I smunny, funny. Let me tell
you, it's kind of funny. Uh jr. Is the only kind of
meat that you smoke before you marinate. Oh my god. So if you
don't know what we're talking about, if you haven't seen our social posts,
this will be the summer of the TLFX games. Oh yes, we are
running a thirty two person tournament to determine or is it sixty four? Aren't
even a sixty four? I think? Who is the greatest lapsed character of
all time? Okay? Judged by you, the fans, and voted exclusively
on our x profile at the Lapsed Fans, And you can expect on his
feed in the days and weeks to come some promo battles from the participants in
each round matchup and hopefully that will serve and in the spirit of an election
year right here in the United States and really across the globe, the case
will be made. The campaign will be made for not only what your memories
here as we celebrate TLFX, tell you or the greatest lapsed characters of all
time? But what case can they make in the here and now for being
the best in the great yesty or in the true sense of pro wrestling?
How can they convince you the other guy isn't the guy as opposed to who
I am the guy? Right? Right, so true. We hope you've
we hope you've taken a good look at the brackets. We hope you've decided
your mental favorites. And we know some people are already asking can you gamble
on it? I have no idea. I have nothing to do with that.
Now wouldn't make me mad if it was an option, not that we
would partake. We hereby pledge not to partake as people that are sort of
in the diver seat. But we don't decide. We decide the brackets in
terms of who was matched against two, but we're not going to decide who
wins each round here. We are really in you're It's going to be transparent
for all to see on X everyone could vote for each matchup and who will
be standing at the end is the greatest lapsed character of all time. It's
it really is interesting. I I you know, I don't want to say
my my personal opinion just yet. I want to see kind of how the
first the first brackets go along. But I mean I definitely did play it
out in my head and it was hard. I mean, I texted you,
I told you it was kind of hard in in in because it's not
like you know, I know, I saw people like commenting on stuff that
like, you know, laps Nash is going to book himself to win.
It's kind of like, well is he? Though, Like, because you've
got to compare some characters to kind of you know, what is what's what
are their strengths. It's not the person, it's the character. You know,
how do you put how do you match up a you know, potentially
you know, a lapsed Nash versus Pat Patterson fascinating? You know, it's
a fascinating you know, and it's a possibility for the woman, for the
for the end game. You know, it's a possibility right now. Who
knows. It's very interesting and also you know, I mean how people are
voting, you know, are they voting in terms of the impact that they've
had on the show. Are they voting on the closeness to the actual person,
are they voting on who knows? It's a very I am very,
very intrigued. This is one of those This is a weird masturbatory engagement that
I'm I'm oddly intrigued in. And a big hat tip to the homie rusts
out there in the Solar System who came to us with the proposal. It's
like, let's do this. It's not like we just sat around and thought
about it. He came to us with it months ago now, and we
were like, yeah, let's really take our time with this thing. Let's
really yeah, you know, make sure everyone is sort of dialed in and
that people have time to think about it and actually take their selection seriously.
It's part of you know, the special ten year celebration content we've been trying
to give you an addition to you know, dropping entrants and inductees, we
should say in the Lapsed Fan Hall of Fame. Here in the main feed,
you've been hearing a lot of callbacks to some great moments, as decided
by some of the most serious members of the Solar System. You've been hearing
TLFX testimonials as listeners YEP talk about why the show has meant something to them
and perhaps taken all together, why we've been around for ten years. Yeah,
we definitely want to thank the folks who've recently sent in testimonials. Kind
of a fresh round starting to happen in the inbox, and if you have
an audio recollection that you'd like to share, please do send it to us.
That mailbox is still wide open for the remainder of twenty twenty four the
lapsed fan at gmail dot com and we'll put the best ones up there for
everybody to hear. It's a celebration and so the TLFX Games is going to
be fascinating. We're really proud to announce that our friends Assage Beer Oh yeah,
go first, you go first, are here and want in. They're
proud presenters of the TLFX Games tournament. They heard about it, they saw
the social activity, they said we need to be a part of this,
and we said, you're goddamn right, you do, yes, And so
we're proud to have a presenting sponsor as well as we as we have the
only summer tournament that matters, the real main event in pro wrestling of the
summer. I wanted to say that there was some interesting I noticed some interesting
kind of comments on on the very you know, main event like opening matches,
and I think that's great. That's how tournament should be. I think
I think it's great because yeah, I think what it does is it eliminates
people's expectations right from the get go. You know, like putting putting Patterson
and Vents together in a match that's huge and savage and savage. Absolutely what
would people shortlist of the eight survivors be, just put them put against each
other? So the tournament isn't just like we'll just sit around and wait for
right exactly. So now there's you know, I mean, it's it's it's
it's very you have to really think about it to really think what it you
know what it is. Uh, And I I kind of played it out.
I came down to a to a to a final, to a final
pairing and uh, I don't know, We'll see, we'll see what goes
along. And I'm all about this on the fly. But one thing I
would encourage folks to do is they make their decisions is not only to cast
their vote of course on X, but also send us an email to the
LAPS fan at gmail dot com explaining the rationale behind why they chose one together.
I'd love to hear, yes, what it was that people decided on
that would be so TLFX you know, Oh, one time Hogan said this,
One time Nash or Fritz or only said this. I'd love to know
what resonated? What will comes straight to mind when you were presented with this
matchup, this this binary choice of one or the other? What makes the
difference? And we'll yeah, well, if the missives are good enough,
we'll share them too on the main feed as we go through the TLFX games.
But it's going to be a really fun summer feature. I think,
something that the time is now for. We're going at it so hard that
it's like this is just a one and done, you know, because like
there's we're not half asking anything. Well, you mentioned the three characters that
fell off the bracket, but that's to say nothing of who joined the bracket.
I mean the first thing, people have lap editor right right right,
People said we want laps editor and more like you know, because when I
thought about it at first, it was like who when we say lapsed characters,
I thought of pro wrestlers or people involved in the wrestling business. No,
it's all it's all the voices. I mean, yeah, especially that,
but that's the only one that's like truly not as I think. I
also think the Boston copp family too, they could have had a Yeah,
maybe it'll be like a what do they call those know, it wouldn't be
you don't have the tournament the uh the compensation round, if forget the term
for it. Yeah, but that's that's more for the consolation round, the
consolation bracket. That's more for people who were in it but you know,
didn't do well aspposed to people who weren't in it at all. Maybe we
can have an off to the side sort of the you know, yeah one
be kind of tournament for some of your favorite I mean, honestly, I
was when I know, I know, listen, it's a it's a crazy
thing to even consider, but I was actually kind of surprised that it was
only thirty two. Yeah, you know, we could have easily had a
sixty four person See, I don't think. I don't think easy because I
game that out and I started running out of names around like forty somethings.
But you know, there there there are there are moments and names that there
are kind of one off things like I mean, look, you know what
there are there are a number of of cittemaut only characters that have certainly made
their presence known. Laps George Lucas know where we found you. We put
on their chief Brunch nowhere. I mean, are we sitting here right now
calling for a UTC tournament expansion? I mean, hey, I don't know.
I don't know if that enough have been created, but I think they
could have been included. Certainly bracket, you know, and just do a
sixty man bracket. Let's do it. I don't know, I gotta think
about it. I guess there was a There was Lapstron Howard too, right,
we had Lapstron Howard Chief Brunch was there? Chief Brunch? There we
go absolutely, I mean, come on, Peterene could have a Sean Connery.
Sean Connery, h I mean, I mean, I'm gonna say that
who would win right away? Roger Moore would win right away. I wouldn't
be so sure. You can do a hell of you could do a hell
of a day. But our cat I don't know if that was on ready
to rumb it or not. We ain't even do one. I didn't even
doing that was just off the off the cuff. There I mean, I'm
just saying, you know what I mean, Yeah, that's possibilities are endless.
Possibly he is a endless So we're excited to bring this to you,
and we are confident, especially with that round of feedback, that the must
the must includes are in there, you know, laps editor, I wouldn't
say it was it oversaid. It was more like a different category of character,
and it was like, Okay, people want it, let's do it.
He's in. Yep, Colonel Rob Parker, he should Yeah, he
should be in. Yeah, I totally agree. So Helen Hart, and
that person's in approph for you of the business, you know, sort of
like she was never a wrestler or even I guess you could say wrestling personality,
but she's the only female in the bracket too, and that's going to
be interesting. It's crazy. So we do want your enthusiastic participation. If
the response we've seen in social media to thus far as any indication, that's
almost a guarantee the TLFX games taking place. Hey right, fuck Paris,
Yeah, yeah right, these are the games that matter in the summer of
two thousand and twenty four. So excited for your participation. They're excited to
get your patronage over a Pro Wrestling Teas dot Com slash the lapsed fan where
we continue unloading shwag. Maybe we should do a TLFX game shirt. I
think it might be appropriate to celebrate the occasion. Oh for sure, we
definitely need something like that. Our friends at Chopped Tea. You know what,
you know what we'll do, you know what? You know what is
what we can do. We can do a bracket games TLF games on the
front and then put the bracket on the back. Aha, and then we
can do the semifinal bracket shirt where we fill in the people of advance,
collect them all bitch all right? Right that now, I've never forgot that.
Always getting assignments over there are a graphic designer. Our friends at chop
Teas always bringing that exclusive non T shirt merchants, insane track jackets and Fanny
pass and Zubaz pants and mother fucker the boy Dicky has really taking that merch
game to another level, which it's high time ten years in, wouldn't you
say? Absolutely? I mean there are some there are some outfits that just
didn't you know, didn't get the uh, don't get the love, you
know, from from other places, which you know, makes total sense.
But I'm happy that they're finally getting they're getting the they're getting me attention.
Can't see. I can't wait to say that here out in the wild,
like I said, Oh I stat back lapstat or a fucking like hoodie or
a track jacket. I mean, god, I can't wait. I know
some great members of the Soloists have already bought their ship, but you want
to check us out. Also on chop teas we're on Cameo. If if,
if this is a season to deliver a gift to the lapsed fan in
your life, that's certainly the way to do it. Or if you just
want to have some fun and some lap, you know, activate some lapsed
cannon. A lot of our characters have come to life on Cameo. A
lot of the lapsed editor backstory happened on Cameo, did it not? Mm
hmmm, oh god, yes, we found out. We found it exactly
where. Uh uh, we found out where where he kind of got his
hatred. I hope you don't mind me bringing up Cameo. Boss. Are
you still swimming in backlog? No, we're good, We're We're up to
date. Now I've I've been able to kind of get back on back on
track with that. I've had quite a few, uh kind of some funny
ones actually that I thought was really hilarious. Uh uh, I guess someone,
I mean, it's is it a let me see? Oh no,
never mind, I don't want to say it's a private one. I'm not
going to say what it is. So I'm glad I checked them. Brother,
brother, so sorry, sorry, you don't get to know what that
one was. But I guess I could say someone someone worked for a company
and they wanted they wanted laps events to make a make a pass at them,
to bring them over to another to w w E, which I thought
was funny, so great, some of the sickest ship you've ever heard.
Oh yeah, let me see here, this one we have this someone wanted
someone wanted to labs snashed was an mappy birthday and then and then uh,
play a weird running joke with them. It's kind of hilarious. Yet you
want a lapse character to say something that only your best friend will think is
funny, which we thought the whole problem in the first place, and turned
out to write the secret to the whole podcast. Right, that's the you
know, that's where the that's where it all matters that you know. No,
it's been good, been good, getting it, getting back on,
getting back on track, very good. So cameo dot com, Slash the
lapsed fan for the lapsed fan in your life, and of course Patreon rock
and all summer long. We've got a live call of the biggest party of
the summer, w W Summer Slam coming up soon. An interesting blow by
blow for those who realize that we watch modern ww yeah under the cinematic exploding,
I mean, Bond Journey unbelievable, Oh something going on? What's going
on? Tell me about that Bond? What does tell them about journey?
What are they missing? Let me tell you. So we're right now,
we are at the very we're close to the end of the of the Roger
Moore era in our Bond journey. And he he himself, legit, Roger
Moore not even laps Roger Moore. Legit. Roger Moore has turned out to
be a real fucking gem. Like, who knew that Roger Moore was such
a fucking my, My level of respect for Roger Moore as just quadrupled.
We think we know workers in wrestling. This guy's a fucking worker. This
is a worker. Yeah yeah, this guy. You can't. This guy
will always, this guy has you can't. You can't one up. Roger
Moore, all right, he's gonna fucking have you all tangled up before you
know it. He's a beast. We did, we did the uh James
Bond and the Eight Pussies. Uh this week Octopussy, Yes, you know,
kind of a nice little surprise, and got to learn a lot about
Hercules the Bear, our wrestling connection. Hercules the wrestling Bear. What a
story, huh oh amazing trained by Scottish grappler Andy Robin. Andy Robin,
yep, who I also learned a lot about. But what a great story
about where these wrestling bears came from? Yeah, yep. And how this
one right? They actually did it. You know, it's a it's a
commitment, it's a sacrifice, but they did it right, and they created
a one of one of a kind attraction who you know, could actually get
in and work a match. It's a riot. It's an absolute riot what
they were able to do with with with Herky the Bear, say sheated a
curiosity I've long had about how they trained these beers to work and not turn
our trainers in the ring, and yeah, or turn on a wrestler in
the ring. And it's it's just so great because the bear makes the briefest
of cameos and octopussy, but that's all the only thing we need under the
cinema. As you know by now absolutely, I mean, hey, you
know, I mean, I I'll I'll come out and say it right now.
We're we're going back in time a little bit on the next on the
on the next episode, we're taking a break from Roger Moore because looming,
as as has been alluded to for the past several weeks, is this upcoming
Rogue Bond film that was that is a remake of Thunderball, And it just
came to my attention that there is a reason Thunderball qualifies front of the cinemat.
Did the Solar system step up and pointed out? The Solar System stepped
up, pointed it out, and it's that's the virgual circle we always talk
about. Folks. Yep, we're in this together. Whether you realize it
or not. It's laps there indipity because it's honestly, yeah, it would
have been great to have it in terms of the actual timeline, but there's
no there's no better time to go and do Thunderball than right before we do
never seen ever again. So it's very exciting. Wow. So I was
a lot listen called on the fly that was that was a that was a
complete uh uh you know, uh, organic thing. So I'm very excited.
It's evolving in real time. Yep, totally, that's what's happening here.
And it's available to the Executive Producer tier and above of course the Mote
tier as well. Over at patreon dot com, Slash the Lapse Fan Wrestle
Mamia still rolling out every Monday, get back in the living room and carpet
with your mom watching wrestling with you in the same room. Whether that's good
or bad, there's no doesn't matter, no substitute for that. But we'll
come damn close for your Entreon dollar. It's great. It's great. I
can say you know, uh, it's it's funny, you know, because
I can talk about you know, it's it's recorded so far ahead just for
the sake of having stuff in the can brother, uh, so that we're
not you know, there's never a week without it. You know. That's
always been my goals. Just keep doing it so that there's no you get
it so far ahead that you don't have to worry, you have a strong
buffer. And uh yeah, coming up. They just they just what what
just came out? When this drops? What just came out was Hogan versus
Flair at Clash of the Champions twenty eight I think it was nw O Hogan
versus Flair. Wow, I remember that clash. I think that's the final
clash. Ever, there's one more after that, brother, I think,
or one or two more after that. Yeah, and then oh God,
upcoming for for folks this coming Monday on that fucking mote tier Kurt Angle versus
Shane McMahon, King of the Ring two thousand and one. What would your
mom say about that match? Ask yourself that and then tune in all that
goodness happening at patreon dot com, sash Man. It's the way podcasts justify
their existence, and over ten years, we've certainly done just that thanks to
your generous support and votes of confidence. Long may it continue, and long
wait, maybe shamelessly give credit to those who pay over and above those who
just sit there and bitch and don't spend a dollar and expect us to cater
to them or to even really give a shit about what they say. Yeah,
we continue serving those who serve us, and it's a wonderful It's a
wonderful thing. So it's ECW. It's living dangerously. Can you acquaint me
or orient me boss around the living dangerously? I know there's a movie The
Year of Living Dangerously. What does living dangerously mean to you? Separated from
wrestling? I've always wondered about that. If you don't know the movie,
then it's kind of a nonstar. I mean, I know I do not
I've never seen the movie that I'm familiar with the movie and the and the
story. But I uh, in terms of actually living dangerously, I guess
living living each day to the brink of death that that that would actually add
up quite a bit. Yes, yeah, oh my god, it's it's
one of the oldest ECW kind of I mean, I guess living dangerously could
also be living with Paul Hammond. Well, of course, pouly dangerously is
another thing I think of. But living dangerously that's the one, The Year
of Living Nature, that's the one where the the woman right, the woman
won an Oscar for playing a man. I see, yeah, yeah,
that's right, that's right. I'm not sure that that that's part of what
they thought of when they start, when they came back of Sigourney Weaver,
maybe were Linda Hunt. Now Linda Hunt. Linda Hunt is the one who
plays Billy Kwan and she won an Oscar for for playing a man. Yep,
and uh, it's based on a novel, so the so the the
idea of Living Dangerously has some heritage to it, but it's been long one
of ECW's. It long was one of VCW signature shows, even before the
pay per view days when they would name the arena shows Living Dangerously it was
always a big one. And as we talked about ninety nine being dangerously highlighted
by Rob van Dam and the throes of his great TV title reign with his
best ECW opponent, most would say, in Jerry Lynn, here are much
different ECW. A lot of talent is left, a lot of things that
were going to be the next you know, growth vector for ECW came up
lame, and as many talked about, by this point you started to see
up Paul Hayman lean in a talent that more was like budget conscious than anything
else. Paul's gift always was to have some other star ready to go as
soon as somebody bolted for WWF ANDWCW, which you always had to consider inevitable.
Though certainly Hayman around nineteen ninety nine started finding the pressure to be too
significant, and he was offering huge guaranteed contracts, not a huge, but
huge relative to what you were accustomed to making in the early days of ECW,
and so we had to compete. You know, you can't just go
on pay per view and make these stars and just lose them instantaneously like he
was able to do. But suddenly it seemed like the stars he had on
the bench were kind of like, I don't know, further further back than
usual in terms of the fans perceiving them as ready for that spot. When
the time came, a rhino kind of came out of nowhere and was rocketed
to the top. Steve Carino, relative to the gestational phase, let's say,
of other ECW headliners, was kind of fresh out of the gates.
He just really came into the company and I believe ninety nine, maybe it
was ninety eight, but didn't have much of a profile until suddenly they pushed
him strongly, and they talk about how they felt their pushes came out of
nowhere too. They're grateful for them, but it happened kind of before they
were ready. When suddenly someone pokes him on the shoulder and says, you're
working with the dream and not Tommy Dreamer. By the way, the roads
brother, that's true, that dreaming driven hard. And as I mentioned,
Hayman's trying to keep talent under under his thumb because now he's signing actual contracts
that he's delivering these kinds of guarantees, and he's got a lawyer and he's
ready to at the very least try to get a try to get a settlement
out of one of the Big two, to get some cash flow going,
you know, dangle this contract. We talked about this a bit in the
Lapsed Funk Journey. One of you know, as much respect and admiration and
love the Terry Funk had for Paul Hayman, the one thing he really held
against him till the end was that he stopped Saboo from getting a Big two
contract because he was signed to the deal that was in two thousand. In
that short period of time WOW in early two thousand, where Kevin Sullivan took
the book over from Vince Russo, and Kevin Sullivan played a good part in
bringing in Sabou to WCW for that very short lived run in nineteen ninety five
as well saw to it, you know as Funk came in as well as
as we talked about and lapsed Funk. Terry comes in at the beginning of
two thousand as well to WCW, and Sabo was supposed to follow close behind,
but Paul Hayman said, no, you've got a contract, you can't
go. And it's like, okay, we're really going to do this,
like you a voided the contract because I was owed this for merchandise. Okay,
we'll take me to court and you know how that goes. So what
he brought when Saboo sort of came back after the the failed attempt to go
to w CW, Paul proposed that Saboo job to Super Crazy, and we
see Super Crazy become ECW Television Champion in the tournament final in the main event,
Yes of Living Dangerously, So clearly there were big plans for Super Crazy
and he would go on to a WW career as well, not hardly any
English but somebody that just had great flying skills and had kind of a unique
charisma for a lucha door. He wasn't masked, He wasn't somebody that only
had charisma or the Ruskin fan base. He just I don't know something about
him. I think his example, what I'm talking about somebody that they wouldn't
have pushed to this level a year ago when they had, you know,
kind of higher profile talent under their thumb. Somebody that would have certainly been
thriving in ECW, but not someone that closes a pay per view hoisting the
title. Yeah right, you know the expectation the fans are going to behind.
At this point, he had a wonderful series of matches with Tajury did
Super Crazy that kind of introduced him and oriented him to the ECW fan base,
and we do see to Jury making appearance on the show as well,
but that was about the extent of it. Before suddenly he was he was
chasing the TV title and in the idea of being you know, if you
beat Saboo, that's even a bigger deal. Sabo was not having any of
that, So that's kind of a symptomatic of the period of time we're talking
about here in March of two thousand for Extreme Championship Wrestling, the newcomers.
He's building upper guys like kid Cash, Doring, and Roadkill. Briefly Amy
Dumas, who go was on to be lead. Oh oh yeah, she
started her first American gig. Really was his miscongeniality as the valet, Adoring
and Roadkill. I don't know if you knew that. I did not know
that she played. She's supposed to be like a ring rat, basically,
like a ditsy kind of spacey ring rat, and she would like hang on
Dooring, and the idea was just that Dooring fucked rats, and she was
like the best rat or the chief rat. And when she bolted for WWF,
that kind of left that gammick in the cold. And then you see
Electra sort of an attempt to fill that in just not great Simon Diamond to
talented Definite. It's someone that they're pushing really hard where they wouldn't have before.
I don't think you know, friends of Steve krenocw Anderson, Now,
these guys are talented workers, but it just, yeah, it does seem
like they're just really there's some desperation going on. Yeah, yeah, sort
of like family and friends discount. You know, it's like, where do
these guys come from? Oh, they're tied to this guy. And maybe
I was always the case in ease W. I just felt like at this
time, and maybe it's because it was so well known the financial difficulties they
were running into. When some guys were going public with their frustrations about not
getting paid on time, particularly after they left ECW to go to w w
F and WCW and try to explain themselves, you know, right, that's
the big U sold out crowd ECW. Right, it's like, well,
I'm not getting paid, what would you do seventy five dollars a night?
Pay days you hear about back then, It's like that's you know, that's
really that's really Hayman is really not able to dangle big carrots. Besides,
like you could be a star. Yep. Yeah, at this point in
time, he's still getting his speeches and his raw wrong you know, cult
of personality thing, but it's not I don't feel if it's quite working the
way it used to work. And I mean, yeah, when when you're
kind of like when you're kind of fizzling, it can't help. But question
is like, wait a minute, is he just full shit? Or is
he actually you know, is he actually believe in this shit? Oh?
It's that's the genius of Paul Hayman, as you can make both cases,
you know, and still somehow be any closer to the truth. Sab Wou
put it this way in his book. Towards the end, ECW had lost
a number of guys and new people were taking their spots. The locker room
kept changing, which was bad for continuity. At one point, a new
guy, Steve Carino, came up to me and said, I know you
don't like me, but I'm hoping to change that. Wait, who the
fuck even are you? I replied. So those of the guys are starting
to come in, people that like think people even know who they are,
and then they don't. Tracy Smothers or of course veteran of the game Seen
it All was in ECW the Full Blooded Italians gimmic. Hilariously, he gets
released at this point in time where leaves and and he's out there saying that
this is the writing's on the wall here. They're bringing in talent that's cheap
first and foremost. That seems to be the primary consideration all of a sudden
these days. As Danny Doring talked about in a Great r of video shoot,
I want to take this time here to announce that Danny Doring least likely
candidate. I did not know this was coming. I had not watched the
shoot until preparing for this episode. I mean, this guy is like Bob
Holly lovel shit talker. Really, Danny Doring is the guy you want when
you want to be sure that if there's dirt on somebody, it's going to
be it's gonna be said. Yeah, and he has his allies. But
he shits on Hayman. He shits on so many people, and it's tremendous.
It's a guy who, you know, he didn't make it enough to
have to worry about who he's going to offend by what he says. He's
more interested in making sure that when he says something people hear it, and
then it it's a dart to the heart of motherfuckers who didn't do him right
in his eyes, you know, so far it sounds good to me.
Paul Roma is another example. These these are our people here at TL Left
Yes, these are the people that make wrestling fun to follow in your adulthood.
The people that just just didn't quite make it but saw the top guys
in operation and are and are here to report back. They're here to report
back. Yeah, and they're here to tell you that that this guy's a
fucking asshole, this guy's a piece of shit, this guy fucked me over.
Guy. I mean, all I care about are people who remember all
the guy did to me was like roll his eyes once, and they bring
that up to this day. Grudge holders, Yes, grudge holders that we
could rename the podcast that, Yes, fucking tremendous. So I want grudge
Holders highly recommend his or if it a shooting interview, because it really orients
you well with this time period in e c W, because you know,
Danny Doring was a talented guy, but I think he's also kind of symptomatic
of that kind of lessening of the bar at ECW in terms of totally you
know, he's pushed really before you would expect him to be that. There
isn't that acquaintance period with him, like like like you know, Paul was
so good at bringing guys along that way to you really felt compelled to cheer
for them and saw them as like people who were rising above their their lot
in life. You know. But Dorring says in the shooting interview, when
Taz left, it was like the fucking dad left the house. Bubb and
Devon were gone, Taz. It was like the locker room police guys.
After that, man, it was a fucking zoo. I mean, you
know, the place was a fucking zoo. There were hookers back there,
strippers doing blow all sorts of shit going on backstage. I mean there was
fucking just rats galore. It was like a fucking backstage rock concert. It
was great and certain there we go. Sounds good to me. I mean,
just come from the lying everywhere. It's like it's like fucking a battle
zone. And look these women, bless their hearts, they're all not very
attractive either. That's the thing I have to I know, I know,
and even says that he shoots like, you know, I'm not saying these
were like knockout women either, like to beautiful women. Yeah, like you
knows, as they're they're there to serve a purpose, and they're coming to
the show because there at a certain point in their lives, right I mean,
they're coming to show the intention of fucking wrestlers because they find themselves at
a certain and listen, they're they're also listen. There's an empowering thing because
they know that they can do this, and there's the closest they're going to
get to be able to fuck a celebrity. Yeah, right, is an
e c W wrestler finishing on their stomach. Let let that sick. Let's
sink in for a moment, very much. Fucking uh uh? What the
Fuck's his name is? Sally Graziano? There he goes Sally Gratziano. Just
imagine, just imagine having to fucking straddle that motherfucker, all right, because
I adn't even know why you're gonna let him get on top of you fucking
die? Can you imagine? Can you imagine just like mounting, you know,
and mounting him, having to ride business? Yeah? Now, let
me let me ask you. Can you imagine the food bill? Oh?
This guy the takeout? I mean, he takes businesses out. He doesn't
just order take it, He takes them out. He takes them out exactly,
are you kidding? I mean, aw just demolishes businesses. Restaurants are
like is actually the biggest regret, Like they they have to close up because
this guy just totally destroyed everything they had built, built, built for you,
built up for themselves. You ever be on like DoorDash, you're scrolling
and suddenly you see like a four hundred dollars thing, Like what is this?
It's like a family, you know, it's like a party. That's
what he'd order. That's a snack for him, just an animal. I
can't imagine what it took to keep him fed. I mean, bless a
sense of sure, just have I mean, God, please bless his heart.
God knows what's going on with that ticker, all right, Like just
a people would have said the same thing about ECW if it was a publicly
traded company two back then. So to the point, like Taz leaves,
we need a bully wrestler, tough guy, demolisher, Rhino. You know,
it's like Rhino's brought in for that Taz spot, that unbeatable task spot,
and they push him that way and he starts killing everybody. Hayman's like
it's almost like Hayman is so desperate to plug holes that like he starts seeing
things in talent that that's kind of forced, you know what I mean,
just forced to do a little bit. It's not it's not these guys don't
deserve it, but it's forced a little bit more than I think the ECW
fan was accustomed to. That's my thesis. I could be wrong about this,
but that's how I remember feeling. Yep, when this time period of
VCW started to set in, post really post Taz leaving more than anything else,
and they brought in Steve Carino. Well, they didn't bring him in
expressly for this. He came in before they decided this would be a good
role for him. But one of the first sort of roles of prominence they
gave Steve Krino was the mouthpiece for Rhino because Rhino wasn't a great talker,
or wasn't perceived to be a great talker, and didn't really have a gimmick
where he should talk a whole lot. I mean, Tas hardly talked at
all when he was building his legend in ECW. He would eventually you know
do he was a very silent wrestler, Okay relative to other guys. Yeah,
And so Karna was supposed to be doing the big promos for this guy,
and he was a great talker, so they brought him in. But
that would be a problem because the locker room, according to Krino, started
to perceive him as a manager and not a worker. First. Of course,
one of the big problems Corrino points to in his r A video shoot
interviewer on one of them. I think this one was from twenty oh one,
shortly after ECW folded. Was it Lance Storm once made a remark that
he's a manager in tights. That would really pissed him off. It was
land Storm talking shit. Oh yeah, Well, Lance is a guy who,
like you know, he doesn't think he's a shit talker because he's smarter
than the rest of the locker room. He thinks he's he thinks it doesn't
count as talking shit because if you confront him, he'll make an edge,
he'll make an intellectual case for it. It's like, now that you're still
a shit talker, dude, you're still talking shit, which is great.
I mean, I love that about Landstorm. That's he judges people. Of
course, he still has a podcast Brian Alvarez and judges people all the time.
Of course it's usually pretty fun to listen to, but that's kind of
the those are sort of the frictions that are starting to get introduced as this
sort of generation generational line gets crossed in ECW, as guys get lured away.
Sandman himself got lured away. We've gotten a taste, haven't we,
Boss of Hardcore Hack in WCW. Oh, yes we have. It wasn't
that money in the bank. No, I don't think he was on that
show. Yeah, and he came back shortly after ECWA, back on TNN.
One of the great moments in ECW, and some may say the greatest
sad Man moment, was when he returned to the arena after going to WCW.
That's one of thing about ECW fans. They screened you sold out when
you left, but that just meant there were ten times more excited when you
came back. Even when Task came back just briefly, when he was still
under WWF contract. We'll get to this in more detail later, but do
you remember this WWF it signed him. He debuted January two thousand, Royal
Rumble, but then he it was back DCW to win the title. And
I feel like I feel like we I feel like we did a show.
We did that show. Yeah, we definitely have talked about this whole thing.
We'll talk about it all again. But I felt like we actually did
it. Uh well, we didn't do that show because that the show where
he comes back to ECW and beats Mike Austin was not televised. It was
a house show. Oh okay, okay, and then they get back to
the arena and he loses a Tommy Dreamer And we've never done an ECW arena
show before. I thought we saw him on a show after he had gone
to WCW auctionall on pay per view to ww F you mean, yeah,
I'm almost certain we did talk about it. You know what it probably was.
It was probably Guilty Charged in nineteen ninety Anarchy Rules nineteen ninety nine,
which is the show where he loses the title and a triple threat to Mike
Austain and Masato Tanaka and then walks off for the final time and they show
oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's what thank you to remember that.
So we probably yeah, we went on to follow up like what it
was, sort of like in a PostScript fashion. It wasn't a show of
him winning the title. It was sort of like it, Yeah, we
did it. We did do anarchy rules. Yeah, that's that's almost definitely
what it was. So so Folks says, let's of that episode. Might
hear refrains here and echoes here, But the reason it comes all back is
because this is Mike Ausom's final pay per view appearance as ECW World Champion,
and what happens from there is is very telling us. To me, we
have talked. I guess we did. We did a heat wave two thousand
as well. Oh, maybe it came up then, sure, six years
ago, I forgot six years ago. Six years ago we did that show.
That's when Van Dam had come back. I think he'd recovered. Now,
no, he returned into guilty charge against Jerry Lan. Yeah. You
know what, I don't care that they're we're in that fortunate position. You
don't have to worry about whether you care. It's it's it's just it's just
absolutely I mean, it's insulting. Do you know who's also putting money in
at this time to ECW acclaim. Oh yeah, there's there's an acclaim.
All right. There's a moment on the show where they show, you know,
footage of the game of Joey Styles, the character in the game Wrestling
don Kallis Cyrus the virus, and and they talked about the graphics being so
realistic, and I mean, you know, they probably you know, I
don't. I don't know actually if they if they would be even then,
I mean, I know the the engine was certainly the Attitude and war Zone
games from w w F, right from w w you know, it definitely
was that same game engine. But I I don't know if I ever thought
they looked that realistic. No, you know, well Blockie and Ship,
Yeah, I was not a fan then and uh yeah, but to me
that that exemplifies E c W right there. And again, why would it
trying to be out there looking for wrestling game licensee after having those w w
F games, WWF had jumped to where they jumped that year. I think
they just take had or No the year before ninety nine t K T K
O and uh uh ux was it UX and t HQ What I say,
I am losing my mind. No, that's that's not how I want to
make the HQ. Yes, but but Wrestling in two thousand was the first
w F game on t HQ. Right, Yes, and that came out
in ninety nine. Okay, ninety nine got it and then no Mercy,
of course, no mercy, and then they took that away from the w
which is an an underplayed aspect of the w CWWW four. I know,
I know, I agree, and you know they were supposed to be another
one, you know, like that. I didn't know that there was supposed
to be I don't have really heart to fold in that possibility. I believe
it was called WWF backlash. I believe that it was uh, and it
was going to be yeah, they're going to add yeah, yeah, non
existent unfinished N sixty four follow up too, and there was going to be
uh. I think they were going to have Helen to sell or something like
that. They're want to add Helen to sell to the to the game.
But because GameCube they were come up with game Cube, they they they nixed
it. That could have been it and tiked two K got it right.
No, No, TSQ still TSQ held it for up until the two K
got it in twenty fourteen, twenty thirteen they had in twenty thirteen they took
up the It was THHQ and US that had it for I could be wrong.
They had the whole smack down and SmackDown versus Raw games and then the
WAT number games. It could be wrong, but it doesn't matter. The
two take t they TK two K, my on two K took it over,
but W two K fourteen was the one where they took it over.
Got it? And what did you think about the uh the CW game?
You never played it? Oh? Fuck that? No, I didn't even
you know what, honestly, if you played, if you played Arizona,
is the same exact thing, all right, I bet you'd ten dollars.
I didn't even fucking know that existed. But those guys were kind of,
you know, looking for a new player in the wrestling space who's a huge
part of their revenue of course, or a huge significant you know, you
can't just leave the wrestling category on the table because WWF leaves you high and
dry. So they ended up putting so much money in ECW as kind of
like a co promotional deal that they ended up taking, according to Scott Williams
Great book on the History of VCW, a fifteen percent stake in the company.
A lot of this became known because when ECW filed for bankruptcy in two
thousand and one, a lot of the court papers indicated who was owed money.
That's something you have to do in bankruptcy court, of course, at
a claim like own so much, and the documentation indicating and they actually,
you know, owned a part of ECW. I don't think it was necessarily
known at the time how much money a claim is putting in. But when
you hear Joey Styles on this broadcast make this constant reference to the video game
really sort of shilling it, I mean, it starts to make sense.
I mean, they're they're financing the operation as our other sources, as we'll
talk about. But according to the Scott Williams book, a claim put its
Moneyworreds Hopes were wiring ECW three hundred thousand dollars between May and August of nineteen
ninety nine, before the two companies even finalized their deal, and under the
agreement, Acclaim would pay for its fifteen percent of ECW with a series of
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars payments until east W had received one point five
million dollars Jesus one point five million dollars put into ECW by a claim during
this time period as part of the Oh my God, did they know what
they were getting into. No. I think they felt like that to keep
ECW live so their video game would actually sell copies. You know, they
probably had some math somewhere where they're like, you know, if ECW goes
out of business, it's worse than if we don't, you know, like
we'll sell enough games to justify this money we're pumping W based on wwif games
we sold, That's what I imagine would be their psychology. They'd be wrong
about that. I don't know if the game was a failure necessarily, but
it's not going to be good if there's no TV show to push this game.
And then, according to Scott Williams, acclaim poured another three hundred and
fifty grand into ECW and January and February already of two thousand Boss right before
Living Dangerously because, as Scott Williams wrote, Hayman had no other way of
even covering his payroll for the talent when he was trying to build up the
upcoming EACW One Night's Stand. In June twenty oh five, we find out
from the bankruptcy filings Vince McMahon himself Boss Yes, had made five hundred and
eighty seven thousand, five hundred dollars worth of loans to ECW. You know,
Paul then knew that might back. Yeah, that's what people say,
like One Night's Stand and the whole revolution and a resurrection rather of VCW intellectual
property in O five, it was just Nce trying to make that money back
on the loan. It wasn't him trying to make much profit on its own.
And by the time he was done with the WW version of ECW,
no one's chant in ECW anymore. No, not at all that amazing.
I mean, I wasn't to begin with. But right, let's see McMahon
made that sizeable loan Williams rights to HHG. That was the that was the
name that ECW was incorporated under and its nine days AHHG in summer two thousand.
Okay, So, according to Scott Williams and the bank see paperwork,
Vince in the summer of this year living dangerously makes a big loan to ECW
to keep it afloat. And apparently that was done as part of the deal
to negotiate going to TNN keeping the wrestling property that was on TNN alive.
Wrong enough so that when he came in there was, you know, someone
of a smooth transition. I suppose would be the thought there part of the
deal, right. But I'll tell you what, I want this to go
easy. I want this to be simple. I'll give you this money,
but I'm taking your slot bound believable. That's so, that's so like mob
mentality. You know, yes, yeah, come in with a helping hand,
only when you're under deep distress, and the terms you agree to leave
you with nothing. In the end, he almost would have been better just
to go out of business than to be beholden. But you know, people
who got on the wrong side of Paul, or people who decided Paul was
at the end of the day just a piece of shit definitely saw a greater
design at work. When Paul actually goes over to WWF, you know,
they're yeah, interesting, yep. Was he fed his own nest the whole
time? How far back does this go? Of course? Anything about al
Snow and others going down there at ECW when they were floundering in WWF and
never quite getting cut from their w WF contracts but basically being sent to ECW
and getting off mention the whole, the whole fucking uh. You know,
the whole ECW invasion ninety seven to show great example, don't a great example.
So yeah, this is this is all taking shape in real time.
This is the shift in the industry. At ECWS in the middle of it,
they try to make a move to USA, but eventually Barry Diller,
I think it was decided at USA network that if we can't have the number
one wrestling company in the world on our network, we're not gonna have wrestling
on this network. This is redgau You're damn right, You're damn right.
Fuck it. Williams also right at the ECW Hardcore Recket video game was the
number two selling game on PlayStation. Interestingly enough, Jack puts a PlayStation on
Tony DeVito's balls and hits it with a crutch on the show and number six
and Nintendo sixty four for the week of February thirteenth to the nineteenth, which
means the game sold over six hundred thousand units, an amazing total. I
think this is from the observer since ECW reaches just under one million homes per
week for its main show on TNN, so actually that is a pretty impressive
number. All he's considered in that context, you might see why I claim
would see fit see it in their business interest to make sure ECW could continue
as a going concern. And according to you know the paperwork and what Scott
Williams wrote in his book, by the time it was all said and done,
Paul Hayman through family trust funds. Remember his father is a very successful
lawyer. Three point seventy five million dollars of his own family's money went into
keeping ECW rolling for as long as it did. It's unbelievable you can afford
to be a creative genius with that kind of a parachute to catch up.
Of course, that's that's kind of wrestling. That's always what we've always said.
Wrestling needs, you know, a money that you that is just disposable,
right, right, You can't take the risks that it takes to to
strike on something that works in wrestling without being able to fall flat on your
ass and not be destitute. There's if you're going to be a profitable wrestling
promoter, like you have to say so small that it almost like has a
shelf life in it of itself. You basically can only go as far as
E CW WAN basically, right, and then you collapse under the weight of
national TV and trying to keep trying to keep talent. It's not unlike what
happened to Jim Crockett Ale or you or you collapse under the weight of of
Sally Graciana. So the last TNN show for ECW was in October of two
thousand, so there's actually a bleed over points ros started in September, but
Vince willing to give a little waiver to the exclusivity thing, and that would
come to bite them because so they watched, so they would they weren't the
same time for a moment. Yeah, they were on. Yeah. I
think there was a few weeks where ECW is still on TNN on Friday nights
and Rob was on Monday nights. I'd just like a week or two.
Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, that is pretty wild. So Wan So,
I don't know I ever talked about this, you know, did I
ever? So? Where I was when they made the turnover? I was.
I used to for three years I did. I did workshops film and
television and acting workshops up in place in Maine, way up you know,
up Rockport, Maine. Oh, it's like way up there. And it
was in the fall of two thousand, the last time I went up there
for I was doing four one week workshops and they were all consecutive. So
I was up there for a month and uh I and I knew that Raw
was changing, and I also knew that was like stone coall Steve Austin was
coming back around the same time for the first episode, you know, for
the first episode, right, So I knew I needed to have I don't
know if they had if they gave me a TV in my room or not,
but I needed to get a TV and I needed to get a VCR.
And I remember I got all this stuff so I could Maybe I didn't
get a TV, but I definitely got a VCR so that I could so
that I could record. Wow, stone Cold coming back amazing. That's why
that's why they brought him back, because that was like a card they could
play to be sure that people would make it a point to find them on
the new network. That was That was wild. You think about Rob being
on the USA since nineteen eighty three at that point in time, well,
it was weird when they went back to USA. You know, there are
a lot of odd things about the whole It's It's weird because like TNN BES
became that thing, and I was, you know, you were kind of
it just I don't know, it just felt okay, this is the way
because I remember being when I heard about that, I was like, what
the fuck? Why are they going to the National Network? Not knowing that
they were changing their whole you know brand. Yeah, they called it the
National Network the National Network and actually reimagine the logo in the style of the
w WF Attitude scratch logo. I mean that was only for when w was
on. Tell you I won't say that would be when that's right exactly.
The only reason you know that is because you know you wouldn't know that is
because but I think they had a more more blocky instead of the scratch.
I think the scratch was exclusive for when raw was on the new TNN.
The new TNN We we Know Popp was that when it was yeah, we've
got pop pop, We've got pop right, And I don't know where Spike,
I don't know where, I don't know where MA is, but I
guess they get pop at least a colony is ending. And that's kind of
like the history of Spike and comeback sports. And its predecessors like you c
WS just fuck you on the way out, WWS just fuck you on the
way out. And remember there was some sure they announced Raw was canceled for
Raw got into negotiations so that they lost all the leverage because everyone had negotiated
with knew that the current home of the show didn't want them back, and
they announced it publicly. There was the show now where Fince had to like
approve show notnes wrong word, but approved Ultimate Fighter coming on after Raw with
US leading to the UFC's explosion because he had exclusivity for what would be considered
combat sports I suppose on the cable station. And it's that long history we
see it here, we're going to talk about it, which like Spike slash
TNN, it's always like the people leaving the station from the wrestling of the
MMA side say fuck those guys or those guys were those guys did as dirty
and them saying I don't know what you're talking about. We saw it with
TNA. Remember how in the end everyone was cavetching about how you know Dixie
kind of overplayed her hand with Spike. Not everyone, but there were people
who who are familiar with the gossip at the time who say that, you
know, Spike ended up not maybe they want to buy the promotion, maybe
not, but it did not end well and that they the relationship came to
an end with Dixie and the TNA side sort of pointing fingers through emissaries and
through proxies and you know, TNN Spike being like, oh, we love
the heaven and then UFC disappears and they turned around and put Bellatour on there
to fuck with them. They did an interim MMA show called Uncensored for the
year that the contract didn't allow them to put anybody else another, but they
could turn back around try to fuck you. It's like w W Raw leaves
and they grabbed TNA, right, you know, they put TNA on on
Raw left and what how do those games continue? They brought Bellatour in against
UFC and then and then when TNA left, they never put any of the
wrestling on there. They flirted with a ring of honor for a little bit,
but they never really made a move in that direction. But it's just
like, you know, Paul was like the canary and the coal mine for
wrestling and MMA companies dealing with these guys you could grow with them and have
great success with them, but it always ended up with them doing something that
was like embracing your competitor when you left, you know. Yep, probably
because it was one of the few things they could hang their hat on that
they were trying to, like they brought ACWN as far as I can tell,
because they were trying to redefine the network around like an extreme sports block
or like an extreme sports advertising proposition where it was ECW and bull riding and
this like souped up bowling, this weird bowling. They make fun of it
during the Living Dangerously broadcast. We'll call it out when Joe Stalls mentions it.
Rock and bowl they called it where they tried to like spice up like
collegiate bowling names facing off against each other. Oh Jesus Christ, roller Derby,
roller jam. They were they were trying to really like they saw UCW's
part of that play kind of you know when you hear the TNT guys back
in the day talking about nitro, was like they're always trying to fit it
into like a broad category of programming of course, when really it was just
like it has to be in here, which is the only thing that's gonna
draw any numbers, but we pretend it's part of a strategy. No,
there's no strategy. Guys like how they try to make a ECW sci Fi
When they put it on sci Fi, they put oh yeah, they had
like mummies and zombies and shit, even though that's horror, not sci fi.
But yeah, the show itself, Living Diners two thousand one of the
underplayed parts. While ECW was struggling financially, their pay per views were actually
doing quite well. There was evidence that being on national television did help.
They didn't always do great numbers, they did phenomenal numbers. I remember a
Christmas Eve of nineteen ninety nine, which is a Friday night, and I
remember watching Mike Austin versus Mesado Tanaka and one of the best matches they ever
put on television, and just being like, this is Christmas Eve, is
so weird, Nobody's gonna watch this. Why they're putting such great stuff on
here? And it did a great number. So it was like that Friday
night thing was kind of working for ECW. They were making Friday Night's work
before SmackDown ever did. Yeah, and by work, I mean relative to
the expectations of what you would expect a cable channel of TNN's profile to do
on a Friday night, And there were some some weeks where the ratings were
underwhelming. For the most part, they were good. And this show Living
in Intertly two thousand does a point two to four by rate at the time,
which meant nearly a million people ordered the show. It's a lot of
people. That's crazy. That's a lot of people. You're not getting a
million people ordering aw pay per views. I'll tell you that that's wild.
This says, according to Scott Williams's book that this that's this rating was the
largest number for an ECW pay per view in seven months. Still, of
course, not a fraction. That was He notes of what WWF shows were
doing at the time. I mean, you talk about fucking two thousand WWF.
My god, they're just printing money. It's just not public it's fucking
it's a madhouse. I like to Patterson, I've got an idea, boss,
I would like to to put a printing press in the basement. Can
we get a printing press for for for monetary? Uh uh? Talk about
confe bills. We don't deal an no, no, no, no,
no, no, no no, I want to create no no, no,
no no no, don't listen, I'm not I'm not talking counterfeit,
all right, I'm talking a new a new monetary option, all right.
Vince Bills, Yeah, Paul got a few of those delivered to the offices,
payment pending. I would like I would like to have to have a
currency that that is that is you know, it's global, like because is
a global brand. But I would like to have a currency that is that
that we create that revolves around W W E than me. That's right,
So, Vince Bills, and you know, we can have a different different
establishments of of of monetary incretion, secretion, absolutely, excretion, whatever it
is. So can you get me a bill press machine? M Yeah,
that was one of his finishers, but the jackhammer was really you know,
as I was researching this episode, Boss, the bill press machine, what's
that? The bill press machine Goldberg's other finishing move. And it's funny you
mentioned this because you know, says research in this episode, I heard more
than one person say, you know that nobody in the history of the business
is fucked more guys than Paul Hayman. And then I thought about pat Patterson,
and I said, well, actually I might, I might take issue
with that. And they're strong at the gate too. I mean, ECW
was doing pretty good crowds at the time, especially compared to you know,
when they were being much more conservative about geographical expansion. You would see them
do week you know, month in and month out of the arena. This
show in Danbury, Connecticut, interestingly enough, Yes, I know that was
funny. Yeah, back to Danbury. You've seen shows in Danbury, right,
I yes, I saw one show. I saw one show in Danbury.
I saw a big time wrestling not there. I think I saw it
at a y or something some kind of why Yeah, exactly exactly. I'm
still asking myself that question. But I know I do know where. I
do know where it is though, because oddly enough, that same college my
daughters had piano recitals there. Wow, in the past. So the show
does five d and forty three paid for ninety seven thousand dollars at the gate?
Let me get this straight. Hold on, do I have this right?
Yes? Two thousand. So in WCW, you remember how we always
talk about how in the shits WW was In this short Kevin s Solon run
in two thousand and that I were like Hogan back and Red and Yellow doing
like fucking nineteen eighty five promos. Again, Yes, they actually only did
a three thousand and three ninety so EASW came in, came within a thousand
paid of matching WCW live pay per view attendance at this point in time in
two thousand. Wow, that's not what you, I don't think could expect
it. That's more reflection of how pathetic WCW had gotten than how great the
CW had gotten. But still in the dying day that that's kind of what
was really the the the mind fuck for a lot of the guys back then.
I feel like when you listen to him talk about this time period,
it's like we're actually doing stuff that we were making money. It's not like
a company that's dying and you go to the shows and can see it.
It's not a company's dying. There's nobody in the audience or the sheets or
fright reports about how nobody's find the point reviews or the ratings are in the
toilet. None of that is happening. In fact, all those metrics relative
to history are at their all time best. In ECW they actually have numbers
they can point that, so they were actually generating revenue. Here the guilty
chart show we mentioned from nineteen ninety nine, that was their biggest pay per
view ever. I think it did over a one point zero by rate.
Did their highest ever paid attendance for e CW in history in Chicago. Great
things to point to, but it's just on the back end. The expenses
were piling up way, way too fast, and Paul was making commitments just
kind of like Jim Crockett did in a way, making commitments based on pay
per view money coming in, and it's like, yeah, but the pay
per view money doesn't come in instantaneously. You know, you have to budget
like for that to come in in like ninety days and one hundred days.
I think in the bankruptcy filings they said like they were still owed like eight
hundred thousand dollars from the Inn Demand pay per view company when they went bankrupt.
Oh my god, it's not that they were owed it as if someone
was trying not to pay it, although maybe knowing they were in trouble,
they were delaying the payment to see if they could get away with not sending
the check. But it just took ninety days, so much longer than you
would think for all the cable systems to get together, add up the buys
from each region, and then parcel out credit. You know, here's your
piece, here's our PCs. And by the time the check gets there,
you know you don't necessarily your expenses don't can't wait for that moment to arrive.
And so what do you do. You take out credit because all right,
we know the money's coming. Let's take a loan now, so we
can actually put money in guy's pockets and they can stop complaining about not getting
paid this week. I mean, that money comes in, we'll pay back,
well, what about interest? Right, and just keeps going and going
and going. And it's like you have this money on paper theoretically, but
you're taking out loans to give people money right now, and you get fucked.
And that's the American way, of course. So UCW a victim of
Americana there in that in that sense, and there in the booking struggling.
One thing I kind of heard a lot of guys talking about researching this episode
that I never really appreciated about ACW. It's a lot of guys in this
time period are saying that Paul Haman, you know, he's only booking the
top one or two programs, kind of like Vince at WWF. Really like
he's still consumed by the top guy's programs and all the other shoot, he's
got to deal with that. He's not really the guy that guys lower on
the poll in ECW thought about is delivering their message, delivering their creative and
envisioning where they're going. Tommy Dreamer was very much of the emissary to Paul
Hayman in that regard. And that adds up because when you realize, like
you know, Tommy Dreamer went on to get an office job at WWE in
DNA, and for years was kind of thought of more of it was like
a more like a booker and like an office guy and like a manager.
I really didn't know that. Yeah, And so a lot of the guys
that were lower on the card, especially in this point in time in ECW,
much more associate Tommy Dreamer with the guy they went to for direction,
for you know, communication around where they were going with their careers, how
their storylines were going to progress. He'd even called them up and signed them,
you know, he called them up and asked them if they wanted to
come in, And they talk about Paul as sort of like a more distant
figure on something. Would he invite them over to get a pizza at the
pizzeria? I doubt that. I'm sure he had it all fro himself.
That no. Dart Nannie during in particular, talks about how Tommy like would
actually go out with the guys, like, you know, go to a
movie or hang out at the club with them and stuff like that. Paul
wasn't a guy that you you know, dealt with that way. He wasn't
somebody that was as much of an actual presence in most of the locker room's
lives. I kind of wouldn't think he would. I don't think any It's
like, I don't think the boss would ever do that, because the boss
has got other shit to do. It makes sense. It's just that Paul
Hayman's reputation is finding these diamonds in the rough. Paul Hayman's reputation is finding
these guys that no one saw any star power in and imagining ways they could
become stars. And some of these guys didn't even ever deal with him,
So it's hard to know where to assign credit and not for guys who got
over in ECW because Paul didn't deal with everybody. You can't well, no,
I mean it's it's always the individual. I think the individual got themselves
over. But the idea is that is that Paul Hayman is credited for giving
them the outlet, yeah, to show off what they can do without limitation.
Right. There's a great story Danny during tells about how when they got
a dark match opportunity at Madison Square Garden from WWE after ECW had folded their
backstage. They don't know anything about how ww works the circuit, They don't
know what the expectations are around working. They bump and feed nothing about that,
and Tony Garia gives them some direction like it's nineteen seventy two about take
a backdrop. You're in the opener, kid, like take keep it simple,
just do something flashy at the end. And then Paul, who's now
backstage and kind of insinuating himself from the WWF back office, comes up to
them and says, you know, go out there and go balls to the
wall like it's the ECW arena. And they go out there and they do
an ECW match wherever you know, no matter where you are in the card,
you can do all you want. You can do power bombs, you
can do diamond cutters, you can do you don't worry about other people unless
it's task. If you do want to tas this moves, he's gonna have
an APPS right out down. And I'm sure the guy's on roster too.
I'm sure if you went out there and did a five star frog splash or
triple jump moon salt, you know, RBDY and Saboo would have something to
say about it. But they didn't know about the the that's right. So
they go out there and have this like match with all these crazy moves and
doing moves, kicking out of moves that like the heart foundation, the heart
attack you know, oh yeah, can kick out of that in WWF the
it's supposed to be finished or the power arm last ride was there, And
they get all this fucking heat afterwards, all this heat, and Danny Doring,
who hates Paul Hayman or did at the time, chucks it up to
Paul doing it on purpose, sending it out there to fuck themselves because he
knew the locker room culture and he knew how that would play. But it's
like these guys that they're learning, like you said, they were able to
go out there and do things without restriction and find ways to get over.
What I love too. What I what I find to be so funny about
that whole thing too, is is is so what do their things happened there?
So they saw so that it was it was a dark it was a
dark match. Yeah, yeah, it was shown MSG. Yeah, okay,
how showing MSG? Okay, So what it's on TV? Just go
out there saying, guys, you know what you I appreciate you guys went
out there doing your thing, but you shouldn't do that in the future,
he said. They get all this fucking like you said, they get all
this ship like it ship starts is back. It's not even just it's like
you know the other boys like, oh you fucked out one up. I
love to do that ship I know. It's so fucking it's the culture there.
Can't wait to tell on you, right. They can't wait grown men,
right, they can't wait to fucking they can't wait to take you down.
That's right, all right. They can't wait to because they can't wait
to feel better about themselves by it doesn't exactly feel more secure, and exactly
all they want to do is, yes, they they want to feel good
about themselves, so they have to make sure and listen, the one who
gets there first is the one who's gonna feel best about themselves, all right,
totally you they're all racing to be number one, so gross, you
know, just to fucking take you down eighteen notches until well you got to
pay your dues, you know, and that's just part of the game.
And who is the best at that triple h And look where he is today,
Bence, I've been paying my due since you know, I'm a twenty
year veteran. Well, you know what, I've never seen you before.
You're a rookie year. Maybe you'll get Rookie of the Year. We have
ways of doing things around here that have no basis in logic whatsoever. I
mean, we like to bump and feed. But now, at this point
in time, the point is ECW. When it started, you had guys
who had experience all over the place, you know, internationally, other indies
like Terry Funk, National Television, worked every circuit. But by now ECW
much I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a bona fide honorary Japanese man.
Did you know that I have a record. It's not anything, it's not
a Great Shakes or anything, but you know, but hey, you know
what, I got a record. I'm going to live in immortality. We
hate school rock and roll, you know the Funk Brothers. We know,
we know exactly what's going on. We know where we're been, we know
where we're going. We just don't know where we are. I wonder where
Terry's going to make out in the t lf X games. We're gonna flip
a coin to decide whether I do it or you do it? Oh,
I know, that's that's a question. That's a question a couple of characters
lapsed. Only will it be traditionally or buy you all? It's not,
it's it's not decided. It doesn't specify, so who knows. So you
know, ECW has been around long enough by this point that they've they started
their own gym to train guys during Chris Chetti came out of there. There
are a couple of other guys, I think Pablo Marquez, Tom Marquez came
out of there. They were starting to like train their own guys, guys
off the street, guys who didn't know the business, guys who they trained
from jump and that's that's the wrestling they know, that's how to get over,
and it that that's how they know how to get over, and that's
the sort of lack of restriction that they're used to dealing with. And you
set these guys loose in a business full of all these esoteric rules based in
a culture that they just didn't come up in, that are taught to you
by trainers who know those locker rooms, and they didn't have that benefit,
and they're gonna come out completely normally the problem. And I think the point
is by this point around Living Dangerously two thousand, you're singing an ECW locker
room that's more replete with guys like that than ever before, because they're they're
trying to save a buck on talent, and they're bringing in guys with less
kind of broad based experience in that in that in that way, which is
why so many of the guys that were available when ECW one under didn't get
WWF contracts. Necessarily, they didn't always they weren't always quick enough to figure
out how to adapt themselves some of them just might not have been that that
talent that. I'm not saying everybody deserved a contract, but I think a
lot of it was that culture clash for sure. As for the pay per
view here, they were not on their game as far as promoting matches.
There wasn't even a match listed for the pay per view a week out from
the show. Oh my god, I'm on saying ACW was great about announcing
full lineups or anything like that. That was never something that Paul Hayman cared
a lot about, but it was it was reaching let's say, extremes in
two thousands, okay, with the belief being apparently according to the newsletters that
Hayman thought, you know, they'd get eighty thousand buys for just about every
show, no matter how good or bad the card was, or how good
it was being hyped up. And I think the show proves the opposite,
and that it did an above average number. And you got Dusty and you've
got a pro you know, you've got a program that's culminating, You're buying
something that's going to come to a conclusion. And I think if they did,
if they managed to pull off Mike Austin versus Rob van Dam for the
world title back then. I think that definitely would have done bigger numbers than
something that only had like a month's build or or even any I think the
lack of announced card was more a function of disorganization than it was strategy.
Yeah, I would imagine that, that's for sure. And it wasn't just
It wasn't just a video game that ECW suddenly found from a licensing opportunity at
the worst possible time to deal with it. Uh you know who else?
They They cut a deal with San Francisco toymakers. Oh yeah, great,
look like another DC out of your tank team cut the mark I make figures
then ranking sold differently. DC W ever see these toys? Yeahs yeah,
the awful. They were awful. I hated him. Did you ever hold
one in your hand? Not an actual one? I I. I saw
them in the in the stores and I was like, oh, yeah,
right, nope, because they were just like they were They were that weird,
uh like very they weren't they weren't They kind of like very thick hasbro
E type. Yeah yeah, yeah, but not not cool Hasbro Like they
were just kind of goofy looking. Some of them were They had more points
in particulation than it has bro like you could bend the elbows on some of
them. I like the Saboo figure. I like the Taz figure. The
rest were kind of bogus. The Van Damn figure kind of sucked. It
should have been a lot better. You know, you got guys if they
have an offense where their legs go out. If the toy only goes up
and down, it sucks. You know, that goes like if the legs
can't like extend in a split, you gonna have different I'm looking at oh
I see yeah, yeah, yeah, they although you know what they're there
there there could be some possibilities there. They were pretty cool. The Taz
one was cool because you could do all of his moves and they looked like
they actually looked Sabo too, because while Sabu did a lot of flying,
he often did it with straight legs. Yeah, the play sets, the
tables and everything is It's not something I've expected ECW to figure out. A
lot of the guys on roster just talked about being floored that they didn't have
to leave VCW to get action figures, you know, right, But there
were a lot of promises, so weird. I mean, that's kind of
a weird thing because like you don't think about what's the uh yeah, age
is four and up, so they're they're thinking that kids age four fucking see
these cec W. Yeah, yeah, I guess so so much of that
Oh my god, a c W you got Taz there and he leaves exactly.
That's probably probably part of the problem is that they get action figures and
they they're not there anymore. Absolutely, but you know, they got a
national TV slot, so that probably opened up chances. And I know San
Francisco toy makers used to make WCW toys. I think those big ass rubber
ones was them, if I'm not mistaken. Oh the Wow. So they're
also like ECW's benefiting from wrestlings exploding, but the old license holders like are
losing out because there's new interest, you know, for the video games and
stuff. Sure, so they're catching like these falling knives and winning. They
even published an ECW magazine. We've talked in the past, including in the
Greed episode about the Wow magazine that came out like a shoot pa. Yeah.
Yeah, there was another one that was put up at the same company,
So it was the exact same dimensions and the same design, but it's
just the ECW magazine. Wow, yeah, it was wild, so all
you know, that's that's what's so crazy is they're getting all these things that
are the hallmarks of success at a time when the financial wheels are coming off.
It's just you couldn't is that kind of a isn't that kind of what
they wouldn't? I mean, right, that's wrestling though, you know they
all that shit. It's everything's on a delayed wheel. Well it's on a
delayed wheel, and that you're seeing the fruits of something that was pasted potential.
But that doesn't mean that by the time it gets there, you're fucking
almost out of business. This is I'd be like, you know, by
the time the coliseum videos hit the shelves, w W f have than you
know, revenue or or not have in revenue, but was in like a
severe financial distress. You know. Yeah, those things kind of were came
online as they were only growing more like the reason people wanted to sign those
deals with them. Oh it is, I've got it. I've got issues
of THEMW magazine. Yeah, what do you see? What do you like,
well, I've got let's see when when was the show's March that's right?
So here we have the the April two thousand issue, okay, which
would have been you know, release in March. So uh oh, and
it's all about the video game. There on the cover, a claim presents
cyber sab Oh wow yeah, e CW the official magazine e c W e
CW Magazine dot com. Mike Austin's on page two picture of Mike Ausoin with
the championship. YEPWW already a claim. Hardcore Evolution the video game presents ECW
Wrestling Living Dangerously Live on pay per view Sunday, March twelfth, to excuse
me, two thousand, contact your local local cable or satellite provider. What
are the contents here? Well, we have a six. The features are
A claim gets extreme exit Light, Enter Night, ECW fans wake up to
Sandman again, ECW's Year in Review, Some wrestlers leave, some return in
RVD holds on a TV title that's every years exactly right. There's a bald
to the Bone Tony DeVito, an angel known as the Baldies, unite to
oppose New Jack. November to Remember nineteen nighty nine ecwnety nine with extreme pay
per view guilty has charged two thousand, said he keeps off a new millennium
with hardcore competition, and they have the whole f and mail bag, news
and rumors, TV and events schedules, Wrestler over the Month, ECW Talent
close Up, Uh, Joey Styles has a column in Styles The Extreme Intellectual
by Cyrus, Bumps by Donnie Label, and the Whistleblower by Bill Alfonso.
Very cool, Thanks for that tour. That's that's good that those are out
there. Yeah, well we got we got them, they got it all?
Or is this anything you keep going on the I'll see there's anthing worth
reading. Yes, the CW magazine. Do you remember seeing it on newstands
at the time and being like that's pretty cool, like that they're a company
that justifies their own magazine. But again, these are all not not necessarily
signed to the strength they would appear to be because it's chaos and this is
how the Progressing Torch reports it and uh, this is around the same point
in time. Cluster fuck keller rights is the word most commonly used by wrestlers
to describe the pay per view that would be living dangerously. There is growing
sentiment among the wrestlers that Paul Hayman should step stream cluster wrestling that works for
me, I know yeah. There is a growing sentiment among the wrestlers that
Paul Hayman should step down as booker in favor of a committee approach, yet
retain his final say as an editor, much in the same way Vince McMahon
final say when Vince Russeau is running for the WWF. Few are doubting Hayman's
ability as a booker, but feel he's too involved in other business matters to
give booking proper time and attention. Several wrestlers saying Hayman claims to be open
to suggestions but rarely use his ideas given to him. One wrestler told the
Torch quote, Paul is doing everything I know that is his style, but
it's starting to hurt the company. He needs to delegate more. He has
people begging him to do things, but he won't let them. They have
a merchandise section and a merchandise catalog that the ads for it are cut out
of the Peacock version of the paper. Okay okay. With that a mail
away catalog, they sure did. Wait a minute, they've got oh ware,
this isn't this is Oh I see it's a it's a it's a superstore.
I see it's a it's not an ECW exclusive thing. So I was
like, wait a minute, they've got They've got WCW championship belts here you
could get you they could get the nWo wolf Pack Version nWo Championship Belt,
they get four hundred and fifty bucks. You can get the big Gold Belt
with the nWo on it, which you know, you could just get the
Big Gold Belt and do it yourself. Yeah, that's wild, that's hilarious.
But they would even have that what is it? Was this a time?
Oh my god? The timeline they were tied into the same publishing company
that Wow was, and Wow would have kind of like cross company merchandise.
Sure, sure, uh they got talk about Sunny being released from DUCW ECW
rather again in December ninety nine. Yeah, that's after Paul did a a
several part confessional about with Tammy and Chris talking about how addicted to drugs they
were. Oh my god, I wrestlers, Keller wrote, are growing tired
of the company's lack of organization. Some wrestlers complained that they weren't given their
match finishes until an hour before match time. Vignettes were being taped to minutes
before the fans were let inside the building. Other wrestlers were upset the show
ended nearly a half hour early. That is the Living Kandersley show. You
didn't notice bos this is a short run time relative to most pay per views,
It's very short, and Keller wrote all the most believed the show ended
early due to new Jack's injury. Many were blaming Hayman's book on the Fly
style and don't believe he booked enough material. The atmosphere backstage was said to
be chaos. Many noted that there were roughly one hundred and fifty people with
family friends, members of the production staff, people from Acclaim Pioneer Video,
which distributed ACW home videos at the time, which was another hallmark of success.
They were all over like fye and you know, you go these oh
yeah ECB tapes for all of a sudden everywhere. Yeah, that was that
was kind of the thing. I remember that. I mean, I've talked
about that. How it's like you'd go to you'd go to a Sun Coast
video to to get something, and they'd have like weird, they'd have weird
compilations, compilation WWWE tapes, and then they'd have or like or superstar centric
ones, and then they'd have Springstamped ninety four, always Springs Stamped ninety four,
and then yeah, yeah, best of Sting, and then a shit
ton of ECW ones until then, you know, probably ninety eight ninety nine
when they started they started loading up on and like two thousand they started loading
up on pay per views finally, yeah, yeah, it was. It
was. It was definitely jarring to see ECW tapes because I was always like
you saithing, you had to buy underground, Like you'd go to an ECW
how show and RF video would have a table and then then were they had
everything there, but it was like just white labels with plain black print on
it of an ECW show. You know, so weird. It is so
weird. So you have a TNN et ceter backstage two in a room so
dark. Someone told Keller that people were walking around with flashlights, bumping in
one another. One source noted, if this company doesn't make it, it
will be due to the lack of organization. Look at that so many people
backstage at living dangerously in such a small underlit room that you needed to flashlight
this. That's crazy veteran into the locker room. A kellor reported fear Hayman
is losing the younger wrestlers. Sources say several mid carters are quietly complaining that
they aren't being elevated. Many so the recent injuries suffered by Rob Van Dam,
Jerry Lennon, Spike Dudley is their chance to step up, but don't
feel as though they've been put in a position to do so. The wrestlers
are saying, don't they don't feel part of the team theme that Hayman is
pushed. Sources feel Hayman needs to elevate one of the long time undercard wrestlers
to set a positive example for the mid carters. They're losing hope and don't
buy into the hype anymore, said one wrestler boss. Make that kool aid
be coming in a bit underflavored. Hey, uh, you know, I
don't. I don't want to sit here and chudge anybody, but come on,
And because Paul's involved in much more important things, he has time to
actually issue a statement to the Torch in response to this of course anonymously of
gossip. That one that's always more difference betwe Keller and Meltzer. You know,
Meltzer will report the backstage discontent as sort of like stated as fact.
Keller will quote anonymous sources. That's something Dave usually doesn't do. But that
used to get people so and worked up that someone gave that quote. You
know, you couldn't just yell at Keller. You had to yell at the
person who gave Keller the quote because it's in quote. Ah, I love
that. When asked for comment, Hayman told The Torch on Tuesday night he
had time to give this statement out because he doesn't follow the sheets quote.
Those who feel they should have more character development perhaps should have more character to
develop. Oh my god, what a fucking idiot. Normally I would be
against nitpicking and criticizing others in public, But if the critics from within want
to criticize under the veil of vanimidity, then I have no compulsion to protect
them from my criticism in public. I have never punished anyone for criticizing me
from within my own company ever. Case in point two weeks after a very
public pissing contest with Raven, he laid out dream in Cincinnati, took Francine
turn heel beat Dreamed or in the Sea Doll You Arena, and won the
World Tag team title. Well, isn't that fake? Though? That was
two weeks after a public pissing contest with me. That's his point, it's
fake. I still let him go even though he was having a pissing contest
with me, So don't complain. I pushed Raven when he pissed me off.
I welcome to Actually, i'll tell you what. I am. Pissed
off that you fucking pushed Raven when wissed off at him. It was another
guy that came back. That's a bad sign. Like it's good to bring
him back. You had to do it. They were legends in ECW.
But no, it's not. It's not good. But you think about how
inflated their salary expectations were by that point, right, Yeah, jeez.
I would welcome criticism, even from within, but I detest the cowardice of
hiding behind the label of unnamed people. If you're going to be a rebel,
at least have enough belief that your rebellion is warranted and demonstrate that belief
by waving the flag of your revolution. Okay, Paul, excuse me,
shave. It's time. It's time. Yeah, dude, it's it's Listen.
You've been up for three days straight. Okay, you can't see.
You can't see two feet in front of you. Go to bed. You
can say put your name to it without it being fourteen fourteen sentences. Yeah,
oh my god, what a fucking Hayman added, we elevated super Crazy
to main event status from mid card, and he is carrying the ball.
We elevated Rhino from nowhere within a year, and he is carrying the ball.
We elevate it's part of the problem. But yeah, no, I're
waiting for you to make a convincing case. We elevated Cyrus from the broadcast
booth to the lead. He loves a company? My god, is he
carrying ball? No, no, they're listen us Lovestein Kallis heart stock.
I can't stand that. And that's why he's a great deal. And no,
no it's not. It's it's because it's because he just looks like a
pedophile. Oh, ref get in there, all right, that's the do
you know? Oh really? Oh no, oh god, you Get'm excited
I was no, no, actually is one. I'm just saying, who's
to say. It's the wrestling business, right, And he has had not
not not underage allegations. But the end of his run in TNA most recently
came with very little detail. Let's put it that way. He was had
a front office guy in TNA, and I don't know, I don't want
to say more than that, but it seemed like it seemed like inappropriate behavior
may have been part of the suite of issues at play if I was reading
between the lines correctly. I can't say I read it very closely, So
take what I say with less than a grain of salt. But it's out
there to look into. Let's see what Wikipedia has to say in fairness too
to mister Callous. I don't mean to be fair to mister Callous. He's
callous absolutely, and he would never heal on anybody, So I would never
lie about someone in public, So he doesn't deserve it being done to him.
Fucking don Caallous and Tommy Dreamer stepped in. Yeah that's that's right.
Yeah, just suddenly he was no longer a president with Impact Wrestling. Yeah,
we'll leave it at that. Anyway, it's just funny. So here
he is saying, you know, we elevated Cyrus and my god, is
he carrying the ball. We elevated Jim Mitchell from a guy WCW couldnt even
put on their television show to the guy that brings home the TNN show and
opens up our pay per views. I'm comfortable with our track record of elevating
people at the right time, at the right place, under the right circumstances
over the past six months. So there you go, all speaking up for
himself in two thousand. That's where you got to be. That's where you
got to be. He thinks TNN, in addition to eventually coming to the
realization that they're going to WWF thinks TNN is not advertising them nearly enough.
This is the big refrain from ECW loyalist at the time. He ends on
advertising that ECW's on TNN anywhere else beyond other TNN shows, which I suppose
is a fair point. I don't know how much of a expectation they had
in that re are. You know, they probably just gave them a line
of shit and then didn't do anything and just expected the ratings to take care
of themselves. Yeah, so it kind of pissed them off that DCW was
seen as like replaceable by raw It is, well it is when they didn't
hardly do anything to try to grow it on the network anyway. But WWF
officially gives notice to the USA Network on March first, just two weeks before
Living Dangerously, one week even before this show we're talking about this week Living
Dangerously to the USA Network that it is canceling its contract with them, effective
in September when the new TV season starts. So it's known as Living Dangerously
goes into the ring that WWF is not going to renew with USA. Wow,
whether people necessarily connected the dots that they're going to TNN. Perhaps Hayman
was in a position to connect those dots, being you know, plugged in,
but I'm not sure the public written large necessarily made that connection. The
HEAT contract also expiring at that point in time as well. So here's Hayman
on TNN. Okay, well, he expected it to be on TNN.
He's realizing as the worm is turning here that his time on TNN is is
not not open ended. And what he does is he sends them a tape
of him looking into the camera and just skewing them. This is late,
This is after living Dangerously. I think this air is in June, if
I'm not mistaken, of two thousand. But the symptoms of why he would
come to do this start to foment around this time at e c W.
Listen to what Paul Haman sent on his television show to be true actual,
these are actual, uh he cuts in the pocket. The CCW television show
The Night's Program features some controversial footage. In fact, it was so contro
arsal it was censored by TNN, an MTV network, and you will see
it here tonight, and you are going to see the comments made by the
owner and executive producer of this company, Paul Hayman, comments that were too
controversal for TNN. TNN is an EMPTV network MTV which featured Beavis and butthead
now features Tom Green talk about his missing testicle and Loveline talks about premature ejaculation
and multiple orgass But Paul Hayman is too controversalos. My name is Paul Haman,
and I'm the executive producer and the owner of Extreme Championship Wrestling. And
since this show apparently is gonna make air this walk about. I'd like to
take this moment to thank you for watching ECW. You have to be an
ECW fan to watch this show, because God knows, the network has never
put out one freaking commercial or one press release to let you know that we're
here. But that's their scheme of things to see. In just a few
weeks, the network is gonna give one hundred million dollars to Vince McMahon like
he needs it to replace us in case they haven't thrown us off before then.
And the fact of the matter is, we're not a publicly funded company
like Vince McMahon or WCW. We survive or even thrive on your support,
and for that we thank you. Now. In an industry where everybody wants
to be real, everybody wants to do a shoot, this, my friends,
is a shoot. We hate this stinking network. We hate their guts
for abandoning us, We hate their guts for not supporting us, we hate
their guts for not advertising us, and we hate their guts for not having
the balls to throw us off the air. And just in case you're watching
this, hey network, I dare you to throw me off the air,
because I'm gonna break every rule that you put in front of me until you
throw me the hell off the air. Now, this, my friends,
is a shoot. You better take that hundred million dollars that you're gonna give
Vince McMahon, and you better spend it on attorneys, because I promise you
Network the war has just because I'd like to take this personal time to say
hello to all of my executives, friends and TNN, the ones who have
been incarcerated for smuggling underage farm animals across state lines for the purposes of sexual
gratification. But at least while they were doing it, they were safe about
it. They only picked the calves that didn't kick back. I didn't include
it there. But then Paul Hayman puts his head in the frame and goes,
how do you like that pigfuckers or something like that, and they bleep.
I mean, of course, I hate Joel. Yeah, that's a
whole get that's a whole other things. He spent a lotime in the ring
of the The feud was versus Cyrus the virus, the Network representative. In
some ways, he is such a vile individual, like just the fucking absolute
worst of humanity, takes a long time to get from the point of his
chin to his chest a long It takes a long time to do one rotation
right, one rotation around his entire physique. So there you have, Paul
try you know, that's the Cyrus character. I just I just don't,
okay, but I just don't understand it. Sounds like a delight to deal
with. Huh. He sounds like a great business partner there. Well,
uh, Paul, I saw I saw what you put on the television there,
on your your little TV show. Just kind of what's what's the deal?
Pal? Do you think this was going to improve things between us?
I mean, look, I don't. I don't. I'm not trying to,
you know, but listen, we're happy to have you guys, all
right, you know, you guys push the envelope with still the network guy.
They've got a whole new like thing, but it's still that guy.
You know. We're just we're just you know, we we we've allowed you
to kind of have your Look. We believe in the freedom of speech,
all right, we believe it. I mean, especially as we're making that
transition to being the the more national network as opposed to just being the the
relative Nashville network. You know, we're trying to we're trying to open up,
and uh, I just uh, you know, I don't know what
do you? What do you? I don't know. I forget the term.
You've used the terms before in my office there are you call me a
pig fucker? Is what you called me? You call me a pig,
a pig farmer? I won't use that word, all right, And then
you know, under the eyes of God, I'm not going to use those
words. But I guess what are you? I forget? I apologize,
I don't. I don't know the wrestling terms? Or are you? Is
this a work? Or are you gunning me down? I thought you didn't
know the wrestling terms. Well I'm trying to remember one. I remember work,
so is that it? Or are you going to a job? Are
you from a traditional television back or are you are you or are you gunning
me down? Is that what it is too? If you're not, what's
what's real and what's phony? Blogny? I mean, I know everything you
do is phony blogna, but I just want to know exactly what it is
because because I don't, I'm a little lost here and I'm all I have
to tell you, as much as we know appreciate having you, I don't
have to spend anywhere near this amount of energy with anybody else that's on our
airways, including companies and and and production companies that do ratings tantamount to yours
and frankly draw better ad rates the fact that I have to spend this much
time decoding what you're saying is I think definitely a reflection of time not well
spent. There's an opportunity cost here, Paul, What I mean, what
is some thing I can't remember stand half of the things in this business.
You guys are excuse me, I'm all about. I'm all about you know,
just here you are we have this kind of you know, we're investing
time in ethodemically. I just but I'm just I just want to know when
I'm going to get a return on my investment in the time that I've given
you. You like what I just I want to understand and I want you
to understand. I wanted us to be on the same page. But all
I see is is just this kind of absurd just it looks like one big
circus, a violent, you know, derogatory and im moral circus, and
we put up with a certain amount of that. We realize this is the
two thousands, Paul. We do. That's why we entered into business with
you. But then all of a sudden, I got this, you looking
into the camera on our show and calling us, you know, basically every
name of the book. I mean, where did you get the idea that
that was? Where did? I mean? I don't have we have we
wronged you in some fashion that I'm not aware of because I'm national television.
How I just want to tell you. I want to tell you these guys,
these boys of yours she got there, They're not They're not going to
make it on TV anywhere else. I've seen it. I've seen them.
They got they got faces for radio, and they got faces not even for
radio. And and I just don't appreciate being called a you know, a
pig fornicator, a swine fornicator. All right, So so I want to
get I want to get on the same page here, and and I want
to understand what is it? You know, you know, obviously you guys
are extreme, and how can we be extreme enough to do business? Call
me back, dude, that was a voicemail. So you heard reference to
it. That promo was actually from the ECW syndicated television show, because when
it aired on ECW on TNN, they muted Paul Hayman's voice. What he's
talking, his lips are moving, He's looking into the camera intently, but
not a word he says is broadcast over the TNN airwaves, and on the
bottom off screen, this text scrolls, please ignore this gentleman's temper tantrum.
Could it be that he's been thrown through too many tables? TNN Harbor's no
ill feelings against DCW. TNN fully supports CCW Wrestling and all of its redeeming
qualities to be the smarmy son of a mitch that wrote that copy. Huh,
all right, I mean this is war. Hey, Hey, I
need you guys in my office right now. Family, Maiden Family. I
just all right, we're having will come to Jesus here, all right now.
Listen. I just love to voicemail for Paul Hammon. All right.
I just tried to. I tried to kind of like just trying to let
him think that we're trying to get on the same page. Here's what I
want you to do. Now I've seen this video, all right, We've
all seen this video. Calls me, I believe a pig fornicator at the
end, calls me, he calls me a swine fornicator. I don't fornicate
with swine. I eat it. I don't fornicate with fight being in business
with ECW and what that might tell you. So I want to this is
what's gonna happen, all right now, I want you to silence that meglamoniacal
son of a fingo. No, yeah, Bob comes out from God.
I'm gonna kill that mother right. So what I want you to do is
I want you to erase his goddamn motherfucking voice, little Racing, and then
you put some some bullshit statements saying that we support E c W and all
their horseshit and all the fucking bullshit the minds of contracting good faith and all
that run up by the laws. Do all that ship, you know,
make it make it sound good, make it sound like we're talking with the
grace of God and all that horse shit. But I want you to fuck
him up, and I'm want to destroy that motherfucker. Nobody talks like that
to me. Temper tantrum on our airwaves. Are you we're gonna throw him
off? Thinks he's gonna force our hand. I've dealt with titans. I
bet at the table with some of the Redstone, Okay, I bet at
the table with Brandon Tartakoff. This guy ain't shit of my cowboy boot.
We are at the goddamn national man's that's that you missed. You're not dealing
with the Nashville network anymore. You're dealing with the guys behind the Nashville Network
who decided they're going national. We're not the goddamn little territorial motherfuckers. We're
gonna kill and I don't want to eat him alive. I'm gonna have me
of Paul Hayman sized latkeey Oh Ship sour cream. It's not goddamn homemade apple
sauce from my wife. Kill the motherfucker that that's that's an underreported part of
this. Is an addition to muting his voice and putting that smarmy text on
the screen, they also sent a mail bomb to his house. It's true.
Can you imagine that DNA supports ECW Wrestling and all of its redeeming qualities?
As I want Here's here's what I want to have happen as that is
playing and that exacts that is playing on the air. I want to hire
a team of men with guns to bombard his house and shoot those motherfuckers after
death. You mean his mother's house, to be clear, I don't get
are you fucking kidding that mother? Fine? I don't give a ship where
the fuck he lives. I want him dead, and I want the men
wearing the goddamn outfits. I want these men with guns, this swapped team
of sorts. I want them to be wearing TNN logos. I want him
to know because this, ladies and Gentlemen, is the new TNN. This
is the new goddamn TNN. And I want to know exactly who fucking killed
him. In fact, you know what, put pictures of men put him
on their fucking chest, me smiling, smile at that motherfucker has the bullet
through his body. Fucking I'm gonna lead that goddamn tan. I'm going to
lead the team to the Haymans, and I want to fucking shoot him in
the head. By the time it's over, its fault as far as Paul
Haman is concerned, you can call us the Nightmare Network and I want to
be skullfucking his mom. So yeah, that's kind of how it went down.
Oh, by the way, the grammarian who wrote this smart ass copy
wrote it's with an apostrophe, so apparently it's ECW wrestling and all of it
his redeeming quality. Good good work there. I wanted to find this on
Peacock because I know ECW on TNN and its entirety was on the network gone
scrubbed. Why of course, where's the CW on TNN. What's the problem,
folks, what's the problem. What isn't the problem? That's the question.
It's because it's a CBS viacom work that it aired on, but it
was episodes of Russia Be Gone Too from Yeah, I remember when they launched
the network. Everyone was on there really really questionable, and I got,
did you do it? Did you happen to do a search for it?
I tried everything, okay, because I know, I know sometimes I've looked
for shows like in the actual like just scrolling through it to find it,
and I can't find the unless they do a search, Like I know,
I couldn't find Tuesday in Texas. Ridiculous the other day, I was looking
for Tuesday and Texas to mommy, and I couldn't fucking find one guy like
fifty grand you know, who has a passion for this stuff and it'll be
fixed in like a year or even half a passion. Fuck stead, we
have to give it to somebody who's dealing with like a million different video files
and doesn't know WWF from fucking qv QVC whatever. That's that's a losing battle.
I'm pretty sure we'll lose access to all this soon anyway. Not the
wor worried about it, of course, because we're the fucking TLF Solar system.
But let's just say it's not gonna gett I know. It's even worse
is I found instances, you know, links to the files of ECW and
TNN on Peacock. So not only did they not only is it gone,
they migrated it and then took it away. That's crazy or what the story
is? What was it? I mean? Yeah, but it's it's a
damn shame. They do have hardcore TV up there, which is get I'm
in an ECW wrestling thing right now, and this is from nineteen ninety nine
to two thousand. Is that it is that TNN. I don't know,
doesn't say TNN. What are the what's the last episode? That's a good
question. I don't know why they would have changed the peacock links to where
there's de October October sixth, two thousand? Is it October sixth? Probably
it? Thanks for that I was talking all this shit. Well, no,
hey, it happens. I mean again, Yeah, you can't find
it all the time. It's just it's just ECW wrestling. If you go
into the ECW it used to be on there is w TN. No,
they don't have that. It's just ECW wrestling. Then. See when I
see east W Wrestling, I think that that's hardcore TV. But I think,
but they have ECW hardcore TV as well. It's a separate thing.
Okay, good, we'll see. We worked this out in the air.
Yeah, but you can tell a sensitive I am about shit disappearing because I
don't have time to make sure everything, you know what I mean, it
is still there. I know, I know. Let's take a look e
C Double Q Wrestling. Okay, two seasons, No, that's hardcore TV.
See if I'm hard to ascertained if this is TNN. Okay, here
it is. Yep, yep, this is it. August twenty seventh,
ninety nine is when it started. It's almost like they don't want to say
TNN. I think that's the problem, right right. I agree they used
to identify it as such. Okay, I take it back. That might
be a that might be an NBC thing that makes sense, like, really,
what is TNN? I would want to have that on the on Peacock,
you know, all right, I take it back. When I saw
that dead link, it set me off because I thought they took it away
from us, But they might have just changed what they called it. The
catalog. Ye. Actually, it's funny. You want something funny. I'm
looking at the link right now. It's one of It's Peacock TV dot com
slash Watch, slash Asset, Slash Sports slash ECW on TNA. There you
go. Yeah, yeah, I used to be called that. I know
it did, because that's why I thought it was gone. I know on
the network it was called ec W on TNN because that's how you could tell
the difference between that and hardcore TV. Bizarre. This is bizarre. So
you see Rob zan Dam's got a boot on, right, Well, where's
the thing. I want to know what episode was that on? Oh it
was in June. June. Yeah, you can find them more on YouTube
if you really want to see it. Oh right, But the point is
they send it to their syndicated stations as well. So people did hear the
actual promo and record it for posterity. I don't know if ten and counted
on that or not, but as far as their networks are concerned, and
what was it within their control, they muted it. Mm hmmm. I
bet that or mentioned Nashville network exec was working the phones all night trying to
call every single market ec W had syndication in to see if they can.
I need a list, all right, somebody give me a goddamn list the
KBR the fucking places that they are. And then wait, you did you
show a c W? Do you show you the extreme ship? It's eleven
thirty at night. I don't give a ship. What talent is? I
need to know exactly right now? Do you show that ec W fucking extreme
shit? So if you're gonna curse at me, I can't help you.
Oh you're gonna help me, all right. I'm gonna come down there and
I'm gonna strangle you to death? Where is the fucking ec W? Sorry,
sir, I don't have to deal with pigfuckers like this on the phone.
God, God, you fucking cut, fucking bitch. Guess having a
great night. Send him the tape and see if they've got a problem with
what I got to say. Say. So, uh, you notice Van
has a walking boot on? Right? I didn't actually, but you didn't
notice that he comes in on Scotty Rigg's back and is like limping around on
the show. I you know what. I was trying to just get through
it. So geez, So I just was probably doing other shit. It's
in the main event too, and he brawls a bit with Rhino and company.
Because let's see if I even let me see if I'll tell you what
this is what I definitely know if I if I if I noticed it or
not, And let's see if I noticed him coming out in my notes on
the thing he was on Scotty's shoulders. She must have been a note of
that. Nope, I didn't. It's so ridiculous. I didn't. I
just then my my things are then to Jerry comes down, r v D
and Alfonso come down, and then next thing is already puts Rhino through a
table. Oh my god. Okay, that's pretty funny. You didn't notice
he had a Bobby Duncombe football jersey on because Bobby Duncan Junior had just died.
Yeah, Bobby dunclem Junior coming to ECW and then died. When when
you're when I'm minutes away from finishing ECW show, it's just like, let's
just get through this show. Amazing, all right, So he had broken
his foot on a house show, wasn't on television, so there's no footage
of it. Wrestling Rhino on January twenty ninth of two thousand. He broke
it sounds like a TV show right there, right and wrestling Rhino. What
is it? Wrestling Rhino? Yeah? It could be a fucking reality show
right there, wrestling Rhino. Yeah, that's that's something else that a Robin
could have trained. So do you think considering Van Dam's high flag offense and
all the risks he took, you know, he broke his foot and just
doing a baseball slide, right, of course, that's the business. I'm
surprised he didn't like I'm surprised he didn't make it break his leg like lighting
a fucking joint. So this is rather significant because Rob Vandam had held the
television title for almost two years. It was like the longest long term storytelling
going on in ECW and it was it just it exploded his run. It
was almost like, I'm trying to think of someone who held the IC title
so long that you were just dying for them to win the WWF title.
Honky talking man, I guess you could say that, Yeah, who held
it for so long? A Warrior maybe? Maybe? Yeah, maybe Warrior?
Yep, Savage. Yeah, so Savage is a good one. You
know it's coming, you know, and it's just what are we going to
get there when it's the time going to be right? But for now,
the story is this incredibly long title reign against all manner of opponents. But
when he breaks his foot, it creates or his ankle, it creates a
big question mark as to when and how we're going to do this. And
again heat on Kallus as the network representative Cyrus. They have Cyrus because he's
TNN and he's heel and he wants to do everything that pisses the fans off.
Yeah, I'm sure there are a lot of employees at ten and look
just like him. I'm sure he forces Van Dam to forfeit his long held
television championship, which really, of all the things they could have done at
the time, he is one of the biggest heat getting things. Considering the
very real history behind Vandam holding that belt. He in fact confronts Paul Hayman
in the middle of the ring on ECW before he confronts RVD and tells him
he's going to do it, and and Hayman clutches the belt sort of as
if he's trying to protect the belt from the evil network that as it has
a say over what he does. But he's fighting against the network on television
and storyline as well as in reality. That's that's what's going on at this
time. God, I'm so annoying. Yeah, Cyrus telling Hayman in the
ring you will bend over for the network, and Hayman and his leather trench
coat clutching the belt and then he cracks down Kallas in the head. Does
Paul Hayman okay with the ECW Television Championship and then Rhino goores him, So
Haman putting himself out there to elevate this angle as well. And then finally
it comes down to it, there's nowhere to hide, there's no way to
litigate a round it. Cyrus has the power to force Rob Van Dam to
vacate his long held DCW Television Championship due to injury and inability to defend.
And here's how it plays out. Well, other wrestlers have left DCW for
what they fought with greener pastors. If some of them have return, all
the fans knew they could count on one thing throughout this whole time. When
they bought their ticket to see ACW, they knew they were going to get
what they pay to sea. And that's me go ho, that's because of
this piece of metal that I'm holding. Got to that you're gonna take all
that away from a c W, all that time that I've invested, these
fans have invested, They're gonna take that away from us and put us back
to doing house shows. A c W will continue on T N N And
all I got to say to you, Cyrus, to put a bottom line
on this is good luck fighting somebody to fill the shoes of the standard I've
said is the a c W World Television champion, don't fully what do you
bring me to the dick if she won that title one book shop only two
year champion in wrestling, it rap the hats one we'll never see rom Ban
Damn has relinquished the point. Whoever it is that you think is gonna carry
that world television belt. I want you to know that I'll be back to
beat their betass to take my whole TV title pack, and I'm gonna do
it. I'm joined now. He had he could save his television ship.
I want to suck a hitch I being damn. Can you imagine how badly
he wanted to be a two year champion. He was only run of money,
going to get out here, Foti who shut the felt right now?
Look at this sham felt the way here right now. So with they Ha
Cyrus and Fancy J. L. Tay Oh, he doesn't people that it
even money. I never thought I'd be rooting for Bill out park right out
Wow. And that was a Paul special because when he does something that'd pissed
the fans off like that, he would also he would package it. He
does it on the pay per view too, package it together with like another
angle immediately following it that shifted the focus to something else, which in this
case was Rhino stepping up and goring Rob van Dam's manager Bill Olfonso to signal
that Rhino was now kind of like the lead dog in the hunt for the
future of the Television Championship and thus a future opponent for Rob van Dam against
whom he suffered the injury that forced him to relinquish the belt in the first
place. So that's how that all played out, and you can hear van
Dam kind of channeling the spirit of an ECW that was kind of bruised by
some top star departures and trying to which was a shoot, you know,
win the support of the fans because he didn't leave even though he had ample
opportunity. So that's how that plays out. And Scotty Riggs is involved because
Scotty Riggs is a long I'm friend of Rob van Dam's, dating back to
it before they really broke in as national stars. They worked similar indie circuits
very early on in their lives and careers, and gross Rob asked if Rigs
could be featured on screen in some role with Van Dam to associate him with
him, and I think that was legal how so to be showing rigs on
screen. Well, they certainly do it a lot here and I don't think
anybody went to jail, but you know, I mean, you know,
for such a rigs and I mean, were they filled with juice? Were
they juiced up? Rigs? That I can't speak to, But there were
certainly no shortage of those in the ECW locker room at the time there,
so if you wanted to find one, you could, but it was always
looking, always looking for a cycle. Yeah, well the business is cyclical,
so that's a good point. But it surprised me researching this that there's
kind of like a dearth of commentary from Rob van Dam about what it meant
to lose the TV title that way. I mean, not to mark out
for it, but it really was his calling card. It was something I'm
sure he would have liked to have to hear him talk about it, you
know, become world champion while also holding the TV championship and only lose it
or relinquish it after he won the main belt. That was kind of how
he seemed to see. Sure, but you know this not very unfortunately timed
injury forced this angle, and how he felt about that and I couldn't find
much in the way of commentary about it. But we didn't have a way
of reaching RVD. Did we not? Indeed, we've done it before.
We were able to put the question to him via cameo. The question is
does he answer it? We asked, That's always the question. We asked
them some other things about what's going on at ECW at this point in time
and presenting now made possible by your generous support in the solar system some primary
research here RVD on this whole time period, what a JP? This is
Hall of Famer and the whole damn show. When he went he flashed the
ring? Oh he did he really? Okay, Yeah, there's another way
you can't dance? I saw him. I actually I just you know what,
I just haven't no time to do what. I forgot about it after
I got it, after it came in r v D. If I'm in
person and I was signing an autograph to you, I'd say, how do
you spell JP? And I have to catch you stonefaced, and you would
not know if I was joking or not. You say j P, and
I'd say, I know, not feel a little bit. So if I
would have a good, laugh together. Let me get through your questions here,
bro, I can help you out because I already read them. I
got the answers. Okay, it was the coolest Scottie Riggs carrying me to
the ring with a broken foot. Uh. Yeah, I thought that was
a cool Uh, A cool little thing. And one of the fans to
associate he and I together is being bess. But which I need to call
him? Text him more likely? Uh, because a couple of text him
more likely. We don't want to be calling Scottie Riggs these days weeks.
He's still doing good. We're still doing good, We're still framings. Of
course, I have fantastic thoughts on the TANN angle where they stripped me of
my TV title. So there it is. We ask him if he has
thoughts of the angle where TNN stripped him of the TV title? Right?
Oh boy? Well, see, I had a contract that said I get
X amount of money for seventy five matches a year. That's interesting. It's
the first time I've ever heard of a ECW contract of matches attached to it.
Yeah, and then every news and what happened was they went over my
seventy five and I didn't bother tell them because I was getting paid extra that
hear that, Yeah, what was the deal? If I go over your
seventy five, then I get paid per each match and at the same rate.
So I was collecting money. And but what does this have to do
with the injury? No, I didn't tell them. They were so unorganized
they had no idea. And then when they found out that, I was
like, I don't know, eighty matches, eighty one matches or whatever.
Boom, wait a minute, they left me for dead, filade open like
a dissected frog. Rob. I didn't ask you what happened when TNA took
the title off you? Oh my god, Oh my god. You remember
on TNH where he was attacked by a business metal spikes. Yes, he
thinks the clues, Oh my god, he thinks. Not not what he
thought about when they took the TV title off of him on TNN, but
rather when TNA took the title off of him on TV on TV. And
it's the damnedest thing, because I can't be mad about it. You know
why, because when we were doing TNH, I had a hell of a
time finding corroboration for the reports in the newsletters that the reason that's funny RVD
was suddenly written out as world champion after so much hooplah putting the belt on
him on the first Live Monday Night show was that they fucking realized his contract
was such that they put the belt on somebody that they couldn't agree to pay
as much as they had to. And it was classic TNA. It's fucking
classic, you know, finger pointing from there on the top. God starts
the top, bishoff and Dixie should have known about this for putting the belt
on him, but they they you know, they whistle past graveyards, that's
what they do. So unbelievable. So at least we've got that confirmation a
couple of years later. Goddamn no, it was a two years yeah,
year ago, two years well, a year ago, year and a half
ago. We're suffering through that. So there's your confirmation seventy five days that
that's that is. That's crazy. I'm like, at first he's talking,
I'm like, wow, this is I've never heard this about ECW contracts.
And I'm listening right, I'm like, no, he's not, he's not.
He just thought it was DNA. So that's how much it meant to
him to have that long standing man. He confuses it for his TNA world
title run. I mean, hey, you know what though it I mean,
I mean I can understand him looking at TNN and thinking tnayah, same
network. Oh my god. But we asked him a lot more about this
time period, so more to come here from mister for all of my fans
to see. And I brought my back with a band aid and they started
my next seventy five. So you know, what do I think about it?
Not the best business from any perspective? Really, Okay, the heat
between Polly and TNN, what was it about? Uh well, dude,
so here we are e c W pause pause, I can belief you didn't
make the connection there. I know we're gonna ask you about TNN in the
middle of two ECW questions, and Mike also, we've talked. I literally
you know that you literally put down TNN the angle, like talking about TNN
and the angle, and he doesn't pick up on the fact that, oh
shit, yeah, I she said, Cyrus took the belt off you.
But you know you don't think about that potential for misination, right exactly.
We're awesome. Also, knowing the world can't see us because we have a
sty time slot. Uh, and some areas don't get us at all.
The ones that do watch us at three in the morning. But if we
had an national channel, holy crap. If everyone got a chance to see
us, a lot of them. I just knew a lot of them would
be like minded like me, and they would prefer the cool, extreme factors
of ECW over the mainstream product that they were being subjected to. There was
getting pushed down their throat and we all believed that. And we're looking at
channels. When I shopping for channels, and man, for a while,
Paul at us, going, you know, it's either going to be USA
or if not, then it might be I don't know who else. Did
he say Fox was on the list the one time, but anyway, it
ended up being TNN. All right, Well, at least they're available everywhere.
Everyone gets TNN. At the time TNN was I think it's called the
Nashville Network or was it before the Nashville Network. He remembers they were national
network. But he has trouble connecting that despite Fox is interesting right now,
I think he has I think he's got a lot of trouble connecting a lot
of stuff right now. You know, it's weird. He's all spacey and
he's got the voice in his face, but he actually has better recall than
most guys of his age. Oh, totally, totally. I'm just I'm
just giving him a hard time. I don't I know what you mean that
sounds pulling it out of his Yeah, I mean also, I mean he's
shirtless in this one, right, and I'm sure baked. Oh absolutely,
Yeah, dude, he's stoned off the wazoo. So there's that too.
But uh, yeah, the Fox one's interesting, becau. I'm pretty sure
that's the deal that ended up going to TNA Fox Sports Net, So they're
shopping around in There was even a brief period where George Greenberg, who was
running Fox Sports through Lenita Erickson, who was an on screen television commentator for
w CW interviewer, I should say for a very brief period of time,
and who actually got together with JJ Dillon and Jerry Jarrett. He was trying
to facilitate an alternative offer to buy w CW you from the Fusion offer that
Eric Bischoff was putting together. Really yeah, the guy who ran Fox Sports,
George Greenberg, according to guy Evans book, calls up Lenita and says,
hey, Lenita, I got this guy Eric Bischoff coming in here.
Says he owns w CW and is looking for television, and she tells him,
George, he does not owned ww He just he can't make those representations.
He's don't do it. He's not in a position to make a deal.
So sniffing around wrestling. For a while, there was was Fox No
I think it was back then on the National Network, and then it changed
to something else and then Spike TV. But at the time everyone got TONN
but there was shit for programming on there. It was like the I think
the most popular show that they had was Dukes of Hazard reruns from the eighties.
So I thought, for sure, we're gonna be the number one watched
show on the channel easily. We'll be able to be the big fish in
a little pond. Who's gonna be good for us. It's gonna really get
our name out there and everyone to be able to tune in and watch us.
And it didn't really go that way for a lot of reasons. They
didn't get really good behind us, and we were noticing that they put us
on Friday Night, which is really like one of the worst time slots.
People weren't watching TV back then. They were going out and they didn't advertise
the show at all. They didn't get behind us at all. I was
thinking, Wow, when we get on a nast shot network, you gotta
see v c W. Russell is on the side of semi trucks on the
highway, big billboards telling everyone tune in to TNN Friday night at eight o'clock.
None of that happened. Commercial that I ever saw was one that we
made and we aired it during our show, so the rest of the time
there wasn't any pushing a VCW. We saw that happening, and then according
to Paul, it was because they were using us as a testing pattern because
they were already planning on getting WWE and moving WWE to their channel, and
we went it out of there and we couldn't get out, and so we
felt trapped, and so that's what they heat was. That's why Paul did
the promo that they aired without the audio. We says, you know what,
dnn Ie Darian to kick me off the air. If you had the
balls, you'd kick me off the fucking air. Because we wanted to get
kicked off. We knew that they were using us, and we were actually
losing money from the way I understood it. When we got hooked up to
the TV networks and stuff. You know, Paul signed some contracts for some
of us for some money, so we wouldn't leave, couldn't. You know,
you can't invest in ourselves if they might leave and go somewhere else.
And he had the long term plans in mind. He wanted to see this
work. So for all of those reasons, we got fucked over by TNN
mister King Spike and then just aired WWE and a little did I know that
Paul was working with WWE anyway, So maybe maybe at this time he might
even had something to do with that. I only know when it comes to
Paul Hayman. That would he tells me is one thing to go by,
but there's probably more. M all right, JP, this is the whole
affing show. R v D enjoyed it. Bam, good talk. I
gotta jump in the pool. Good talk, pal amazing talk. Soon he'd
say he is one of a kind. Well, I'll tell you what I
do. Believe that his feet are more educated than himself. But that's just
what I've heard, so a lot there, but a lot of confirmation around,
you know, the nature of how the talent was feeling about TNN and
and how Paul was feeling about TNN, but not necessarily answers as to the
emotion of having to vacate the television title. That will have to be resolved
at a future date. Maybe maybe maybe we should ask him about the TNA
title sometime and maybe he'll talk about the TNN. Well, I'll tell you.
You know, we've ever seen Rob at a convention, that's the one
to ask him, But now we got it answered inadvertently, so now we
have to ask him instead exactly. But at the time, who was Rob
Mandam on an Ultimate Collision course with equal parts Rhino but also ECW Heavyweight champion
Mike Awesome? That was the big Oh, there we go. That would
have been a great program. Yeah, I'm sure I could have gotten behind
that one. And they were sort of associating the two in some of the
angle I think Mike Astlin's pretty good. Yeah, I can't wait to talk
about it. They were associated the to a bit and in angles before that
sort of dropped dead forfeit the championship, they shared the ring together. They
got a couple of episodes of tn N where they kind of barbed back and
forth but who had the better belt. You could tell that they were on
track to have Van Dem versus Awesome as the big program, with Van Dam
finally winning the world Championship at some point in two thousand and of course,
that doesn't quite come to fruition, not because of Vandam's injury, but because
Mike Ausam leaves with the championships. So what we see here on a show
where he makes a sudden run in and power Bomb's kid Cash of all people
to death and then leaves is a Mike Awesome as ECW champion for the final
time on ECW pay per view. It's crazy because he's getting ready to jump
ship to a WCW that's reconstituting under Eric Bischoff and Vince rue So, and
we know that Awesome comes in quite soon after that begins and eventually becomes the
fat Chick thriller. This very well, Oh god, I remember, and
that's where he's wearing the Hawaiian shirt, right, it's right, Yeah,
he's that seventies guy, so stupid. So you saw awesome here and kind
of like the strongest presentation that was the idea. Mike Austum comes out and
fucking obliterates smaller guys with power, bombs off the top rope, through tables,
and just destroys people and gets, you know, display some of his
one of a kind areal ability for a guy of his speaking of Rob van
Dam, one of a kind are for a guy of his size. And
what did you think? What do you think what you saw? I like,
I mean, I I've seen Mike Austin before. I like Mike Austum.
I think he's I think he was great. I think I I I
wish uh you know, I wish he'd lasted in uh in ww after.
You know, I think it's funny they didn't really see much in him,
but he's got all those all this all the characteristics of they what they usually
like, especially at that time. You know, he's big, he's quick,
and you know he's he's you know, he's got he's got the look
and everything. I don't know, it was always kind of bummed that it
didn't work out with him. Yeah, one thing he thought I didn't have
was he didn't have the voice to match the presence. He had kind of
squeaky, goofy voice, but you know, that's nothing that can't be overcome.
His thing was he was huge in Japan as gladiator, huge in FMW,
not huge in the big Japanese leagues, but a FMW with GCW had
a promotional alliance with dating back to the you know the Italian with that Shushio
Nita and Terry Funk that we talked about on the Lapsed Funk. Yeah,
there was a lot of talent training going on. I think Ken of Muras
on the show, we'll talk about him, he's part of that. I
getto and Jado as well come in before they were in New Japan and they're
on this pay per view as well. There was a pretty strong relationship there
and as gladiator with a painted face, he was standing out a lot.
Mike Assam had been in the sort of proto ECW in ninety three and ninety
four a couple of times. It was able to show some of his wares
then, but he really broke through and got a healthy gig in Japan as
a world champion, where he feuded with Massato Tanaka quite expansively, and when
they brought that feud into the United States. Starting in the summer of nineteen
ninety eight, became very clear that Mike Austin versus Massado Tanaka was one of
the best things going in ECW. They were having the best matches on most
shows later on, and they were just elevating things. They were not just
doing chair shots, they were doing incredible, high risk spots for guys of
their size, just in a really state of the art matches for American wrestling
rings at that point in time. And so eventually the thought came to be,
this guy's got the size, he's got this incredible agility and athleticism,
Maybe we can build around the guy. And so as it begins playing out,
and after their series of great matches, at the August nineteen ninety eight
heat Wave event, Awesome loses to Tanaka and then September nineteen ninety eight,
Awesome gets an injury, so it takes him until September of ninety nine to
come back. But when he does come back, it's in the vacuum of
Taz leaving as champion at the time. So what a perfect setup to set
up Mike Awesome to be the guy to pick up the torch, so they
do do that at Interview rules. As we've covered in the archives, there's
a three way tas Masado, Tanaka and Mike Awesome, and Awesome uh leaves
as champion in that matchup as tasks the first to be eliminated from the three
way dance, and then they turned the stage over to Awesome and to not
going to do their thing, finally culminating in Mike Austain becoming the flag bearer,
if you will, of Extreme Championship Wrestling in a post TAZ era.
He then also goes on prior to this show to win the ECW World Tag
Team titles and a strange pairing with Raven. Yeah, what was that?
We see them defend the titles and lose them on this show and he gets
a manager and judge Jeff Jones and it's Mike Austome's company, and uh,
he defends here. And you'll never guess who played a role in tilting the
scales to one, Mike Awesome choosing w CW over ECW when it starts to
get tough, You'll never guess. I'm gonna guess it was Henry Godwin.
There's a high spots shooting interview that Mike Ausain once conducted about the whole situation,
where he explains the mentality and the influences and him leaving ECW. Right
around this point in time for WCW particularly, I was driving to the show
and I was thinking to myself, you know what, we did not get
paid last week. We're not getting paid this week. What's going on?
Why do they keep missing our pay days? They just kept, you know,
we get paid sporadically, and just kept missing pay days and missing pay
days. And I was like thinking, what did I do? I left
my job in Japan for this. I just bought the house that I'm doing
this interview in right now. I started thinking, oh my gosh, I'm
letting go and make my mortgage payments. So I was talking to Horace actually
on the telephone, and he said, Mike, He goes, what are
you doing? He goes, I can't believe you're doing that. He goes,
I got a Hongkog and right next to me, boom, He hands
the phone. Hogan. Hogan gets on the phone. My brother, what
are you doing. You can't be working for free? He goes. Just
turn around and I follows you. I'd dig my ass home. I basically
that's what I did. I turned around and went home and from there started
talking with Bishop from Russolf and Bishop and Russo, and you know what happened.
Then got a job, Then Paul and all the legal wranglings came down
on me. And if I had a contract with Paul, I would not
have been able to go to WCW. So what what was your solution?
You did you just want to get the belt back because you didn't have a
contract, or yeah, I could care less about the belt. I mean
the belt. So really, while I was there, and I was even
though I was the champion, it's cool to be the champion, you know,
that's not everything. You know, being able to provide for your family
is number one. Actually, so the belt meant absolutely nothing at that point
because I wasn't providing properly for my family and I felt like it made a
bad career move by leaving Japan. San And I'm sure you've heard the criticism
and everybody talking about yeah I hold out. I want I want you to
tell me your signing story. My signed the story basically, like I told
you, I could not provide for my family or well, I wasn't getting
paid. Basically, the text just weren't coming in the way they were supposed
to. All the promises that were brother were made were not coming to It
was Hulk Hogan. Wow, brother, do you know why? Why?
Because Mike Awesome is Horace Hogan's cousin. He's related to whole fuck out of
here? Absolutely do all. I'll thinking, Brother, why don't you come
over? Dosey w Do you know we can kind of hang and bang brother?
A family reunion going, Brother, You're gonna have the Hogan's Dude,
Yo, we could have brother yo. Hulk Hogan. Dude, Yo,
dude, you get Hulk Hogan brother working for free. Dude, you got
Horace Hogan. Dude, got Mike Hogan brother. Awesome Mike Hogan. That's
a much better name. Honestly, I repeat, Awesome Mike Hogan. Hm
hm oh we can all do we get down there, brother, We'll get
down the ring all three of us shirts at the same time. Dude,
Hollywood hul Cogan, Horace Hogan and Horrible Horace Hogan. Dude, you got
Hollywood hult Cogan. You got a Horrible Horace Hogan brother, and you got
Awesome Mike Hogan, Dude, I can I'm seeing the dollars getting printed.
Brother, Are there, Mike, dude? Wait a minute, Mike,
Ma, Horace, are you there? Are you sure sure? This is
Mike on the phone, triple h Brother? Come on over here, dude,
horrible Horace Hogan, dude, get over here? Are you shurees?
Mike? Dude? Hold on? Did you call Mike? Awesome? Dude?
You know you called me Terry? I was what who called you?
Dude? What Mike called me? I was? I picked it up.
I mean, he had a lot on his mind, and you took the
phone from me, and I don't know what's happening. Then this is my
Horace Hogan. By the way, Hi, holl cry something like that,
Uncle Holk. But then whom I on the phone with right now? Dude?
Hello? Oho? Brother? Who am I on the phone with?
Right now? Dude? Hello? He decides to check the phone line again.
Who phone line just goes dead. Meanwhile, on the other side,
somewhere, Mike Austoin is on his cell going through like a dead zone,
like hello, Terry, you there? Hello, But he can't hear it.
He just hears silence. Awesome, Mike, sounds good. I'll take
it as long as I get paid, Horace. Brother. As soon as
I said horrible horrors, dude, as soon as I said he should be
Mike Hogan, he went dead silent on me radio. How am supposed to
be into that? How do I even know that? I don't even think
this is Mike? Dude, Dude, I think who's on the phone,
Dude, I think you've got a copycat brother ending me phone calls. Brother,
You don't even know who's on the phone. Are you sure that could
be? You think of who that could be? Who's dude you're talking about?
You said hold on, brother, You said it was Mike Awesome.
Dude? Are you sure they said Mike Awesome and it Mike comes through just
a little signal or it goes silent again? Hello? Of course? Are
you sure they didn't say Steve Austin? Dude? Right exactly? I mean,
you can make that common mistake, brother, Mike Awsome does sound like
Steve Austin. I can understand, brot, I can tell you that.
What how do you know, dude, how do you know he wasn't put
on a Mike Awsome voice? Brother? Hold on, dude, when did
you shave your head anyway? Do you trying to look like brother? That
go to you? Gut? I'm putting two to two together. I'm sitting
here at the house. Why are you, brother? Why are you wearing
black? Dude? Wait, uncle Hawk, I'm wearing nWo callers? Brother,
don't even start. Are you saying? Are you saying Steve? Wait?
Are you seeing Steve Austin rolling off the nWo? Dude? Whoa?
And have you're going down? I need a minute, dude, don't leave.
You cannot leave my house, brother, but I need a minute.
Linda. Can you have all the doors locked? Please? Thank you?
Okay, Linda, can you do me? I think we have a situation,
Terry, Why are you still holding phone? I just I have a
situation right, No, I don't know who's on the phone. I gotta
keep this line open. Brother. Why if he says something, dude,
it's getting a call from a hostage taker. I need you to listen,
Linda. I need you to get the kids. I need you to tie
up horse all right. Oh, the kids are gonna help. I say,
get nasty, nick. I want to get brook Tean. You brother,
get nasty, you get broteeny. I need you to tie up,
Horse. I needed to gag him. I need you to keep him fucking
shut off. And it just comes in the room like Horace, I'm sorry
to do this. He wants us to tie you up and gag you.
Can we just can you just cooperate to be over quick. But it'd be
a lot better than if we have to have a big fight about it.
Horse, like fine, all right, all right, yeah, alright,
alright. I don't want to cause any trouble. All right, just sit
there, Nick, can you get the left wrist? Brook, you get
the right? Thank you so much, Horse, I'm sorry about this.
And then for some reason, and for some reason, Hogan opens the door
to his basement. He does. It's like he's just staring down into the
darkness. I know you're down here, dude. Who did I just say
to come to w C W brother? I mean, who do what?
Brother? I don't want to hang it. I can't hang up. I
a landline, dude, that line. We got a line, doctor line,
Dude, doctor don like you, dude, Terry, you know we
have a landline. Why are you asking that question? Why why do you
answered the question with the questions? Horas tied up, Yes, Terry,
how could be sure? Well, brother, if he's tied up, tell
him to tell him to tell me he's tied up, Terry, he has
a brother. I don't give it. Then you're gonna take a picture of
him. Brother, have it developed. We'll do it our development. Can't
you gim here? Brother? Just watch this basement. I'm gonna go talk
to Horace. He goes upstairs, talks to him, and as he's walking
up, he said at the phone next to his ear trembling, but but
but making his way to that part of the house puts him back in signal
range, and all of a sudden he hears like the sound of a car
on the highway. Sorry, are you there, Terry? I'm sorry.
I think I keep losing you. But I didn't want to hang up.
I don't want to lose the call. Who I'm driving? What didn't hang
up anyway? Or are you driving to? Who are you? Brother?
I was just talking about Stone Colt, Steve Austin. I know who it
is. Brother. What you're trying to come here? You're trying to kill
the NW dude, You're trying to fuck me up, parlor? What highway?
Are you going to kill my family, Dude, hol Comnia is too
important. Brother. I've been trying to keep this thing alive for twenty fucking
years. Dude, you will not fuck this up. Proller. It's my
family, Dude, it's my house. Ah. Mike is just white knuckling
the steering wheel. No clue what to say, no clue, and so,
in his moment of panic, thinking well, maybe I shall have a
day a job at w CW. I better not fuck this up, he
hangs up and suddenly hears the phone dies. We'll call Dies. Without any
response to that whole big paranoid spiel that he just let loose, no reassurance
that he's wrong, nothing like that. The call ends at that point.
At that moment, he turns to Horace and says, what I think the
government's coming to my house? Dude, I think the government gonna kill you.
Brother. We're gonna dress you up like Kulkogan, so they kill you
first. Yeah, all right, we get the right and yellow brother.
We're gonna dress up Horace the end. Kids. So yeah, that's a
long way of saying Mike ass was the cousin of Horace Hogan, Horrorce Hogan.
Well, yeah, he leaves, but he mentioned the legal issues.
Paul Haveman goes into a court of law with his ECW contract with Mike Austin,
says you cannot jump like that, and he actually gets well. He
files for a restraining order preventing Mike Austin from appearing on Nitro. According to
the Scott Williams book The scuttle but what about Thunder, that's a workaround.
Going to Scott Williams book, the scuttle butt was that Mike was going to
show up and do the Medusa. He's gonna throw the ECW world title in
the trash. Oh my god, back to the old playbook. That's that's
the style right there, and it doesn't happen a judge, you know,
basically by filing it with the judge, WB s, sorry, we need
to settle this, like fine, we won't fucking do this. We don't
want to deal with this. So there's a settlement. I'm sure there's a
cash payment made to pay down the mounting debts ECW, and eventually Mike Austin
is allowed to go after this, living dangerously show over to WCW as as
we see here, Mike Austam, well you heard him there, kind of
express the frustrations with the whole deal, but they set up a situation where
he can drop the championship to Taz, who's in WWF at this time.
But because obviously there's very close contact if he's going to make a half million
dollar loan Vince in the summer of two thousand tow that he's not more than
a phone call away. So they negotiate Taz to come back to ECW for
one night to beat Mike Ausam in an impromptu match to become champion. And
the thing is so negotiated because now it's all legal, right, and this
is like the subject of a settlement agreement between ww and ECW, that there's
all these fine points. You can find Mike Austam talking about it, of
like he can't come into the building, he has to stay in the car
in the parking lot, he can't be in the locker rooms, and he
is to enter this way and go. A lot of people put a heat
on Mike Ausam for not being in a locker room and just showing up and
leaving, But according to him, that was all sort of prescribed by Paul
Hayman's legal demands or ECW's legal team to demands that he not be there because
they wanted to, you know, minimize the chances that something could go wrong
or you know that that circumstances could be manipulated in a certain way. So
he comes in, he walks in, I think, through the people with
his gear on. He gets in the ring, Taz chokes him out.
He even says, Mike Austin does that. He puts his hand up in
a certain way to block his carotid artery so the TAZ couldn't choke him out
for real and double cross them and leave him laying taps right away that I
thought that was a real possibility that he don't fucking I guess he did.
Yeah, Jesus, Chris, what a business, I know, I said.
And at this level too, there's like, you know, six hundred
people in the maybe five hundred people in the building. And so he jumps
the rail and takes off after losing the championship in a flash, he barely
sells the TAS mission. He's gone Taz and straight clothes basically is back in
ECW to win the championship and then the next night at the arena, next
the next night, next show at the arena. Shortly after this, Taz
returns in the full gear and wrestles Tommy Dreamer, and Tommy Dreamer wins the
world championship from Taz. Tas does a clean job for him will like a
roll up, and then exits the stage and then just incredible again that Paul
Hyman playbook of when you kind of you know you launch the next angle immediately
after the prior one ends just incredible, jumps in the ring, canes Tommy
Dreamer and convinces him to put the championship on the line, and then beats
Tommy Dreamer. So Dreamer's reign is ees W champion. Coming off all this
mess lasts about an hour and just incredible leaves that night as the new ECW
World Heavyweight Champion. Jesus Christ so confusing at the time, but we know
all the circumstances now afterwards. But the Rock what show? What's that?
What a shit show? But the court case, Now, when I was
fascinating things sitting in a courtroom about the history of WCW and a ECW,
so so it was to be RVD and Mike awesome. That was kind of
where the ECW that we observe here at Living Dangerously two thousand was heading and
not only did we not get the match in two thousand, we never would
get in the match because on February seventeenth, two thousand and seven, Mike
Austom hung himself. Oh god, I don't remember the man. He hung
himself ade his home in Tampa. Holy shit. Here's RVD in a shoot
interview with James Romero the Resting Shoot Interviews YouTube page, talking about what could
have been with him and Mike Austin. I know what would who would have
went over in your plan match with Mike Awesome? No, I don't know.
I mean anything would be hypothetical. If you're asking me to book it
right now, I think I would have. I think I would have been
holding two belts after that match. You know, that would have been awesome.
And literally there's a you know, no pun intended. But also even
you know, having rematches, maybe setting up three out of five or something,
we have to set the standards in that first matchup. That never happened.
Him. He was great, But I think, and this is in
my opinion being biased, him having the heavyweight belt I think made him stronger.
And I think me having the TV Championship Belt made the TV belt stronger,
so I think that would have been the difference. I'm presuming this is
the time when Mike jumped ship to WCW, so that's why the match never
happened. Because we don't really talk about Michael some very much on the show,
and I really enjoyed him. He was one of my sort of like
you know, like the undercover favorites, like everyone's got the phase, like
the Rocky whoever, but like Michaelson was always one of my favorites. Did
you ever wrestle him ever? No? No, never, did you know?
We were I guess we were both in the Alliance. So we've done
some segments together and he was my road wife for a while. We in
two thousand and one, I guess in maybe two thousand and two, I
don't know, but we we traveled together, and he was, you know,
definitely one of my uh, one of my better friends, and one
of my several friends who decided to hang themselves, which I'm gonna have to
look at the lists of them and see if there's a pattern, because I
grew up in a house where someone hung themselves Jesus, so I have that
back in my mind, you know how that foreshadowed Ashley my Sorrow, the
Lion, Lionheart in England. Well obviously chrispin Law. But there's you know,
there's a huge list and it's it's it's weird studying the patterns of life.
Never saw it coming. You know, it hurt a lot to know
that he would have opted to do that to himself. Yeah, he loved
these kids so much. He loved his kids, not his wife so much,
loved his kids. I could not imagine that he would do that to
them. You know, he would just tell me he can't wait to get
home and smell them. He was like a dog in that way, which
I don't know anybody else that has explained themselves I can, but he always
he uses nose a lot like a dog. And he used to love just
smelling his kids and and he would talk about that and uh and then you
know, like I said, I get it where his wife and him probably
got in a really bad fight because it didn't seem like they had the best
loving relationship anyway. And I would imagine she probably threatened to take away his
kids. In my mind, that had to been what happened. So another
ecw happy ending, Jesus Christ so rest in peace, and I fucking Christ
all my Steve Karina. This is kind of his show to shine besides the
one that he wins the world title on. In the very dying days of
the company facing off against the American Dream, Dusty Rose's funnyw runs, it's
so funny. There's like it's more like the company is going to be dead
in less than a year and it's still not even the darkest of the dying
days. Oh it doesn't. No, it still doesn't have the because you
got to think post T and N dying. That's really like we've got nothing.
You know, we don't have a national tea, we don't have a
TV anymore. We have syndicated shows. But we built all this time up
to get a national deal thinking that that was the catalyst to make this a
really really serious enterprise here and it's over. The thing you thought was the
springboard is now behind you. So this is a chapter we've never foresaw being
on. Everything to this point has been somewhat linear in progression, and it
feels like momentum. This is a huge step back from where we thought we'd
be. So I don't know, Steve Kreno thrives in this environment. They're
sort of hard up for people, and he's ready to step up and cup
big promos and work, you know, kind of a style, some sort
of tentti amutter Shane Douglas. You know, he's like the guy with that
traditional heel style amidst the land of big time brawlers with great mike skills.
Yeah, right right. He told U Scott Williams in the Hardcore History Book.
I used to see go see ECW shows, and there would always be
guys who wanted to be hardcore. I thought it would be cool if I
could be the opposite. I would say wrestlers needed to go back to doing
the hip toss, not all these chairs in the violence. It worked on
the indies, and that first night I came in TCW, Paul Hayman asked
me where I envisioned my character. I described my gimmick and he lit up.
He just said, Steve Corino, that's what you're going to be.
So here, on a shoot interview with our video, Corina talks about getting
hired. He tells the story a little more colorful and less pithy way.
Nonetheless, the outcome is the same. So he calls me. He says,
look, he goes, Paul wants a couple of indie guys to come
in that can make an impact. Is Tommy Dram. He came to me.
He said he has reckless youth in mind. He goes, I had
you in mind, and I'm like, all right, sorry, this is
actually Nova who's in the company and calls him, Oh, to come in.
Nova was a was an associate of his. So he calls me.
He says, look, he goes, Paul wants a couple of indie guys
to come in that can make an impact. And he came to me.
He said, he has reckless youth in mind. He goes, I had
you in mind, and I'm like, all right. He goes, you
know, do you want to do it? I said. He goes,
it's try out. You know, there's no promises. He goes, I
don't know how much you're gonna get paid anything like that. So I was
like, oh, okay, you know I'm thinking, but my shining thought
was, oh shit, what's gonna happen? Because I was doing that anti
hardcore gammick where I wasn't mentioning ECW but you need to know because everybody on
the Independence was trying to do that hardcore stuff. So I figured if I
was the anti hardcore, I'm gonna be different and I'll get booked more places.
So yeah, I'm thinking this is it. They're gonna kill me thinking
that, you know, here I am tried to make fun of them on
the indies and h So I'm thinking, yeah, I mean, I am
either gonna be in there two minutes where I'm gonna hear Dan and that,
or I'm gonna hear the uh and I'm just gonna see uh one insane black
man hitting the ring and I'm just like, what's gonna happen. So I
get there and uh, you know, he tells me to come for the
workouts and everything. I do a workout and uh Dreamer comes to me.
I meet I meet Paul real quick. After the workout. He said that
he goes, you're doing really good, looking forward to working with you.
I said, oh, okay, cool. Dreamers Like, okay, you
guys are on first tonight. You can have as much time as you want.
He's like, novas up. I'm like wow, I'm thinking, you
know, I'm thinking, wow, I'm really in trouble. Now. You
know they're giving me the open ended you know, this is really gonna be
an ass kicking, so I said, I kept asking him, Sure,
they're not gonna you know, because when I was meeting people like they were
giving me the eye, like Bubba gave me that. You know, Bubba
and Taz were the enforcers in the locker room. And I looked around like,
uh, you know, I had no Impage and Tracy from doing jobs
in w w F, and you know, I know no of I known
Axel from MWF, and Axel was never a fan of mine, so you
know he was he was already throwing the shots in and working against me.
So I'm like, oh my god, you know this is gonna be horrible.
And uh but yeah, me and Nova went out. I think we
did like ten twelve minutes and it was. It was a lot of fun.
And uh afterwards, Paul's like, you know rip number one. He
goes, uh, I want to talk to you after the show, right,
So everybody's like, you know, hey man, that means you're in
yeah, and you do really good. So I didn't know, you know,
waiting to talk to him at five o'clock, in the morning, and
it consisted of, let me ask you a question, how old are you?
You go twenty five? He goes, twenty five years old. Do
you know that? Just incredible, he's only twenty four years old. I
did not know that. And of course maybe in the market, I am
I see Paul as Paulie dangerously with the phone, hitting people in the head.
I'm going, wow. He goes, you could spend the rest of
your career here. Would you like a job, mister Kreno? I go,
I won I want you know, in my mind, I'm like,
yes, yes. He goes like this. He goes, this is what
we're gonna do. He goes, for ninety days, you're gonna get seventy
five dollars a night. I go, right then, I didn't care,
man, I'm thinking, oh my god, I got a job. I
got a job. He goes, go give He goes, DeBie, will
give you my number. That was rib number two. You know, if
you've ever tried to call Paul, and you know, I could give out
of his phone number because you will never reach him. You know, he's
never going to answer the phone unless you, you know, unless you he
really needs to talk to you. And and I'm sure we'll get to that
later. So but you know, I go over to Debbie, I give
her all my information, I'm all happy and everything like this. He goes,
I'll see you next week, right. I'm like, oh my god,
Yeah, this is great. Yeah, And that's how that's how I
started. So that's what it's like to break an easy debut at this flint
hilarious. He grew up a big fan of George. He's a Pennsylvania kid,
but he grew up a big fan of Georgia Championship Wrestling, in particular
Tully Blanchard, and he patterned a lot of what he did after Tully to
hear him tell it. And so when he got a chance to work with
the actual Dusty Rhodes, the playbook is right there, the great Dusty Tully
program from Crockett. Sure, sure, and he does his best to channel
that and working with the Dusty Roads in ECW and kind of bringing that back.
And as he's developing from that sort of opening match, anti hardcore character
to somebody that's being featured more prominently, an opportunity presents itself where lymp Biscuit,
who as we know, is a very popular act back then is doing
a stage show and for some reason word gets the ECW's in town and word
gets out that they can actually do an angle. This of course before undertakers
started using Roland Roland and this may have been how WWF realized that lymp biscuit
Fred Durst liked wrestling and kind a deal over there to perform at WrestleMania because
they worked first of these sop biscuits doing this big ass concert and Steve Karna.
So, so, Fred, I hear you're you're working with the extremists.
What he gets Fred Durst on the phone, by the way, which
is hilarious in and of itself, and it calls him Fred like he knows
him, He owes him, answers. So, so, I'm just curious
why you're why you like to go to extremes. Yeah, Vince always had
a problem doing anything else besides plays on words on extreme. When talking about
e c W as supposed to coming here and being a superstar, can you
explain yourself please, Well, well, Taz were really excited to have you,
and let's put it this way, we're extremely excited. Okay, yes,
I'll tell you what. I've never been this extremely excited about anything.
Well, that's a lot. I believe. I believe that you can go
to extreme heights here in WW. How do you feel about your extremities and
their possibilities? Oh? Nothing, nothing, vince My extremities feel pretty good,
you know, as long a second. Still get that grip, you
don't get that grip on people. Fucking sounds fucking good right now, all
Taz, all Tazz, I don't want I don't want to grip the grip,
grip, grip. He still still doing the same ship and a whips.
You gotta get that grip and roll. You gotta pop, you gotta
pop those hips and really hold on to that grip. Straight out of Hell's
kitchen. You see here, You see here how the how he pops the
hips and he holds under the grip. Now Hell's kitchen from fucking red Hook
whatever. I don't give a fuck Hell's kitchen. I don't give a about
New York neighborhoods red Hook. That was the other one. What is Oh
my god, where do they announce his son from? Something? Place?
Uh? Saint James Place, Saint Mark's Place, Saint Mark's Place, Yes,
St Mark's place. Hook, He's not from Red Place or something.
Red's play sat Red Hooks Place. It's like, you hear about these neighborhoods
and you look it up, it's like two blocks. It's like, okay,
is right now? Yeah, it's nothing. I mean it's like,
yeah, the neighborhoods are nothing. I mean that's like a building, like
a whole neighborhood. One building's name right right. Anyway, olymp Biscuit is
doing a big concert. They're red hot at the time, and somehow it
gets worked out with ECW that they can do an angle during the concert.
So Steve Kreno gets up there in his gear and starts cutting a promo on
Fred Durst about how olympis get you know, represents the degradation of American society
and the defiling of American teenagers and the downfall of everything we hold sacred and
that kind of holier than now thing, but at the same time being really
stiff and below the belt with some of the things that he's he's saying.
So actually fred Durst like tells him to shut the fuck up or something like
that, and then they do an angle where Balls Mahony comes out and new
Jack comes out and acts Rotten come out and they beat the shit out of
him, and they hold him open and smack him with a chair. Nu
Jack does something to him in Kreno actually blades on stage at Olympiscuit concert.
So this is fucking huge the time, I'm PRECW because Limp Biscuit's a very
serious deal at this point in time, and this totally you know, and
it was almost like a dumb luck that Steve Corino was the guy that happened
to be in the position that could deliver because he was talking for Rhino at
that point in time and was kind of thought of primarily as a great talk
of free CW more than anything else, so they thought he'd be good for
this, and so he catapults that into you know, the way to hear
him tell it a much higher profile in the eyes of Hayman. You can
imagine if he does something like this that you know, that's going to put
a premium on your name. And just did develop more interest in Paul Himan
using you at a higher level. And one thing Krina said is the TNN
guys in particular loved it. There was a show in Atlanta where all the
TNN execs came after that and they were all putting over how much they love
the limp biscuit thing. They put it on the TNN television show, they
put it on hardcore television, the Angle, and so Corrina all of a
sudden is like a made man because he came through and did something really impactful.
And you know, Viacom, the owners of a Spike, they're big
MTV all marks for like, you know, the hot music act of the
time, so that that means a lot to them that he was he didn't
angle with them. So that's pretty much the springboard for Steve Creno to be
seen in a different light as a single's top heel instead of just a great
talker. Yeah, and ECW in this nineteen ninety nine developed, so does
he, and by the time we get to guilty, he is charged.
In two thousand, they're in now Alabama and Karinos in their stomping Jerry Lynn
calling him a washed up piece of garbage, just like the American dream Dusty
Roads is. And it's kind of a random drop of Dusty Roads's name if
I remember it correctly. And suddenly Roads appears in an ECW show all of
a sudden, he's there, that's crazy. And right after Karno says,
if Dusty Roads is here, I'd kick his ass. And here comes the
dream and jeans and sneakers and throwing elbows and body slams, and then Ryan
old Goore's Dusty Roads. They chant Dusty, Dusty, Wow? What's that?
Then wow? And now they're on board. You know, that's the
thing about ACW fans as much as they you know, raged against the machine
and embraced wrestlers in large part because they didn't think that they could get a
fair break in the Big two and where the anti the Big Two, like
Sandman and shit whatever they got Sid or they got Dusty Rhoades, or they
got Rick Rude or Jake Roberts, j Jerry Lawler. They went fucking insane
to see big two superstars come to ECW, even if they couldn't work the
hardcore style necessarily. Remember we joked during the Art of War Games about how
Dusty said he innovated hardcore and he's he wouldn't min getting something I'm hardcore exactly
because this is where this is where that comes from. When he comes to
CW, they're like up his ass about how you know, in so many
ways, you laid the foundation for what we do at ec day. They
innovated hardcore down it. I am the extreme baby, I'm bad baby.
And if I'm the innovator, that I am owed royalties essentially right, I
believe that I'm back paid on ethan W. Yeah, Dusty at this point
in time is not missing a single opportunity to potentially monetize, oh, for
sure, any element of his personality and legacy. He opens up like a
fantasy camp so that fans can sign up to train for a couple of days
and work a match with a wrestler. He starts Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling and Independent
Wrestling operation out of out of Atlanta, trying to find a future after all
those years with WCW and WWF wasn't interested in him. So this is that
time for Dusty where he's feeling around and ECW was a place that actually embraced
him, made him feel valued, and from what I can gather and we'll
talk about here, cut him a pretty good deal. Paul was throwing money
around at the time, and Dusty they could afford the American dream Dusty Roads,
who of course he knew and worked fairly closely with when Dusty was booking
Crockett and Paul was just breaking into the business as well as shortly after that.
Kind of like when Dusty came back after the WWF Round nineteen eighty one
Datus alliance, that whole time period, Dusty and Paul got to know each
other, not unlike how Paul got to know Terry Funk working for n WA
in nineteen eighty nine. And as we talked about an elapsed Funk, kind
of observed Funk in the heroics that he displayed getting into the ring with Rick
Flair despite his broken back at the Great American Bash nineteen eighty nine and having
such a fantastic match him citing that all those years later at Terry Funk's retirement
bank, what's kind of like the the inspiration for the heart of what he
saw ECW to be like an expression of what Terry Funk showed that night and
then ahead of that night. So these are like little connections that Paul's making
that they're paying off in ECW. Remember arn Anderson came in, Remember when
I hit you with that during Lapsed Funk, Arn Anderson and ec god Yes
and Bobby eating these other dangerous Alliance guys. You know, Paul made good
friendships there and is able to call upon them to pretty high profile guys into
what you so weird, so weird. They didn't see it as going to
work for this distant number three little group. They saw it as going to
work for Paul e. You know. That's that's that's more palatable, you
know, than just going to work for this this new renegade group. So
here's the dream. He's part of ECW now and he's attacking Steve Corino.
He's got Steve Corino in his sights. And then after that guilty charged January
two thousand, pay per view over on TNN, Corrino cuts a promo when
they do a television taping with Dusty in the crowd, and we're we're underway.
I figure it out. He styles, there's one man that was stupid
enough to start the hardcore revolution, and that man is Dusty Rose. He's
a w K trying for hasty taste. You know, I'm sure Paul Hamon's
gonna bleep this out now. Since I mentioned your name, and since I
had nothing to lose, Dusty, I would like to thank you for ruining
in each and every one of these people's lives, because ninety percent of I'm
probably trunk right now. Hey, leearhim going all the time around? Talk
with you again? Oh, I guess Dusty Round left his sline at the
last place, study tail, mister Rose, mister dreaming, sir, Please
tho, we're not taking this Lea think him. I don't didn't think it's
a contract any Chillie. I'm a big boy. I haven't beaten everybody up
in the locker room in the last year. Didn't think I'm gonna let it
old fossil push me around. You see, Dusty Roads, the business has
changed since. This isn't nineteen eighty five anymore, and you're not the ball
in the woods in my territory anymore. That's how Shore I eat Dusty.
To add all those great phrases, do you have anything to say for yourself?
No, I didn't think so. To see Dusty just starting into the
eyes of the future professional wrestling, I have no respect for you. I
never did look at me whenout talking to you. Exlam loves apping the bionic
elbow there at the end of Jesus, how's going nuts? That's insane,
that's for Dusty. You like that line, You're out the bull of the
woods in my territory, I do. I like that. That's pretty good
work there. That's great. Yeah, I know a problem with him.
I like him, and it compelled Dusty to up his game. He I'm
not sure he cut much in the way of in ring promos in the CCW
run, but he did send him a tape Like the old territory days.
You know, Funk used to do the promos from the ranch. Yeah,
yeah, he does one that they play in ECW TV that I think,
not Tobias the Jury is just just fantastic. It's one of the best Dusty
promos I've ever heard. So he is upping his game. He is feeling
he's feeling the pressure to make this a really big run. I feel like,
sure, and here he is. No, Cyrus, this is not
the network camera crew, if you will, this is Dusty Rooms' psychedelic camera
crew ECWS bars in Town. I want to talk about you for just one
minute, Cyrus. I forgot more about television production, about networking, about
drawing money then you'll ever know it. Paul has also walked down that path.
One thing that you do better than we do, though, when it
comes to networking, if you will in public, it's kissing ass. Network's
not gonna stop me from my next foray. If you will, we'll come
out here Florida on my ranch and talk about Dusty roll the bull open Steve
Corino dragging your name and your family and putting out all kinds of threats,
making a guy get fifty eight his stitches on television. A blood letting,
they say it was. They said it was a blood letting. Gon't hollick
if you will all on my account. I didn't come to E c W
to stop this thing. I didn't come here to get over I didn't come
here to be love heavyweight chemmy hell already done that. But I got thrown
into a situation with some bad ombridge Jackie vick Frey rying overhead and young Steve
Corino trying to touch just a little bit of that lightning boat that crushes so
heavily through the sky called Dusty Roads. Well, let me tell you someone
I decided to do. I got my Bullope, it's in the bag,
it's got a new bell on it. Because what's gonna happen now is I'm
accepting that situation that I've thrown into I will be at Living Dangers only on
pay per view. You can't see this only but pay per view des Heero
via macadream strapping it on his arm one more Time's help. I invented hardcore.
I was doing bunk houses, bull ropes, Texas death matches by why
burn Somebody's as something matches long before you was bon Carino for yeah, you
done got yourself into it. Now better think about how you're gonna get out.
You ain't gonna get out Living Jajus say only on pay view. Dust
rovia macadream Sleeve Greeno tied on, take about this do let's take about you
a history of buff and yeah, yeah, you're a history of buff.
Take about the history of the heads and blood that had been on some of
my cow bells, the Holly Racists, the Flawers, the Jolaeduce, the
Prince cut his eye cares. We talked about Cawbar, Bill Watts talking about
Superstar being a grand medical squack Aden ever first ever hardcore bullo match, talking
about the legacy of the Funks, whether be doing Funk or Carry Funk or
Papa Funk. All motherfuck it doesn't they've all felt the steel of the mighty
bull rope. But a new bill is waiting on you, and I'm gonna
break it to a living day justly only on pay per view. And let
me tell you something, STEVEE when it's over. You know, I kind
of had my ass kick got about three or four times by this Rhino guy.
And I ain't said much about him, you know, but you kind
of got my juices up. Now remember this, my friend, I'm in
the ball game to stay Living Dangerously only on pay per view, The America
Dreaming Stevie Carrino bull Rope, I ain't gonna get no better than that.
Pretty good? Yeah, that's great feeling it in my veins. That's that's
Dusty really really trying, you know. Oh yeah, really like buy this
pay per view please. That's great stuff, So fantastic playing off. Yeah,
that's what I point to. And I look at an ECW Living Dangerously
two thousand by right, that was a fair level above what ECW was accustomed
to doing. Is that kind of shit? Yeah? On this program.
As to what's going on in Steve Corino's head that he's not expressing, you
know, from a shoot perspective, at this point in time, he talks
about working with Dusty. Here in the shoot interview, what is your most
memorable accomplishment wrestling Dusty Roads on paper view? Wrestling Dusty Roads in that Bullo
Roup match? Because sure, my big hero was Tully or Tully and Dusty
had the all those Bullood matches. And like the greatest thing Paul ever said
to me when I got back was he gave me a hug and he goes
like this, he goes, that was better than Tully ever did. And
man, as you know, not that I'm a big fan of Paul,
but man, that was like the greatest compliment of all time I've ever gotten
because I've always strived, I always strive to make the matches of what would
Tully do in the spot? What would tell you? I had never discussed
it with Paul, and he saw it, so yeah, and just being
not few with us, he was like the greatest thing, so a big
career highlight and in terms of it coming together, already heard him scream at
him. So I think that that'll do on that front. As for how
Dusty felt about it, well, he was loving it too. Of course,
as mentioned, he just started a term Buckle Championship Wrestling his own attempt
to set up an office, but ECW was the place he turned to for
I don't guaranteed money, but more stable money at a time when he when
he badly needed it. And because his book Reflections of American Wrestling's American Dream
came out at around the time that he was in ECW, it was kind
of reflective of his mentality on the business in that period between w CW closing
and returning to WWE as an agent and an n XT guru. He spends
a lot of time in the book talking for our benefit here about ECW in
those years, and I'd like to turn it over to the boss Man to
share reflections for American Dream on what going to w That's what I'm going to
sid W is all about, Daddy. We're going to extreme levels, if
you know what I'm saying. We go to extremities, We go to the
extreme, we go take it up and down and all around. Baby.
After the fall of the small Roman empart known as the World Championship Bresident in
the late nineties, I found myself fucked over first by my assistant for many
years, James Jed Dillon and then by real half witted accountant who Turner Properties
put in charge of WSIW Bill bush Man, the business was shot to hell
in a handbag anyway. Out of work for about twenty minutes, I formed
my own companies, Turnbuckle Entertainment and Turnbuckle Championship Breathen Is that close to Turner
Entertainment by the way, sounds yeah right? TCW. Little did I know,
however, that the independent wrestling business was more fucked up than w W.
Well, I found what I mostly found a fade from the handful of
legit guys out there were who were really trying with the business was now made
up of kids promoting shows because they went out on the we w on the
internet and they bought a computer, and the computer took my job. How
did they go on the internet by a computer? How if they didn't have
a computer, how did they go on the internet. I'm telling you that
if I'll get some kids work these days, baby in the library. Maybe
because they went on the internet and bought a promotion book or something, or
they read the sheep from the guys who never promoted a show in their life
and ran those shows off of what these guys thought was good. And then
they made a They made a bought a belt, a champion in the world,
of course, and made themselves champion. It was no longer a blueprint
of the mafia with regional godfathers, but rather a blueprint of our gang comedy.
What what's our gang comedy? Arcane comedy? Our gang comedy? Sure
what he means by that? And the local wrestlers were alfalfa, it's the
the show the well know little wrestles, and the local wrestlers were our fal
from butch with spanky and dollars. The promoters and all of that wasn't bad
enough. Some of these guys who never drew it downs worth a business with
anybody and couldn't draw a fly that they were covered with ship were opening wrestling
schools, teaching other guys who knew even less than they did all the stuff
they knew which could fit on the head of a pin and still have room
left over for some of the other promoters who were doing the same thing.
That's why earlier I said Murdoch would fought on the sounds, good kid fought
on that daddy f art. To be clear, all right, baby,
I think you get the picture. And it ain't really a pretty one.
So when I I gotta let go by General Bush, the IRF agent accounting
of whatever he was there, I started tv W and I went into that,
but I also started working the Independent. Why would Dusty, dating back
to Crockett and here, have such a problem with accountants. I don't get
it. I never really worked independance before. And Terry Funk warned me it's
really rough out there, but I didn't believe it because he'd been doing it
for so long making a living. He said, it's a it's a constant
hustle. It's just really a hustle to do it. I got that way.
Yeah, Well I went out and I went ahead and told Dusty it's
a constant hustle, it's just really a hustle to do it. And then
I went ahead and put my head into a shotgun and blew it off.
Mom Oh, I like that. I got that trails off a mom and
it's just like where are we? So I kind of tharted out of my
own making myself available for Independent and the Prophet. One day, out of
the blue, I got a call from Paul Dangeredly, So I guess so
what I don't understand. So when did he get fired from? But he
was working to c W in two thousand and one. He came back after
ACW. Oh, I see there was a perird of time where he was
not working at WCW. That's a fucking bird here. He was in ECW,
which is why the serendipity drove me nuts when you pulled this one after
we did Greed. Yeah, yeah, no, it's all legit, all
legit. I wouldn't also, I wouldn't fucking know. Oh totally, Yeah,
that's you know, Extreme Championship Refdent at that time already had that Culton
niche going on around the country, around the world, and Paul E.
Paul Hayman called me to say they were going to be at the Tabernacle in
Atlanta, Georgia, a building that used to be the House of the Blue.
He and the partner at the time, after me, would you cut
to come to ETHERI W with W. I knew that are unique. Fans
were a group of loyal followers, kind of like the insane clown Poffy followers
who had dedicated to the wrestling papers, the Sheets and the home of ethid
W Court within Philadelphia, at Vacken Hall, a Bengo Pola that the fans
renamed the ethid w Arena. So I went with Paul at the at a
time when I was th really down business wide because the independents were not paying
what I wanted. I figured my press with a certain amount and I wasn't
going to come off it. Turmbucle Entertainment did well the first year because but
then it went down and down with spiral because I didn't We just didn't do
things right. Why didn't you do things right now? Why did you choose
to do them right instead of wrong right? Maybe just no one cared well
a while. The people I have to round in it and actually worked working
for me, worked very hard. We just all didn't do anything right.
I just I was putting one of my chairs together Daddy for my death,
and I just fell upon because I didn't put all the truth and I couldn't
put any scows that I just didn't do it wrong. I worked really hard
doing everything wrong. We worked hard at getting everything wrong. He said,
It's exactly what it was that we worked. We worked really hard, but
we worked hard doing it the wrong way. You know what I'm saying that
we didn't you know. We had the blueprint in front of it, and
we said, you know what, we don't need the blueprint. We know
exactly what we're doing. We don't need papers, we don't need to be
shown the way. We just need to do it, daddy. And that
was the wrong way. And we worked so hard at that got it.
We just thought couldn't do anything, didn't do anything right. If I had
to do it over again, I would, I would, but you can't
go back. At that point, I said to myself, I'm gonna have
to go out and hustle something like Tara told me. As a result,
I went down there and made a deal with them, a very lucrative deal
at the time, and I really thought it was payback from Paul E when
I have him and I hide him at w to do the original Midnight Express
angle and with the Newton mid Night Express and Jim Cornette. Anyway, he
picked me up and it was like he said, come on, I'm gonna
give you this this amount of money no matter what you do. At that
point in time, it it was kind of a godsend because it was really
rough. Because of that, I was always very appreciative and I honestly didn't
know at the time what was going to go on with their inner workings or
anything else like that. Though. I went to the Tabernacle in Atlanta and
I did the spot with me hitting the ring on Steve Carrino the first time
I had ever seen him, the guy that had been around on the Independence
that could have all been though respectful, but never were there a group a
guy like the one that Polly had who was as respectful as these guys were
too. The old school and what I brought to the dance. They made
me feel really at home and it was really cool. I remember the day,
who's he quoting? Here? Who's he quoting? Oh? Steve,
Yes. I remember the day I met him like it was yesterday. It
was December second, nineteen ninety nine in Atlanta, and I thought the dream
who just left WCW, was there to say hi to some people he knew
who were working for ECW at the time. Never in my wildest dreams had
I thought I would be eye to eye with him in the ring less than
three hours later there with a TV tape in there, And when I hit
the ring, it was a phenomenal With Bomp my debut with a surprise.
But Corino and I went on to have a feud and I helped further his
career when he beat me in a bull rope match of the ETHW Arena.
So we went on and made TV and I was still working trying to make
an iependant at the time of my own PAULI brought me up to the ETHW
Arena for the first time. He was about twenty degrees out five. I
from the street, cold as shit. I read different articles on the Internet
about how the fan I want to see Dusty Rhodes trying to channel the nitt
all right, that is like a fucking must, Like, what is he
doing well? The trick guys of his vintage had The problem that guys of
his vintage had at the time is obsessively reading everything that's said about you on
the internet and then pretending you never look at it. Yeah, that was
the part. But I just want to see him, like, I just
can't picture him typing words on a computer. You know who would have helped
him as Cody Cody running around I think it's in high school. You shut
the fuck up, you dumb bitch. I'm trying to natch him and Fritz
van Erk on the Windows ninety seven machine, trying to figure out how to
trade stocks and cattle futures. You don't understand that, if this is technological
bullshit, you don't understand. You've never had a computer to take your job,
he says. He says, you don't understand this is technological bullshit.
Yeah, Dusty, something about the way you put it does make it seem
hard to understand, considering it's bullshit, which you wouldn't know anything about.
This ship is written to make people can food, daddy, So you don't
even talk to me fun. You ship the fuck up, all right,
and you do your goddamn academic your academic home work if you will. You
can picture him saying that if you trying to make homework, if you will,
all right, then if you don't, if you don't get that ship
done, I'm gonna chop you up, put you in the student after dinner,
fucking count country road with what your name is? H motherfucker? What
he talking about? What we just heard? We just heard E W can
tap whether E E E waitmen or Dusty d D? Where's the damn D?
I don't know a bitch, where the fucking d tell you little bit,
she said, the roads are are are are? What the fuck?
Why ain't this ship in alphaetical order? Go to? Gim me the goddamn
r Where the fucking I'm the keyboard daddy. He's the only father who calls
his son daddy, and Steve Austin the only guy who calls his father son.
Oh shit. On the internet, what are they doing? Well,
of course the fans knew different on the internet about how the fans in the
place that he sit and rest lives. And I wondered how they were gonna
receieve me if I didn't go there. Well, of course the fans knew
I was in Philly, but they didn't know how I was gonna have it,
how I was gonna make it into my entrance there. How, Paul,
do you have me go outside and wait for the right time? There?
Running from the thad door, Like I said, it was about twenty
degrees without fad and I stood about there there about twenty minutes. It's about
to free them up, balls off. And then then the time came and
I had to received the reception like I had, like I like I did
from those fans in quite a long time, said, Dusty standing outside the
CW Arena and you're just driving by and he's about to make his debut in
the building and he's waiting for the high Side and he's like sitting there,
you know, he's standing there like, you know, arms folded, like
trying to just Oh this motherfucking Northern with the Deddy goddamn fucking cock fucking bitches.
You know what I'm saying. We saw the arena when we went to
Philly, like that industrial area it's in. He's like standing there, Oh
yeahous, oh yeah, that wouldn't be cars driving by at all. Actually,
God, I know it might be people with guns walking by or that
maybe that uh maybe that Chief take place. Oh yeah, oh yeah,
you're there. Oh yeah, oh yeah, that's probably where he waited it
out. But then I tell you what I'm gonna fit over. Tell you
what I'm gonna give you. I'm gonna go to the Chief Steak place over
here. You give him a call, tell me when you want me to
be and give me about ten minutes though. Give me about twenty minutes though,
because I'm gonna have to eat shit and then come back to gyms.
By the way, Jimmy I'm gonna go to gyms though. I'm gonna have
myself a chief fake have a pork fam which. Baby, I'm gonna get
that ship down my gutt. But I'm gonna have to take a ship before
I come back, Ollie, when you're ready for me to run into let
the Malican dream. Now, I'm gonna be a gems baby, I want
to be a gym. I'm gonna be spending my money, got it?
And I just said tell you Daddy again, I'm gonna need an extra You're
gonna get me know, twenty minutes before time because I'm gonna have to unload
the American dream from my ass. I mean, it was cold as balls
mere out there, but can you imagine the steam off a gym's chief steak
when it's like at first bite it was great, big thumbs up, highest
recommendation. Oh yeah, worth the fucking weight. All those fucking wrestling family
miserable. We had a stake. She's staking the room. Sure it did
a little step up from a burger in the room, or step maybe a
step down actually, who knows, depending on where you're looking at it.
Huh. I just said love it, That's all I said. Oh yeah,
party had me go out that way to about twenty degree. I said,
they're twenty minutes. It's feeding my ball off. And then when the
time came and I hadn't with it you but and now I was thinking was
more out of the respect for me and coming down to the building because it
was really with the Fans building, coming into their home, coming into that
organization, and they really respected me for it. That that thought they gave
me that shot me arm at that point in time. So we went on
and just kept on with E f W. And I was doing I wasn't
doing a lot, just showing up, but I was getting paid and doing
a lot of things. So he wasn't doing a lot, but he was
showing up, getting paid and doing a lot of things. Was it not
doing a lot or doing a lot of things? Dusty, it's got to
be one of you. You got to make up Youah, you can't not
do a lot and you can't you know, I'm sure who is this speaking?
Who is that? That's a tough one. These quote Steve need another
step. I'm sure most people would say that they admired dreams charisma or the
way he sold for the Heels or even his booking style. The thing I
admire most about Dusty Rhodes is his heart. This is a guy who didn't
have to do what he did for a twenty seven year old kid. Dusty
was already a legend. He didn't need to do a program with an unknown
Steve Carino, but he did. Not only did he do it, but
he made me look like a superstar. And I became an instant success with
the ECW fans. Why would they put with the ECW fans in brackets?
Yeah, but I want you to get the wrong idea by saying I was
an instant success. I was already claiming to be the king of Old School,
but Dusty made the nickname a reality for all the all for the purpose
of making someone. ECW didn't have the money to pay Dusty what he deserved.
He did it because that is the type of guy he is now.
He did it because he was broke. It's fine. In a few words,
Dusty Rhads made Steve Corino, There's no doubt about it. Before dream
came to e CW, I was a mid level heel that had just prematurely
finished a program with Taz and Tommy Dreamer. I had heat. But to
the ECW fans, Tazz and Dreamer, we're not old school. They were
ECW born. But when Dusty came to ECW, he legitimized my beliefs in
old school wrestling and put me at the top of the card almost right away.
Steve Carreno would never have been either the ECW World or NWA World Champion
without Dusty Rhodes. And just quickly, while we're on the point, here's
Steve in that aforementioned our video shoot, just talking about the beginnings of the
program with Dusty. It was easy working with us, Oh my goodness.
Oh. The first time was in Atlanta, and uh, you know how
we always called Dream or the Dream all right, the Dreamer comes to me
and goes, I go, what am I doing tonight? He goes,
oh, you're working with the dream I go, great, door we work,
you know, we wrestling. Or he goes, no, man,
you're working with the real dream, you know. But Dusty, it was
like it was such an odd to be in the ring with him every time.
It was just so much fun. And you know, here's here's a
guy that you know, I had watched since I was eight years old,
and now here I am in the ring with him and you know, telling
it, saying all these bad things to him. Like I was like,
like, I was totally blantern here I am. Now I'm acting as if
I'm one of my heroes wrestling one of my heroes. You know, it
was dream come true. You actually got the penimities you know you're in Yeah.
Yeah, I was so against it. I mean it was. It
was to the point where when they told me that, you know, Paul
told me it was Dusty's idea that, but uh, when we did it,
I was just like when they told me, I was like, no,
can't be. It can't be. You know this this you know it's
not right. I don't I don't need to beat him. You know,
just being in the ring with him was good enough. But you know he's
like, no kid is And I remember him going, He's like, no
color, you don't get any color. He goes, I'll get it for
you. I said, okay. I had a big cut on my head
from like, you know, a week before first shot he took. I
saw the knuckle come out and when big out, oh, and you know
he gave that little laugh and it has some bloods coming down my face.
I'm like, ow so uh but yeah, it was you know, the
memory, it was just, yeah, I felt like I did something right
that Dusty was like, okay, I'm gonna put him over. What actually
changing your gimmick and you started doing more of a hard cut, hardcore style,
you know, doing your matches and stuff. It was just, you
know, the first time I blend the match was with Dusty and Fort Lauderdale,
then every once in a while on the house shows, and then it
was living Dangerously. Paul wanted me to uh, you know, we did.
We actually did Asbury Park the week before. It was gonna be a
tape for the week after. So it's funny if you watch the thing.
Uh, not to give away what goes on. I had my arm tape,
my head taped, and I was wrestling New Jack. Then I wrestled
the arena the next night like with nothing on. But it was like,
you know, I had to get color for Dusty, and then uh,
in Saint Louis, we did like an eat and I had just got a
major color that night, and uh, I think Paul's like, oh my
god, this guy bleeds, you know, just like they did, you
know, just like Flair and Tommy Rochus too, and I didn't know it
was any special talent. But you know the thing with Tajery Man, I
bled buckets with Tijerry and then on the house shows and it was like people
were starting to get into it and it was like, oh my goodness.
And then you know, the big one was with Cherry Lynn where I wrote
die on his chest. Yeah, that was I think a heat waved two
thousand things where he's bleeding so much. And then I remember that. Do
you remember that? I remember to die in his chest with Queno's blood.
But it all started here living Dangerously two thousands. He told it there.
It was the first time he got colored for a dusty hear, that's crazy.
That became his calling card for the rest of his ECW career. But
that's what I was to resume, Uh, tom I dreamer of the cool
guy. Not only did he show me a lot of respect when I was
there, but I have a lot of respect for him, and they really
took time to hone his left. A lot of people don't realize just how
much of ethid w with Tommy. He had his heart and soul in that
thing, which is why I booked him a few times with tv W.
So anyway, I was still running Turnbuckle at the time, while still running
the Turnbuckles at the time, still trying to take independent bookings, and shortly
after eth W Jerry Lawler is book an agent. And that's uh, that's
that's what he said. That's what he said. That's what he is.
People say, oh, he's just a guy. Brian Michael Bryan came came
to Nashville when Lawla and I did an independent date for the first time where
we were we actually refered each other. The King introduced me to mic and
right away he said, let me handle this. Then that time might have
been my agent, and we've made a lot of money together. He's a
hardcore guy and that he knows how to negotiate. Because of that, everybody
who does bides with him. No, doesn't like him on both occasion.
By the bottom line, if he gets the job done, they don't like
it because they think it's just the old school and if it should be dealing
directly with me. But I'll deal with my heart instead of my wallet.
Michael deals with the wallet. Yes, that's true. He's been a great
effort and we've come to be good friend. Part of the problem family promoted
Wait a minute, as another quote, who's that. Oh, this is
Michael O'Brien. This is the agent du jour at the time he wrote the
book. Part of the problem this agent says, some of these promoters have
with me is they don't understand that the fee can change depending on where the
show is, what type of match it is, and who Dusty's wrestling.
For example, promoter in Carolinas or Florida is going to pay more if he's
working with Terry Funker Tully Blanchard than let's say a promoter in Wisconsin were does
to be working with a local guy. Sometimes it depends on the economic situation
of the area too. Typically they can pay a little more if their ticket
prices are higher because they can afford to Okay, thanks Mike, good good
story. Meanwhile, Tom mashed off for eth w and they were getting ready
to fall their camp. There were a lot of guys, I'm not getting
paid, not getting checks. The bitching and complain of PAULI had that old
school promoted the way of talking to his guys when they said, I'm gonna
go in there tonight, I'm gonna get my money. I'm gonna tell that
son of a bitch that I'm through and it's all over. And they'd go
in and have a meeting, and by the time they finished talking with PAULI,
they were ready to knock down a wall. And that's the way the
old promoters were. You're ready to quit. I'm leaving. I hate the
territory, the money ain't there, and they would be leaving one foot out
the door, but that old fucking mentality talks them into stay. And I
have a lot of respect for Paul. He was a guy who when I
was in charge of Jim Crockett promotion than TBF. Oh he was in he
was. Did you know that Esse Rose was in charge of TBS. Yeah,
I had the book, but that's not quite the same. He's literally
it's like, no, Dusty, you really weren't in charge of TBS at
all. Like you know, there are plenty of people in charge of TBS.
You were a subsidiary of course, or not even really you were the
Dusty Rhodes was in charge of TBS. Did I'm gonna charge of TBF,
baby? I am TBF daddy. That's what it is. Turnbuckle Broadcasting the
baby. He always came to the production meetings. I never ran him up
because he was always there involved, but it took mental notes. It was
kind of like he went to school and got paid to go by WSW and
as we know, back then, they threw around money like it was fucking
chocolate barb that a Hershey convention in Hershey, Pennsylvania. He said it.
They were throwing Hershey bob like it was my fucking home Hershey convention in Hershey,
Pennsylvania. Not just a Hershey convention, no, but at Hershey at
Hershey headquarters. Daddy in fucking Hershey, Pennsylvania. Up my Hershey Daddy.
If a W with a good time and it with the time, that helped
me out a lot and made me appreciate how people really respect to the industry.
If at W with a good thing, I made a lot of money
on the it claimed to be WR game. They were some good time there.
I enjoyed working with old guy that eth W. Every single one of
them put his heart and sol and life on the line really literally every night.
I got to see a lot of guys, a lot of guys while
I was there. THEE and them performative best they could, and then they
took it theory if Daddy, they were all piffed at Paulie at the start
of the night, and they rallied around him at the end of the night.
If at W with a great experience for me at a time when I
really needed to get back up from that fall from grief or whatever you call
it. But I never thought being me a Marchan dream and that was really
cool, daddy. So this run actually meant a lot to Dusty, all
right, pretty wild to think about, but that was the circumstance he found
himself in. And here he is in an r video shoot interview, which
is probably only made possible as well by the fact that he was aligned with
paul and of course our video had strong relationships with ECW. Time to sit.
It's only time. Dusty did do another shoot with him Gabes of Bolsky
one time, but it wasn't really the same. So it's the only shoot
really as the Dusty is done, and he talked a lot about ECW in
it because that's where his heads out at the moment. So here's a couple
of a couple of pieces of what ECW meant to Dusty. Kind of echoing
what he wrote in this book, the things that the kids do at ECW
or its close to the old territory, the old time respect, the old
time workers that we had only with new so quick and fast into some unbelievable
stuff at ECW. So uh uh Yeah, it's changed a lot, you
know. And I see a company that is uh that is struggled at times,
and not struggling, but competed against these two guys in the SECW that's
pay. And after meeting the guys the other night in the dressing room,
it was the best I had felt in many years. Whether it was sincere
or not, I think most of them were. It was a tremendous amount
of respect. I felt the best I had felt in years about this business,
being with these kids that just wanted to be around them. I didn't
want to work with I wanted to teach him. I wanted to talk to
him about I wanted to give them some of them, them dusty finishes and
see what they thought about them without doing them not. I didn't want to
book, I didn't want to do nothing. I wanted I seen lights who
they should have been. I seen, I seen a vision of putting the
camera over here and doing a different shot. I've seen something that could really
beat balls out because I've been Pauli's been with me and I and I've been
with him in his heart for a long time and respect he has to fight
these these big companies and say them to get to this point. He has
an opportunity, I think to take it to another level. And I wouldn't
take the true might be a part of it, and uh, just in
case, you know, occasionally in the ring, you know what I mean.
As I told him the other night, and I told h a couple
of kids and a Tommy Dreamer kid, I don't want to come here and
give the bony cab on the dusty roads in the seventies and eighties people that
were that were following the people that were the godfather. Yeah, maybe,
but not. I do not want to take any thunder from any of these
kids. That's where you work here, ask they work their ass off to
get to this point. So I think the business is going to another level.
I think there'll be another company involved, whether it be Mine, whether
it be ECW, whether it be j W B, or whatever the hell
it is. It's going to be something else. Will happen. Two thousand
are taking to a little different level, and I think that's important. So
I think it's only good. I think it's going to be because now we
understand you and me interviews like this. We understand now that it is sports
entertainment. These are great athletes doing unbelievable things, unbelievable things, telling your
story and for two hours of this story that I'm telling you, for two
hours, you're going to believe it with all your heart. You go out
and fight and say that it's real, that really happened. I'm telling you
should have seen it. And now our lady, your friend's going to talk
to you and saying, oh, that's, you know, just entertainment everything.
But for that two hours, I want to make you feel that this
is the most intense situation you ever been in. That's the key to success
in this industry. If you lose that complete, he won't be successful.
Amen to that. He did bring that DCW a promotion that often could feature
things that were kind of a little hokey and hard to believe in a little
contrived. Yes, some of the spots a little bit dusty, came and
brought that that deeper residence, and you can tell and the difference between kind
of the fan reaction to his segments versus some others. You know, they
went crazy for just about everything on ECW cards, But that stuff with Dusty
was kind of a reminder that, like, I don't know, no matter
how against type these ECW fans are, they still fall for the same tricks
went done well, right right, and Dusty knew how to do that even
at his advanced age. And as we talked about, even on the Greed
Show, he was actually moving around the ring pretty well. He wasn't really
as hobbled as you would think he would be. No, no, he
was all right, Yeah, for sure was now. In this interview,
he also talked a bit about what he sees missing from ECW. He talks
about slowing down, slowing down, and he talked about how at the time
Bubba Ray Dudley, who was power bombing people through tables like Fabulous Mula May
Young and stuff, and they were taking out the ladies. You know how
sort of like it would offend him if after doing something so intense to someone
like Mulla Baba just Mulla just got up from going through the table and then
he body slammed her again, and just how gatuitous that would be because the
power bomp through the table was enough. You don't have to do something after
that, right, And that's what he saw as he talks about here and
observing ECW at the time, Mula, what if what if he would have
wretched down, I would have I would have gone on a plane and when
to get out of him. If he would have wretched down and picture up
and slammed her, he didn't, you know what I mean? But she
went down. That was it the shot, That was it, you know
what I mean? These kids the other night through two tables to the floor
right away, the bayface is picking them up, dragging them back in doing
the second one. So at home, me going, oh so what you
know it's like Saboo will say, it's if you're hurting, God, damn,
you're hurting. I don't want the bay face around me if I'm hurt.
So you can slow down and still go fast. And if that if
that was the part to learn of. Now that I see, that's a
little bit different. It's to slow down, you have to to have the
babyface we talked about. You have to have the baby face that contradicts the
bad. So the kids at home are seeing all this stuff. You have
to have the one guy, whether the net people hate him or not,
I call him. The net people know the marks and it's morning marks whatever
we call them. What who, that's honky, that's corny. You've got
to have that one guy that says he's wrong and I'm right, America or
whatever it is. You have to I don't give a show what it is
in the movies or whatever, So we need to do that. But this
is the most exciting time that I've seen in our industry right now. So
it's cool. Sounds like he's calling out the John Cena dynamic of a few
years down the road. Yeah, it does does. Indeed, Tommy Dreamer
kind of fit that role in ECW word Like sometimes he would be so like
so emotional and over the top about ECW that it was kind of corny.
But he was that guy that like as outlandish and outlaw like as everybody else
was, he would kind of stand there and like say no, that this
isn't the right thing. Like I mean, it's not like he wouldn't use
weapons and stuff, but like he wouldn't be the first to use weapons.
He wouldn't be the first to do something like you know, inhumane. He
he wouldn't beat up women like all the heels did and right, and so
yeah, I think Dusty really puts his finger on something significant there that even
was alive and as unconventional promotion as ECW. No matter what, you have
to have a guy who is standing up for traditional values in his own way,
and I think Cody did that brilliant sure, and it does that brilliantly.
Yeah. Yeah, you know, he's a guy that if you just
like wrote down on paper that his characteristics, you think he'd get booted out
of every bilding he was in, like John Cena right, right. But
it's probably in no small part plugging into the insight that we hear his own
father expressing there in that interview all these years ago, that he can appreciate
how to thread that needle more carefully to where he doesn't get wholeheartedly rejected,
at least not by the w B fans. He had to deal with that
at the tail end of AW, and so did Tommy Dreamer. I mean,
I don't remember Dreamer every being out right booed, but fans would kind
of be subdued and kind of like ambivalent towards him sometimes because he wasn't out
there to do the craziest thing of the night necessarily, and he was out
there kind of taking a stand for something that they thought was kind of hokey,
and they would much much rather the storylines be much more sort of aggressive
and bloodthirsty and kind of violent. But that's that. So in the room
as the shooting, interview is going on, and we know this because at
one point you hear like a door open in the background, and he tells
Rob Einstein and company that are interviewing him that it's his son, Cody,
or his youngest coming into the room. They don't see him, but you
hear him. And the truth is that, you know, Dusty was trying
to latch onto something at the time to make ends meet. And it wasn't,
you know, the Dustin version of the family. It was the Cody
generation right that Dusty was tending to. That was his flock at this particular
point in time. And all those years later, when Cody's getting set to
wrestle Roman Reigns at WrestleMania for the ww World title, he has an in
ring promo battle with Paul Hayman, and it all kind of comes full circle.
But if we're gonna pull back the curtain, ear might as well pull
it back for everyone here in attendance tonight, might as well pull it back
for everybody watching at home. I want to tell a story that should be
told, that should have been told a long time ago. The year was
two thousand, but till in my family had dried up a bit. Hard
times became more than just the promo. Simply put, my family went broke
one hundred dollars in a WAKOVI at checking account for all of us, if
you need a visual aid for it. My dad doing local car commercials and
not for the money, just so that he could keep the car. But
then he got a phone call. You called him, You told him a
CW was in town. You told him that Steve Carrino was going to talk
a little smack about him, and that if he would just agree to appear
on camera, if Dusty Rhodes would be on e CW, you would pay
him, and you would pay him well. You kept your word. In
addition to that, we sorely needed ECW gave my father his confidence back,
and I can never ever repay you for that, Thank you very much.
So that's what we're seeing here, That's what we're seeing Dusty getting his confidence
back, says in his book, does Dusty Rhodes. Paul Hayman, who
said he wanted a comment but couldn't officially because he didn't want to get into
trouble with Vince at the time, did write in an email this is not
Dusty talking, but in fact, author Scott Williams in the notes at the
end of the book, I got this quote from Paul the email. I
would love to tell the story of how Dusty gave me a huge, huge,
huge break in WCW and then was removed as booker and lead writer.
Everyone turned their back on him, but I refused to at starkade because he
had given me the chance of a lifetime and upset a lot of people by
doing it. I would be happy to tie that into his ECW ten yours.
I truly believe in my heart I owed him, and even though bringing
him in TCW was repaying him quote unquote, he contributed more to ECW than
we could ever compensate him for. Steve Greanno went on after this program to
win the ECW World Title in December of two thousand and then, of course,
we turned the calendar to the final year of ECW's existence. They had
a Guiltiest Charge to pay per view in January and then per the schedule that
had been established, everybody was looking forward to another Living Dangerously after this one
really and in around March of two thousand and one, but that was not
to be. Shout out to the Homie Rudy, who wrote to us to
point out that this still exists on the old archived version of IGN dot com,
which used to cover pro wrestling. This article dated March tenth, two
thousand and one, title ECW Living Dangerously pay per View update. After weeks
of wondering and speculation, the inevitable finally occurred. Today. ECW officially canceled
this weekend's Living Dangerously pay per view. Shortly after their last pay per view
generally force Guilties charged, DCW took some time off in hopes of coming back
strong for Living Dangerously in March. During that time, several LECW stars began
negotiating with the WWF and WCW. Just Incredible Rhino, Jerry Lynn and Yo
Show to Jerry have recently come to terms with the WWF. In the meantime,
Easy Money, Jason b who of course went on to be Jason jett
On Greed that we talked about, and Johnny Swinger have both appeared on ww
television just bedding in the Cruiserweight Tag Team Tournament. Coming into this week,
the event had no matches and no venue, therefore no sole tickets. Jeez,
it came even more apparent that the pay per view would not be taking
place when, of course, boss uh, this happened. Hello Money,
and welcome to the Wall. We're here in easy I'm Jim Robson, barely
know who you are, but tell me Warria. Now I'm joined by Wall,
joined by Wall, I'm trying her. Um. Jerry, the King
Lawler, to his credit, walked down right alongside with her. But where
there's chaos, j R. There is opportunity. And tonight, just like
PNN threw off ec W for the w w S, the King is gone.
Finish Chair, Chris Paul E turn to E Chris bore back Street.
Do you remember Paul Hayman the feeling out of nowhere is the raw colored guy?
Yes, And I didn't have any clue who the fuck you never saw
him before, That's amazing. I really I didn't. I didn't. It
took me. I don't remember. I'm trying to remember when I realized that.
I when I realized Paul E. Paul Hayman was Polly Dangerously. I
don't recall when I made that connection. I really don't remember. There he
was, and people in ECW did not know he was going to be there.
Most people did not. Most people, when you ask them years later,
when they knew ECW was truly done was when they watched Raw on this
Monday night and saw Paul Hayman shouldered to shoulder with JR. Water disgrace,
unbelievable. So this is with they living dangerously. If we're going to talk
about that show this week on the calendar, not anymore, Jesus. And
it's been you know, shorthand over the years to talk about how people drank
the poly kool aid, how he would give these incredible speeches backstages depicted and
beyond the mat backstage at the first DCW pay per view, barely legal,
that really rallied these troops without, you know, instead of being able to
pay them substantial amounts of money, giving them cause giving them reason to think
that by going out there and really killing themselves for relatively little money, that
they were contributing to some greater cause. They were pushing in some greater direction
for themselves and for the company. And one thing I found interesting from the
aforementioned Danny during shoot interview is he kind of put it more. It's more
simply than that you can say what you want about drinking the kool aid as
an explanation for a guy that can be as shifty as Paul Hayman getting people
to still sort of work for him and be loyal to him. This is
how ye Denny Doorin describes the whole kool Aid thing. And I thought it
was It was interesting. What point did you realize ucws and serious jeopardy.
We should have realized it when the checks are bouncing, but we were all
drinking the kool aid. But I mean, you know what, let me
break down the myth of the fucking kool aid real quick. You know what
I mean? The kool Aid wasn't Paul in his bullshit speech, So I
said, there's only one the kool aid was, there's two, fucking there's
three companies, and everybody wanted to work somewhere. The kool aid was we
believed in three letters called DCW and we didn't give a fuck and anybody else,
I don't give a fuck what they say. Young kids on our level
in their early twenties working for a company that's on TV, and we could
have done the same fucking thing. It wasn't because we were pollie fucking guys
and we were going to go fucking burn ourselves or David koresh ourselves somewhere.
We're following as mad scientists. It's a bunch of bullshit. We wanted to
be on TV week we were getting over. We knew people wanted to come
here to work. We knew we had a dream opportunity, and that's why
we did it. That's why we worked for free. That's why we did
all this ship. It wasn't because we were following the mad scientists are drinking
is fucking cool and that's a crock of ship. In fact, his fucking
this, I mean, he's so called fucking he's a he's a creative genius.
But how many people did he write for on the roster? Rob van
Dam, Rob van Dam, Rob van Dam, you know, maybe maybe
one other guy but it was like, you know, the rest fucking was
handled by somebody else, and he wrote all that ship and was taking care
of all that ship. I mean, he gets all those credit. The
guys, the internet guys want to fucking kiss his ass for being a genius.
I think Paul pretty much. I think I think Paul. To me,
think Paul was used as a vehicle to get to where he wanted to
go anywhere. I don't think. I don't think he cared about it as
much as he wants the fans to think he did. And I think he
just needed, he wanted, He wanted places he wanted to be and things
he wanted to do with his own career. And I think that's that's where
it led. I think there's was you know, it could have been saved.
They I think really was going to be now, especially we got to
Poplar Bluff and the Sam Man PJ do that big Ya thing that's a reference
to the final ECW House Show, the final ECW show ever in populap Bluff,
Arkansas, I think it was. And they did something in the ring
that told most of the locker room that we're never going to be back here
again. I think Tommy Dreamer brought out a big trash can full of beers
and they did like something that that indicated we're not going to be back together
anytime soon. So there you have it. Wow, right, he's just
saying, like, you know, fuck the kool Aid. We were kids
in our twenties and we were on television. We were over and we're not
going to work for either big two guys. It's not a mystery. That's
why the kool Aid worked. It wasn't kol Aid, it was fucking no
one else was going to give them the access to pussy and exposure. ROCW
was going to considering their relative and experience in the business, and most importantly,
we're talking about pay. Look, Peydon, pussy is a wrestling thing.
It's a real thing. It explains why so many of these guys worked
for so little all these years. You never have to leave high school and
for people who aren't inclined to get it quote unquote real job, that's a
fucking sweet setup. That's what they're looking for. That's what all those sad
sacks in the Bigger, Faster, Stronger documentary. You are looking for some
kind of way to make money without having a work in terms of like work
where they're not on display all the time and basically, you know, getting
women to drop to their knees. Yep, that's right, hey, is
it just facts? It's not right kool aid, it's just fuck like like
you said, anyone in that position at that age where have done the same
thing they would have believed whenever they had to believe to get access to h
what ECW forded you in terms of opportunity in the business and and in the
fucking sheets and I don't read the dirt sheets. And there you have it.
What do you think of that thesis there that Paul Hayman was actually didn't
believe in ECW as much as he would have had everybody believe, but was
kind of using it to orchestrate his own career mode. I totally love it
so much. He does on shout out ECW rip on TNN. But he's
smart enough to know people are gonna look at this right as me betraying my
right right right. I mean, I think I think, I think there's
there is certainly so much evidence that he could have easily done that. I
don't know if he did or not, but I guess I should say this,
and I wouldn't. I would say that it would not surprise me.
Yeah, if that was the case, if he was like, you know
what, I did this to make a name for myself. I mean,
honestly, it's it's it makes the most sense that he would do something like
that to make a name for himself and get a job someplace else, especially
meaning consider how it wasn't really arm's length his relationship with Vincent WWF over the
years that became very clear in retrospect. He was never really more than a
phone call away from Vince's office, and Vince had use for ECW. He
had had talent that hearted season down there, he sure did a place to
put guys or Kurt Angle before he signed with them, was down at the
arena and he saw that fucking Sandy and crucifixion and quit, remember that,
right, I remember that. I think so many guys went down there.
Lawler was there and Cornette for a split second when they were WWF, they
were working an angle you already mentioned, you know, the crossover raw.
They did a couple of those ninety six and ninety seven. Yeah, I
mean, come on, and the word always was and this is brought up
in Danny Doring's interview, and he admits they never really thought about it until
asked in that way. But it is true that as much as it's you
know, ECW and if you leave your cellout, there was never the heat
on guys who went to WWF like there was heat, and the guys who
went to WCW it was considered much more of a what the fuck are you
doing? Are you serious? Confront you in the locker room. I heard
you're going to WCW kind of thing. But when guys went to WWF,
they're just there was so much less friction and there was so much less hard
feelings. It seemed like, at least until the bitter end, or shortly
before the bitter en, when guys like Raven left and Perry Saturn left,
and that's, you know, frankly, that's probably because Paul was dealing with
Vince as much more of a home team funding source, right, someone he
could call situation yeah, yeah yeah, and somebody you know that would provide
an exit strategy. When ECW hit the skids, Paul was like the ultimate,
you know, thinking ten steps ahead kind of guy, to the point
where you know, like if you read Todd Gordon's book. It's almost like
comical how even in the smallest stakes situations, Paul would be gaming out like
twelve steps ahead what this guy was going to do, and then in reaction,
I'm gonna do this, and then he's going to do this. You
can see him thinking as far ahead as yeah, well, when he ECW
does crasheah, I can always go work for Vince. It's right, absolutely
and perhaps striking when I seem referenced there when Jerry Lawler walked out at w
w F and it created that opening in the chair. You know, I'm
saying Paul was rubbing his hands together planning this day, but when the opportunity
opened, he was ready to without telling anybody at ECW, jump into that
that opportunity. Unbelievable business mm hmm. And we can't conclude any coverage of
Living Dangerously two thousand, speaking of what a business without discussing fucking yeah,
the great fall, the great fall between new Jack and Vic Grimes. Oh
fuck that. Now. This is also serendipitous because in doing our Dark Side
of the Ring Unheard podcast Episode one was on you, Jackie. I believe
you were able to watch the New Jack Dark Side episode. Yes, they
talk about this fall. They talk about how fucking new Jack had brain fluid
leaking out of his head because Vic Grimes flipped off twenty feet in the air
and landed on his fucking dome on the cement. We talked about how they
came back around x PW when he tried to throw Vic Grimes out of the
ring and fucking kill him, right thoughts, I mean, where do you
want? I mean, there are two sides to it. There is the
moral side to it, and then there's also the professional wrestling side to it,
like the looking in it as just a part of the match. Because
the more I mean, I don't think any Boddy should take that idiotic of
a fucking bump ever, I mean stupid. I don't see what the point
is. I mean the problem is, you know, when it comes to
that kind of shit, you get you suddenly now like then you have to
have someone top it. And then you gotta have someone top that. And
that's why Vick Grimes came in, honestly, because he was doing front flips
off high perches when other guys are just doing straight dives. He would do
front flips off the top buckle to the floor through a table, and here,
instead of just new Jack jumping off the high perch and splashing someone through
a table, which is incredibly dangerous as it was and fucked him up plenty
of times, was not as dangerous as this completely flammixing situation. We're like,
why are they both up there and rights? And that's the problem that
I have it from from if you're going to do something this like this,
and I don't I don't condone these kinds of stunts at all. I think
it's stupid, but if you're gonna do it, like I sat there saying,
oh I see huh and this happened, I couldn't believe in my eyes
I watched this live. Yeah, okay, like you were there or I
mean, do you really, because I mean I thought it was one of
the most I guess I didn't even put it together because I don't even I
never think about this one. I always think about the one where he tried
to kill the guy. You know, I never real even think of this
as being a thing like I actually it's hilarious. I don't remember seeing this
in the dark side up. It's a whole pretext to why he would have
been so mad at first place totally. And so I'm just like watching there,
I'm saying, oh, they're gonna do a stupid bump. You can
see it. You can see them getting it ready, like because the way
they move, the way that they're up there, it's just so and this
makes it even makes me angry actually as a wrestling fan, Like I sit
there saying, how am I supposed to believe this shit so true? How
much supposed to believe that you did anything when you're literally just you guys went
up there for no reason at all, up a bunch of scaffolding and then
and then like he just he so like the scenario is, and I know
we'll deep dive it. But Grimes attempts like a power bomb or something,
but then new Jack low blows him, grabs Grimes and then he looks to
see where he's at. Yeah, which, if it wasn't if my if
my suspension of disbelief, you know, wasn't destroyed before, it's fucking six
feet under now and he adjusts his fucking feet and Graham's just Grimes just says,
look like an idiot, And it's kind of like, why aren't you
defending yourself number one? Why aren't you trying to act like something's going on?
But no, you guys have to do this stunt and it's not safe
and you're scared you gonna either injure yourself or die. And then without even
doing a move, they just kind of It's one of the most phony,
yep idiotic wrestling stunts I've ever seen. It's so sad to me how knew
Jack, after doing years of dives, didn't feel like he could just stop
doing dives like this, And he's talked about how, you know, he
wasn't really given a choice that once he started doing it, it became an
expectation and people would come to him backstage, but what's the dive tonight?
I'm diving. But it's sad to me that they never reached a point in
ECW where he just didn't have to do this anymore. You know, it's
one thing to do it to put it in the bank so you can get
over and stay over and like make money off that risk. Yeah, right,
But like, are you just showing up until you die or until you
in this case end up in the hospital for a year or or out of
action for a year due to the injury suffered in this circumstance. And that's
what it is. Just like you said, it's not because he's trying to
find creative ways to get to the bump. It's because he's just you have
to find a way to climb that high And if you show up in the
scaffold is in no condition or isn't configured in such a way where you can
believably brawl up there and believably dive up there, then just kill the spot.
No, I can't do that because I'm new jack, and if I
don't dive, noone gives a fuck. And A I don't think that's true.
And b if it were true, fuck them right if that's if they
don't have any use for you other than if you're taking these kind of risks,
it's time to do something else. Yeah, exactly, that's just stop
wasting everyone's time. And where he was at And then you had a vic
Grimes like like I said, who really only made his name because he was
willing to take big bumps like this too. I mean, sack of shit,
you know, I guess a nice enough guy. He pissed a lot
of people off too, but he wasn't like an actively bad guy, but
he only got on the radar because he was willing to do front flips from
high purchase and take you know, inhumane punishment and basically be mcfoley times twelve.
You know, it's like he's the guy that Flair is screaming at mcfoley
about inspiring from hell in the cell. Remember that TNA promo where he's screaming
out all these guys he brought into the business. Yep, the pressure he's
putting on he ended up putting on guys in the business to take these kind
of risks. So this is that rit large, this is that manifest and
Nwjack was the same way. But with Grimes, he's got a flip.
And that's big part of the problem here. If you got a flip,
then you can't control your descent. And if you get up there and you
get cold feet, which is what happened, we'll talk about, you're gonna
land on his fucking head. And there's two tables down there, and the
first one slides off instead of breaks downwards. So Nwjack ends up sliding off
the top table from this incredibly high perch and landing on the cement and then
big fucking three and fifty pounds viit Grimes is flipping over at his ass lands
right in his head on the concrete smush smashed. So all that I knew
you'd come around to shoot interview that an Jack did with a YouTube channel called
the lad TV on this fateful night. Paul, you wanted men bait to
go through a table with through two tables, and I was cool with it.
I wouldn't. I wasn't cool with going through two tables because I just
it was a hazard. It was to go through one table is easy,
but to try to go through two, you don't know the table gonna slip
off off the top table and what, and you don't know where you're gonnall
where you're gonna land. So I didn't want to go through two. But
he went on and said, ya, just go through two and everything can
be fine. So I was like all right. I was like, all
right, just we'll do that. So Vig Chass when I went to talk
to him, he was like, I said, did you want to check
the scaffold out? He was like yeah, I wouldn't check it out.
I said, is it okay? Because I was running late because it was
suing and he was like, yeah, I checked it out and everything's fine,
so will to be all right? I'm like all right. So when
it came time for us to go off the scaffold, we got up top
and Vic didn't want to go, and I was like, let's go on
three and he was like and then we having this conversation on pay per view
on TV live. You know what I mean. He was like, Jah,
I can't go, it's too high. I said, who are we
going? He said, I can't too high? So I just pulled him
down and he landed on top of me and he did a flip and his
back lean up again into my head and slay on my head into the floor.
Now, crack my skuld You imagine being up there, your legs shaking.
If you haven't seen it, the scaffold isn't like a flat piece of
plywood. It's like railings with wide open spaces between. I mean, it's
it's it's real scaffolding, right all right. It's the kind of scaffolding that
you get when you fucking paint the side of your house. How do I
know this because I got scaffolding and had to build it and paint the side
of my house. I was horrified by Oh my god, it was the
worst thing ever. I was like, I can't fucking build this or go
up on this yet it's not, no, it's it is. It's terrifying
stuff. And these two wrestlers two hundred north of two hundred pounds a new
jack north of three hundred pounds vic rhymes are standing up there with the bright
lights and their legs are shaking, and it turns out Vick is sing,
I can't do it. It makes it so much worse that he says that
to me. It's bad enough that they did this, but that they did
it, yes, knowing it was going to be a bad idea anyway,
Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah yeah, what a business? Yep.
I mean, id damn lucky that no one died. This is kind of
the thing too. Seriously, they all died years later. We we don't
talk enough about that, but they didn't die on pay per view. It's
one of those weird things where I I, it's sad to me that that
there really is is I And I get the idea that you you know,
you set up something, you set up kind of a gimmick, and so
you gotta you gotta. You feel like you need to to live up to
that gimmick. But at the same time, it's sad to me that there's
there's not enough self worth in some of these guys to say no, no,
no, no, no, I'm not doing that. That's crazy.
It turns out even if you do say that, you still have to bump
anyway right of course, and looked like idiots doing it too, Like it
doesn't even look cool, it looks stupid. I remember just being mortified.
Looks like they just do that, Like why that was so disjointed and dumb?
Like is one thing you know you did you expect a new Jack to
jump off a balcony through two tables, That's what you expected. But that's
if they were both up there. Made no sense because like you said,
you had to take such a contrived path to get up there both at the
same time. Not to mention, yeah, not to mention the fact that
And I don't know, I don't know if this is what was on the
actual pay per view or if it was a WWE thing, but like you
got this music playing over the whole fucking thing. It's not even really a
match. Yeah, that's because they played natural Born Killer by Ice Cube every
time New Jack came out, and they played it for the entirety of the
brawl. That was a key part of the ECW experience. But that's a
licensed song and WW can't play that song, so they chose a they choose
not to, they choose not to get there, write the license for it.
Whatever. Yeah, we talked about that at nauseum, but it's disgusting
the solemn they pick. I mean, it's I guess it's a it's a
rough facsimile of the kind of song that played, but God does it sucked
the life out of what was like some of the most memorable parts of ECW
shows. When Knwjack would do that brawl to that music, you just saw,
like you know, AW does Anarchy in the Arena, which is a
similar concept where guys are just brawling for like thirty minutes and the music.
It turns out, the music they play continuous during that brawl is key because
they played wild Thing John Moxley singh Entrance song, which they dealt you license
once and it was great. It made the match so much more eventful and
it just it just you know, as they cut to different sections through the
arena and different pairings off of guys brawling. It just in sync with the
music. Was great. And then this year they did the Final Countdown.
They paid for that. They played it a couple of times, which is
a very expensive song to license, and was dang O'Brien's Brian Dangelson's a Ring
of Honor theme in the first theme he was known with. I mean,
they played that people want Nuts and it made the brawling, It imbued the
brawling with like purpose and like a cinematic quality. It was great. And
the other songs they played, they played several songs during that thing. It
was great. The song is key to this kind of match working and that
all started with New Jack really and man, those things are just you can't
appreciate what they were with the song ww overlays and it takes the real crowd
noise out of it. It's just it's it's a poor thing. When we
do the deep dive of ECW Living Dangerously two thousand and I'll play some snippets
of what it actually sounded like at the time, but that but I totally
even though you don't realize it, your point your finger on a huge problem
with the the editing of these things. I mean, but it also just
yeah, I mean, it just it also takes away from I mean,
I'm not familiar with that style of him brawling to the music. I'm not.
That's not something I'm very familiar with. And it just everything about it
just seemed so phony and stupid. And I'm not a big New Jack fan,
not a lot to be a fan of other than the Dives. I
mean, he was, you know, he was a character, and he
would he spent a lot of time with the fans, like fans ay Stubby
shows, he'd like walk the line while they're wait and get in and he
would joke around with them, and he would make friends with the fans,
and I think a lot of the reaction that he would get came from that
sort of good will. He's a funny guy. He was always shit talking,
scary as fuck. You could believe in him, but if you approached
him personally, he'd joke around and be kind of like a nice, cool
guy too. At the same time, I think that comes through in some
of the reactions he would get. But his matches and he just sat there
like, what's going to pull out of his garbage? Can it's gonna be
a keyboard, a computer keyboard? Is it going to be a laptop of
PlayStation? You're you gonna hit somebody over the head with a guitar or a
crutch or a fucking lug wrench. And then it's you know, how high
is the balcony he's going to dive off of? I went to house shows
and you know, and that's shit. That's it's just the shit is just
so And I you know, I speak this now as as as a forty
three year old and in twenty twenty four, but I wonder I don't know
if I would have enjoyed it back then. But it just seems so cheap
to me. Yeah, it just seems I mean, I mean, it's
not it doesn't seem it it is cheap. It is. It's just cheap
in a way that like you're you know him, him and his violence and
his weapons and his stupid bumps in many ways is no different than what happened
with the Godfather, the you know, the wrestler in that he it just
became about the women. Oh and really wasn't about him, you know,
Yeah, he had no magician on the card other than the brawling Yeah,
it's like he's gonna have this big brawl. He's going to jump off something
high and be stupid and kid people with weapons, and it's like, that's
not that's cheap. They would time it well where like you know, somebody
was getting beat down and triple teamed and nobody was there to save the day,
and that he'd come out and shits on. But you're absolutely right,
there was there was a ceiling to that. And you know, frankly for
new for New Jack, I mean, there's nothing else he was going to
do in the business. Like that's the thing about head. A lot of
these guys that you can like knock it's like if they didn't do that,
they would have a job. And given the choice between the two, if
you didn't have many other marketable skills. Yep, I'm not trying to blame
them fucking sling egg salad. Yeah, no, seriously, that is the
alternative. But you know, yeah, this is you know, this accident.
You ever seen one trick punk this accident where you know, I mentioned
grinds lands on New Jack's head of the concrete and you can see all kinds
of medical personnel and security kind of flood the area, they cut away for
a while, they cut back for a little bit, and you can tell
it's very serious. The announcers kind of go silent as they're trying to figure
all this chaos out. Does account for why ECW Living Dangerously two thousand comes
in at such a short run time? The Torch reporting at the time,
sources say Hayman told all the wrestlers who had matches following New Jacks, take
all of the time New Jack's fall to quote, take all of the time
you need, but let's wrap things up and get out of here, so
so we don't get so freaking out. You can only imagine the calculations he's
are giving his head. Oh my god, but a knew Jack did did
fucking the city of Danbury is coming to hunt. I now there's going to
be a serious issue with local officials. I mean, you know, you
got to think when you're running on the edge like ECW did all those years.
There's no way Paul hadn't sat down and thought, well, what if
someone dies. On one of my shows, we talked about the Lapsed Funk
where someone almost got burned death in the fucking area because Terry Funk's wielding a
flaming branding iron with a soak towel on foley on a fully swinging a chair
with a soaked towel on it. That's what it was. Soaked and kerosene
or whatever. Fucking bunch of fun. You know you weren't have to shave.
That's good. The New Jack did come out with a book, and
in it he describes the scene in quite a bit of detail. In fact,
the aftermath, as we'll get to of this episode, is sort of
the the introduction to his book, he writes, like, almost always,
even at how shows and in front of a tiny audiences, I climbed to
a much higher level than he followed me up the ladder, stepping out of
the scaffold, I could already feel it's shaking. Maybe I was just on
an uneven part. I stepped farther out and the shaking got worse. Then
he arrived at the top. This is bullshit, by the way, It's
just I can't believe it's they wrote this in the book because Grimes is up
there first. Yeah right, not not gonna say I thought even I thought
even Grimes started though he climbed up. Then he arrived at the top.
It was too fucking scared to do anything but crawl, which is not true.
He's standing. You can't crawl. There's no space to crawl. That's
the whole point. There's huge gaps. I don't think it's going to hold
us, he said softly. His voice is Shaky's the surface, So that's
interesting. It's not it's too high. In his book, it's the thing
itself is going to collapse, which is a different fear. You know it
is, yes, I mean, and that's kind of the that's funny thing,
like, that's that's really what what I remember building the scaffold. It
was like, that's what was my biggest fear, really was. It didn't
it wasn't necessarily that it was high. It was it was that it was
high and it Rickety was like Rickety, oh my god. Every step you
hear like a oh no, no, I mean I couldn't. No,
I'm no not doing it. No. I thought you checked it out.
I told him, all in front of a crow like I was so.
I was so angry at my wife, ha ha. I was so angry.
I was like, why are we doing this? Like because you have
to prove you're a man. That's why Oh well, I did end up
not doing I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I was so
fucking scared, and plus my size, I'm like, fuck this, I'm
gonna I'm gonna die. If you're not risking, if you're not lifting something
incredibly heavy, or you're not risking your life for home improvement, are you
even a man? Uh? No? And I'm okay with that. And
I didn't And she ended up doing it. No, I will fully admit
she ended up doing it because I couldn't fucking do it. I was like
mortified, mortified back the whole thing. Oh yeah, absolutely, listen badass.
So it was a badass, absolute badass. I don't think it's gonna
hold us, he said softly, his voice as shaky as the surface.
I thought you checked it out, I told him, all in front of
a crowd. I didn't. He didn't. He had known that at least
one of us was going off the scaffold to the ground, and he hadn't
even bothered to climb up and step across it. That was a big part
when you get into some more detailed reflections of new Jack on this episode,
was that he he had told Grimes and I think we'll get into a bit
more of it. That he that the scaffold need to be looked at,
and then he got to the show late because of snowstorm in Connecticut. Knew
Jack did, so he kind of took it on. Is how he tells
the story on Grimes's word, that Grimes had gone on there and take a
look at the scaffold. My god, confirm, oh my god, accommodate
what they were going to go for. There's many different versions of this story.
We'll get to, I think the most important ones here in the moment.
I guess he figured new Jack wrote, I just go up there,
jump off, recover, and finish the match. Right. So, the
way he's framing it is Vic doesn't expect to go up there with him,
so of course it's fine because I'm not the one that has to fucking climb
it. That doesn't make sense because the hmm, not at all fucking great,
he writes. Now we're in the middle of the pay per view,
dozens of feed in the air, in a structure that could tip over a
collapse on itself any second, now, with over five hundred pounds of grown
men on top of it, and only tables and concrete there to break their
fall. Vic wanted to climb back down. Wasn't happening. This was ECW
on pay per view TV and one of the biggest spots at the night.
If we crawled back down, we'd look like coward and exposed the business.
Yeah, you exposed the business by coming up there. Actually actually yeah,
you're exposed the business going up there, and you expose the business by taking
the fall like you did. I am anything you would. He would have
gotten real heat for not fucking doing it. It would been probably better better
for his career. Actually, yeah, it's like Vic climbed out. I
was going to do it. This motherfucker was too afraid. That's heat exactly
ECW Newjack writs, And that was new Jack and wolzzing out wasn't allowed under
any circumstances. I grabbed him. We're going on three, I informed him,
not a request, not a question, exactly what was going to happen.
But even as we started to fall, he pulled back. And that's
true if you watch the tape, that is the thing like new Jack's going
He's starting to fall downwards with a hand full of shirt, but Vic doesn't
lean forward. As new Jack falls, he pulls back one second and so
when he's launching, he's launching, you know, a second behind k Newjack,
which is why he falls on his head instead of in concert with him,
he doesn't fall next to him. So stupid, so stupid, so
stupid. We went down. I turned my head to help land right,
hoping to fall backward when I hit the table and take the impact spread out
across my entire back. I figured he'd land next to me, or maybe
near my waist enough to maybe take a powder, that is, to take
a minute to recover, but not end things early. How wrong I was.
The guy had done a full flip, landed on me just as my
feet hit the table, and smashed my fucking head right into the ground.
When Vic landed on Jack's head, this is a quote. I was about
thirty feet away this Jerry Lynn. It wasn't good. I could tell from
the way they went off that something wasn't right. Knew Jack writes that clips
become one of the most infamous wrestling history, and if you've seen it,
you probably remember more about it than I do. I'm not sure if I'm
glad that it was filmed at all. It was crazy, crazy as an
understatement for how I felt at that moment. As first my consciousness would let
me realize. I went from falling off a scaffold of fading in and out
in a hospital bed. I'd laid there and had a seizure right in the
middle of the ship. Oh my gods, that's what I heard and saw
later on the tapes. I'd been one hundred feet past consciousness at the time.
Then I was stretched out, spent a week in the hospital, and
somehow been released. Not that I knew what the hell was going on through
any of it. I couldn't see that blow to the brain might have knocked
my sight out permanently. Even the doctors didn't know what would happen. I'd
had an MRI and there was a crack behind my left ear over two inches
long. A friend of mine down in Atlanta had taken me, and then
I lost it. I'd never be able to wrestle again. What the hell
are you supposed to think when your sight suddenly disappears and your skull might be
permanently busted open? What would I ever be able to do again? At
all? Nothing except this. I was ready to end everything if my friends
hadn't hidden all the guns and knives in the home, I probably would have.
Wow, it wasn't safe for me to leave the top floor. I'd
tried and fallen down the stairs. I was stuck recording and Andy Griffith Show
Marathon and sitting there every day in the dark, just listening to it.
My friends made sure I got enough to eat, and eventually they took me
outside, but I still couldn't tell if it was night or day. They
even called my mother and told her what was going on. Typical of her,
she said, you couldn't afford to come see me. Just what I
expected. There was nothing to do but wait. Like every wrestler i'd been
on top, I've been on the go for years, bouncing all over the
place, from city to city and show to show, and now I couldn't
do anything but sit there and hope my body would heal itself. Way too
slowly, my sight began to come back. Things got blurry as hell,
but then more focused on the left side. At least even today, nearly
two decades later, I still have only about five percent of sight in my
right eye. Holy shit, and Knwjack said another interviews including The Dark side
crew. That what really got him was when he got back and watched the
tape months later, he noticed that Vic Grimes, after this horrible situation,
walks out of the arena with his hand up in the air. I keep
won the match. Wow. That pissed him off. Oh boy, he
remembers showing buffalo and had a knife in his pocket. He started to kill
the motherfucker. She wopped up and slapped him. What is wrong with these
people? I swear to God, like, just fucking it's it's it's fucking
fake bullshit. That's why it's real. It was Jack, I didn't mean
to do it, said your motherfucker. You didn't even call me. And
that was a huge thing for knew Jack that there was no phone call apology
from Vic Grimes after this happened. I sat home for almost a year.
Didn't even call me to say the fuck I was doing. So that's your
fault, no matter what the mistake was it living dangerously, it's your fault
to not follow up. And he kept saying I'm sorry, and people was
telling him to call me. He didn't call me. But when we got
to XPW and we had a match and his loser gets thrown off the side
of the scaffold forty feet and we know how that went. Yes before the
match, According to what a new Jack told dark Side, he Vic allegedly
came up to him and gave him some coke as an eight ball and said,
here's the piece offering. I said, we straight, and then I
said I'm gonna do it. I got up that scaffold, tased him.
He bought a taser. He talks about this. He went and bought a
taser at a pawn shot before the event, and he tases Vic grinds for
real up high on this forty foot scaffold. This is in two thousand and
two, after ECW had folded in, another company called XPW had opened up
to run the arena run by porn promoter Rob Black, which there's also a
dark Set episode about. And I grabbed him and I threw him and he
went away. Did we do we did? We? Did? We did?
Did we? Did we do? An XPW in for journey a bit?
But he also did it some other time too. Did they do a
war games match? You're probably thinking of CZW Combat Zone. I remember the
other one. I remember doing one other one though too. Maybe there was
an XPW warritty. It's like, I just feel like I remember seeing something.
Well XPW does we did hardcore Homecoming two thousand or heat Waved two thousand
and one of those two and that was a show where XPW Maybe that's that's
what it was. I bet it was the CW guys had a fight with
them out in the back of the parking lot. Yet, yeah, yeah,
that was it. So he threw him off the scaffold. Anyone,
if you haven't seen this clip, you gott to look it up. He
just he sends Vic Grimes and Grimes just the ring is filled with tables,
like thirty tables stacked on top of each other, and Grimes gets thrown in
stow way where he clears all the tables and lands on the buckle and the
top rope. And he lands where he with such a spring from such a
height that he flips all the way backwards and does a moon salt. And
it's only because he landed and springed off the ropes he didn't fucking die basically,
and knew Jack after the fact would talk about like I intentionally tried to
kill him. That's why that happened. Now you can question the authenticity of
that remark, but nonetheless it was near death, no question. And according
to new Jackie went up to him when he was laying in the ring and
said, now we're even fuck. I don't think he did that. If
you watch the tape, Nu Jack doesn't go towhere near him after he falls
off the scaffold, and he was high as fuck up there, and k
new Jack said that as well, So that only helps. That was the
last time he saw him. Now, of course there's always another story,
right, It's another person that had a vantage point that no one ever Oh
boy and the ball. No, no, no, this isn't This isn't
a proprietary this isn't primary research. This is a recent interview that one of
the members of the Baldy stable that Vic Grimes belonged to Angel, who's in
action here on this card and brawls of it with new Jack. He was
recently on the Hannibal TVGNW podcast and he's got some details on this Vic Grhymes
Nwjack Living Dangerously two thousand fall that I'd never heard before. He says,
Boss that originally Angel was to be the one to take the bump, So
really the ship that happened between him and Vic. Grimes. Like perfect example
is because Grimes pushed Jack. He just kept pushing them and pushing them and
pushing them. I like Vic, I have no problem with Vic. Vic
is awesome, But just standing from the outside looking in, you know,
watching the shit happen, I'm like, oh my god, Vic, shut
up. You know. Like the original story was, is that like,
okay, let's just use the Denver, Connecticut situation. I was I was
supposed to fall off that scaffold. That's a straight shoot. The original version
was it was me and Jack's supposed to go to the top of the scaffole.
But on that scaffold, it was just it was like an open floor.
If you watch the video, if you look on the under their feet,
that's like an open hole. So I originally said, hey, guys,
can we get a plywood big enough to put on that to cover that
hole so we could have some stabilities. Because the origin was I was going
to was to get stoop suplex. He threw four tables were supposed to put
him across and just go right through. So when they came back and say,
hey, hey, so we can't we didn't get the table we didn't.
We didn't get to the plywood, so we didn't have time. Something
like, I'm not fucking doing it because I just knew it was unstable.
So Vic, when me and to Devido were talking about it, Vic was
like, I'll do it now. The original thing was that Jack said,
once we do that spot, everybody gets laid out. We all get carried
out. Nobody, nobody wins. It's just everybody just laid out. So
when I got laid out by the guitar, he fell off the top with
Grimes and they landed and Grimes landed on his head. We're all laid out.
It comes Grimes. He gets up and hits himself on the head.
You know, yeah, he sticks his hands up and stuff. I noticed
it, but I didn't say anything. I didn't, you know, it
didn't click. I was just like, oh shit, whatever. So we
went to the back. Jack goes to the hospital and and all that Vick
was him was like, oh it was Jack's fault. You know, he
didn't want to go, you know, he didn't want to do this,
didn't want so, you know, he was afraid to fall. So Grinds
was still new and he you know, you know that old philosophy telephone telegram
tell a wrestler, and he never called Jack. He never checked in on
Jack, you know, for that injury. So Buffalo, New York at
the Burt Flickature Center, Jack was gone from that time to that show.
And so we're in the locker room. I'm tying my shoes and it was
like a locker, you know, like at high school locker room. So
Vick was on the other side of the locker behind me, and I was
on the other side, tide of my boots. And I look up and
here comes Jack and he's walking by me. Yo, Jack, what's up?
And he just kept walking by me, turned like to walk behind me,
turned the corner and here talk shit now, motherfucker talks shit now.
And then I just felt the locker just boom, and I stood up,
like, what the fuck happened? And I turned around and look and then
Vic's like was holding his cheek and man, what the fuck you doing?
Jack? Will you know what the fuck he goes? And then that's how
we all started. And then he said he was gonna, you know,
light him up in the ring, you know. So he was loading up
a guitar with like bowling pins a mallet like he was filling it up like
metal ship. And then Paul found out, and Paul's like, hey,
when Jack's music kids, Vic, you take you powder. Angel will take
the hit with the guitar. So when he told me that, I went
to Jack and say, hey Jack, things changed. Plans is that I'm
taking the guitar shot when your music kids, VIC grabs is gonna take a
powder and take off. And he just lost it. Fuck that. No
went to Paul started arguing about it, and he comes back. Paul was
Adam and like, hey, we're done. This is the deal. Ae
just taking the guitar. So Jack comes back to me, he goes,
you know, and he's just cursing up his storm and he's like, motherfucker
this bullshit. And I'm like Jack, yeah, but uh yeah, man
fucked motherfucker. I'm gonna get him yet, Jack, But you can you
do me a fan? Yeah? Motherfucker I need Jack. Hey, can
you do me a fan? What can you take all that ship out of
the guitar because I'm gonna get hit with it. You know, he goes
not the way I got you, I got you. But you know,
but even though he hit me, he took all that ship out. He
taped the guitar with an electrical tape so tight that even when he hit me
with the guitar, the guitar didn't give. So it was still like getting
hit with like a you know, big piece of wood. But again,
like I said that, that situation, and again I'm not trying to pass
blame, but Grimes always dug himself in a deep hole, such a fucking
such a serious Grimes back there, mister, I'm sorry, mister my fall.
And then he's fucking knew Jack wouldn't go. He was scared, what
a bit pissed people off right, I'm sure he would deny. Of course,
there's Angel saying it indeed, and interesting to hear that he was supposed
to take it and said nope, no thanks, because you know why,
he's fucking smart, well looking at the end of the end of the heart
of Darkness when it comes to New Jack, trying to get that revenge,
throwing the crimes off the confront. So I guess before the message, I
want to do a pawnshop and bought a stun gun. But yeah, I
was there when New Chad with New Chad, he told me he was gonna
do it before it happened to his south. What did he want to happen?
He told me he was in locker room. He came to me.
I was ready to kill him. He said, I'm sorry. I said,
you didn't even call me. I said, almost a year as you
didn't even call me to see how I was doing. This is the highest
elevation of any match in the history our sport. But I mean I was
high, You know what I mean. I was high. So I just
tasted him. I tasted the ship. You're the tag tag. I can't
feel my legs. I said, you ain't gonna need him on the way.
Vic was a foot for missing the ring completely, which would have killed
him. I want him to hit the floor. I just didn't throw him
hard enough. I was trying to throw his ad to the I climbed down
over the yeah, and I went up to him when he was laying the
ring. I told him, I said, now we even you what.
First of all, the guy front flipped like you didn't throw him anywhere.
You grabbed, you touched his shirt and he went for the ride, like
to act like you actually threw a three hundred fty pound guy in a way
you don't get it out of You don't, but you don't fucking know.
But that's that was Jack, like he would if he could latch on this
a version of a story that made him seem like a homicidal maniac, which
I'm not saying he wasn't, but he never ran away from those characterizations.
He wouldn't deny them, he would embellish them, so that the story got
passed down through the years of this guy's You know, this guy could take
it to a level of violence you've never seen before, and he did,
you know, stabbing Gypsy Joe and fucking stabbing that guy in that indie show
whatever his name was, Big Red is depicted in the Dark Side episode.
That stuff really happened to the fucking Eric Kulass incident that he got sued over.
That really happened. But this one, I don't know. This one.
I feel like, well, he may have been really pissed at Vic
and probably did smack him in the face, and probably I'm not sure he
showed up at that XPW show in as much of the driver's seat as this
that version of events indicates. Anyway, that's what you get. You hear
a Stabbo. When his bookalks about it, he kind of casts doubt on
the whole thing is something that knew Jack was doing more, you know,
doing anything, but just trying to bolster his character through anyway. Vic Rhymes
is very rarely talked about it. There's very little interviews of him out there.
He's he's kind of an interesting dude. He he fell into like ministering
to bikers and shit. Like you could tell he was a guy that like,
excuse me, ran with weird I was outside of the business and stuff,
and it was kind of kind of a fish out of water. He
was like basically, you know, a backyard bump taker that found a spot
in the business and just kept doing it until you know, there wasn't a
market for it anymore. And he didn't make an appearance not too long ago
on a podcast called Extreme Memories with Chris Klass, who was one of the
XPW annuncers. I think he's the guy that you heard do that that wailing
sound when Vic Grimes got thrown off. You do that all the time whenever
there would be like a high risk or incredibly violent bump in XPW. And
here Vic, that's so annoying. I know, very annoying. I agree
does offer some contrition and kind of like a go home point on the whole
new Jack dynamic. I do want to say one thing about Jack, okay,
and hopefully if he's listening, he won't kill me. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry if I heard you, I'm sorry if anything physically, if you
really are hurt, and if I left the mark, and if you're damaged
from anything that me and you have ever done in the past, I'm sorry.
I did not mean to ever hurt you. No shit happens, and
I hope you accept my apology, all right. I don't know how to
say it any better than that. After retiring, he knew Jack regularly.
I thought, you know, like, I mean, what about apology to
me to have him fucking suffer watching? I'm sure if he knew yet to
do this, he wor was my apology Jesus retiring I knew Jack reclearly used
prescription painkillers and a series of drugs and alcoholics. He's been very open about
discussing. He also had issues of blood clots, and on May fourteenth of
twenty twenty one, he died of a heart attack. That age fifty eight,
oh casualty of Extreme. One may say bring us home, remembers of
the solar system a remedy that and we were doing UCW Living dangerously that they
had something to contributed this one from Sam dear co chairman. First off,
thank you for getting me through a recent charity walk. I had to walk
forty five miles all around the island where I live, which I managed to
doing just under fifteen hours. More to goo, I listened a few episodes
of the cast on the walk, including one of my all time favorites,
Uncensored ninety six in Aemania Wow, just listen. Agreed tremendous episode by the
way, and heard you'll be heading back to the land Extreme for the next
one. You're first sin is Born to be Wired almost three years ago if
I remember correctly. Yeah, if you don't count the terry funky CW matches,
probably right. I wanted to contribute my thoughts for this show, which
your summarized Leslie one in the UK, which is where Sam is from the
spot where Rhino Gore's Lori Fullington Sandman's wife through the table was actually censored on
the official release. Wow A moment of impact. The camera cut to a
shot of her son's face. He says, doesn't the BBFC no wrestling.
He's like, real, that's the regulator. That's awesome. I don't know
why I kept gonna say, doesn't matter, it's my sick brains. Two.
Dusty's brawl with theerated Steve Krino is decent. But there's one thing that
doesn't need more cow bell. Yeah, well I get it, you get
it? Yeah, well, no, I don't get it. Oh uh
that's the Christopher walking uh sketch on something. I'm glad you're hearing it.
More cow bell these more cow bell, pick up on that number. Three.
Mike austin Ver's Kid Cash is a chaotic, violent little match. However,
you can see why Mike had two knackered knees by this point in his
career. Or what the fuck was the point of Kintaro Kenmora being flown in
for his match with Baal's mahoney, great question, Hey, hey, hey,
bigger, more important question? What was the question? Why? In
general? Why? And what the fuck was five? New Jack versuviic rhymes
is horrific to watch, knowing what the landing did to Nwjack and what benefit
did it bring in the long run, New Jack didn't live to be sixty
and Grimes did a few matches next to p W before taking up residence in
the Where Are They Now file? Yeah, that was it, Like people
saw the you know what when Vic T. Rhymes is out there doing his
thing and Knwjack was out there doing his thing. Enough, guys, we're
getting opportunities in spotlight and money to take those kinds of risks that we hadn't
seen the other end of it, And now we've seen that. Nobody short
of mc foley, who really only made the millions he did because it was
also a great promo and a great pro wrestler in his own right. In
addition to the risks you feeling to take, we haven't seen anybody actually make
life changing money or have a sustainable career doing that kind of style. So
it's over six Super Crazy versus Rhino at times resembles a Vince Russo style sports
entertainment main event. The NCW one pointless is by the time of the next
pay per view Rhinos TV champ anyway. Yeah, but that was also a
Haman thing. I wasn't really a Russo think it was. Hayman would love
to have fourteen run into a main event, and we basically saw that in
the wrestle Mania forty main event. You know that's Hayman or yea. A
round of people come out to counteract the last guy who ran out, and
you just keep going and finally our man, Scott Michael Ferry writes in to
his co chairs at the very end of w W Greed Part two, when
the Boss drew the name of the next show, you'd be deep diving.
Part of me hope to hear him say it would be an ECW event,
but I would never expect such a stupid thing to happen on the lapsed fan.
JP would never do that to himself. Hell, even if he did
draw any Stebby pay per view, I'd absolutely expect him to pretend he didn't
right back in there, I would have known the difference. I'm sitting here
blind, I don't I'm I'm I'm uh, you know, I go legit
here. This is proof that we're doing an ECW show. As soon as
he said that this one would be for all of us extremists, I felt
my heart rate increase. I haven't thought to myself, please say living dangerously
two thousand but really, what were the odds of that even happening? Why
say, why would you choose this fuck? Why would you want me to
choose this fucking show? It's such a shit bomb. I actually stood up
from my couch like a man who just heard all of his lottery numbers get
called one after the other in a winning powerball ticket. That was it.
I couldn't believe it finally happened. I popped huge. Both arms were up
in the air. I know JP probably couldn't be more miserable about his luck
or lack thereof, but I could not be happier. I'm sure it's hard
to believe that anyone in the Solar system could be excited about this. Okay,
so truth be told, I didn't really feel like I just won the
lottery. I felt like I'd want something greater, or something more special that
has tougher odds of winning the Hopper. I think you can guess why I
wanted to hear you talk about the show for years. It's because I was
fucking there, oh, there there when I hit my Why when I hit
my teens in the mid nineties, I was fired up all the damn time,
like a seventy pad Ultimate Warrior, springing to the ring and shaking the
ropes for about twenty hours a day. I pretty much ran on teenage angst
add mountain dew and being perpetually horny for reasons I could not understand. I
craved violence, I needed chaos. I felt like everything was changing. I
was still trying my hardest to stay a wrestling fan, but at that point
in my life, I was becoming a man, and it was becoming increasingly
tempting to turn my attention elsewhere because so much of this child stuff like wrestling
was starting to bore me. Nostalgia has always been my curse, and I
wanted per wrestling to grow up with me so I didn't have to leave it
behind with other pieces of my childhood. Then one day my neighbor from across
the road stopped by and simply stated, you have to come over and watch
this new wrestling show I found. I asked no questions, I just went,
and that's when I saw ECW for the first time. I was such
a huge and memetal head that I pretty much screamed when I saw a raven
in a Nevermore T shirt. When Jerry Lynn walked to the ring, as
an old fear factory song blasted through my neighbor's TV speakers. The music,
the violence, the wild crowd. They drew me in immediately, and I
was all in. It felt like I was watching something I couldn't be allowed
to watch, felt way too adult, felt so underground. It felt like
I was made It was made just for me. We had to keep checking
to make sure his parents didn't come home from their respective jobs in time to
catch us watching this. I instantly, I know it is like watching porn,
isn't it. It's like watching it. N It felt like it at
the time. Yeah, I instantly had a new favorite wrestling promotion. All
my friends needed to see this, my family needed to see this. My
grandfather needed to know what he was wrong. And wrestlers do actually hit each
other. Yeah, but we said that, man, even we talked about
Art Award games. What the hell was the appeal of CZW and these big
time death match promotions. I'm like, Wow, these fans just want a
version of wrestling that they can show to people who think they're basically disabled for
liking wrestling and saying, look, how could they fake that? Well,
I'll tell you what you may you may well better not be fake. I
don't. I don't. But here's the bottom line there, son, I
don't give you. That's what you miss. I don't give a shiet I
don't care. Here's the guy hit out with a fucking trash can. All
right, well forget it. I take your back everything I ever said about
wrestling. Are you out of your fucking mind? You know what? You
know what? You're still a fucking idiot for what guys, because they're actually
hurting each other. If they're faking it, you're dumb. If they're not
faking it, you're dumb. It doesn't matter. You're fucking dumb. What
we talk about here at TLF. It's a permanent scarlet letter. Get over
here. I'm going to give you some more. Do you think you can
do about it? The more pathetic you are, get over the knee.
I could prove it now. Whenever some random kid in the school bus that
I wasn't even friends with just had to let me know wrestling was fake,
my response was to ask if they had ever heard of E c W.
In the late nineties, both w TOW fw AW were giving us some of
the all time memorable stories, matches and angles to ever happen in pro wrestling,
but I actually started watching them with a more critical eye. Of course,
I was still a fan, but I had trained myself to see them
as being phonies. Compared to ECW, the matches didn't hit as hard for
me. The Reggie language and content felt so toned down by comparison. It's
silly to think about in hindsight, but I was just a rabbit ECW mark
who was blinded by Paul's vision, much like most of his wrestlers were.
I know what JP is thinking, but in my defense, we were all
idiots as teenagers there. I think I think everyone's grandfather just said that,
I know you're not channeling JP when you say they you're channeling your own grandpa
exactly. There came a time in the summer of two thousand when I asked
my mom and her boyfriend to sit in the living room with me so I
could show them something cool. I bet you thought would be an ECW tape.
It I got down on the floor in front of the TV and stopped
popped strangle Mania two. That's the deathmatch tape and the VHS player. For
those who don't know, this was an old tape of FMW matches with the
insane clown Posse providing insanely inappropriate commentary as if they were ringside. We talked
about this during a lapsed funk and with Mick Foley in Japan. I spent
half the time trying to convince her that wrestling this violent, it just had
to be legit. You can't fake this. Something about watching this type of
wrestling made me feel like I was like, it was cool to be a
fan. That's a big mistake, right there, Scott Michael, That's a
big mistake. Yeah, I didn't have to feel embarrassed by it anymore.
Yes, you did even more so still still do as you'd expect. My
mom was not a wrestling fan, so she absolutely did not fucking care.
She could not have cared less. I've told the story. I remember bringing
a tape of November Remember ninety seven, the first pay per view I could
order in my area, to a friend's house who was kind of like marginal
wrestling fan. Had the NWWW World Tour Game. So I felt like was
a could possibly be convinced to care about wrestling if he only would see this
hardcore kind of promotion, that kind of expanded the boundaries of what you thought
wrestling was, and they sat there like what like, oh this sounded cool?
Like I felt so stupid. I was like, I really thought I
was going to make them wrestling fan. This is this is this is the
response that that completely destroys anything. He goes to the go why would you
think I'm something like that, even if it's unstved, Why would you think
that I'd want to watch this with you. It's really not. It's crazy,
Like, oh fuck, I mean it, Oh look at that.
Oh wow, I guess so bad, soapathic. I guess it's crazy.
But you know, I don't know what do you want that's going through those
ECW crowds, these rabbit maniacs. They think this is like something that's more
respectable than what w w F was doing or had done when they were kids.
And I'm like, guys, it's it's worse. It put it puts
you in even lower regard from the people. You think this is going to
impress, Yeah, it's it's not gonna listen, listen, this is the
this is the thing. Give it to them. Fuck this, Okay,
it doesn't matter. Let's go what you show them? People who don't respect
wrestling are still gonna think less of you. Bottom line, all right,
you can show them all. It's like one in a million where somebody is
actually going to be interesting. What's your best bet? Just shut the fuck
up, just you know, your best bet is try to find you a
fan shirt in the wild. Try to find some visual indication that someone's wrestling
fan without you having to bring it up. Don't, don't out yourself.
It's not worth it. So true, all right, it's the one it's
the one thing. It's the one thing every wrestling fan should be ashamed of,
is the fact that they're a fan of wrestling. Every fucking I'm not
joking you're going to say is going to make it so much worse. Yep,
I am listen this This podcast has been a game changer for my for
my life. Okay, no joke. It's still can't hurt about it to
fucking say. When they when they asked the question, what's your podcast about?
About it? I like, I get through the pro wrestling part as
fast as possible to talk about Jack's credentials hesitation. You should get right to
your TC instead. I mean that's actually you know, you can say that's
yours, right, like you run just talk about that one. It's still
about wrestling. That's true. I could lie. I have lie before.
No, No, that feels worse, you know, I say it's about
sports and entertainment. That's not a lie. I'm not a lie of But
my mom did not care. She could not have cared less. She just
humored me because I'm her son, and she liked that. I still asked
her to hang out. Important The important thing that I took away from this
was that she sat there and watched the whole thing with me without complaining.
Sounds like wrestle mommy to me boss, just a little bit, Yeah,
it does. Yeah. I don't remember exactly how long after this night that
had happened, but as soon as I saw the episode of ECWTV when they
announced there would be a pay per view in Danbury, Connecticut, I couldn't
contain my excitement. I immediately got the courage to ask her for tickets as
an early Christmas gift, and I warned her that it would be violent,
but since she thought stranglemania, since she got through stranglemania without being noticeably disgusted
by the action of the language, that's amazing to me. This would be
nothing as for lack of a better word, extreme, I had never gotten
to attend an ECW event before. I just started looking for work after I
graduated high school in the summer of two thousand and I had started my first
semester of college at Three Rivers that fall, so I didn't have the money
to buy tickets to anything. I could barely afford to put gas in my
Z twenty four. My mom was always the greatest when it came to surprising
me. As I'm sure you'll remember, I'm the guy whose mother took a
day off from work working doubles at the prison to break me out of school
at the end of the school year to see Ghostbusters two on opening Day.
That's right, true. So guess when I found out I was going to
an ECW pay per view? You guessed it that fucking day, after she
already told me she wouldn't be able to get tickets for me or be able
to take me. I had never been more excited to go to a wrestling
show in my life. She picked me up from my grandparents place in Griswold
and her dark Blue nineteen ninety seven Ford Explorer and we took that long ride
toward her boyfriends in Stratford to be closer to the venue. On the way
there, she ended up detouring and brought me to the old Milford Amusement Center
where I could play arcade games for a while to kill a couple hours with
my add She knew that video games were one of the few things I could
easily focus on. It was the perfect way to keep me distracted. Any
other day, however, all I could think about was living dangerously well.
I can't remember the name of the restaurant all three of us went out for
stakes just before the show. I still remember what I ate, though,
and I'll even admit, shamefully that I ordered a steak medium well, because
that's how my grandparents used to order burgers and steaks for me when I was
young, In case she didn't already know I was an idiot back then.
Burger. You know, it's funny. I don't know if this is I
I like my burgers different than like my steak, like to an extreme difference.
Yeah, I'm not. I'm not with that, Like I like a
medium, but I'm not with that hole. Like if you get it well
done, bro, it's like you shut the fuck up. Like, well,
when it comes to steaks, I want to, I do want to.
I like it raw pretty much raw, you know. I like I
like a nice uh uh basically like a quick sear it like like very crusty.
But then like fucking I want red red but burgers, well done burgers
that are a little too pink, a little too cold kind of freak me
out. I don't I don't like. I don't like juicy burgers because they
make it harder to eat because like all the juice comes in and gets soaked.
I don't like that, and they fall apart easier, like I want.
I want a very firm patty of beef. I don't want it to
be. My dad looks at me like I'm a fucking like like like I've
just killed a person every time. It's funny, even though it's been years
that I've been doing it. Like. He just looks at me like,
are you serious? Meat? You want it? Well? You want a
medium? Well, yeah, I don't want any fucking juice coming out.
He's like so disappointed. I know, yeah, that's I'm I'm off that.
Like, you know, people feel like they have to be embarrassed for
all the eat their steak. It's like, dude, like, we're not
all trying to listen. Listen each your steak the way eat listen, eat
your steak. However it tastes best for you, just like anyone who has
a problem with it, like needs to find other things to focus on.
I know exactly as an eighteen year old adult, I knew. I know
there's no excuse for this, but I spend most of the time at the
table just talking to them about ECW, the wrestlers, the feuds, the
insane shit I'd seen on TV these past few years. They needed to know
what they were walking into. Even though I didn't know much of the card.
I don't think the wrestlers even knew much of the card. That night,
I tried to convince until they got to the building. I tried to
convince myself that maybe they would be invested if they knew some stuff about No,
they know, no mistake, they knew some stuff about this. The
more because because now because now here's the thing. Now you've exposed how much
you actually know. Now they realize there's a problem. Now they're not just
taking you because this thing that amuses you. Now they realize that this is
going to be like something that you think about all the time every day for
the rest of your life. This is this is this is a process.
I don't get that into it. If it's and they wanted to be a
phase, yeah, they need correct all right, that's a good T shirt.
They need it to be a phase. It's okay with a wrestling it
all right because they because they realize if it's not a phase, their lives
just go hard. They have to live their whole lives with this exposeure out
there that they raised a kid who's a huge fan of pro wrestling. Ye
yep, but that they have to talk, They have to like, oh,
what is he into? Well, m well, you know, he
he he's into pro wrestling, you know, I know, I don't know.
I feel I can't feel myself. Ye oh my god, I feel
for him right now. Yep. I'm so glad that my daughter stopped.
It's a great thing. Somehow I knew better. Just imagine me looking grotesquely
thin with a pimply face and middle part mushroom cut, wearing an oversized panted
T shirt and ripped up jeans, legs bouncing non stop under the table with
excitement, telling them all about amazing athletes like Rob van Dam and Jerry Lynn,
not knowing they were actually about to be stuck watching job or asque clowns
like Pitbull Number one and Bill Wiles instead and salt Well standing in line to
get into the building. I couldn't help it envision how the night would play
out, imagine and taking in the energy from the crowd to get myself even
more hyped up, the chills i'd feel seeing my favorites walk through the curtain
as their entrance music played, seeing them hit their signature moves live for the
first time, the loud echo of out of shaped bodies bouncing off the canvas
after being dropped through a table that they may have been lit on fire.
But when I walked into the O'Neill Center, everything immediately fell off. It
wasn't like I had anticipated. These didn't feel like the fans I had imagined.
The energy felt so low looking back on it. Maybe they knew something
about the state of the company that I didn't. Maybe I had just set
my expectations too high. Maybe I couldn't let myself see that the ECW I
fell in love with was not the same ECW I was about to see that
night, or maybe it's just timpally because we weren't in Philly. I wasn't
going to let that affect my mood though. I was just excited that I
could be there. My mom bought me a signed event poster that felt like
a piece of paper staple to some flimsy styrofoam with wrestler signatures all over it.
It got a little banged up over the years, but I actually still
have it in storage. If I remember correctly, I believe the show was
sponsored by a CW's Hardcore Revolution video game. I was so obsessed when I
saw they were getting a video game that I used to go to my local
mall at least twice a week as power walk right over to EB Games to
annoy them by asking when the ECW game was coming out. Oh my god,
no one could give me a release date. They would just keep saying
they don't have it, and I'd come back and oh, that's also that's
also like you know, when when you because like hisse, here's the thing.
As a wrestling fan asking about a video game, you just want to
do it once, get the game and get out of there. But they
don't have it. It means you have to admit yourself at least twice to
them coming back. You get because you have to come out as friends now
because I had to. I pre ordered No Mercy for the UH for N
sixty four and they didn't know the date it was coming out. God,
And so I just kept going back like every week like is it here?
Do you guys have it in yet? And it's like I have to keep
I mean, I'm looking like a completely helpless like devian. Then one day
it was there. Then one day it's there and I can take my game
home. But like at the first, it's like you just keep going,
it keep going, and you look like a like a fucking like a problem,
a walking breathing another thing. Kids these days won't know the first thing
about they download the game and Animity they have it shipped to them in Animinity,
none of that. Yeah, they would just keep saying they don't have
it, and I'd come back in a few more days to do the same
thing all over again. It's wild that now I can just pre order any
game, hey speak of the Devil, any game I want, and have
it on my doorstep on his release day, or even downloaded, installed and
ready to play by the time I get home from work. Kids these days
will never be able to appreciate the thrill of the hunt. I had no
idea what a text bullo upe match was, but I remember immediately feeling embarrassed
that I was making my mom want a Texas bullshit match. Yes, there
is no way that some long rope with a cowbell on it was going to
be used to give us something violent or memorable. Boy was I wrong.
I'll never forget the image of a bloody dusty out there in jeans flipping the
double bird. It may be my favorite memory of old dust, not to
be confused with gold dust, because at that point in my life I had
never seen him like that before. I just wanted him to murder Steve Corino.
But when the match was over, something instantly clicked and I suddenly appreciated
him. Even after I stopped watching wrestling and then came back many years later,
I could not see Karina without immediately thinking about that night every single time.
In the end, it was really just some brawl that wasn't anything special,
but it was special to me because of how it made me feel in
those moments. Remember when I said I was a metal head earlier, while
I also fucking loved Ice Cube back then, and hearing Natural Born Kills blaring
over the arena speakers repeatedly was an absolute highlight. It was something I couldn't
wait to experience inside the building. That's when I found myself just losing my
shit in my seat after Jack and Grimes fell off of the scaffold. I
didn't quite understand how serious that actually was. I figured that was no,
nothing compared to what they did on a regular basis. I felt like Jack
was always jumping off of balconies. Then again, from my seat, I
couldn't exactly see how they landed. I mostly kept glancing over my mother's face
to see if I could observe any sign that she was getting annoyed whatever.
His song started over again. That's funny how you're like self conscious about the
level of enjoyment from the non fans you dragged to the thing. That's that's
quite a pressure to feel the whole time. Yep, yep. I know
it's going to be the moment that is most remembered, or probably the only
thing people remembered that happened on this show. But it was in that moment
that I vividly recalled truly taking in the atmosphere, because that was the closest
I ever got to feeling like I was in that Rabbit ECW crowd I had
fallen in love with on my TV screen. When the WW network first rolled
out, this was the first show I went looking for. Not only is
it crazy that there was so much I'd forgotten from that night for good reason,
but it was then that I also realized how much of ECW's appealed to
me was the music. That's right amen. Without it, some of those
shows feel and sound like absolute ass. We're watching new Jack Verse Grimes.
Back at that time, I felt like the ending had to have been edited.
There's no way they got them out of there that fast. On the
night of the show, I felt like they were lying on the floor for
several minutes. Then I found a clip of the unedited footage with the original
music and everything, and it still fell too short. My brain really had
me believing that time stood still for so long that my mom had natural born
kill as memorized by the time they got those two out of there. Even
though I didn't get to see a lot of my favorites and action Like pretty
much everyone I told my mom about at the dinner table, I still got
to see Mike Awsam do an awesome bomb through her table, as well as
guys like Rhino Super Crazy, Masato Tanaka, and of course a poly promo
that was still not as offensive as knowing people paid money to be in the
building and they couldn't turn the show off when Simon Diamond King Almost importantly,
it was another memory with my mom that I will never forget. But imagine
me hyping up rvd's personality and athleticism just to see him get carried out while
wearing sweatpants with the surgical booton at the end of the show. So I
ward asked my mom what the entering highlight for her was that night. I'm
sure the only thing she can remember was seeing Sandman come out to that one
Metallica song she knows. Another reason why the show holds such a special place
in my heart is because not only was this the last wrestling show we would
go to together, but it would also be the last wrestling show before I
became a lapsed fan for a long time. Obviously, this wasn't too long
before both ECW and WW would go under, and WW would just couldn't do
enough to make me care. I was so bummed about my two favorite wrestling
companies folding that I didn't even want to think about watching wrestling ever again.
I didn't even hear about One Night Stand in two thousand and five until almost
ten years after it happened. That's why so lapsed that The next wrestling event
I have attended was a RAW at Hartford in twenty fourteen, when the woman
I was dating at the time bought me a ticket to hang with her at
the show. Imagine that, fourteen years after my last live wrestling event,
I finally got to see RVD in a match that I saw two younger Roads
in action, including a brother I had never heard of before, and that
all it took was hearing Jericho's music hit for a surprise return to instantly make
me feel like a teenager all over again. That was the moment that would
bring me back hard for several years. Just like with ECW, all it
took was the right music to make me feel something anyway. That's why ACW
Living Dangerously two thousand is important to me, and I'm probably the only person
who has had such fond memories of what is otherwise a show that nobody else
would ever watch unless they had to for a college podcast. Finally, I
know my mom will never hear this, but I was fortunate enough to have
someone in my life who took me to wrestling events she wasn't interested in,
or other shows she would absolutely hate, no matter the cost, because seeing
me smile meant that much to her, and because she got to spend time
with me. Believe me, she doesn't remember anything about the wrestling shows we've
went to, but she can always tell you the details of our time together
when we went to these events. Hell, one time I saw she was
watching Dark Side of the Ring and it was the New Jack episode, and
when they showed the clip of the Danbury incident, I told her we were
there, and she replied, wow, really she doesn't even remember that fall.
Of course not we didn't wait, we were lying. We went to
wrestling missed. I would have missed so much without her. Now I do
well enough that I still try to return the favor whenever I can, all
these years later, by buying her things like tickets to concerts, I know
she'd like them out of the cost just to see her happy. Now,
she struggles to surprise me anymore because I'll never again have to ask her for
anything. She's done more than enough for me already. She's the reason I
can tell you all about of this or about that one ghostbuster summer. My
birthday is coming up middle of July. We'll at least let her think she's
surprising me with a new TV. Let's just hope she doesn't figure out that
her husband may have somehow ended up using Mike card that happens to look exactly
like hers. That's funny, you two legends. However, did manage to
surprise me with a perfect birthday gift this year? Even if it costs JP
something you can't put a price on. So I took a I mean,
it's taking a piece of my soul away. So thank you for that,
thank you for the memories, and thank you for Steve Amania Scott. And
with that we hit the ECW Little Universally two thousand death toll. Yeah.
It's uh, it seems small, but I think I think I remember being
small. I have four, Well, I have four Dusty Awesome, Mike
Hogan, Balls, Mahoney and the New Jack. Yeah. And I think
that's it. Yeah, that's about the list man. That's crazy. It
is, it is crazy. It's funny when when when it's funny that you
know, WWE is the one that usually has the most dead, especially considering
a substance abuse going on in that company at that time. I remember thinking
Sally was dead, but he's not. Nine one one is dead. I
don't know how the funck that guy's alive. I know, I know he
should be dead. On that Dick Dudley and Sally Gratziano in the same category,
and Big Dick is dead. So there's that. But all right,
well, the table is set and in ECW, you know what that means.
It's time to go through it. Boss. On the other side of
the break, we Deep Dive e CW Living Dangerously two thousand