By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Insight With Chris Van Vliet with guest Mike Chioda
Host: Chris Van Vliet
Podcast available via Podcasts.Apple.com
On the King of the Ring match between Kurt Angle and Shane McMahon: “You know, that night, whoo. I’ll never forget, you know, I thought I may not have a job coming back. You know, during there was several times during that match. You know, Shane had a lot to prove. You know, he rocks this match out. He gets through it. You know, it puts him on the chart of being a wrestler, you know what I’m saying? And he can hang with the toughest. And you know, Kurt’s not in the business that long at that point really, too. But boy he picked up the wrestling business professional wrestling business quick. And, one of the best, you know, and he’s a tough son of a gun in that ring. Man, I’ve done many matches where Kurt and Kurt don’t let up and he just keeps going. He’s like a machine.
“So, you know, Shane had a lot to prove. And getting to the spot where he goes through the glass. And it just, you know, he didn’t go through the glass. I’m thinking are we at the wrong f—ing panel? You know, because there were certain panels and certain panels were breaking certain panels weren’t. So at one point, I’m thinking now is this the right panel, you know, the glass panel. And Vince is all in the background going. Tell him not to f—ing throw him through the glass. No, no more like this. After the first time. Gorilla position was screaming. Everybody was screaming.
“And then all of a sudden you hear Vince just taken over. Like, tell him, tell Mike Chioda, and I’m going, Kurt, don’t put him through the —ing glass. No more. Don’t try it. No more. Don’t try it. I’m on his right side. He tries it doesn’t work again. I’m like, holy shit. And it finally occurred to me. Like, oh, no, I couldn’t stop anything. I couldn’t stop anything because that would have been disrespectful to Shane. And Shane had a lot to prove. And you know, Shane, he’ll go through anything. I mean, tough, tough guy, man. I was just like in shock. You know, I’d seen all this glass and Shane’s head and those slices and stuff. And I’m thinking, was that the fake glass that we were supposed to use? Or is this real?”
On the Undertaker vs. Goldberg match in Saudi Arabia: “I mean, you know, the travel was brutal, Chris. I mean, it was brutal. We get to Saudi Arabia. I remember we got in the night before. Everybody was on a totally different timezone sometimes jet lag kicks in, like the day later, when these long trips occur and stuff. And I remember, you know, we just didn’t go [home], we came off a TV and we did this and we had to go to Saudi might have come off some live events, probably that weekend into TV then in Saudi. So we got to Saudi Arabia. And I remember like, you know, people weren’t really getting to sleep like you didn’t get in there at 9, 10 o’clock. Okay, I’m getting ready to go right to sleep just slept a lot on a plane. Time Zones are different.
“I remember was about 125 degrees. And I remember we went out to the malls didn’t open till nine o’clock at night. And a lot of stuff, it was just not even colder. But it was maybe about 100 degrees at night. So it was just, you know, the sun went down. And that’s when people went to work, construction and stuff like that their hottest time of the year. So I remember we you know, a lot of us didn’t get good sleep. We get to the arena. We’re there all day. Taker, I believe, we went on at like midnight. And I remember going through the locker rooms it’s like 9, 10 o’clock, you know, the show was going on for a while. Everybody was sleeping in the locker rooms passed out because of the jet lag everybody was tired, man. So I know we were exhausted. Totally going into midnight. I was, Taker I’m sure of it.
“Goldberg came out of dressing room. He was hitting his head on it on the thing, but I was in the ring at the time. So and I didn’t see you know, they showed a little gash when he came out. But Goldberg was fine to me because when he came in the ring, he called the whole match back to me, you know, when he got in the ring, because Taker, this phenomenal entrance. It was an awesome entrance. Of course, it takes like 10 minutes, that’s one of the best entrances in wrestling my opinion. So, I mean, and he called me and he goes, Hey, let me call this back to you. And I’m like, okay, cool, you know, and he just gave it was one of the best spots, two spots, and it was cool. I wanted to hear it too. So I made sure I had everything straight. Nothing changed before the match. Yeah, so everything was good until he hit that turnbuckle and in the post. You know, and then it just went on down from there, man.”
On the botched Jackhammer: “That was scary, real scary man and you know if you watch that match back again when Taker at the finish on the end of that match, he’s just sitting up, looking around pissed like just kind of looked upset, you know, frustrated because I know Taker got jammed up a little bit too. It’s almost like he went out of character right there. It wasn’t in his normal Undertaker character. He just had a lot on his mind. He was just looking around. I’m just sitting on the outside of the ring going Oh, shit, man he’s pissed. Like, thank God, everything worked out. You know, like everything we got through that night. I remember trying to talk to Gorilla going, what do I do? You know, what do I do, man? Do I stop it? He’s getting worse. He’s getting worse. He’s getting worse.
“Billy’s [Kidman] like standby Chioda I’m like, guys, let me know. He’s just he’s getting worse. Because he didn’t come off the rope. He was on that rope one time he wouldn’t come off, he would like, yo-yo, when he first asked me it’s like, I’m okay. I’m okay. But then he just started getting worse, you know, as the concussion really kicked in. And I didn’t hear anything from Gorilla at that point. I’m thinking holy shit. Like, I know, they paid us a lot of money to be here. I know. They paid the talent I think a lot of money. I think Goldberg got a couple million. This one got this. I got my 200. But it was like, they paid us a lot of money.. I gotta finish this, like the old-school way. You know, and he did finish it barely. And that man’s leader of the ring man, he’s The Godfather of business. So anybody to be in there with? It would be Taker, that’s for sure.”
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