Justin Credible Shoot Interview

[Guest TSMAdmin]

You'll have to excuse this being a bit late... apathy towards wrestling induced by a crappily booked PPV and Helmsley/McMahon facgeme BS tends to have that effect.

 

Next week's shoot will be with Internet whipping boy Jeff Hardy, who is rather honest about his drug use and certain backstage situations in the WWE.

 

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Justin Credible shoot interview (No date but it’s from probably May or June of 1999)

 

We start off with footage of Justin Credible beating on Tommy Dreamer with a Singapore cane, Credible driving Shane Douglas into a steel girder, etc.

 

How did he get started? He went to Calgary in 1992 to train under the Harts. He always wanted to be a wrestler and he sucked at school, so he figured he’d give it a shot.

 

Who were his heroes when he got into the business? The Four Horsemen, Ricky Steamboat, the Rockers, Dusty Rhodes, Terry Funk, etc.

 

Training in Calgary- The camp he went to was advertised as being run by the Harts but, instead, the training was primarily done by their top students such as Lance Storm.

 

His first match- It was on his birthday, October 16, and he wrestled Jake Steele. He wrestled Jerry Moreau in his second match. He remembers wrestling Chris Jericho and Lance Storm back then.

 

 

Lance Storm vs. PJ Walker- This is from their early days in Calgary and is severely cut. Storm wins by running PJ into the post to break a sleeper then doing a moonsault for the three.

 

 

Working in New England- “I starved up in Calgary” so he came back home about fifty pounds lighter and started working the independent scene there. He ended up meeting Tony DeVito there, who hooked him up with WWF road agent Tony Garea and got him a gig jobbing on RAW. He would do independent work whenever he could get it.

 

The Aldo Montoya gimmick- He goes into a sidestory first about how Brian Lee, “the faker Taker”, used him as a crash test dummy when he was trying to learn Undertaker’s mannerisms in 1994. On the last day of their workouts, Pat Patterson came up to him and started asking him questions. He eventually asked what nationality he was and got excited when PJ said he was Portuguese. PJ didn’t think anything of it but a week later he got a call to work for them in order to help get crossover with Portuguese speakers in Portugal and Brazil. The rest of the idea for the Aldo gimmick came from the “wonderful people at Titan Towers [/sarcasm]” but that the first character sketches were based on the idea of a soccer player. He had the gimmick from late 1994 to the middle of 1997.

 

Vince McMahon- At first, he was larger than life and very intimidating. He’s “not as heelish, at first, as most people think.”

 

The veterans in the locker room- Most of them ignored them and he was scared to death anyway meeting huge stars like Bret Hart and Undertaker. The think that stuck out to him the most was wrestling Steve Lombardi everywhere and travelling with the road agents because he didn’t have a credit card and couldn’t rent a car. At that time, Scott Hall came up to him and said he’d help out because the veterans had helped him out when he started.

 

His first program- “There weren’t very many.” The first was with Ted Dibiase, where the Million Dollar Corporation tried to buy his membership but he turned them down. He also worked a minor program with Jeff Jarrett for the Intercontinental Title as well.

 

Scott Hall- “He wasn’t the most liked guy in the locker room at that time” for several reasons, some of which were valid. He said that you have to accept him for the redneck he is in order to really like him. Hall would watch his matches and give him advice on how to get better while the other guys would just sit back and say to themselves “This guy won’t last a week” because of the cutthroat nature of the WWF. Some people will actually go out of their way to make you fail.

 

Getting in with the rest of The Clique- Being in with Hall gradually got him into the group, which was strange to him at the time because The Clique was hated by everyone else in the company. Shawn Michaels started helping him out because they were the same size and it helped him a lot more than some of what Scott Hall taught him because Hall was used to working a big man style.

 

Kevin Nash- “Probably the single funniest guy I’ve ever met.”

 

Triple H- Modest and shy, but he got a reputation.

 

1-2-3 Kid- He was the only one that he didn’t get along with at first. He’s not sure if it’s because they were the same size or if he felt threatened, but things are okay now.

 

The Clique’s position in the company- “Vince’s top dogs” and Vince would build the show around them. The Clique did stuff they felt was in the best interests of the company. He goes into a story about how Kevin Nash was wrestling Quebecer Pierre but Pierre didn’t want to job, even to the WWF champion, because they were in Montreal. The next night, Nash and Pierre wrestled again then, later, the entire Clique called up Vince at 2AM cursing and demanding that Pierre be fired.

 

Scott Hall and Shane Douglas’s altercation in Germany- He says that he is friends with Shane and respects him as a performer but that he was paranoid while in the WWF. “He dug his own hole there.” Shane felt that Clique members were trying to screw him over by being uncooperative in the ring and sandbagging on bumps but Justin feels that argument is total crap. “Shane thought there was this big conspiracy to get him out of there”, which Justin feels didn’t exist until Shane “proved he didn’t deserve to be there.” He doesn’t know why Shane wasn’t able to be as good as he was in ECW but that he just dropped the ball in the WWF. Shane even hung out with the whole Clique during the first days of that tour. Justin feels that the proof of where the problems were came when Shane got hurt, Triple H replaced him in matches against Scott Hall, and the matches got better. “He didn’t carry his own load.” He says that The Clique WERE pricks to Shane, as they were to a lot of people, but that there was a reason behind every instance of it. (I’d personally like to hear the one behind Bam Bam Bigelow’s push in 1995, which was in exchange for jobbing to Lawrence Taylor at Wrestlemania 11, being taken away.)

 

The backstage altercation at an ECW show in Florida- Justin brought Scott Hall as his guest to an ECW show but Shane met them at the back door and blasted Hall for all of the things he felt happened to him in the WWF. Justin feels that Shane did all of those things to himself, although he wasn’t in any meetings where they used their Secret Clique Decoder Rings to pass the message that they all needed to screw Shane over. Justin’s still pissed at Shane over that because Hall thought it was a joke when Shane said all that to him, not that Shane was legit pissed. He says that Shane will have an interesting time if he goes to WCW but that he can’t blame it on Hall since he isn’t there anymore.

 

His Pay Per View experiences- He was in the 1995 Royal Rumble for a long time, didn’t do well at the 1996 Rumble, then appeared at an In Your House during one of Scott Hall’s handicap matches against Jeff Jarrett and The Roadie (Road Dogg Jesse James).

 

The MSG Incident- The ENTIRE locker room was pissed at the break of kayfabe done when Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash had their big group hug at the end of the night. Top guys like Bret Hart, British Bulldog, and Undertaker were particularly pissed off. Vince McMahon was backstage and The Clique had basically told him they were going to do it. As for Triple H’s involvement, all of The Clique told him to thing long and hard before going out there with them but he did it anyway, which screwed his career for about six months.

 

Why did he leave the WWF? They weren’t doing anything and he was only working about twice a month. He did leave on good terms but his situation was screwy. They agreed to his release so he called up Scott Hall about coming into WCW but in the time between that call and him getting his release, the WWF changed their minds because they decided “they’d invested too much money into Aldo Montoya *makes Pinocchio nose gesture*” to release him and let WCW do something with him. He was sent to Memphis at that time.

 

Memphis- He was sent down there a week after he got married and got him to change his look to his current one, which he feels was them trying to capitalize on Konnan’s success in WCW. He was down there for seven weeks making $120 a week and was flat broke. He was finally given release under the condition that he not go to WCW, so he went to ECW after working Hardcore Heaven against Chris Candido.

 

 

PJ Walker vs. Tony Williams– PJ is SO Konnan here… I’m just waiting for him to say “Arriba la raza! Toss my salad and peel my potato!” Typical crap Memphis match ending with a 187 (DDT) to Williams for the three. (By “crap Memphis match”, I mean that, in general, Memphis past about 1990 sucks unless Jeff Jarrett, Eddie Gilbert, or Jerry Lawler is in the ring.) PJ cuts a post-match promo about how he’s going to be a threat in the USWA. (At least he didn’t go up to a valet and say “Let me pull up to your bumper and smack that monkey.”)

 

JC Ice of PG 13 and PJ Walker come out for a promo in which Ice gives his half of the tag titles to PJ so that PJ and Wolfie D can defend them while he’s injured.

 

 

ECW- He wanted to be a part of it since the promotion was growing at the time. He was a mark for Paul Heyman at the time and was blown away when he met him. Paul gave him an opportunity when no one else would.

 

Mikey Whipwreck- He was scared at the time because Paul E had promised him a HUGE push and yet he was jobbed out in his PPV debut. He kept losing to Mikey and thinks that it was Paul E’s way of seeing if he’d handle things in a business-like way.

 

Impressions of the company as a whole- It was insane and he’s never seen anything like it. He’s worked a lot of different places but the ECW locker room was the most intimidating. He’s not sure how he ever got over in the company considering that fans used to chant “Aldo” at him to begin with before switching to “Justin Asshole”. He also says that he thought the gimmick sounded stupid when it was pitched to him because the name Justin Credible “sounds so eighties”, like something out of the WWF. He took bits of The Clique, D-Generation X, and the nWo to make his gimmick, although it all went back to The Clique. He mentions that people gave him crap over the D-X crotch chop until he’d tell them that they used to do that all the time when he was in The Clique in 1995.

 

Interview- Joey Styles interviews the Jason, The Sexiest Man on Earth, who introduces Justin as his newest find. Joey makes some comments to the effect of Justin “being held down by the clowns in Connecticut for years” while acknowledging his past as both PJ Walker and Aldo Montoya.

 

Justin Credible vs. Jerry Lynn- This is the first ECW match for both wrestlers. Credible wins with his spinning tombstone piledriver, which is called “That’s Incredbile”.

 

Great Sasuke- He only wrestled him about twice.

 

Tommy Dreamer- Dreamer wanted to work with him and came up with the whole feud, which is why Justin says he owes his stardom to Dreamer. He loved their ladder match and wants to do it again bigger and better, even though the feud has been beaten to death these days.

 

Lance Storm- Lance is a funny sarcastic guy but most people don’t get him.

 

Singles vs tagging- He hates tagging because he hasn’t done a lot of them while he’s mostly done singles matches. The only way he sees himself doing more tag matches is if he can work with someone he meshes with well like Storm.

 

Sandman- He didn’t have any problems with him, although he was scared to be in the ring with a drunk 280-pound guy swinging a cane. He wanted to finish the program the right way but, instead, Justin “ran him out” when Sandman decided to go to WCW.

 

Injuries he’s had in the business- He hasn’t had many. He’s concussion-prone and has had about fifteen of them. He’s also got some generalized back problems.

 

Any matches or interviews that impressed him early in his career? His program with Shane Douglas is up there. He reiterates that there’s no heat between the two of them and that Shane was great against him in ECW but that he just didn’t have it in the WWF. He wishes that he’d been able to finish up his feud with Shane but it just didn’t happen.

 

Promo- Shane Douglas and Francine cut a promo on Justin Credible about how the purpose of ECW is to make Shane a big star and that everyone else is just a notch on his belt.

 

Shane Douglas vs. Justin Credible- Douglas wins with a fisherman’s suplex but Lance Storm jumps him after the match. Storm and Credible cane theshit out of Douglas. Dreamer comes in for the save but Credible canes him too.

 

Most overlooked or overrated wrestler in the business- Off the top of his head, Chris Chetti is underrated. He needs some charisma and a good guy to work with but he’s very talented.

 

Where does he see himself in ten years? “Retired.” He says he follows directions well but doesn’t see himself as a booker. He says that booking should only be done by people with a certain amount of experience in the business and, as a result, guys like Kevin Nash shouldn’t be doing it. He says it’s not Nash’s fault that he overpushes himself because he’d do the same thing in his position.

 

Where does he see the business in two years? Down, only because it’s oversaturated. There’s already about 8 or so hours a week of wrestling on TV then, when Smackdown starts and if ECW gets a show, there will be even more of it. He mentions that Nitro in particular sucks at that point in time.

 

His take on the Montreal incident- He thinks it was a work because he feels Vince McMahon isn’t stupid enough to let cameras who aren’t his behind the scenes at a time like that. (This is a reference to Wrestling With Shadows, a documentary on Bret Hart that was being filmed, coincidentally, in the latter half of 1997 when things were getting interesting behind the scenes in the WWF.) He feels that Shawn and Bret legitimately hated each other and that, besides that, “Bret’s a dick.” Everyone else, including Owen Hart, were open to helping him out as a young wrestler while Bret would just blow him off. He’s not sure if Bret didn’t like him because he was considered to be “The Clique’s errand boy” but says that, at one time, Bret had one of his own clique, Duke “The Dumpster” Drose, steal his mask. Shawn made a public confrontation over it a few days later, basically threatening to have Drose fired if he didn’t give back the mask.

 

Phone-in questions-

 

Shawn Michaels incident in Syracuse- From what he remembers, Shawn went out with Sean Waltman and the British Bulldog. The main crew was on a European tour while Shawn and a few others were on the split squad left behind in the US. He feels that some marks picked a fight, someone threw a punch, and Shawn got his ass kicked. He doesn’t know if Shawn was messed up at the time.

 

The bad press Chastity got for doing a porno- There’s no bad press considering that it helped her career.

 

Premature deaths in wrestling due to drugs, etc- “The industry itself is out of control” and something needs to be done about it. The bigger that wrestling gets, the more people will pay attention to that stuff, ESPECIALLY after a number of guys including Louie Spicoli, Owen Hart, Rick Rude, and others have died in a short period of time for various reasons. He asks a rhetorical question about when the last time that another pro sport has had three or more overdose deaths within a year. (I think that the lack of an offseason for wrestling has something to do with that, although it probably has more to do with the nature of the “independent contractor” in wrestling. A basketball player suspended for drugs has limited options while a pro wrestler suspended or fired for drugs could still work the independent circuit or work for a major promotion with lax substance abuse rules.) He feels that ECW has, indirectly, cleaned up some of their problems quietly. (He implies that certain people were fired and that others were brought in because they were clean. Raven also said that Paul E cracked down on drugs while he was there and got himself and several others to go through rehab.)

 

Who was his toughest opponent in ECW? Probably Shane Douglas.

 

Feelings on marijuana- No comment.

 

Does he see himself going back to the WWF? Not within the next few years because of his commitment to ECW. After that, who knows?

 

Best match he’s ever had- His match against Shane Douglas from Cyberslam 99 would be on top of the list, although his Jerry Lynn matches were also great.

 

 

Justin Credible vs. Jerry Lynn- Credible gets Lynn with a small package after Lynn takes a Greco-Roman nutshot from Chastity.

 

 

Does he want to do singles matches or tag matches? Singles.

 

Brian Christopher- “He’s a DICK. He’s a little dick.” He’s a tiny guy who’s juiced to the gills and thinks he’s MUCH better than he is.

 

Shawn Michaels’ future- He thinks he’ll continue to be the WWF commissioner and that he may try to get his wife into the business. He doesn’t know if Shawn will ever wrestle again but says that Shawn would plan it out but not tell anybody until the last minute. He personally feels that Shawn wouldn’t do it because “his ego’s too big” and that he wouldn’t want to be remembered as a broken-down wrestler rather than a top performer.

 

Chris Jericho- Very talented performer and has all the necessary tools, so it’s certainly possible that the WWF can make him a big star. He doesn’t see him as the Next Shawn Michaels, although he’s biased because he grew up as a huge Shawn mark.

 

His WCW experiences- He faced Vader and the Nasty Boys. The Nasty Boys were just dicks in general but didn’t do anything to hurt him. He actually DIDN’T have problems working against Vader despite his reputation for stiffness in the ring.

 

Terry Funk- He met him at November to Remember 98 and it freaked Justin out that Funk’s a legend yet Funk had heard of him before they ever met. VERY nice guy.

 

Sabu- “Very different” but in a good way. Sabu does a mix of his own style and the Japanese style, so it took a while to adjust to it.

 

Owen Hart’s death- Owen was a great guy and “the only Hart who had any goddamn common sense.” It was a horrific accident. He hears that Vince was quite happy with Owen for a long time before the accident so he doesn’t know if the Blue Blazer gimmick being given back to him was a punishment.

 

ECW as a place to work vs. the WWF and WCW- ECW is “completely going to take over WCW” as the perceived #2 company (WCW would still make more money) and will break even more new ground. The WWF “is a corporate, high-dollar ripoff” of everything that ECW is. He feels that, if they get a national audience, they’ve got a good chance

 

Sable trying to get out of her WWF contract- She got ribbed by the wrestlers and didn’t like it, so she’s being “a stupid little cunt.” He says her claims of sexual harassment and so forth are full of crap because she made a ton of money for stripping on WWF programming and for Playboy and, in addition, WWF management tended to bend over backwards for her. “She doesn’t deserve to be in the business.”

 

Why did Scott Hall and Kevin Nash leave the WWF? Money. Scott Hall’s pay was cut in half either in 1995 or 1996 “for no explanation.” (Personally, I think Hall being sent to rehab several times with no perceivable improvement afterwards meant that Vince needed to get his attention in another way.) Once Hall and Nash left, the WWF started giving more guaranteed deals in order to keep the guys they had left.

 

Why didn’t Shawn go over to WCW? “Expansion, brother.” Because of The Clique fragmenting in 1996, they now have powerful positions in the WWF, WCW and ECW. If any of them gets fired, they’ve got an automatic in with two other companies who could hire them.

 

Is their power the same as it was three or four years ago? Yes and no. Kevin Nash has more power than ever in WCW. Shawn Michaels has less power in the WWF since he’s retired but Triple H makes up for it.

 

Scott Hall’s current situation- He’s trying to fix his family situation. When he saw him last, about three months before the interview, Hall was completely clean and sober. He can see Hall and Nash returning to the WWF eventually, and the same with other guys like Bret Hart. If Hart returns, it would be the payoff to one of the biggest storylines ever.

 

His dream match- Probably against Ric Flair in a match that was built up properly. It wouldn’t be against Shawn Michaels because Shawn would be so good that he’d get upstaged.

 

Rob Van Dam- Phenomenal. Great athlete. He still doesn’t want to wrestle him though because “I don’t want to get my head kicked off.” He also thinks that the match could disappoint because RVD wrestles his own style and there’s no guarantee that they’ll mesh.

 

 

Matches-

 

Justin Credible vs. Mikey Whipwreck- Justin wins with the That’s Incredible piledriver after massive interference by Jason and Chastity.

 

Justin Credible vs. Great Sasuke- Credible hits the That’s Incredible on Sasuke for the win.

 

Justin Credible vs. Tommy Dreamer- This goes to a no-contest after Rob Van Dam and Fonzie run in to attack Dreamer then Credible hits the That’s Incredible on Beulah McGillicuddy.

 

Justin Credible and Lance Storm vs. Tommy Dreamer and Shane Douglas- This is a fan-cam match. Shane goes to slam Storm but gets caned by Credible, leading Storm to reverse the slam into a rollup for the three.

 

 

 

Thoughts- Better than I thought it was going to be but that’s not saying much. At least he doesn’t have the self-serving delusions about The Clique’s powers that X-Pac and Shawn Michaels had in their interviews. Still, Credible’s career was relatively unremarkable by this point and he hadn’t yet had his title run in ECW which, arguably, was the iceberg that finally sunk the company. I can’t really recommend this in good conscience. Recommendation to avoid.