Jody Hamilton on his role in WCW after he finished his in-ring career, why he respects Jim Herd, training Dallas Page

By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast with Jody Hamilton
Host: JP John Poz
Twitter: @TwoManPowerTrip
Website: www.tmptempire.com
Interview available at Tmptow.podomatic.com

Ending up in WCW after a legendary career: Ted Turner ended up getting into the wrestling business, so I sat down with the boss at that time who was Jim Herd. So I sat down with him and worked out a deal. He wanted me to supervise the wrestling end of the company. That satisfied me because I didn’t want to be in the ring anymore and he didn’t want me in the ring. I will always be grateful and indebted to Jim Herd for that. A lot of people didn’t like him because he was very gruff, had an attitude, and didn’t pull any punches. He would tell you exactly what he thought and he didn’t care if you liked it or not. I had a lot of respect for Jim Herd, I’ll be forever grateful for what he did for me.

His roles in WCW and starting the Power Plant: I did it all in WCW. I was a member of the booking team, I trained wrestlers, and I started the WCW Power Plant. I really started the Power Plant because I wanted to make sure that the new guys breaking into the business are learning the right things and being taught the right way. No one else out there was doing it. The guys up in the WWF at the time and coming from there certainly weren’t getting the proper education. No one that comes out of my school is going to come out uneducated and they didn’t. The idea of the Power Plant is to become fundamentally correct. Teach these guys the correct way to do things, the correct way to say things, and just be correct in all facets of the game.

On WCW vs WWF: I was going to make sure as far as quality of talent was concerned, I was going to make damn sure it surpassed WWF in every way, shape, and form, and I think we managed to do that. It was business ethics and other things that ended up putting WCW out of business, not the talent.

On Dallas Page: You can just see when a talent has “it” and it may take some time to get that out of them. To me, DDP was a hit and a miss at times in training. He had his own mindset and he would drift away sometimes from the way I was teaching him, and it took me awhile to get him out of the mode he was in, but once he did he became very successful. Once he honed in, he was off and running. He was a very hard worker and he’s a good friend.

Other topics include his salty relationship with Vince McMahon and the WWF over the Deep South Wrestling closure, the formation of the legendary Assassins, feuding with the Funks, wrestling at MSG, his son Nick Patrick, so more.

You can listen to other shows apart of the TMPT Empire including Shane Douglas’ Triple Threat Podcast, Taking You to School with Dr. Tom Prichard, Talking Tough with Rick Bassman, Taskmaster Talks with Kevin Sullivan and the University of Dutch with Dutch Mantell.