By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast with Blue Meanie
Host: JP John Poz
Twitter: @TwoManPowerTrip
Website: www.tmptempire.com
Interview available at Tmptow.podomatic.com
Getting into ECW: Well, I trained at Al Snows wrestling school in Ohio. And then I was there, I lived there for like a year. And I was doing a lot of his school shows. Al was like, you’ve been here for like a year. And it’s all well and good that you’ve been getting bookings, working our shows. But, you know, if you wanna be a, a true pro wrestler, you gotta go out there and just start showing up places. I was sending letters out, tapes out, photos out. I was making my own little press kit and I had moved back home. We moved from Atlantic City to Philly. I called Norm one day. I was like, hey man, I know you got a couple shows this weekend. I know they’re full, but I’m just coming out just to hang. And he’s like, All right, whatever.
“So I went from Philly to Pittsburgh and and I didn’t even know who was on the show, so I showed up and Steve Richards and Raven were on that Pittsburgh show. We had become familiar with each other. And I had my match, went to the back and I knew Raven was wrestling somebody I had trained with, a guy named ‘Crippler’ Ray Roberts, local guy from New Castle, Pennsylvania. I was like, oh, this is gonna be great. So I, I went and watched that match and when Raven was coming back from his match, I went, good match. Uh, I enjoyed your match, Raven. Not that he needed my validation. I was like, oh, I really liked your match. He was like, oh good. Hey, nice moonsault. I went, oh, Raven watched my match. Yeah. So that night, Stevie, Raven, we were all crashing over at Norm Connor’s house, like frat boy style. Like we’re all just hanging out, having a couple beers and just crashing on couches and shit, just hanging out. And the next day we went to lunch and that’s where Raven pitched the idea for me of being Stevie’s lackey.”
On the creation of BWO: “It just seemed like the natural evolution of what we were doing at the time. Me and Stevie were doing parodies. You know, we initially started doing parodies. We were Fabulous Ones. And then I was doing a parody of Bluedust. I was doing a parody of Colonel DeBeers, one of my favorites, The Blue Meanie Bloods, with Regal and Bobby Eaton. I was Earl of Eating and stuff like that. It just seemed like a natural thing, you know? We were kind of like the Weird Al Yankovic of wrestling where, you know, we were doing a parody of the thing that was hot at the time. You know, one time I was just randomly talking to Al Snow, he was in WWF at the time. And we were just bullshitting, you know, it’s like, yeah, we’re thinking about doing a parody, of the New World Order and called the Blue World Order, instead of The Bad Guy, I’m The Blue Guy and all that stuff. And like ideas I was thinking of, you know, and telling Al, he was popping for. I was like, well, maybe we’re on to something here. And I brought it to Raven. I went out, got the shirts made. Then November to Remember ’96. One year after I debuted, you know, we debuted the BWO.
Getting into the WWF: It just seemed like a natural…. I didn’t wanna leave, but I had to. And a lot of people in wrestling go, well, I paid my dues. Well, yeah, wrestlers paid their dues, but families paid their dues as well. My mom, my grandma, my grandfather raised me and, you know, I started my wrestling career. I started my journey into wrestling. My grandfather had worked in the chemical factory for like almost 30 years, got asbestosis in his lung. And uh, you know, I watched. He was my hero. He was Popeye, you know, and just, I called him Pop, but you know, he was like, literally, you know, my hero. Just like a big, stocky, muscular guy who worked his fingers to the bone to support everybody. And when he passed, there was that, there was a couple, you know, like a lean year, year and a half where it’s like, you know, my mom and grandmom are still supporting my wrestling habit. So an opportunity when Al Snow approached me about going to the WWF for the Job Squad. Did I want leave ECW? No. I loved ECW. I loved the crowd. It’s hard to explain it, you know, ECW, it’s a phenomenon, it’s a feeling. It’s a mindset. But I also knew I had to, you know, pay back the people who I had to take care of, the people who were taking care of me.
Heat with JBL: “You know, on my way out from WWE, I did an interview with Buck Woodward. I think he was with 1Wrestling at the time. I don’t think they had launched PWInsider yet. So I loved ECW. I mean, I loved working for WWE, but I said JBLs a bully. I think it’s word. I think the word is, I think I said JBL’s an asshole. I mean, Oh, okay. I said Bradshaw’s an asshole, because he was Bradshaw at the time. And I think my theory is it’s like the game of telephone or grapevine. You know, you tell one person one thing, he tells the next person, he tells the next, and by the time it goes through the whole chain of command, by the time it got to Bradshaw, I’m sure somebody embellished a little bit. Because after the whole One Night Stand, I go back to the Gorilla position. I’m all busted up and bloody, and he’s standing there. You know, John was yelling at me. You were talking about me on the internet. So it is a matter of, you know, between 1998-2000, I was like, why does this f—ing guy hate me? And then, you know, I said my piece. I think in between that and people egg them on and then we get in the ring at One Night Stand and every, everything that happened.”
Other topics include breaking into the business, Al Snow, the Monster Factory, Raven, getting into ECW, Paul Heyman, Stevie Richards, the BWO, Nova, getting into WWF, Job Squad, Bluedust, Goldust, ECW One Night Stand, and more.
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