By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
The Velvet Ropes interview with guest D-Lo Brown
Interview conducted by SoCal Val
Available on the Wrestlingnews.co YouTube Page
On the origin of his iconic headshake: “There is a great movie that I love very much called Friday… there’s a scene where Deebo… gets knocked down, and Chris Tucker flies over top of him, goes, ‘You just got knocked out,’ and he’s shaking his head… The next night, on Raw, Rocky is wrestling Ken Shamrock… I see the camera go up on Ken Shamrock. And I go, ‘Yes, I know the camera’s gonna be on him,’ and I just slid up to him, one ‘You just got knocked out!’ And that was the first time I did the head shake… Vince McMahon saw it. He took notice of it, told me to keep doing it, because if it piqued his curiosity, then it piqued a lot of people’s curiosity.”
On the chest protector, which he initially hated: “JR [Jim Ross] sitting there… he goes, ‘You’re a really talented worker… But what is separating you from the other fifty great wrestlers we have on the roster?’… He goes, ‘What if we… injure your chest, and now you’re wearing this illegal protection device’… My first thought was, ‘This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, they’re gonna laugh at me.’… I went home and I was complaining… and one of the few pieces of good advice my ex-wife ever gave me, she looked at me, and she goes, ‘If you try it and it’s a bad idea and it fails, it’s their fault. If you never try it at all, it’s your fault for not trying.’… I went back to TV the next week, and I go, ‘JR, let’s run with the chest protector.'”
On his favorite Owen Hart story: “I was wrestling him somewhere… All of a sudden, he snatches me up, puts me in a chin lock. He whispers… ‘Look at your boot.’ And I looked… my boots unlaced… I stick the boot in there. He’s like, ‘Okay, we’re wrestling again.’ All of a sudden, he snaps me over again, chin lock. ‘Look at your other boot.’ What the hell, my other boot is unlaced… Snapmares me over. Chin lock… He goes, ‘Look at the ref.’ I look at the ref. His shoes untied, and I start cracking up, dude… And then Owen goes. He whispers. He goes, ‘You relaxed now?’ And I go, ‘Yeah,’ he goes, ‘now, let’s go have a match.’… He’s the best worker I’ve ever been in the ring with.”
On Snoop Dogg backstage at Raw: “Snoop comes rolling in, and he’s dapping and he’s hanging with the boys, and all of a sudden, him and Godfather… disappear into this room. And like clockwork, five minutes later, the entire bottom bowl of the arena smells of the funka 40,000 years. It is… it is weed central… as Vince comes rolling up… here’s Godfather. Open the door, and it’s like something out of Cheech and Chong, a puff of smoke comes out… as Godfather tells the story, he walked out, look at Vince, and he goes, ‘What you expect me to do? You put me in the room with them.’ And Vince goes, ‘All right, pal,’ and keeps walking on.”
On why The Nation of Domination belongs in the Hall of Fame: “Here’s my thing. I believe, not just because I’m part of the Nation. If I wasn’t part of the Nation, I would say the Nation deserves being a Hall of Fame. If you look at what a faction does, usually, a faction is to elevate one person out of the group, i.e., [Ric] Flair with the Horsemen. The thing with the Nation was every member, and we think about the core unit of Rocky, Mark [Henry], Godfather, Ron [Simmons], and myself… every one of us got better after being in the Nation. So that shows what kind of foundation the Nation gave all of us. And it lifted us all up. And then for the fact that the Nation should be in the Hall of Fame, because 30 years later, anytime you put a faction of two or three black guys together, people are already calling it the new Nation. That tells you its footprint in wrestling. And just for that mere fact alone, it should be represented in the Hall of Fame with the other great acts of the last 100 years.”
On his Biltmore Hotel ghost story: “I call the front desk… ‘I think you guys need to send security up… this man and woman are having a full-blown fight.’ And the lady at the front desk goes, ‘Hold on.’ And she comes back. She goes, ‘Sir, what room are you in?’ And I tell her again. She goes, ‘Sir, there’s no one registered in the room next to you.’… I go, ‘What?’ She goes, ‘There’s no one in the room.’ And she goes, ‘You do know the reputation of this hotel?’… I throw my clothes back on. Now I’m sober. I’m stone cold sober… I run back downstairs… I just had a ghost encounter in my room… I’m just pounding drinks because I’m like, if I’m gonna go back here and go to sleep, I’m just gonna pass out, and if the ghost wants me, then they can have me.”
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