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SITTING RINGSIDE WITH DAVID PENZER 05/11/20: CROWBAR
Crowbar talking about how he got the gimmick in WCW after working as Devon Storm: "The story I got was Vince Russo was at the bar (he later cleared up it was a restaurant), I walked in with my leather jacket, my hair down, and he liked my look. He asked who that was. It was a few weeks later that Crowbar was born. I assume he checked out my work. He came up with the idea to put me with David Flair"
ARN 05/12/20
Arn talking about Enzo Amore: "Enzo was a guy that put a long time in NXT with his partner, Big Cass. Once they came up to the main roster, you go into a whole different learning phase. If you're going to be hanging around, you're going to go through a whole new let's start over, here is the way we do things on RAW. Here is the way we do things on SmackDown. You can't be too hard headed about that because there are people trying to help you. If you don't listen to those people and you fail, then it's on you. If you do listen to those people and do everything that you can possibly do to pull off what they are telling you to pull off, then you got a shot at it. I think Enzo might have been a little too headstrong about how he felt how things should go."
Arn responding to why Ole Anderson wasn't inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame: "My knowledge of what I've heard through the grapevine is Ole does not want anything to do with WWE in any fashion, period. Whether or not he was asked to be part of that group or not, I don't know. If he would have, I'm sure he would not have accepted because of all the things that went down years prior when Vince got control of his television and all those things that are pretty much common knowledge. It was really a heated issue between the two of them and there was some conversations and insults that went back and forth. That was probably the biggest reason."
GRILLING JR 05/12/20: DARK SIDE OF THE RING THE ROAD WARRIORS
The producers of Dark Side Of The Ring telling a story that Road Warrior Animal told them about Harley Race: "A fan, basically attacked Harley Race. The fan jumped the railing and started to attack him. This woman hit him over the head with a high heal shoe. Harley started beating on him. Eddie Sharkey kicked him (the fan) in the head. Eddie went in to grab the guy's eye. I guess that's a thing they do. Eddie goes in for the eye on this fan, but then he is quickly disturbed to know that someone has already got to the eye. Harley already gotten to this guy's eye and it popped out. Eddie Sharkey put his fingers in the guy's empty eye socket."
PWI PODCAST 05/12/20: AUTHOR OF THE ANDRE THE GIANT BOOK PAT LAPRADE
Pat Laprade talking about Andre not wanting to retire from the ring: "The only place where Andre felt like a normal human being was in the wrestling locker room. That's the only place where he wasn't looked at as a freak or a giant. People wouldn't point fingers at him. They wouldn't laugh at him or be scared of him like reactions he was getting in the real world. That's why he had some hard feelings against Vince Jr because when Vince decided to go national and to have him exclusive, Andre couldn’t go see all of his friends like he used to. Yes, he was still traveling but it was the same locker room over and over again. When he was booked by Vince Sr, he would go from territory to territory and see different people and see different friends. That's what he like so much. That's also why Andre never wanted to quit. When Vince finally decided not to use him anymore, Andre didn't like that and he reacted in a way that, maybe he shouldn't. He went to Clash of Champions in 1992. When look at, it should have been a no-no. Andre going to a WCW PPV doesn't make any sense when you think of it. But, Andre was really frustrated that Vince wasn't going to use him anymore. At the same time, we can't blame Vince for that. Andre couldn't let it go. It wasn't about the money at all. Andre had money. It was that if he wasn't in a wrestling locker room, he didn't know what to do. That's why he kept a way to keep wrestling in Japan and Mexico. Even in Japan, he was so well respected that when he started working for All Japan after working for years for Inoki and New Japan, it was New Japan who told All Japan that the way we do wrestling now is not suited anymore for Andre, but I think he can still be useful for All Japan because All Japan always did one comedy match or one with old timers."
Laprade talking about Andre's movie experience on Jack and the Beanstalk: "He was such in bad shape, that even for movies it was getting hard for him to do them. You have to realize that we always talk about Andre was a strong guy. When he was doing Princess Bride which was '86 or '87, he had such weak arms that he couldn't even catch Robin Wright who was weighing 90 or 100 pounds at the time. He couldn't catch her from a fall. She had to have wires to make sure that he can catch her. That's something that people don't realize, that yes, as much as he was strong in his younger days, the disease disorder he had made him weaker as years went by."
Laprade discussing why Andre never got the surgery for his acromegaly: "Andre never wanted to get the surgery for acromegaly. Whether he was misinformed or he didn't fully understand what the surgery would do to him. He said one of two things. He said either God made me this way and I don't want to change it, or he was scared that he was going to lose what made him special."
Laprade mentioning why Andre was billed as 7 feet 4 inches: "Lou Alcindor, who later became Kareem Abdul-Jabaar started becoming this big NBA star and won the championship with the Milwaukee Bucks. The Vachons were working a lot for Verne (Gagne) at the time. Milwaukee was one of the main towns they were being booked at. Both Vachons were watching a lot of news and interest in other stuff. They knew about Lou Alcindor and that he was 7' 2" and was the tallest athlete at the time. When the media and Andre came, it was only normal to make Andre the tallest athlete of his era. Like Paul Vachon told us, 7 feet 4 sounded right. We could not have said he was 7 feet 9. In reality, our count was at one point he was a real 7 footer.
SOMETHING TO WRESTLE WITH BRUCE PRICHARD 05/08/20: TITO SANTANA
Prichard talking about the plan for Tito Santana in the AWA: "In October 1981, Paul Boesch celebrated 50 years in wrestling. He had a big 3 day tournament and it was the who's who in the wrestling business...Nick Bockwinkle, who was the AWA World Champion and one of Verne's (Gagne) stalwart talents purchased a third of a third ownership in the Houston wrestling office. Nick wanted to, as legend has it, was going to retire very soon and wrap of his days of traveling and living in Minnesota and Nick wanted to retire in the south. Nick was made the offer to purchase some of the wrestling office and eventually take over for Paul Boesch as the promoter in Houston. He was also going to immediately start in '82 or '83 to book Houston and take some of that off Paul Boesch. They were looking for young talent and some different talent to come in and work on top. Nick recommended Tito Santana very highly. Again, as legend would have, and depending on who you would like to believe, that Tito was made the offer to come in and work the San Antonio booking office, which was Southwest Championship Wrestling, but he was also going to work Houston. At the same time, Bockwinkle was looking for someone to drop the AWA championship to and he considered Tito a fine candidate for that. Tito would then work a lot of the southwest area and he would still obviously work Verne's area as well. After we do this tournament, and the tournament was designed to get Tito Santana over, brand new, Tito's debut. In the middle of the thing, Tito beats Bockwinkle in the middle of the tournament. Now Tito has a win over the AWA world champion. Tito goes on and wins the 3 day tournament, gets the big trophy, $50,000 and so forth. After we did that, and we bring Tito in for the matches with Bockwinkle for the title, there is one match where Tito got his blade out way too soon and cut Bockwinkle on his stomach, cut him on his legs on his arms and the people are looking like why is Bockwinkle's leg bleeding like a stuck pig. Then Tito got an offer to go back to New York. Tito chose to go back to New York. We had done all this work to get Tito over and make him the guy and be our top babyface and he moved on."
UNIVERSITY OF DUTCH 05/08/20: JAKE HAGER
Jake Hager talking about being neighbors with Danny Hodge: "Growing up, I lived 2 blocks away from the school. Danny lived 1 block away from the school, so he was my neighbor. One of his grandsons graduated with me from High School. His name was Patrick Hodge, who is a good friend of mine to this day. Growing up, younger, I knew of the legend, but I didn't know Danny Hodge was living a block away from me. This was when I was 7 or 8. I knew of the name but didn't understand how close he was to me.
Hager explaining how he got into AEW: "Chris Jericho really gave me the call, gave me the ok with everybody there and got me the job with AEW. He was training at Dave Bautista's gym; the same one I train at in Tampa. My head coach was training him at the time and we would bump into each other all the time. He saw the progression between the fights (Hager's Bellator fights) and must have liked it and liked what he was seeing. He said this is my guy, I want him."
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