Ted DiBiase interview

[Guest MideonMark]

Show: The Interactive Interview (theinteractiveinterview.com)

Guest: ‘The Million Dollar Man’ Ted DiBiase

Date: 30th July 2003

Your Hosts: Daniel Edler & James Walsh

Recap by: Daniel Edler

 

This interview, which runs nearly 1 hour 40 minutes, definitely runs up with the very best TII has produced, and is well worth your time. We do note however, due to a timing device we accidentally activated on the recording equipment, there are some timing beeps throughout the interview.

 

Ted explains his views on the current product today, and goes through how the business degenerated from the time he first started out. Due to time constraints, there is no after show wrap-up for this show, and possibly will be none for the next 1 or 2 either. However, when they return we will explain exactly why they’ve been missing!

 

’The Million Dollar Man’ Ted DiBiase

 

-- Ted was a fan of the business growing up due to his father’s involvement in the business.

 

-- His father was actually his stepfather, and was a national amateur champion in the sport. So not only was he a great entertainer but he had the skill to back it up.

 

-- DiBiase’s father died in the ring, suffering a heart attack aged just 45. There was no bitterness toward the business when he died, but it did make him decide that he would get out the business before people thought he was ‘past it’.

 

-- When he was at college (West Texas State) it was always in his mind that he might follow in his father’s footstep. He went to mid-south wrestling whilst at college, and that’s where he really learnt the business. He called wrestling back then, “on the job training”.

 

-- He feels Bill Watts is one of the smartest guys, in regards of ring psychology, alive today.

 

-- The first angle he ever did, and his first big lesson in wrestling psychology was against Killer Karl Cox. He reminded him of his dad, as he was a heel’s heel.

 

-- Ted feels that the selling in the business today is of a lesser standard. He gives the example that when you are thrown over the top you “lay and sell it” not “spring” back into the ring.

 

-- DiBiase tells a story about Sylvester Stalone making a comment shutting up Hollywood extras who would make wise-cracks about wrestling.

 

-- Harley Race was the man who administered CPR in the ring, and went with his father to the hospital on the night he died. At a time when Harley was the champ, he said to Ted “one day this will be yours”.

 

-- At one point in time Ted was going to be the NWA Champion, and so it went to Dusty Rhodes, then Ric Flair and because of the Crockett’s power in the industry at the time, it stayed on Flair.

 

-- Ted then talks about WrestleMania 4. He was due to become the champion, and he doesn’t know why that changed. Honky Tonk Man and Randy Savage weren’t happy about this and so to appease everybody, they put the title on Randy. The next thing he knew, WWE had the idea that he was the Million Dollar Man, why did he need the WWE Title? So they created him his own.

 

-- As far as Robert Fuller being a ‘great’ booker, Ted doesn’t think he was. He wasn’t bad, but wasn’t great.

 

-- On the day of his comeback from injury in Georgia he met his wife, and that’s his greatest memory from that territory.

 

-- DiBiase wasn’t involved in the creation of the Intercontinental Title directly. At the time Vince McMahon Sr. brought Ted in, there were two belts. McMahon Sr. created a new title and put it on Ted, the North American title. However, he then found out that the belt Bill Watts used in Mid-South was named the same. The title’s name was then changed, and when Pat Patterson came in they used Ted to drop the N.A. title. All these years that they say Patterson was the first IC champ, truth is, it was Ted.

 

-- Hulk Hogan’s first match in Madison Square Garden was Ted’s last match for WWE in that run. He was heading back to Mid-South the next day. Vince Sr. asked Ted to put Hogan over the best he could. DiBiase asked how he would like that to be done, and Vince Sr. left it up to Ted, something Ted considers a huge compliment.

 

-- The reason he went back to Mid-South was because at that time in WWE, you had to have a ‘gimmick’. Polish power, being Portuguese, Italian, an Indian, etc. In addition, he always felt that matches down south always looked like more of a contest, something he preferred.

 

-- He calls his heel turn on JYD (Junk Yard Dog) was both the “greatest” and “scariest” thing he ever did. It became clear to him that JYD was popular due to the large black population in the Mid-South, and to make the money he would have to turn.

 

-- Ted much preferred working as a heel as he found it to be much more fun.

 

-- He enjoyed working in Japan immensely as he was very well taken care of.

 

-- Bill Dundee took a company with a great foundation, and he “hot-shotted” it. He exhausted all of the line of gimmicks, and after he made business brilliant, it then hit rock bottom.

 

-- The Crockett’s agreed to pay Ted the same money that Lex Luger was on, but before he signed any contract, Vince called him to play a “unique character”. He never ever explained the gimmick until Ted signed with the company – and that was how the Million Dollar Man was born.

 

-- When he returned, Hulk Hogan said that it was “payback time” for the time DiBiase put Hogan over massively in Hogan’s first MSG performance. Hogan told Vince he wanted to work with Ted, and that’s what happened.

 

-- Right from the beginning it was planned that Virgil would get fed up of Ted and turn on him, as his character was designed to be offensive to everybody – even his own allies - but they were going to run it for as long as possible.

 

-- Being handed the title by Andre The Giant was the night which ‘made’ the Million Dollar Man character.

 

-- Ted won the first ever King of the Ring, before it was done in WWE… but he doesn’t have too many memories of it.

 

-- Just when Ted felt he was getting a head of steam as a top heel, he feels it was cut short by facing people other than Hogan.

 

-- He finds it funny that he became remembered as the guy who should’ve won the title who never did. He has no regrets from his career, but would’ve liked to have held one of the world titles/

 

-- Working with Jake Roberts was “so easy”.

 

-- On the topic of Sherri Martel he called her a “sweet girl, kind of a loose cannon”.

 

-- DiBiase said he doesn’t begrudge anybody, but Ultimate Warrior getting over was largely because of the people in the office and the people he worked with.

 

-- He says that Hogan was the best at “getting the most out of the least”, and he says his match with Warrior when he put the belt on him proves that people who say Hogan can’t wrestle are wrong.

 

-- He found his final WrestleMania main event performance with IRS against Hogan and Beefcake fun because it was in Vegas. He flew to Vegas after the burial of his Grandmother in Arizona, so it was a sad time in his life but working with Hulk was always fun.

 

-- Ted’s last match for WWE was at SummerSlam 93 and he put Razor Ramon over and when he the event he was tired of the grind of being on the road so much. He was pleased that he would be going to Japan, where everything was simple, all you had to do was show up.

 

-- A comment he made at the time of leaving WWE was “finally I’m out of here”. The comment was just made in regards to how tired he was and how pleased he was to be going to such an easy routine in Japan. However, somebody took the comment back to Vince and he has never been sure if Vince ever really understood it.

 

-- The real reason he was leaving was because in March of 92 right after WrestleMania 8, he had been unfaithful to his wife and was “living a lie”. He was confronted by his wife about it and nearly lost everything. Over the course of the next year he realised it would be hard to change in that environment, and so he realised he had to get out before he was sucked back in to the partying lifestyle.

 

-- Two months into his Japan contract he herniated two discs in his neck. He took out his Lloyds of London insurance, and was no longer wrestling. That was it.

 

-- He was invited back by WWE to do the color commentary on a PPV in Province, possibly Royal Rumble. He enjoyed it, but didn’t want to go back on the road. In his own words, “that’s why I did what I did when I did it”.

 

-- Ted then gives his opinion about The Million Dollar Corporation, and his stable of heels.

 

-- On the topic of the “Austin:316” phrase, he explains how it happened and explained how as a Christian he is offended by it. When he signs autographs for kids, he signs John:316 underneath his name, and he’s had kids say “it’s Austin 316 not John”, and things like that turn his stomach.

 

-- WWE approached Ted about being an agent, but he didn’t feel like agents were treated too well. He asked to be given specifics about it, and be told his salary, but that was the last he ever heard about it.

 

-- He knew that if he went to WCW, he would only be asked to go to live shows and pay per views, not being on the road. He was still re-building his life, and the last thing he needed was to be away from his family for 3 weeks of every month.

 

-- He feels that (as much as Eric Bischoff will hate to hear this) the only reason WCW went on top was because WCW bought WWE’s stars. Vince made him a star, Savage a star, etc, and WCW bought them all out. James and Ted then discuss Vince missing the ball with the WCW buyout.

 

-- DiBiase feels Bischoff took his spot in the nWo. He felt that if all he was going to be doing would be coming out and holding Hogan’s belt, he just wanted to be left at home. There was no direction, and everything was done “totally blind”. He speaks of times when people were live on air and people in the back were still deciding what to do.

 

-- After the ultimatum he gave Eric about ‘use me or send me home’, he sat at home for a year just collecting his pay cheques.

 

-- Becoming the manager of the Steiners “didn’t make any sense”. They were nice guys, but it was pointless.

 

-- Quote: “I do not approve of the programming in wrestling today. I think it stinks!”

 

-- Ted then mentions how family wrestling is what was popular. Good guys vs. bad guys, with the good guys winning out. And now, there’s no good guys.

 

-- On the topic of his own Christian Wrestling Federation, he’d love to see it get on television, but he is just interested mainly in reaching people. Wrestling minus the vulgarity, and with the message of Jesus Christ.

 

-- DiBiase says that the he challenges non-believers, Muslims, etc. When put on trial, the only religions that pass are Judaism and Christianity.

 

-- For more information on the Christian Wrestling Federation he runs, (and of course himself in general) you can go to his website: http://www.milliondollarman.com.

 

-- He thanks his fans, and Vince McMahon for giving him the greatest gimmick of all time. A message from Ted is that he used to think his bank account, his popularity and his biceps measure the size of a man. Now he believes that the size of a man is measured on the strength of his character, integrity and being a man of his word.

 

-- On the topic of NWA:TNA, Ted says that he’s seen some of their stuff but not a lot. He says that it’s oriented on tradition, but it’s a play on letters with the name.

[Guest BAR]

It's nice to hear from Ted. He's definately one of my top 20 wrestlers of all time. Interesting to hear his view on things, which I heard of before. The 3:16 thing was, err, strange.

[Rendclaw 0]

It was a good interview until he started putting other religions "on trial", with the only two passing his muster being Judaism and Christianity....

[Guest PhantMan]

Dibiase's gimmick, a success, was that of a rich guy with a black servant named after a booker/wrestler from the nwa as "an insult". I like the fact Ted has found God and bla bla bla but the shit he spouts about christianity and judaism and how wrestling today sucks bla bla bla is ridiculous.

 

as much as he doesn't like to admit, Ted himself was the one that changed the face of wrestling back in the day.

 

I miss the 80s and all of that, but the truth is that at least today fans gets to see the real deal, not some cartoonish character like Hogan who gets large by "taking vitamins".

[Guest JMA]

I like the shades of grey we have today in wrestling. It seems more realistic. I don't feel wrestling should be promoting the existence or non-existence of God.

[Guest PhantMan]

that's what I meant.