By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast with Johnny the Bull
Host: JP John Poz
Twitter: @TwoManPowerTrip
Website: www.tmptempire.com
Interview available at Tmptow.podomatic.com
On his time in WCW: “It would bring me up to Saturday night and they would tell you that, you know, you’re going to wrestle as a heel, and you’d walk out to the ring. One of the booking agents would come by and flip a tie or something, make some gesture to the ref, and then the ref would tell me that now I’m being a babyface. So when you go out to the match, you think that you have the mindset of being a heel, but they want to see if you can adapt and switch your thinking and wrestle, you know, kind of like improv. Change your whole way of thinking. And then, you know, there was a lot of things there, all eyes are always on you. They were always constantly watching you. But when I got up to TV, after I was full time on TV, I didn’t have to go back to the Power Plant unless I wanted to just to get some practice in or something. So once you made it to TV, it was a little easier. But then, then you had to learn the politics of wrestling, which is a whole other ball ballgame.”
On his time in WWE: “I didn’t try to act, like, all hard in the ring and you know, everybody liked me backstage, everybody, and I liked everybody else, but it was, it wasn’t the wrestlers backstage. Even the Undertaker. He’s one of my favorite people. He was just a wealth of knowledge and he cared. And when you wrestled Undertaker, you didn’t have to talk about anything. He called everything in the ring. I would always ask him ‘Taker, what do you want to do?’ He goes, ‘just listen to me.’ I’m like, all right. So we get out there and it’s the easiest match because you don’t have to remember anything.”
Picking up Rikishi: “When I pressed Rikishi on live television, Vince McMahon was standing in the back, clapping. Everybody was clapping. That pretty much solidified me as one of the pound for pound strongest wrestlers, because no one could pick Rikishi up like that. He asked me if I could do it backstage. And I was like, I don’t know, let’s try it. So I tried it backstage and it was fine. He asked, ‘but can you do it on TV in front of fans?’ I’m like, I don’t know. So then he goes, ‘if I call it, be ready.’ And so he called it in the ring and it worked out fine.”
Breaking his pelvic bone in WCW: ” I was wrestling Terry Funk for the [WCW Hardcore] title. Terry asked me if there was something I could do off the top rope to the floor. And me being 20 years old, I thought I was indestructible. And then he asked me, I was like, well, yeah, what can I do? You know what I mean? That’s my mindset. I can do anything at that point. I thought I could do anything. So when I hit the ropes and jumped up to the top, and came down with a leg drop, I should’ve peed before I went out. I had a full bladder and didn’t think about it. So when I landed, if I would have used my legs to kind of break the fall a little bit, I probably would have been fine, but I just came straight down on my ass and I peed myself live on television, but I had slacks on, so you couldn’t tell. And then I was telling Terry Funk ‘Terry, I’m hurt.’ He rolled back in the ring and we cut out the last two minutes. I could barely stand. I thought I broke my back. I didn’t know that I tore my bladder. And then I hit him in the head with a chair, DDT him on the chair, and then they carried me out in a stretcher. And then I woke up in the emergency room and all the guys were there, Goldberg, Kevin Nash, everybody was there.”
On his Great Muta feud: “The first time I went over there, they made me the fake Muta. Had to dress up in, you know, head to toe and special outfits that they made me, which are bad-ass. I love those. But then I had to learn how to do the mist and me and Muta had a double spot where we mist each other in the face. That was a fun, fun time wrestling as fake Muta in Japan. We wrestled up to a pay-per-view. I think our match went 20 minutes, 25 minutes. Muta was fun to work with, because he was so over.”
On the Rellik character: “I was a big fan of Muta, right? So, uh, I was like, how could we recreate Muta and bring it over here to the states. So my, uh, buddy Andre at AFX studios, and he took a molding and my face, and I gave him a picture of Darth Maul, Spawn, and Jeepers Creepers, and I said, make me a mask. And that’s what he came up with, Rellik. And then I wanted gladiator trunks and, and, uh, so then I went to WWE with Rellik. They loved it so much, they put me on a week long try out on house shows and, um, the, the guy that I had heat with and the booking committee or the booking agents, he was the booking agent for those house shows. So I went out there, I did the Rellik gimmick and I was wrestling, uh, Val Venis. Amazing matches, standing ovation, fans loved it. But then on TV, they’re going to put me on TV on Monday for Raw as Rellik and the booking agent that I had heat with told Stephanie that I didn’t know the character, I’m still learning the character. So he buried me and then they didn’t put me on TV. And that’s when I was like, all right. So then I went to TNA, but in TNA, It wasn’t their character. They didn’t come up with it so they didn’t care about it. So they, you know, we had that match with Abyss and Raven. Then after that, they just put me in silly matches. It didn’t make sense. They were just, they didn’t care about the character. So instead of have them abuse my character that I created, you know, I quit.”
On what he is doing now: “I’m a mortgage broker. I do residential loans for purchases and refinances and I’m a vice president of my division at Federal Savings Bank. I kind of worked my way out of it (wrestling). I was going overseas. I would come home, like 2008, and I would have nothing to do for two weeks. I started working for a buddy of mine’s broker shop. I started writing ones for other wrestlers like Charlie Haas, Umaga, and Bobby Lashley just to name a few. I’ve probably done like 20 wrestler’s loans. My last match was in 2015 versus The Hurricane. I ran the show and brought all the guys. After that, I’ve been doing mortgages full time. It’s stressful, but not as painful.”
On Shane McMahon was the only one who would push him: “Shane and I became good friends when I went to WWE. Every time he was at the show, I would win. When he wasn’t there, I would lose. There was politics. There were certain people in the booking committee who didn’t like me and I didn’t like them, but when Shane McMahon was there, he trumped all of them because he’s Shane McMahon. That’s why when they put us together as the FBI, we were getting pushed big time wrestling Brock, Undertaker, Kurt Angle, and all the top guys. When Shane left, they broke us up.”
Other topics include WCW selling to WWF, working for WCW, Eric Bischoff, Vince McMahon, Rikishi, TNA, Rellik, AJPW, The Great Muta, The FBI, the Mamalukes, and more.
You can listen to other shows apart of the TMPT Empire including Shane Douglas’ Triple Threat Podcast, Taking You to School with Dr. Tom Prichard, Talking Tough with Rick Bassman, Taskmaster Talks with Kevin Sullivan, Pro Wrestling 101 with Justin Credible and the University of Dutch with Dutch Mantell.
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