Steve Corino Shoot Interview

[Guest TSMAdmin]

Sorry this is late, but I got distracted by the train wreck that is RAW. It's getting to the point where I can count the wrestlers and managers I still care about on RAW very quickly. (For those who are interested, it's Victoria, Trish, RVD, Jericho, Goldust, the injured Booker T, Rico, and Teddy Long (Put his face on the dolla dolla bill!).)

 

Next week's shoot will be Terry Funk's 2002 shoot.

 

Upcoming shoots will include Gangrel + Luna Vachon as well as Hacksaw Jim Duggan, although I intend to order shoots with Kevin Von Erich, Jim Cornette, and others soon.

 

 

As always, you can feel free to Drop me an e-mail, read the archives, buy me stuff, or <!-- Begin Affiliate Code --> buy yourself stuff at Highspots.com.

 

 

 

Steve Corino Shoot Interview (11-5-2001)

 

Steve Corino vs. Fujita- This is for the NWA title. Corino wins with move similar to the Twist of Fate. Two guys come out to ringside after the match, waffle Corino with the belt, then beat him with a bullrope and cowbell. ("I’ve got a fever… and the only cure for that fever is MORE COWBELL!")

 

 

The first shoot interview- In 1999, Steve did a shoot in which he was goofing around the whole time and had his kid disrupt the entire RF Video office. It was pretty damn funny but he would make wild claims then never back them up. Some of those claims will appear again in this one with a little more explanation.

 

 

Getting into the business- He was working at a dairy and had always wanted to be a wrestler. He ended up going to a Great White concert with some friends and saw promotional posters for a wrestling show that included information about a wrestling school. (I’ll refrain from making cheap pyro jokes here, as this mention of Great White pre-dates the Rhode Island club fire by about a year and a half.) He went up there and trained for a few weeks, meeting Tom Brandi (Sal Sincere, Patriot II) in the process. Brandi later became his mentor.

 

What promotions did he follow as a kid? Mainly Georgia and the rest of the NWA, although they had gotten other promotions on TV in his area such as Southwest Championship Wrestling.

 

Who were his favorite wrestlers? Tully Blanchard, Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, the Midnight Express, Jim Cornette, the Rock and Roll Express, etc. He says the only guy he really didn’t like was Baron Von Raschke but that it was because the Baron was way over the hill at that point.

 

Why did he leave college to train? He was working 60 hours a week at the dairy in addition to training and, when he started getting booked on shows, he didn’t have the time to study. He figured he could always go back to college but that this was his one chance at wrestling.

 

Who did he work for? ECWA in Delaware, which had a lot of young talent such as Billy Kidman, Simon Diamond, and Devon Storm (Crowbar). He talks about how he got thrown into a match with Kidman at the last minute because Kidman’s scheduled opponent couldn’t make it. While he feels that if he watched the match today he’d “probably read Mike Quackenbrush’s book and swallow some anthrax”, it was good at the time because Kidman was a natural talent.

 

Tom Brandi- Tough guy. He was a big believer in respect for the promoters, working out in the ring before the show, etc.

 

Simon Diamond- He was an instant fan of his and wanted to be his tag partner. Because Diamond’s tag team partner, Crowbar, was unavailable for some reason (Corino’s unsure if he got hurt or went to WCW), Corino got his chance to team with Diamond. They clicked instantly and worked a lot of matches with Ace Darling and Kidman.

 

Dawn Marie- She was his manager a few times on the indy scene. Corino, Dawn, and Diamond have almost worked together as a unit several times but it never worked out, such as Dawn Marie joining ECW while Corino and Diamond were teaming in Dennis Corralluzzo’s promotion or Paul E’s plans to put them together in ECW that changed to Dawn managing Diamond and Johnny Swinger, a team that is around today and holds the NWA TNA tag titles.

 

Jeff Jarrett and Dr. Tom Pritchard in 1995- He was assigned to chauffeur them around right before In Your House 2. Both Corino and Pritchard just knew that Jarrett was about to quit the WWF. He hung with them the whole weekend and they had a great time. He learned a lot of psychology from them. They’d tell him what he did wrong each night and how he could get better.

 

Doing dark matches in 1995- Duane Gill (GILL-BERG…) couldn’t make a show to job so Tom Brandi got him the chance. Brandi had just started in the promotion and the match was a squash to put him over, which is why he got to pick Gill’s replacement. They were supposed to have a four minute match but it became a ten minute match because the road agents were on the referee’s headset telling them that they needed more time. They improvised all kinds of stuff to keep things going, which impressed some people in the back including Jim Cornette.

 

Was he doing a dark match when the ECW guys invaded? Yes and “I nearly shit my pants.” That was one of his biggest shows at the time, working a dark match at In Your House: Mind Games in Philadelphia, and he recalls being able to see every face in the crowd because he was so nervous. He couldn’t believe at first that Tazz, Tommy Dreamer, and others were at ringside. He was thinking “This is gonna SUCK…” He then started his match with Brandi while both of them were keeping an eye on the ECW guys in case they jumped the rail.

 

The differences between working indy shows and the WWF- He credits Jim Cornette with telling him that people learn more in a four minute job match than in a twelve minute match in front of 50 people. He says Cornette was absolutely correct because being in the ring with guys like TAKA Michinoku meant that you were learning all kinds of thing about wrestling.

 

Being the audience plant that Crush beat up- Jake “The Snake” Roberts set that up. They wanted to get over Crush’s new “jailbird” gimmick which was capitalizing on his steroid bust in Hawaii. In order to do that, they dressed Corino up as the biggest WWF mark there was and had him antagonize Crush after his match until Crush beat the shit out of him. He starts describing Jake’s plan for the match which is funny as Hell… “OK Crush, you’re gonna beat the FUCK outta Tracy [smothers]…” [smothers gets an “Awwww SHIT look on his face] and then, when Corino gets in Crush’s face “you pull him over the rail and beat the FUCK outta him too!” Corino remarks that it was very strange hearing that considering Jake was supposed to be a man of God at the time, although hindsight is 20/20. Smothers’ reaction was classic as well… “Well, I been here three months and this is gonna be my first ass kickin’… Good luck kid!” The plus side of that was that they gave him all kinds of free WWF merchandise which he was able to sell on the indy scene the next week. He had to be an annoying asshole mark for 17 matches before Crush came out for his match. He also had pitched an idea to Jake that he’d slap Crush’s hand away to provoke the ass kicking, which would be a reasonable explanation for security not shoving a cattle prod up Crush’s ass. He started leading the “jailbird” chants and was getting a lot of support from the fans since Crush had threatened him before the match. He doesn’t even remember the ass kicking but does remember Clarence Mason telling him when it was over, then he had to get up and sell the ass kicking all the way to the locker room. Gerald Brisco then pulled him aside and scared the shit out of him before paying him an extra $200 for the great job that he did. He also puts over Curt Hennig’s commentary on it.

 

Who was cool when he was there? Pretty much everyone except Chief Jay Strongbow and Jim Ross. Triple H, Justin Credible (then Aldo Montoya), Savio Vega, etc. were all great to him. They were doing the Fake Diesel (Kane) and Fake Razor gimmicks at the time, so Jim Cornette came up to him and started touting him as the new 1-2-3 Kid. However, the gimmick didn’t come to pass after the other two gimmicks bombed horribly.

 

His term as a jobber- He was there for six months and part of that time was during the WWF’s initial experimentation with the Light Heavyweight division. The division was supposed to have most of its matches on one of the B shows like Shotgun Saturday Night or Superstars. They brought him in to do a TV match to beat Jimmy Cicero and qualify for the Light Heavyweight Tournament. He brings up that Cornette made it expressly clear that there was no promise but there was the opportunity of him getting a better position in the company. However, the match before his was Tiger Ali Singh’s and Tiger kept ignoring all of the instructions for him to go home in his match. They were still scheduled to wrestle afterwards but Tiger and his father decided to get on the house mic and cause a disturbance, which took up all of the time allotted for their match. He was PISSED and was about to beat the shit out of Tiger until Cornette told him that he could get him booked in Memphis. That coincided with Tiger walking by and Corino having second thoughts because he was outweighed by about 60 pounds or so.

 

Memphis- He got a call at 3:00 PM one day from Dutch Mantel asking if he’d be available at 7:30 the next morning. He tore ass to Memphis and, by the time he got there, he had been up about 25 straight hours. He was told he’d be up against Rod Price, who he remembered seeing on Global. The next thing he knew, he was hearing Price scream about how he wasn’t “putting that fucking kid over.” He was then scheduled to work with Rick Bogner (Fake Razor) for seven minutes but, right before they went out, were told that they were only getting two minutes. They basically went out, did the finish, and came back only for Dutch to ask them what was going on then send them back out there to do the seven minutes they’d planned to begin with. On the way home, he started hallucinating and seeing people who weren’t there in his backseat. He argued with it for hours. He started realizing how much he’d flipped out when he pulled over at a rest area. When he got home, Matt Hardy called to ask him about what happened in Memphis so he told him he went crazy, which has become something of a running gag between them. “Usually it takes people six months (to go crazy in Memphis) but it only took me 24 hours.”

 

Working for Matt in OMEGA- It was a lot of fun. It was Matt, Jeff Hardy, Joey Abs, CW Anderson, Shannon Moore, Shane Helms (The Hurricane), Jack Dupp “who’s Shaq Dupp up with The Kat”, Joey Matthews, Christian York, etc. at the time. Matt was able to do the show on a shoestring budget.

 

Puerto Rico- He worked against Val Venis there but Val was also working in Japan at the time and only working so many shows. In PR, they’d tell you who you were facing while you were on camera and then you’d have to cut a promo on them. He froze up when he was told he was facing Val and says that he needs to get a tape of it because it was pretty damn funny. When they got to the show, Val was late then, when they finally found him, he was REALLY pissed off. Corino started having flashbacks to Rod Price in Memphis. When he got to the ring, they locked up and Val told him “We’re going five minutes, you’re going to beat me, and I don’t want to hear a FUCKING WORD about it!” Corino then asked if something was wrong, fearing Val was pissed about jobbing, but found out that Val was pissed because his car had gotten stolen right before the show.

 

Was he the Lightning Kid? Yes, he was the Lightning Kid 2 because they were still using Fake Razor down there.

 

Invader #1 Jose Gonzales- Invader would rib him a lot, which scared him at times considering that Invader WAS the guy who’d stabbed Bruiser Brody to death and he also owned the company. One of those ribs was that he was told that a girl was being sent over for him one night but, since he was married, he just lied about sleeping with her. When he talked with Invader the next day, Invader asked him about it and was all nice until Corino was asked which girl it was. When Corino named the girl, Invader got PISSED and said she was his daughter. It turned out to be an elaborate rib on him and that the girl wasn’t even Invader’s daughter.

 

Invader 2000- The gimmick was his idea because he wasn’t over at all considering he was doing all the work in tag matches for Carlos Colon and Invader but wasn’t getting any reaction out of the crowd. He figured it was something that would make him over instantly. They approved the gimmick but he had to leave PR for a WWF tryout and just never went back. That was partly because he got in legal trouble right after the tryout and it wasn’t a good idea for him to be going to PR.

 

Working for Dennis Corralluzzo when he did the angle with Tod Gordon- “I thought it sucked.” He liked Tod and says “Dennis is Dennis.” Dennis thought doing the angle was a good idea but it backfired big time because he was already drawing in 500+ people to each of his shows based off of his own talent. Once he started co-promoting with ECW, it killed him because the ECW guys were so big due to TV exposure that he turned his own guys heel by accident.

 

Being in the WWF’s Funkin’ Dojo- Dory Funk Jr. was very good at little things that most people don’t notice unless someone points it out.

 

His class at the Dojo- It included Test, Kurt Angle, Crowbar, Tiger Ali Singh, Shawn Stasiak, "Fallen Angel" Christopher Daniels, “Dr. Death” Steve Williams, and Babu. He starts talking about how Babu almost got him kicked out of the program.

 

Babu- He’s a nice guy but “he’s an idiot at times.” He was rooming with Babu in Connecticut when Babu got a woman to go up to his room. When he, Crowbar, and Daniels got out of the elevator on their floor, the girl was running down the hall screaming then they see Babu running around with just a shirt on chasing her. He, Crowbar, and Daniels found out from the girls that Babu had gone to the bathroom then came back with no pants on and the girl thought she was about to get raped. Later on, he was sitting around when both Bruce Pritchard and Dr. Tom Pritchard came over to him and pulled him aside after making sure he was Babu’s roommate. They brought him back to his room, got him to knock on the door, then had him let them into the room when Babu wouldn’t respond because he was so out of it. They then told him to get out of the room and made sure they got the key from him before he left. It turns out that Babu was claiming that he was with Corino when the incident happened. Tom then pulled Corino aside, pissed off, trying to get the truth out of him and bringing up the fact that he and Corino had gone back a ways. Once Corino told Tom that he was with Crowbar and Daniels when it happened, he was in the clear. The whole reason they were pissed at Babu to begin with was that he and Teddy Hart were making asses out of themselves while on pills, so the business with the girl didn’t have anything to do with it at first.

 

Teddy Hart- “Teddy’s real last name says it all. It’s Ted Annis (pronounced “anus”) and that kid’s an asshole.” He hasn’t seen him in years so he doesn’t know if he’s chilled out since then. Neither Owen Hart nor Bret Hart had anything good to say about him at the time. Hart and Babu used to hang out and take all kinds of pills, so Tom Pritchard kicked Hart out of the program.

 

Test’s name- It came from a joke people made about him, which was that he should wear a shirt that says “Test 3:16- I just injected your ass” and that his finishing move should be the Bitch Tit because “he’s all natural[/sarcasm].”

 

Confronting Tiger Ali Singh- Tiger started telling the story one night about how he got a ton of heat because he spent too much time in the ring and ruined some kid’s tryout. Corino told him that it was his tryout then Tiger apologized. It turned out that Tiger was a cool guy.

 

Kurt Angle- He had a shooting mentality when he came in but he was very open to learning new things, which is why he is in the position he’s in today.

 

Did he think his chances were good? Yes and no. He realized he wasn’t getting a contract on his last day. Out of the three guys not under contract at that time (himself, Crowbar, and Daniels), he figured Daniels had the best chance of getting signed because he did so great in the camp. When the last day came around, they found out that no developmental contracts were being given out. It turned out good for him anyway because he’d have been in the Light Heavyweight division, which was going nowhere fast.

 

Did wrestling in fact ruin his first marriage? “No, I think her boyfriend ruined our marriage.” Besides that, 60% of marriages fail these days no matter what jobs people have. The one good thing to come out of his marriage was his son.

 

 

Steve Corino and ? vs. ? and ?- This is from Zero One but I have now clue who any of the Japanese guys are. Corino’s partner wins it when he gets one of the opponents into a submission hold that I can’t identify.

 

 

How did he get into ECW- Nova left a message for him then called him back when he got home from work. It turns out that Paul Heyman wanted indy guys who could make an impact and he was one of Nova’s choices. He got a tryout with no guarantee. At that time, he was doing his anti-hardcore gimmick as a way to get more bookings as a heel because the ECW style was so imitated at that time. He figured that he was going to get his ass kicked by 911 or New Jack because of it as a part of an angle. He worked a tag match that night where he was allowed to take as much time as he wanted and noticed that Bubba Ray Dudley, one of the locker room enforcers, was looking at him in a VERY pissed off way. They went out and did about twelve minutes then Paul told him to meet him after the show, which he notes is Rib #1 of this experience. He waited around until 5:00 the next morning then was offered a job on a 90 day trial basis and was told to get his phone number from Debby, which he says is Rib #2. He says he could give out Paul’s number on the tape and it wouldn’t make a difference because he’s never available to pick it up unless he REALLY needs to talk to you. He was told to come to the show the next week.

 

His character at the start of his run- He pitched being old-school and anti-hardcore as a gimmick. He was in tag matches against Nova and Chris Chetti all the time at that point. On one of the PPV shows, he’d been told at the pre-match meeting that he’d lose by a rollup to Chetti. He noticed Tazz was there then offered to take Chetti’s triple moonsault as the finish because it was a cool move. Tazz verbally put him over after the match.

 

Memories of his early feud with Tommy Dreamer- He came into the building thinking he was going to work comedy stuff with Nova and Chetti but, instead, Dreamer came up to him and said “OK, Mr. Comedy, you’re working with me tonight” and left him to come up with the match. Francine was less than impressed that she and Dreamer would be working with Corino. They did a 22 minute match that night which incorporated a lot of his anti-hardcore schtick. They started adding time to their matches each night until they got up to 58 minutes. The Dudleyz were huge in the company around this time and Bubba Ray Dudley told Corino each night that they were going to have a longer match than Dreamer and Corino. Dreamer said “To Hell with that!” and insisted on doing twice the length of the Dudleyz match. It was very easy working with Dreamer. He learned how well comedy worked in ECW and that, if you knew your character well enough and were pretty over, you’d never lose your overness even after jobbing every night.

 

Was he disappointed he never got to finish his feud with Tazz? Yes, and he wishes he’d had the balls to tell Paul E. that Tazz should have finished his run in the company by beating Corino rather than losing to Rob Van Dam. Corino feels it would have worked because all of the Internet fans wouldn’t have been expecting it and he feels he could have gotten some mileage out of claims he’d chased Tazz from ECW despite getting his ass handed to him, thus keeping his heat.

 

Were some of the veterans jealous of him? He doesn’t know because some of them, such as Sabu, never said much to him. He wouldn’t have resented it if people were jealous of him because he did go from curtain jerking against Chetti and Nova to top-level programs with Tazz and Tommy Dreamer almost overnight.

 

Jack Victory- Fun guy with a lot of enthusiasm. Victory taught Corino how to throw a great punch as well as some other things.

 

Tajiri- Tajiri, Super Crazy, Jazz, and Corino all made their debut on the same day. Tajiri was awesome in the ring. He kayfabes how much English he knows, so it was hard to talk to him. He enjoyed wrestling Tajiri more than managing him because of Tajiri’s interesting style.

 

Rhyno- Cool guy. Very different from his character, as he’s very nice and gentle. He always had the talent but Paul was unsure about Rhyno’s speaking ability, which is why Corino managed him at first. Once Rhyno nearly killed Paul Marquez with a piledriver at the first TNN taping, Paul E fell in love with his character and started giving him a big push.

 

Lance Storm calling him “a manager in tights”- Corino was PISSED and cussed the whole way from Delaware to Salem, Virginia, about it. Nova was also pissed at Storm around that time because Storm said something about him being overrated and, as Corino puts it, “you never tell gay people they’re overrated.” (This is part of a running gag where Corino refers to Nova as “my gay friend, Nova.”) He started counting down the days until Storm left for WCW once he heard Storm had given notice.

 

Storm putting him and Nova over big on his website after he left ECW- Everyone thought that Storm wasn’t really leaving so, as a rib, Corino and Nova bought going away cards for Storm and got everybody to sign them. Dreamer had told them it wasn’t a good idea before they did it then, after they did it, told them Storm really WAS leaving. Their response was something like “HAHAHAHAHA… fuck ‘em.” Storm actually came up to them after he was done that night and talked to them about how he appreciated the cards, especially since they hadn’t gotten along for a while. They were in shock that Storm tried to make up with them because of something that started as a rib. Storm posted something on his website the next day putting over Nova and Corino and, within 10 minutes, Corino’s phone rang. It was Dreamer asking if he’d read the commentary and if he felt like an asshole because of his attempted rib. Once Corino said yes to both, Dreamer said “OK, I’m gonna call Nova now.” They get along now, though, and he was pretty surprised that, the night he won the ECW title, the first guy he saw once he got through the curtain after the match was Storm.

 

The angle with Limp Bizkit- It was a cool night. He was given the choice of working with Sandman, whom he hated “more than Lance [storm] and Raven combined” at the time, or doing an angle with Fred Durst. He had no clue of who Durst was at first but then thought of turning it into one huge vignette. While he got a concussion from Balls Mahoney as a part of that angle, it wasn’t as bad as the one Balls had given him the week before Living Dangerously and “took seven years off my life.” Balls’ chairshot STILL wasn’t as bad as the one Axl Rotten had given him because Axl’s chair was all bent out of shape before he hit Corino with it. He only thought the Durst angle would be on ECW TV and was VERY surprised when it ended up on MTV.

 

Working with Dusty Rhodes in ECW- It was great. When he got to the building in Atlanta, he was told he was working with “The Dream”, which he figured was Tommy Dreamer because it was one of his nicknames. He asked Tommy what they’d be doing that night and was told he’d be facing the REAL dream, Dusty. He loved being able to play his hero, Tully Blanchard, against Dusty, who was another one of his heroes.

 

What lead to him changing his gimmick to become more hardcore? Once Heyman figured out that he was a huge bleeder in matches, he capitalized on it because no one had bled like that on a regular basis since the heyday of Dusty and Ric Flair.

 

Working with Jerry Lynn- “Like a night off.” He was great to work with. He does have one bad memory of him, though, which was taking a few hard shots with the title belt one night. He rolled out of the ring and was told by Jack Victory to get back in there because Victory told him “I don’t want him swingin’ that thing at me.”

 

Justin Credible- He feels the best match in his career was the one in New York City. They were having trouble thinking up a match so they called it in the ring and it turned out to be an incredible match. He convinced everyone in that match he was going to win the belt but didn’t, which he feels can be more effective sometimes than actually winning the belt.

 

Rob Van Dam- When Dreamer told him he was working against RVD, the first thing that popped into his head was “Who did I piss off now?” He thought RVD would kick his head off but, instead, was a great guy to work against.

 

CW Anderson- They have been best friends for a long time and put their all into their big match on PPV. Corino actually went blank when they tried to do the first spot in the match but CW led the match and it ended up being a good one.

 

Did bleeding so much hurt his career? Yes, because of the “What have you done for me lately?” attitude of the US fans. After the series with Jerry Lynn where he bled so much, he feels there’s no way he could have topped it.

 

When did he realize he was winning the ECW title? 3:00 the day it happened, and he still thought that Justin Credible would regain the title instead. The way it worked was that there was a Double Jeopardy match pitting Credible against Sandman and Corino against Lynn. Corino figured he’d beat Lynn then lose to Credible. The match itself was fun, although he and Credible forgot the finish. Corino forgot that he was supposed to get a ballshot from Dawn Marie, which was her heel turn, before the finish, so they had to backtrack and do that. Then they both forgot the finish and Corino told Credible “Just keep hitting me with that cane while I think one up.” He ended up deciding to take one last cane shot then Superkick Credible for the win, but nearly blew that because the last shot “about knocked my eyes out” and almost forgot the finish again. He puts over Lynn incredibly for being a great sport about losing the title a month after winning it.

 

What did he think of winning the belt but not being able to carry it because Sandman stole it? It was a good angle and lead to a bunch of great promos and vignettes. His personal favorite was the one where he and Victory jumped Sandman, beat the shit out of him, then left the locker room before asking each other if they’d gotten the belt. They then tried to go back in the locker room but, once Corino saw that Sandman was busted open pretty bad from one of Victory’s shots, insisted that Victory go in after it. Victory came back out moments later, thoroughly beaten, and still with no belt.

 

Was Sandman ever too drunk to work? Once, which was in Pensacola. He found it surprising that the only time Sandman ever hurt him was when he was sober. He also puts over how smart Sandman is, which most people wouldn’t pick up on considering his image as a raging drunk. They always had great matches and came up with interesting spots.

 

Where was the angle of him and Credible as the New Impact Players going? “Depends on who you ask.” They were left twisting in the wind because the original idea for the finish at Guilty As Charged was for Rhyno to gore “all three of us during the match.” (I assume he means himself, Credible, and Jerry Lynn, the three guys who lost to Sandman, before Rhyno challenged Sandman for the belt a la Hulk Hogan-Yokozuna at Wrestlemania 9) He objected to it because Paul E had no ideas for what they’d do after that, so the plan became them losing the match to Sandman then Rhyno coming in afterwards to beat Sandman for the match. The problem was that Corino felt he and Credible were “left like Nova in a gay bar… holding each other’s nuts.” They then decided to become the New Impact Players. They were told they were going to end the PPV, but both he and Credible knew that ECW was done “and we got to be the Impact Players for about three minutes.”

 

When did he realize ECW was in trouble? The week they missed their second check. Once it became a recurring thing, they knew it was trouble. Everyone was scared about what was going to happen. Things really went to shit when he won the ECW title because his relationship with Paul E disintegrated. It didn’t help that he would be working in Puerto Rico then get a call from Paul E asking if he knew anything about his contract being discussed on Dave Meltzer’s hotline. On his first show after that incident, he walked in the building and demanded that Paul E take the title off of him that night.

 

Was he surprised his salary was made public by Meltzer? He was shocked because not even Jack Victory knew how much he made. Paul E swore that he didn’t leak it and tried to lay the blame on some RF Video employees that were working for him at the time but Corino countered that by telling Paul that the guy was in Puerto Rico when the business with Meltzer happened. Dreamer himself told Corino that Paul E probably did it himself. He thinks in hindsight that Paul E might have been trying to block other companies from hiring him but that, at the time, Corino didn’t want to be anywhere but in ECW. The reason he was in Puerto Rico to begin with was that Paul hadn’t paid him for 14 weeks and Corino absolutely needed the money.

 

How bad did things get between him and Paul? There were some arguments but it always ended amicably. He just wondered why Paul kept screwing with him anyway.

 

What happened when he refused to blade at Guilty As Charged 2001? He was sick of seeing signs like “I paid to see Corino bleed” to begin with and then Paul screwed with him about how much back pay he was going to be getting when he arrived at the building that day. He also felt that it would be better to not blade that night since everyone was expecting it.

 

Did Paul E refuse to let him out of his contract despite his offer to release anyone that wanted out? Yes, Paul refused several times to release him. This was a part of a series of e-mails resulting from an incident at Massacre on 34th Street where Corino got accused of altering Paul’s post-dated checks. Corino says it was done by ECW office employee Debbie, who denied doing it, but she also had a reputation as a liar. He ended up getting pulled from the last two ECW shows because of it although Paul E denied at first that it was because of the previous situation. Once Paul admitted it was over that situation, he also brought up a different one where he claimed Corino bitched about not getting paid, which Corino claims was him asking if they were getting paid that night and, once Paul said they weren’t, he went back to what he was doing. He also got blamed for altering the checks, despite the fact that Nova was the one who said “Hey, Paul, can’t we just change the dates like we always do?” and Paul was looking at Nova when he said it. He then tried to get his release, even though he knew the WWF wouldn’t want him because he didn’t fit into their plans.

 

Do he and Paul still have bad blood? He doesn’t have anything against Paul and would shake his hand if he came across him.

 

Why is he one of the only people that wasn’t listed as a claimant in ECW’s bankruptcy proceedings? Because of the way his contract was structured, it would have taken too much time and money to get what little bit he could out of the eventual settlement. He also wanted the rights to the King of Old School name, which ECW owned, so he got that in exchange for waiving his right to the back pay he knew he’d never get.

 

Was he disappointed that he didn’t get booked on the last two ECW shows? Yes, because he just wanted to be there and work. He didn’t even think those two shows would happen and that Guilty As Charged 2001 would be the last ECW show.

 

 

Corino and Scotty Riggs vs. Dusty Rhodes and Dustin Rhodes- According to the tag on the match, it took place on 8-18-2001 in Rome, Georgia, and appears to be from a Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling house show. Dusty and Dustin win by DQ after Corino hits Dustin with a chair to keep Riggs from being pinned.

 

 

 

What happened with him and Missy Hyatt? He’d done an interview when he was dead tired and did his heel schtick on her when he was asked about her promo. He found out that he’d gotten heat with her over it and apologized to her. She told him it was all cool but when they were on the same show shortly after that, Missy cussed him out. After that, it was all fine.

 

Was it a huge disappointment that he got dropped from the Zero One tour he was supposed to go on? It was a disappointment. He got dropped because he and Mike Rapada were supposed to go over as a tag team but Rapada didn’t have passport. He still got paid for that weekend anyway.

 

Dave Meltzer’s comments about how you have to be on steroids to be a success in Japan- Meltzer may know a lot about wrestling but there are some aspects he doesn’t know much about. Corino says there are other ways to get over in Japan besides steroids but Meltzer’s listening to the information fed to him by his contacts. Corino says that he could tell the dirtsheets that he’d had the most amazing sexual experience ever with Nova and they’d believe him because of his reputation as a worker.

 

Has he used steroids? Yes, he’s experimented with them but doesn’t use them regularly.

 

Winning the NWA title- It was a good fit for him and the NWA needed it considering no one really knew who Mike Rapada was and he wasn’t drawing.

 

The perception of a title and TV- If there is no TV show for a title belt to be defended on, the title should be on a name wrestler in order to draw. They still screwed up some things during his reign, such as never putting him on NWA Wildside’s TV show despite the fact that it’s syndicated in over 20 markets.

 

What was the travel schedule like as NWA champion? “Horrendous.” Because he didn’t get enough bookings from the NWA, he’d be flying all over creation in order to make all kinds of shows he’d gotten booked on.

 

NWA president Howard Brody- He’s got a good heart but he can’t make the NWA the success he wants it to be for a few reasons, such as not working with Dusty Rhodes’ TCW when they had the chance.

 

Were there any plans for him to lose the belt to anyone but Hashimoto? Not that he’s heard of but promoters were hesitant to use him because he was hard to deal with. He would insist on getting a certain level of quality for his airline ticket and getting a hotel room instead of staying with the promoter’s cousin Billy Bob, but they complained about the cost of it. He also wanted to do some things like losing the belt to Glamour Boy Shane in Puerto Rico at the start of a tour then winning it back on the last day, but it was shot down because they say no one knows who he is. Corino points out that Shane is one of the most popular wrestlers in Puerto Rico and that you could get any girl on the island if you were with him. They also objected to Hashimoto getting the belt because he works most of the time in Japan and it wouldn’t help the US promoters. Corino says that it’s all pretty much bullshit anyway because few of the NWA promoters have TV in the US while their match was on Samurai TV in Japan.

 

The controversy over whether he would be facing Hashimoto at the NWA convention- Hashimoto was scared of possible terrorist attacks and was also getting rubbed the wrong way by the promoters.

 

The match and angle with Hashimoto- He came up with it months beforehand. Howard Brody didn’t like it, so Corino faxed a copy of his idea to the Japanese and they loved it. They wanted to play off of the perception by the public that something has gone wrong. He starts in by saying that, despite the fact that Montreal is widely regarded as a shoot, he believes that it was the greatest work of all time. He wanted to recreate that on a smaller scale with Hashimoto and pulled it off. Only 15 people at the building knew what was going on. It was so real that “Gigilo” Jimmy Del Ray got pissed at Hashimoto because he thought Hashimoto had shot on Corino in the mat.

 

His tour in England- He was getting sick of the NWA’s petty bullshit so, in his Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match with Gary Steele, he got Gary to grab the title and win it in a way that looked like an accident, which Corino hoped would make the NWA think for themselves for once. It also pissed him off that he and Steele could have done a great old-school match but that the promoters insisted on doing a TLC match, which he feels can’t be done better than by the six people who have immortalized that match (the Hardy Boyz, the Dudley Boys, and Edge and Christian). The actual finish was Corino pulling the belt off but letting it “slip” through his hands onto Steele, who grabbed it. Corino won the match because the rules were clearly stated that the winner was the first person to touch the belt, but it shocked the crap out of people.

 

Why was Howard Brody against the Hashimoto angle? “Because if it doesn’t happen on Wildside, it doesn’t happen.” Victor Quinones has a membership in the NWA and regularly draws 5,000 fans to shows in Puerto Rico but it doesn’t end up on any other NWA member’s TV show. He also says they could have made money if they showed clips of him vs. Hashimoto or AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels then plugged tapes containing the whole match.

 

What’s the extent of his retirement? Two weeks ago, he would have said he was completely done. He’s got several fractures in his back and it’s screwing with his workout schedule and has a bunch of other problems including slimy promoters. He got tired of having to call sites like 1-Wrestling to report that a promoter didn’t send him a ticket or lied about a show being cancelled before they slapped him with a reputation as a no-show artist.

 

What does he want to do in the future? He isn’t really up for much in the ring unless he could face Tully Blanchard or Bret Hart. However, he’s very interested in being involved in other ways with wrestling such as being a commentator or helping book a promotion.

 

The business with Buff Bagwell and MECW- He compares MECW to a girl who sounds so hot on the phone but isn’t even close to that when you finally meet her. He didn’t believe MECW’s bullshit about being a big-time player so he only worked for them part-time while defending the NWA title and tried to be a commentator instead of a wrestler. They insisted that he wrestle and Sandman booked him against Bagwell but assured him that he’d go over, which Corino knew wasn’t going to happen because of Bagwell’s reputation as a whiner. Sure enough, once Bagwell heard the finish, he pulled promoter John Collins aside and got it changed. Corino was pissed that he wasn’t involved in the rebooking of the match considering that he was supposed to go over at first and implies that Bagwell is extraordinarily unprofessional (that’s pretty much what most people in the business say but Bagwell claims it’s the fault of the Internet fans). Since they disrespected him and, as s result, he refused to job, they put Jack Victory in his spot instead and Victory lost to Bagwell. Bagwell also blew Corino off when he tried to discuss a promo he wanted to do, so he has no sympathy when people wonder why he did a shoot-style promo about him. He says it shouldn’t surprise them considering he’s done a promo on Dusty Rhodes accusing him of cutting Magnum TA’s break lines and causing his career-ending accident, calling The Crusher a closet homosexual in Milwaukee, and telling David Flair he was lucking his dad married his mom instead of any of the other 786 women he impregnated. He also jokes that he has the perfect storyline for himself in the WWF, which would be that he’s Paul E’s stalker, yelling things like “Paul, you said you’d always take care of me!” or “Paul, you never called me back!” He finally mentions that the big reason why he couldn’t lose the match was that he was specifically told by Hashimoto that he couldn’t lose to Buff Bagwell if he wanted to work in Zero One, as Hashimoto can’t stand Bagwell.

 

Do most of the Japanese promotions have a good grasp of American talent? Yes, and they’re capable of finding roles for people who failed miserably in the US such as Jim Steele. They take chances on unknowns like Mike Modest, Donovan Morgan, and Tom Howard then turn them into huge stars in Japan.

 

Working for Dusty Rhodes’ Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling- He considers Dusty Rhodes to be like a second father.

 

Meeting Chickie Starr in Puerto Rico- He was in a tag match with Miguelito Perez against Tajiri and Starr in a hardcore match. He started out against Starr, said hello to him, then Starr said “Nice to meet you baby! Take a ride!” and threw him through the ropes to the floor. They were beating each other up while getting to know each other. After Corino tagged out, he ended up at ringside while Tajiri had him in a headlock. He asked what was going on and Tajiri said “Stay here, nobody watching us.” Corino then turned to him and said “You kayfabing motherfucker!” and Tajiri started begging off, pretending he didn’t know English. What made it funnier was that Tajiri was the babyface in the match and he was inadvertently doing a traditional heel schtick because of his verbal slip.

 

What does the future hold for him? He’s writing two books, one about funny stories on the road and the other is a drama. He’s booking and has a guarantee for a certain number of weeks a year with Zero One. He doesn’t want to be on the road every day anymore because he wants to see his son grow up. He’s debating whether he just wants to work in Japan or if he’ll continue to work in the US as well.

 

His biggest accomplishment- Wrestling Dusty Rhodes in a bullrope match. The biggest compliment he ever got was when Paul E told him after that match that he was better than Tully Blanchard, as Tully was a huge hero of his.

 

The indy scene in the late 90s compared to now- The late 90s was better because people came to work instead of coming in with a huge ego. He feels that the indys are either to learn or, if someone has already made it, to bring the house up for everyone to share in. He also talks about how people need to be at a certain level of toughness to be in the business, whether it be to beat down a rowdy fan or to work a stiff style in Japan. He says many of the guys on the indy scene today are incapable of it because they’re about 110 pounds and their matches consist mainly of flips.

 

Is there anything he wants to say to his fans? Thanks very much because, if it wasn’t for them, he’d still be working at the dairy. The only things he asks is that fans who think their better than the wrestlers or wrestler who think they’re better than the fans take the chip off of their shoulder.

 

 

Promo- Corino cuts a promo on Buff Bagwell in MECW about Buff getting fired from the WWF in record time after screwing up in his big match against Booker T on RAW. He also throws in a few shots about Buff making his career on his physique rather than his ability and questions about where is mother is.

 

Corino and Miguelito Perez (?) vs. Tajiri and Chickie Starr- This is from Puerto Rico. I’m assuming that this is the match Corino talked about earlier, which is why I have Perez listed as Corino’s partner. Corino picks up the victory when Tajiri comes to hit him with a chair and Corino kicks it into his face (this is a Nash-like straight kick, so it is not a Van Daminator).

 

 

 

Thoughts- Despite seeing only a limited amount of Corino's matches beforehand due to my lack of ECW footage from his heyday (my ECW footage is mainly from 1995 through 1997), this was a thoroughly entertaining and informative shoot. Corino’s funny as hell and it’s a shame he isn’t on national TV at this point, as he tends to work in Japan or on shows for regional promotions like Ring of Honor instead of NWA TNA. Highly recommended.