An Interview with Mideon

[Guest Trivia247]

Thanks to Alan J. Wojcik of www.AlanWojcik.com for sending in the following interview he conducted with former WWE superstar Dennis "Mideon" Knight:

 

Dennis Knight has had many identities over his wrestling career. You may remember him being in a tag team with Mark Canterbury when they were Tex Slazenger and Shangai Pierce in WCW, Henry and Phineas Godwin in the WWF or his solo career as Mideon. But do you really know Dennis Knight? This is part of a full length interview conducted March 17, 2004 at the famous Steve Keirn School of Hard Knocks in Tampa, Florida.

 

Alan Wojcik: Let’s start with the obvious. Where did you grow up and was wrestling part of your childhood?

 

Dennis Knight: As long as I can remember wrestling has been in my life. My granddad had us watching wrestling early. Around 11 years old was the first match that made me say I want to be a wrestler. It was in the St Pete Bayfront Center and it was Harley Race and Dusty Rhodes. It was 60 minutes “Broadway” and it was the thing that made me decide that was my life goal.

 

AW: Who trained you and how did that training differ from the way wrestlers are trained today?

 

DK: Steve Keirn trained me in the Sportatoruim in 1989. I had graduated high school and received a scholarship for football to Salem College in West Virginia. I injured my shoulder and lost the scholarship within six months. About maybe 10-12 months after I graduated from high school I was bouncing at a place called Maco’s in Clearwater. Jim Rocha AKA “Jungle” Jim Steele and a guy called Rock Hard Rick came in one night. They were training with Steve and with their guidance and Johnny Ace I went down to meet Steve. Johnny used to frequent Maco’s with the Florida guys like Barry and Kendall Windham when they did TV down here. They talked to Steve and I met with him. He taught me wrestling. He is a lot easier on the kids today then he was back in my day. He has mellowed over the years. When I was a student he had only been teaching for maybe two years. The best part about Steve is he teaches you wrestling. The kids on WWE Tough Enough spent way too much time on conditioning and Hindu squats, not to say that’s not important. I think they needed to put the influence on teaching the kids wrestling. Look at the current Florida wrestling scene. Besides me Steve trained the NWA Florida heavyweight champion Steve Madison (who lost the title on March 20, 2004,) former NWA World Junior heavyweight champion Lex Lovett and the NWA Florida tag team champions Stash and David Mercury. I’ve heard horror stories from guys including the Undertaker who told me of Buzz Sawyer and those guys, who trained him by making him run, do Hindu squats and wearing him down to the point of exhaustion. Then they would get in the ring and he would be stretched for an hour. How does that prepare you for wrestling? Steve breaks every single hold down. (Dennis looks to a current student) Are you having fun? You like the way Steve is teaching you for the ring? (The student nods affirmatively before getting in the ring for more training) You saw it before we began talking, before you get in the ring for a single move Steve sits you down and he teaches you how to act you how to act in and out of the locker room. How you should carry yourself because you are representing him each time you enter a locker room. He has extremely high amount of respect from people like Vince McMahon. Come here for a minute Steve Madison. When we went to WWE Raw when they were here in December weren’t you amazed by how guys like Shawn Michaels even came over with respect for Steve (Steve nods yes and then goes away to train.) Steve hasn’t screwed anyone over. I’ve heard a bad thing about anyone in this business but Steve with exception for his being an Owen Hart style ribber.

 

AW: Who was your first opponent and what do you remember of the match?

 

DK: It was with my step-father Ron Frankert on TV for Championship Wrestling of Florida. It was about six or seven minutes. Being my step-dad he beat the sh#$ out of me (laughs). He was Tampa Vice, formerly ranked in the top 10 in full contact karate, Captain US marine corp recon. But it was fun.

 

AW: What was the Florida scene like back then?

 

DK: Well I’ll tell you Alan I couldn’t have been luckier to have begun my career when I did. In the locker rooms were Dusty Rhodes, Blackjack Mulligan, Bugsy McGraw, Steve Keirn, Mike Graham and Robert Fuller. They were real Memphis style wrestlers. What I mean by that is they were entertaining guys that can wrestle and can tell a story which is the most important things. I learned how to tell the story with professional wrestling without amateur stuff in it.

 

AW: I’m sure this is a long story but how did you come to work for WCW?

 

DK: Steve had called Eric Embry who was running Memphis and I worked there for about six months as Leatherface and then as Tex Slazenger. I was in some high profile matches with Embry, Jerry Lawler and Jackie Fargo. I was so young and not getting much money I made 60 bucks a week. My Step-dad came up and found I was basically living on the streets and a K-Mart parking lot. Tammy and Chris Candido tell a great story.

 

Steve Madison: Now that’s real independent wrestling! Not the Teddy Hart luxury deal.

 

DK: I just found some of the old Memphis payoff slips in a drawer last week. We would catch the bus Thursday nights to go down to Dallas for shows at the Sportatoruim. I didn’t have any money for a hotel. I knew we had to be there at 10pm for the bus and I found out if you checked into a hotel around 6am you got it for an extra day as opposed to 1-2am. I did that or I would hang around parking lots all day. Chris and Tammy would find wait in the K-Mart parking lot for the bus and one night they said they saw this homeless guy with a bunch of beer cans around him. When they got close enough they realized it was me (laughs.) The beer cans were from Jeff Jarrett who would buy me Keystone Light. So when my step-dad came and took me home, we drove back down I-75. Steve and my step-dad were buddies with Dusty. WCW used to do TV in Gainesville and they got me had a dark match with Joey Maggs. Dusty came from Gorilla position to tell me he liked the match and everything. Then he introduced me to Mark Canterbury who was doing jobs on their TV shows. Dusty put us together and we clicked right away that first night. We were together through the entire WCW run. WWF brought Mark up for about eight months then I followed. We were Tex and Shangai but we never had a team name. Jesse Ventura used to call us the Texicans, which was funny to hear on TV.

 

AW: What was it like to be trained by Mr. Keirn and then work for an old school wrestler/promoter named Bill Watts who was booking for WCW in the early 90’s?

 

DK: Some people don’t have a good view of Bill. He was a tough hard nosed promoter. He was kind of like Steve. Bill treated me fair and I got along well with him. He was running things and Ole (Anderson) was booker of the group. Ole and Bill was what many would call a nightmare but I was 20 years old and I didn’t know that I was getting screwed on payoffs I just wanted to wrestle.

 

AW: What was your initial reaction brought you to the WWF as Phineas I. Godwin to be with Mark when he was Henry Godwin?

 

DK: I was working for USWA and living with Road Dogg (currently BG James in NWA: TNA) in Nashville. Jeff Jarrett and his wife, who is the nicest person you will ever meet, got us a place to stay. One day at Memphis TV Jerry Jarrett asked me to go up to his office and I thought oh god I’m in trouble. While I waited for him I ran though my mind if I had done anything wrong but couldn’t come up with anything. Well first he asked how things were and then told me the WWF wanted to bring me up and put me back with Mark as this Phineas Godwin character along with Hillbilly Jim. I couldn’t have been happier because it was a dream coming true. Easy gimmick and in fact they wanted me to forget how to wrestle because I was just supposed to be right from the farm. It was very easy to forget that (laughs.)

 

AW: What were your initial impressions of WWE owner Vince McMahon and VP of Talent Relations Jim Ross who I think was doing WCW TV when you were down in Atlanta?

 

DK: Yeah I knew Jim from WCW so there was a nice in road. He was cool back then and I still consider him a friend even though we don’t talk as frequently. Many people have horror stories of working for Vince but to me Vince McMahon is one of my favorite people on the planet. Vince treated me with the utmost respect and his family was the best people to work for. They are the hardest working family. Vince is very funny but he doesn’t get to show it on TV as much as he used to.

 

AW: I’m sure this has been asked to you many times, what were some of the major differences between the way WCW was run when you left and the WWF you began to work for?

 

DK: The main difference was when I was working for WCW you would get the matches for TV taping and Ric Flair would come up to you saying we need you to do this to make him look good. Then Dusty would come up saying we want this guy to look good so can you do this. Then Ole would come saying the same thing that Flair and Dusty has said about their guys. All that for just one match and I need to please three different people. In the WWF Vince was always the only boss. You had an issue you could go to Vince with it without having to go to five different people.

 

AW: You first got a title belt on an infamous date in wrestling May 19, 1996 and not because I was there after my college graduation. You beat the Body Donnas, Skip and Zip (Chris Candido and Tom Pritchard) for the WWF World tag team titles. We’ll break this down into a few parts. First what was it like winning the titles in Madison Square Garden?

 

DK: That was the best day of my life. From the moment I woke up until the time I went to bed. WWF had just begun to pick up momentum by adding new talent and I was told that show was the first time in about two years the WWF had sold out MSG and it was electric. Chris and Tommy are two of my best friends in wrestling going back to the Memphis days. We had the perfect match for gimmicks, the hillbillies against the Tony Little bodybuilders. We had been wrestling for a while going back to Wrestlemania 12 when they beat us in a tournament final. We had been getting close to winning and the people were really into us. New York fans really liked our gimmick. It may have been a house show but it was the perfect time to do it. (WWE referee)Earl Hebner was great that night. It was the night of the “curtain call” which I’m sure you want to know about. Early that day Mark, Hillbilly Jim, Savio Vega and I went to a children’s hospital and it was emotional. Then we took a limo ride to the Garden, then winning the belts and the party afterwards which I can tell you with that recorder off.

 

AW: You hinted at the “curtain call” which was recently talked about on some WWE DVD releases. Being you are an old school guy what did you think of the way kayfabe was broken that night?

 

DK: I didn’t agree with it. I’m good friends with everyone that was involved. Unfortunately not every one chooses to do business the same way. It’s presumptuous of me to think the fans believe we all hate each other. The fans knew the four of them were friends but part of me wants the fantasy thing in the business. I believe in kayfabe to this day. I didn’t think any less of them for doing it. Above and beyond that night was the best thing to happen to Hunter. He took the brunt of it due to Scott and Kevin leaving and Shawn being the champion and he took it like a man. He grew into an influential person in the business and a star.

 

AW: Not long after the title change you got paired with Sunny, Ms. Tammy Candido. Were you a fan of Hillbilly Jim leaving and Sunny coming in all be it for a brief time?

 

DK: Actually Hillbilly was still with us. Sunny was with us for I think two matches and then she went with the Smoking Gunns when we dropped the titles to them. Tammy was alright I just don’t agree with some of the things she has done with her life.

 

AW: You dropped the belts to the Smoking Gunns at In Your House: Beware of Dog and then wrestled again on the King of the Ring 1996. What was it like to work Billy and Bart and how did that pairing differ from Billy and Road Dogg AKA the New Age Outlaws?

 

DK: Billy and Bart were real good. The New Age Outlaws were better because you had an Armstrong in there. Billy was fun to work with. When you are trained old school you like to work a stiff, snug but safe style. Steve Regal told the Tough Enough kids he hits people real hard but he hit them in safe places. That epitomizes Billy as well as Bob Holly. Billy is a very competitive, aggressive person and he brings that out in other people. He is the most athletic person from playing basketball to bull riding. Bart wasn’t as strong as Billy but he was good at shoot style fighting and now has a good career in Japan.

 

AW: On some In Your House and Survivor Series events you wrestled two people who aren’t with us anymore, Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith. What is it like to wrestle two legendary in and out of the ring ribbers?

 

DK: It was awesome. They also are in my book of favorite people. The best part of wrestling them was they would make Mark so mad with their ribbing. They wouldn’t take the house show matches as serious as TV or a PPV. When it was time for the serious wrestling to happen in front of the cameras, Owen and Davey were the best. Davey had that English wrestling style. I remember seeing him wrestle Steven Regal that I thought was awesome. I loved watching Owen and Davey before my wrestling career ever began. When they didn’t want to work they became a total nightmare. One night we had a show in Detroit. Butterbean was our guest manager and they didn’t want to do anything with him. We did a spot where Mark slammed Owen and then was to have slammed me onto Owen. I’m over Mark’s head ready to be slammed but Owen stands up and just looks at the two of us with a grin on his face. Mark had to slam me. Mark tore up a bathroom in anger. I never took most of their stuff seriously. I miss both of them very much.

 

AW: You also wrestled a tag team with one member who is no longer with us; I’m speaking of Mike Hegstrand AKA Road Warrior Hawk. What is it like to wrestle the legendary tag team of Road Warriors?

 

DK: It was funny you bring them up Alan because I also watched them when I was a kid. I thought they were the best tag team wrestlers ever. Then I got in the ring and wrestle them (laughs.) They relied on their charisma and their strength. Mike was a real close friend who lived five miles away so we traveled on the road together. Animal is the brother of Johnny Ace who got me in wrestling and they also have a brother named Mike who I wrestled here in Florida as the Terminator. Animal was the only one of the brothers I didn’t wrestle until the WWF. Steve had wrestled them back in when he was in the Fabulous Ones (with Stan Lane) so I had some background on the way they worked in the ring. The main problem we had was the Warriors were used to being monsters and dominating their opponents. Mark and I were 5-6 inches taller and about 50 pounds heavier then them. We had to adapt to their style. I had a horrible match with them on a PPV but made more money in my career which I remember being Summerslam 1997.

 

AW: Speaking of PPV’s some of them are sadly remembered as the night’s fans found about wrestler deaths. One being In Your House: Bad Blood on October 5, 1997 when Vince McMahon had to tell the audience that Brian Pillman was found dead in his hotel room in Minneapolis. What do you remember from the night in Minneapolis and the next night when you won the WWF World tag team titles the same night from the Headbangers?

 

DK: The Headbangers were a great tag team to wrestle. Mark is a very physical worker like I said about Billy Gunn and Bob Holly. We had been working with Owen and Davey who were wrestlers and the Warriors who were more of an entertaining tag team. Some guys get upset about you laying it in a little too hard, the Bangers weren’t that way. They were like us, young and they gave it as good as it was delivered. We had some country whipping matches with them. All four of us had leather straps belts attached to our wrists and we had huge welts all over our bodies each night. We had done these matches for a few weeks. Then they would be with someone else and we would be with DOA and the other teams would bitch about how hard we were working. Chaz was an underrated guy in the company. Now to the question about Brian. I remember the night before in Minneapolis Mark and I had come back from eating a late meal. We came back to the hotel and Brian was wandering around the parking lot. We came to find out the next day that he had wandered out to the lot a second time and had to be put back to bed. Prior to that going about eight months back he and his wife had been fighting all the time plus he got hooked on the morphine drip from his ankle surgery. They had him in a manager thing due to his inability to wrestle. He was doing pills and booze and being miserable in a deep depression. Maybe he wasn’t trying to kill himself but he wasn’t doing anything to stop it. At the house show that night he had fallen asleep in a hallway outside the locker room. It was bad scene with all those problems. One of my favorite matches I had in WCW was with him at a TV taping that went fifteen minutes. Unfortunately many of my friends have gone that way. I’m not real big on going to funerals. I didn’t go to Owen’s funeral because I like to remember people they way people were when they lived. It goes back to when my grandfather died and I saw him and it didn’t look anything like I remembered him. I went to Hawk’s due to it was more a memorial than a funeral. Thanks for bringing up most of my friends are dead. I’m kidding calm down and get that shocked look off your face Alan.

 

AW: Speaking of an issue that has driven into the ground you were part of Survivor Series 1997 when the Bret/Shawn/McMahon incident took place. Looking back do you think that changed the business forever?

 

DK: I wouldn’t give it much credit. I love all three of them. The reason I have been one of the most liked guys in the locker room is because if someone is badmouthed in front of me you are still going to be my friend but don’t try and get me to hate that person. It was in Hartford when they had the big backstage fight. Mark and I had been traveling with Hunter and Chyna to the shows. We were waiting to do TV promos and Shawn unloosened his hair tie fooling around with it and I asked him what was going on and he said I just got into a fight with Bret. I thought he was joking. Back to the night in Montreal. To be politically correct since I am still friends with all three, I can see why Vince did it because he had to protect his belt and his company. There was talk of Bret leaving and showing up on Nitro with the title. I relate to Bret in the essence that he would have worked it out about dropping it in some other fashion. I also relate to Shawn up until I saw the piece on Confidential where he admitted his part in it. Shawn was extremely smart businessman. Bret and Shawn hated each other and but it made for some of the greatest matches like the one at Wrestlemania 12 which was number one on that special the other night. We used to do lumberjack matches with the two of them and they would beat the crap out of each other. In the ring for some reason it clicked. That night helped Vince become the number one heel from that event. Who doesn’t want to beat up their boss and all of that made Steve Austin. The only bad thing that no one talks about is Earl Hebner who refereed that match, he almost quit the business. He took tons of heat but he did what the boss told him to do. How did Bret get screwed when he left and went into the way to the highest contract in wrestling history? It’s a shame that it was sorted out in a gentlemanly fashion.

 

AW: While you were with the WWF, did you realize how popular “Stone Cold” Steve Austin had become?

 

DK: I was right in the middle of it. Steve and I knew each other back in the WCW days we would hang out and drink some beers. In wrestling you have many “friends.” But for me; Mark, Stone Cold, Road Dogg and the Undertaker are still the people I talk to on a frequent basis. I seem to have followed Steve into the many organizations. I followed him into Memphis when he left for WCW. Then I followed him to WCW where we became friends. Looking back on it Steve always had the drive and attitude to be successful. Strange things happened when we hung out together. One time we went to his house Road Dogg and I got pulled over and spent the night in a drunk tank. One time his ex wife Jeanie and his baby drove off a road and ended up driving into a stream. Steve and I were out of his deer blind and we hear her screaming as she went down stream in the car. I waded out knee deep into it to get them out of the car and carry them about 20 yards to safety. Another time Road Dogg got into a fight with some guys in Steve’s favorite bar which got us kicked out. So needless to say fun things happened when I was around Steve. He took off and the best thing was Steve took advantage of the push he was given. Undertaker was the same way but Steve sold something like a million t-shirts, which was more than Hogan sold ever. Steve changed wrestling as far as the idea of good guy/bad guy. He made the drinking milk and taking vitamins evil which is why I’m glad Kurt Angle went heel. I loved that straight laced heel who used to be a good guy before this all happened.

 

AW: When Mark severely injured his neck and eventually left the WWF was there a point where you thought well I am out of a job now?

 

DK: Mark thought he broke his neck. One of the doctors he saw told him it wasn’t that severe and it was really a sprain. He had injured it during our feud with the Road Warriors. It was nobody’s fault just a freak thing that occurred when he took their Doomsday Device. But this will tell you how tough a man he is. We did that whole “Southern Justice” thing with Jeff Jarrett and Robert Fuller where we feuded with Billy and Brian (New Age Outlaws,) Mark had a broken neck the entire time. It wasn’t like I showed up at TV to the office telling me your partner’s hurt and its over. It was like more like he was hurting a little. He took some time to see doctors. So it went from the two of us versus Billy and Brian to me and Jeff teaming against them. He realized it was over for him and Jeff took off to WCW. So Undertaker came to me and said in a perfect world what would you like to do? I told him about the Ministry idea I had where you can sacrifice someone and other stuff like it. I studied demonology and the occult in college and in my spare time. So I had a million ideas for us to run with and most for the cool stuff was our idea. Unfortunately it was a case of great ideas that were thrown together in one day and executed badly. The sacrifice thing was cool. They had Hollywood people came out to help us. But that fell apart and we had to piece something together on the fly. The WWE special effects technician Richie Posner (sic), who is the unsung hero of that promotion, had to create things when the Hollywood stuff fell apart. It was fun and I hope to do it again in the WWE soon.

 

AW: How much of an influence on your career did the Undertaker play when you dropped Phineas Godwin and became Mideon?

 

DK: He is my best friend. I still go to his house all the time, hell I was dating his sister-in-law at one point. It’s really weird with him. He influences anyone around him no matter where he is be it a gym, a locker room or a wrestling ring. Road Dogg gave him the nickname calling him “Cool Hand Luke” because what you see is what he is. He is the man’s man. There are lots of guys that could have that title like Harley Race and Ron Simmons. My partner Mark had met him and became friends before I arrived in the WWF. They had this group called BSK which was the two of them, Yokozuna, Rikishi, Godfather, Savio Vega and they protected each other due to the power the Kliq had in the locker room. They were all of the same type of person. When I arrived in WWF Mark asked them to adopt me into the group. For years Mark and I were Undertaker’s travel buddies. When Mark hurt his neck and left wrestling for a while I began to hang with Undertaker. He used to live down here in Tampa we hung out and spent time becoming friends. He was very influential with regards to the Mideon character. We created the Ministry stuff from the sacrifice gimmick onward. He influences my career to this day but he allows me to earn things on my own without me being tagged with the label of “Undertaker’s Boy.” I could call him to get me a job but I respect his friendship over a WWE job any day. I would rather earn it myself then abuse his friendship.

 

AW: You have wrestled on tons of PPV’s but what’s it like to be told you are going to be part of WrestleMania?

 

DK: It is truly the Super Bowl and World Series rolled together. Its makes for a great marketing slogan but its 100 percent true. This year’s one didn’t have me (laughs) or the big fanfest setup. That week is so awesome. Lets compare it to football there’s what 32 teams, 53 guys on a team and outof all that there are only two teams that get to play in the Super Bowl. To go back to today’s wrestling scene, there are so few jobs out there for guys. To get to that point in your career, to be in the WWF and be part of WrestleMania is a dream come true. I remember walking out to the match we had with the Body Donnas at WrestleMania 12. I stood in that ring looking to the crowd thinking wow look at all these people. Then I looked down at the mat and it had WrestleMania in big letters and I said wow this is so fu$king cool to be here with the WWF at WrestleMania. You have that Wonder Years experience in your mind looking back to sitting on my grandfather’s lap watching Dusty and Harley wrestle.

 

AW: As Mideon you were part of a PPV on May 23, 1999 called Over the Edge wrestling Vince McMahon but also witnessed the untimely passing of Owen Hart? Not to sound morbid, what was that like to be high from wrestling Vince then seeing everything that happened with Owen?

 

DK: My brother was there. Wrestling Vince was awesome. The Ministry was trying to get Steve since he was set to wrestle Undertaker on the PPV. I think to screw Steve they were going to have me wrestle him on Heat but Vince ended up wrestling me. My brother was pissed but I told him there are only 5 or 6 guys that have ever wrestled Vince. There is so much trust involved to wrestle him. Because he has to be on his guard because you don’t know who will take the chance to injure him. To have that trust from Vince was amazing. But then you talk about later in the evening. It was surreal because no one in the locker room saw it on camera because they were running a Blue Blazer vignette on the PPV. Then I went into the Gorilla area and they had him on the stretcher giving him CPR on the way to the ambulance. It’s unfortunate but in this business you see guys on backboards all the time so we all hoped and prayed he was fine. Two matches later Sgt. Slaughter came into the locker room I was in with Kane and Billy Gunn and told us Owen had died. It was stunning because it was someone who we had been around all day long. The last I saw him was about thirty minutes before he went up to the catwalk and he was in the overalls to cover his costume. You never get to see him again. All that stuff that happened from it was bad. They blamed Vince and the stunt people. I believe when it’s your time it’s your time. You can blame people but I ended up talking to the first paramedic on the scene and a stunt guy after the events took place. They told me they tried to put the intubation tubes in but the fall was immediate in ending Owen’s pain. The stunt guy told me when you do that kind of repel you have to step off from the platform and dangle. Then they release you and you hit the quick release thing to allow you to land like nothing had been on you. The guy said the Blue Blazer cape got wrapped around a cord. He saw Owen untangle the cape and then the release thing snapped open. The hardest time I had in a wrestling ring was the next night when we did the tribute. No one was into the matches that night.

 

AW: Let’s get back to some funnier times for you in the WWF. Somehow you found the European title in Shane McMahon’s duffle bag and proclaimed yourself the champion. What were your thoughts on making Mideon a goofy kind of character and any memories of wrestling D-Lo Brown?

 

DK: Actually I thought the Mideon character was bringing some of my personality out. I looked at it as I am doing all of this in the WWF, it’s not real. Some of it was done as a joke to see if I would do it and then they realized they needed to stop because I was doing it anyways. Plus I got to be champion. D-Lo was great to wrestle. He could go the quick style spots that big guys like me don’t normally do. I was trained in that style but I had only been seen with guys like the Warriors. I had some good matches with D-Lo.

 

AW: Shame that you will be remembered for two things. One being naked Mideon but I want to know how much fun was it to impersonate Mick Foley/Mankind during the skits with HHH after Stephanie McMahon and HHH fired him?

 

DK: Oh my god that was so fun. Cactus had been trying to use my impression for years. He is one of my favorite people in the business. Back early in my career we used to go wrestle in the Bahamas with Steve and Mike Graham. One time on the way back Steve got us some work with WCW at an event in Miami. I got the chance to work with Bob Cook against Cactus Jack and Kevin Sullivan. I had been a huge Cactus Jack fan. I liked his huge bumps. I told him I would take this backdrop bump to the floor where I went to sling shot him in and he would reverse it. It hurt like hell but looked great on TV. Terry Funk came up to me that day and said (Terry funk impersonation) that was good bump kid.

 

AW: Everyone it seems does a Terry Funk impression.

 

DK You need a Terry and a Dusty gimmick to survive. When I got hired by WCW he was still there. I am a big joker and I’m always doing impressions. So when the chance in WWF came for this idea to have me impersonate him it was awesome. Vince didn’t believe I could do a Cactus impression. I proved him wrong that day. Hunter and I spent a whole day doing about three or four skits. Then Bruce Pritchard, Cactus and I filmed the one at Universal where I rode Jaws and Back to the Future making fun of his love for theme parks and then real Mankind kicks my ass on the concrete. I had been doing naked Mideon backstage in the back for a long time.

 

AW: What led to your departure from WWE now called WWE?

 

DK: I can say I left on real good terms. For the last six months I was there I was doing dark matches with Big Bossman. My contract was up and it was the end of a longer ride than I ever expected. JR called me and said the writers don’t have anything but keep in touch because you never know. They ended up paying me another year after my contract lapsed which was amazing. I have never been injured but being full time since my career began I was burnt out and for about a year I did nothing. I sat home and did my thing. I decided I wanted to help out and get back in the ring. So Steve had me come down to his school and help out in the training process. I met some of the guys here and began working indy events like IPW/NWA Florida. This past December I did two dark matches for the WWE. I have one the 28th here in Tampa. There might be a chance for me to go back. Most of my friends are still there. Funny thing, when I left I weighed 320 pounds and now I am down to 262. I went to Undertaker’s ranch out in Texas and I worked out in his ring and that led to me becoming a different wrestler. I had been a Robert Fuller/Memphis style of wrestler. I had been the heel who let the good guy look good, I took all the bumps and do all the ha ha. Now I need to take some for myself. I am better wrestler thanks to Undertaker. Hunter told me the after the Tampa event Vince watched my match and said who is this guy and why did we let him go? I like hearing that.

 

AW: In the interim you do some work with Ron Niemi and Joe Price with NWA Florida. What are your feelings on them as promoters?

 

DK: I hadn’t worked indies until I joined IPW which is now NWA Florida. I had always been with a big promotion. I see them as my friends not only as promoters. Every show isn’t a sellout and the money could be better but they put on a great show every time they run and they take care of me.

 

AW: Who has more tattoos you or the Undertaker?

 

DK: I have I think fourteen and some of them are big. I think mine are so much better than his and I said so in Tattoo Magazine. Look at them I think he got his from the school from the blind. I’m kidding Mark, sorry ‘Taker. (laughs)

 

AW: What in the name of god possessed you to shave your head and get an eyeball tattooed on the back of your head?

 

DK: Undertaker said when he got me the Tampa dark match to give them something they’ve never seen before. Plus I had been going a little bald in the corner and it was time to do it. So the eyeball came about.

 

AW: If you could come up with your favorite opponent who would it be?

 

DK: Too Cold Scorpio AKA Flash Funk. He is my total opposite in the ring. Very underrated highflier and had success in Japan. He is someone I can work with this second and have great match. Shame I never worked the Undertaker in front of a crowd though. Ricky Steamboat when he was partnered with Shane Douglas was also great. I figured this out the other day. With the exception of Hulk Hogan I have wrestled in a match or royal rumble thing with every major World champion or superstar in the last twenty years. Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Terry Funk, Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, the Road Warriors, Macho Man and Jerry Lawler. The night before the millennium I wrestled Jerry in the Memphis Pyramid and he wore the outfit he wore in the Andy Kaufman flick “Man on the Moon.”

 

AW: Was there anyone ever you ever dreaded getting in the ring with?

 

DK: Now that I think of it I always prided myself on being able to adapt to anyone. You were here when we were talking about my opponent at that NWA Florida event last weekend who we won’t mention. I can wrestle anyone or sports entertain with you.

 

AW: Have you ever been contacted to work for Jeff Jarrett and NWA:TNA and if so would you work for them?

 

DK: Yes I would and Jeff if you read this call me. I sent a tape to his house two weeks ago and called his house to remind him about the tape and he never called me back. I thought we were friends. But he hasn’t talked to me. I saw him six months ago at an IWA-PR show in Orlando. Then I talked to him when he and his wife were expecting a kid. I talked to Road Dogg and he is also clueless why they have called me. So Jeff read Alan’s interview then call me buddy.

 

AW: In closing where do you hope the future holds for you in wrestling?

 

DK: WWE World heavyweight champion.

 

It was my honor to interview Dennis Knight and I thank him for his time. Special thanks to Mr. Keirn for allowing me to visit his School of Hard Knocks. For more information on the school, call (813) 908-3993. Log onto www.NWAFlorida.com to see where Dennis will be working next.