By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast with Necro Butcher
Host: JP John Poz
Twitter: @TwoManPowerTrip
Website: www.tmptempire.com
Interview available at Tmptow.podomatic.com
On surviving cancer: “Couple years ago, I was down to 160 pounds in a hospital bed. Who would’ve thought that guy would be in the feature bout of a promotional war against PCO in a couple years, but life’s pretty crazy. From the knees up, I feel like a million bucks. I’m having some issues, chemotherapy did a number on my lower extremities. Like my toes are numb permanently, you know, so I’m having a lot of issues with my ankles and my ankles and toes mostly, you know, uh, oftentimes I’ll think there’s rocks in my shoes. I’ll be how, what’s in my shoe? There’s something in my shoe, you know, because my, my toes are all curled up, you know, I can’t feel ’em. So after twenty years of going around the world wrestling barefooted, I’m now, for medical reasons, I have to keep those things all bundled up nice in wrestling boots nowadays to avoid breaking things, which I’ve been doing at an alarming rate.”
Training at the Sportatorium: “I was in the Army and I was, at that point I was stationed in, I was stationed in Fort Hood and I had… the Army wasn’t tremendous money, but you know, for a poor kid from West Virginia, it was a tremendous amount of money. This was back when satellite television wasn’t DirecTV or Dish Network, back then, satellite TV was big, gigantic monstrosity in your yard that was anchored in concrete and it moved when you change channels. I was, I guess they later determined this to be called tape trading, maybe nine hours of Lucha Libre on a week. I was recording all these wrestling shows and getting on the internet and trading tapes, and I was, and then I began selling some tapes of Japanese TV to guys that were training in the Sportatorium.
“And then just in the course of corresponding with these gentlemen, you know, they invited me to come up to the Sportatorium for a tryout. You know, nowadays you just pay so much a week or so much a month and it just goes on for whatever certain amount of time. And then whenever the agreed upon time limit has elapsed, you then proclaim yourself a professional wrestler, is kinda stringing along to get all this money. But when I got in, you had to pay a bunch of money all up front. And they beat this shit out of you to try to get you to leave because they already had your money. Now your problems are you’re sticking around, so they wanted to beat your ass as bad as they could.”
On the ROH vs. CZW feud: “Well, the crazy thing was when the whole thing started, I had no ambition whatsoever of going to Ring of Honor. You know, a lot of the other guys involved in in the matches were strictly trying to get to Ring of Honor. My point of view was at that point, CZW was my home. So I don’t know what the big picture has for what these guys have going on, but for right now, you know, we’ve got guys coming into my town. So I’m gonna beat the shit out of them and I’m not gonna try to make these guys look good cause they’re the enemy.”
On Samoa Joe: “I had just gotten back from Japan that morning, so I’d gotten off the plane. At that point I, in my life, I was driving a 72 Ford pickup , and I landed in, in Charleston, West Virginia. And then my truck was there at the airport and got to my truck and drove to Philadelphia and did that match. And then there was a, it was a doubleheader, you know, it’s, IWA was in the afternoon and CZW was in the evening in the same arena and, uh, wrestled him and then, uh, a couple hours later wrestled the Hate Club . So not an easy day at the office, especially considering I just got out the plane and driven about six hours in a truck with no air conditioning or heater or anything to get there.”
On death match philosophy: “Everything is different, but everything’s the same. You know? I mean, I did two years of shoot fighting for an Antonio Inoki’s company in Japan. Everything is, you just have to look at what, what you’re doing, what you’re supposed to be doing, and try to do it the best you can. If everything’s different, everything the same, you know, you just have to get a plan and try to stick with it and adjust, adjust the plan as you’re going, as needed. There’s, it’s not really any different from any other match in that regard. I think there’s this different philosophy. But I did all kind of different things though. You know what I’m saying?
“I was trained in, in the Sportatorium in Dallas, you know, we didn’t do that kind of stuff down there then. And then I just, you know, moved to the East Coast and I’m doing things, you know, and the stuff I did in Mexico was different than the stuff I was doing in Japan. And it just, it just, you know, you’re a professional wrestler. You travel and, promotions want different things, and I just always, you know, wherever, you know, I was taking care of my kids. So wherever I could get the money, that’s where I was going. And just trying to, uh, keep the booking calendar looking good to keep, keep the bills paid.”
Other topics include breaking into the business, training under Black Bart, The Sportatorium in Dallas Texas, death match wrestling, XPW, CZW, ROH, Samoa Joe, Low Ki, Chris Hero, the Cage of Death, his battle with cancer, and more.
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