By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Insight With Chris Van Vliet with guest Nunzio (a/k/a Little Guido)
Host: Chris Van Vliet
Podcast available via Podcasts.Apple.com
Why couldn’t you be Little Guido in WWE? “Well, when I got there, Paul Heyman got me a job there. So he called me one day. This is when I didn’t have a job because when all the companies closed down within like a month, we all lost our jobs. I was a smaller guy. I wasn’t a top guy. I wasn’t RVD. So now I’m going against WCW closed, you got all the top stars in WCW. You got all the top stars in ECW, the Van Dams, the Dreamers, all the big guys, Ravens. I kind of got pushed to the side. I was trying to keep in contact with Paul and stuff, but he was on the verge of getting his job. He was starting with WWE, so I kind of got put on the side. They were doing this whole thing, the invasion angle, and I was just a smaller guy. So once everything faded out, and they pushed people aside, I got a call one day from Paul Heyman. So I was calling him for a while. Let me backtrack. I was calling him for a while, and finally nothing was working. So I just let it go. I didn’t want to bother him anymore, a lot going on. One day, me and my wife were sitting in a restaurant, and my phone rings, and I look at it, and it says Paul E. So I haven’t talked to him in a couple of years. So I answer the phone. He goes, ‘Congratulations!’ I’m like, hey, Paul, what’s up? He goes, ‘Congratulations.’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He goes, ‘I told you I’d get you a job.’ Okay? He goes, ‘John Laurinaitis will be calling you in a couple of weeks. Answer your phone.’ Okay, and he hung up.”
So why weren’t you Little Guido in WWE? “Right. Well, from when I talked to Paul, he was talking to how I got it. Something like he was talking to Vince. He’s like, ‘Oh, I got this guy Nunzio, small guy. He’s gonna be a limousine driver.’ He was saying something, but he came up with the Nunzio thing. So I never questioned it. I was just happy I was getting a phone call. So where Paul got the Nunzio thing, I don’t want to sit here and say it. I really don’t know. I don’t know why he didn’t keep it, Little Guido, because I think Paul owned ECW, so it wasn’t like a trademark thing.”
What’s your favorite moment from your time in WWE? “I would say WrestleMania 20. I mean, I was able to perform in WrestleMania 20. My father used to, so going back a little bit when I was 10, 11, 12 years old, my dad, at the time, they used to do the Garden every month. It used to be televised every other month, so it was a house show, a televised house show. In the beginning, my dad used to take me to all the non-televised ones because we used to have MSG channels, so I could watch those from home. So my father was taking me to Madison Square Garden all the time, and he brought me to the first WrestleMania, which I know Tommy Dreamer was there. So my father brought me to WrestleMania One, and then who ever knew I would perform 20 years later. Now I wrestled in the Garden a bunch of times before WrestleMania 20 because I was with WWE already, and we did shows there, TVs and stuff. But just because it’s WrestleMania, so I would say that was like the biggest highlight. And then my mother and father came, of course, my mother never used to come when my father used to bring me when I was a kid. But that was a big thing.”
Did you know how long Taker was going to have you up that Last Ride? “No, no, no. I didn’t know how long, but I did take the Last Ride from him a couple times already on house shows and stuff like that. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I never did that on a house show. I just did it. It just happened. I mean, things that just happen end up being great. When you try to push it on the people and make it happen, sometimes it doesn’t work.”
Goldberg spears you in half at the Royal Rumble! It might be one of Goldberg’s best spears ever. “He did mention that in an interview he was doing. Somebody asked him about some of the best spears, he mentioned me in it. I knew it was coming, I didn’t know how he was going to hit me because I never took it before, so one thing I knew I didn’t want to keep my feet planted. As he’s coming, I wanted to kind of jump a little bit to get off my feet so he could take me into the air compared to me having my feet planted and just going back, so I didn’t know how to take it; I just took it. That was it. It was stiff, but I’d rather it be stiff than look bad.”
You slapped Brock Lesnar too! How did that all come together? “We were doing something with The Big Show and stuff, and at that time, I think they had the FBI going after everybody because we were a little group. Coming back to what I’m saying. Good thing I was in that group because it made me do all these different scenarios that if I was in the cruiserweight division, I would never have been able to do. We were doing some shows with him. I forgot exactly how it came about, but that promo came up, and I don’t know what it really led to. I was poking him, and they said, ‘Slap him in the back of the head.’ I’m not slapping the back of the head. I slapped him in his back. That’s what made the loud noise. I didn’t slap him in the head, and I knew Brock, he was very good to me. But because the writer was telling me to do it. I said, no, I’m not slapping him in the back of the head. So I went for the back, and I hit him hard, and it made a huge noise, and he was okay with it. That’s when we locked him in. Another story, if you watch it, when Chuck drove the high-low, he f—ing broke the wall. Vince had to pay for that because Chuck don’t know how to drive a high-low. So we were trying to lock him in, and he drove through the wall. He broke that wall, which Vince McMahon unfortunately had to pay for.”
So you’re still wrestling to this day? “I am. I do some independent shows and stuff like that. It’s a lot harder. I mean, I’m not old at all. I’m 54, I don’t act like I’m old because anybody in their 50s, it’s not old anymore. But for wrestling, you got to be careful. It’s not my full-time gig, so I do some part-time stuff. I have other stuff going on, so that’s what I’m doing.”
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