By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast with The Maestro
Host: JP John Poz
Twitter: @TwoManPowerTrip
Website: www.tmptempire.com
Interview available at Tmptow.podomatic.com
On joining WCW: “How I got in WCW was, uh, through (Jeff) Jarrett, actually, he put the good word in for Hulk Hogan and the Macho Man, and, uh, they flew me up from Puerto Rico the first time, cuz I was wrestling with Carlos Colon in Puerto Rico. But I had a tryout match then… It went okay and I got to meet Eric and the boys, Eric Bischoff and everybody. But for some reason they didn’t like, never went through and then I ended up going, doing AAA with Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts. The overseas experience helped me greatly going forward with WCW. The tryout match that, that got me into the company was with Chavo Guerrero Jr. And I could not be happier. I mean, I have so much respect for the Guerrero family. So we got get in the back and Diamond Dallas Page, you know, was putting us over. I go back to what my grandpa told me years ago. It’s like, always know who the boss is. Yeah. So Eric, Eric Bischoff walks in, right. He says, good match guys and looks at me and says, you know, we can use a good talent like you. Welcome aboard.”
On “Macho Man” Randy Savage and the Gorgeous George gimmick: “Well, uh, they wanted to do it. He wanted to do it originally for Lanny (Poffo) a couple years prior. Right. And I was cool with that. Cause I knew Lanny would, you know, do a good job. This was by a year in the company. And then I, I found out through secondhand sources about the whole valet thing, which is kind of, it was the head scratcher because, you know, I mean, Randy was usually, you know, he would come to me about things like if he was gonna do something or another, but it’s really perplexing. But that’s why I called for a meeting with Eric, and Eric was very approachable. Um, like I said, you know, he’s the guy that hired me and he’s always been straightforward with me business wise and, uh, and way I can talk to Eric and, uh, you know, we hashed out a few ideas together and put ’em all together and you know that’s how, how Maistro came to play.”
On his Gorgeous George gimmick: “I did tapings down in Orlando and all that as Gorgeous George. And, I know William Regal was a big, big supporter of mine. And I even told him a funny story when I was in Memphis, that they would tell me I was wrestling too much. He got a good laugh out of that. Right. Yeah, it was like a year into the company where things started to change. And I had a meeting with Eric Bischoff when the changes were taking place, because Randy wanted to give the Gorgeous George name to his valet at time. And so I had to meet with Eric and try to try to work things out, try to salvage this, right? Because I was kind of perplexed as everybody else at the time. Um, that’s how Maestro came to be.”
On Eric Bischoff: “Eric was big on production, and he had a vision and helped keep things together. And you know, him, (Kevin) Sullivan, Arn Anderson, if it weren’t for them, man, you know what I mean?”
On Vince Russo: “We all tried to make the omelet out of broken eggs. And that was kind of a lot of our mentality. So that’s what we did. It was funny, because there are times you step in the ring, they’d be like, oh it’s time to go home, take it home. A lot of times we just made those Japanese finishes. So, okay. We’ll just go to the finish. And the finish was like a long finish, all kinds of crazy things were happening. And it wasn’t the talent because the talent was amazing. You know, it was just that dang office, man, just couldn’t keep it together.”
Other topics include breaking into the business, being related to Gorgeous George, SMW, Jim Cornette, WCW, Eric Bischoff, Vince Russo, Macho Man, Lanny Poffo, The Maestro, and more.
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