Honky Tonk Man Shoot Interview Review

[EdwardKnoxII 0]

Saw this at 411 maina. Interesting read.

http://411mania.com/wrestling/videos/artic...p?videos_id=813

 

Shooting From The Hip: Honky Tonk Man Shoot Interview Review

Posted By Scott Rutherford on 05.27.04

 

I¡¦m cool, I¡¦m cocky, I¡¦m bad!

 

Oh, so this is what the wrestling zone looks like, how orange. I recently came across a bunch of RF Shoots and asked the 411 power brokers if they would mind me doing reviews of them since no one else at the zone seems to want to after the Rob scandal.

 

Now before I plough into this bad boy my position is this, while Rob may have a huge question mark over his head it doesn¡¦t mean that the employees of RF and ROH have to suffer for one mans mistake(s). They all make their living in some way from this organisation and if we all had such high morals we wouldn¡¦t watch WWE since the allegations of Pat Patterson trading sex for favours has been around longer than RF Video has ever been. So now that is settled on with the show

 

Growing up one of my favourite wrestlers was the Honky Tonk Man. HTM was the most hated man in the fed after Randy Savage went to the babyface ranks and would often headline the B-shows on the house circuit because people used to want to see him lose that bad. He was a man that wasn¡¦t above causing a stir and stepping on toes to make sure he never was taken advantage of.

 

HTM has many things to say about the industry through out his time in it and in this shoot it is no different. Please note that, as with any shoot interview, the chronology of a persons career is jumbled. So to keep the narrative linear I will try and put all the information in some semblance of a timeline.

 

„X He never knew what he wanted to be growing though thought he¡¦d either get into sports or entertainment and found that wrestling was the perfect mix of both.

 

„X His memories of early Jerry ¡§The King¡¨ Lawler (his first cousin) and Karl Fergie (also a cousin) and how he looked at them starting too make money with no athletic ability and seeing as he was the family athlete; he went to school and learned the craft.

 

„X Was trained by Herb Welch and had Koko B. Ware and ¡§Dr D.¡¨ David Shultz as training partners.

 

Got started in the Memphis territory and though he didn¡¦t mind the travel it got tough with having to do it weekly

 

„X Some great comments on how the lack of territories has made the art of learning how to work all but gone. Honky gets into detail about how you would often have to work two times a night for up to an hour, and you would have to build these matches without repeating spots in 2/3 fall tag matches and 20 minute broadways as a curtain jerker

 

„X Laments that the new guys coming through only learn how to do spots and not how to build a match. Talks about how if they injure themselves or their opponents go down in the first minutes of a match and the promoter wants 20 minutes, they don¡¦t know what to do on the fly.

 

„X Moves on to how Gerry Brisco put him together with Larry Latham and called them The Blonde Bombers and had them work as an underneath tag team.

 

 

„X He moves onto how a booker would take his ¡§guys¡¨ to whatever territory they were working in, often leaving a promotion in talent voids when they did so.

 

„X He relates this to how Robert Fuller left the Memphis territory and took all the talent and Jerry Jarret telling the Bombers and Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee to out and just blow the roof off.

 

„X That lead to the semi-famous Tupelo Concession Stand brawl and how after they did the match at the TV taping, they sold out the house shows for the next week.

 

„X He talks about the pay-off for that week, $999, and Jerry Lawler saying what does it feel like to have his first thousand dollar week and Honky saying ¡§it¡¦s not a $1000¡¨ and after that Lawler would start screwing him on bookings and pay-offs. To say Honky doesn¡¦t care for Lawler would be an understatement.

 

„X Relates stories of how Lawler would play a dirty tricks campaign on the WWF when it was expanding, including that he maybe set a fire in the kitchen of the Mid-South Colosseum and leaking it to the local news station to scare fans from coming

 

„X He talks some more about the Concession Stand bawl and how it was a fore runner to ECW

 

I have to say something here. How come every old timer that does a wild brawl considers it an ECW influence? I mean really! I have heard stories of Ed ¡§The Strangler¡¨ Lewis doing 5 hour wild brawls back in the 1920¡¦s, does that make him the originator of ECW? Just saying

 

 

„X He talks about how he and Dr D. helped out Hulk Hogan in his early days in Florida and how they used to house and train perennial Hogan flunky Brutus Beefcake. Funny bit as Honky calls Hogan a bald headed bastard.

 

„X Says Hogan was a good person until Vince got hold of him, and just like Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash, Bret Hart after him, turned him into an egotistical piece of work

 

„X He gets into the correlation between music and wrestling and using it to help get a character over and how it relates to sports entertainment. This was a cool bit as he explains how to make the connection, not just pass it off as opinion.

 

„X Talks about doing a Loser-Gets-A-Dye-Job match and him having to dye his blonde hair black. That ties into how the HTM gimmick came about and his initial reluctance to do the Elvis gimmick because Bill Dundee was doing it first

 

„X Moving on to how he started working Canada when Dr D convinced him to go there with him and the bond that exists between guys that have put in time up north.

 

„X Admired Stu Hart for keeping the territory going despite the geography and the seasonal weather. Said he got stiffed on his first pay-off but after having it out with Stu everything was fine. States that Stu liked him because he supplied the entertainment while other supplied the work during a match.

 

„X Offers his opinions on Stampedes big stars and says Bret Hart found his ¡§match¡¨ that he always works and how he adapts very little to circumstance of a match outside of it because he has reached the stage he doesn¡¦t have to.

 

„X Liked Bad News Allen/Brown and says Vince missed a huge opportunity not making him Heavyweight Champ and thinks Allen had every right to get into Vince when he heard the HUGE differences in pay-offs between Bad News and Roddy Piper even though they worked the same match.

 

„X Says Dynamite Kid was the innovator of the high risk outside the ring stuff and thinks he was stupid for doing all that stuff for little money. He also talks about various run-ins with Dynamite in the WWF

 

„X He also slips in a bit about working with the then rookie Chris Benoit and says that the only thing holding him back is size and promos. States you will never really get a shot at the WWF main event slot unless you can talk and are over 6 foot tall. Maybe true, but sometime talent does overcome.

 

„X Also states that it was a no brainer that the Hart Foundation and the British Bulldogs had great matches because they had worked hundreds of matches together and should have been able to have good matches at anytime.

 

„X Moving onto Vince McMahon and his talent raids on Stampede and the other territories and how he missed his window on the first go round because he though he wasn¡¦t good enough to compete there, but got picked up when Vince came round next time on a handshake deal the guaranteed no jobs on TV.

 

„X Talks about the tension that existed in the locker room at the time when all the fresh talent was coming in. Explained since there were no guaranteed contracts and they worked off the house, people in the top stops would get very protective. Funny how that never changed even when guarantees came in. Says Vince needed all the talent to get three separate house show crews on the road 300 days off the year

 

„X Says that all these shows were sell outs and anyone says that the 2000 boom was bigger than the 80¡¦s boom are kidding themselves

 

„X HTM includes some great stuff about how Vince treats talent using a great child¡¦s toy analogy to describe it. What rocks about this part of the tape is how Honky understands how these things are and just accepts it¡¦s because its what a promoter does.

 

„X Gets into how Vince wanted to make the HTM a babyface and his visions of kids in HTM jumpsuits and HTM telling him that the character was a natural heel. Honky was right there I must say.

 

„X Talks about the heat that started happening as a babyface and how the heels would get cheered when they beat on him. Says he was given the run as Intercontinental Champ when Butch Cassidy went AWOL. Laments that Steamboat went on vacation shortly after because they could have made some serious money since HTM was the ultra-heel and Steamboat the ultra-babyface

 

„X Gets into some good detail about the house show circuit and how pay-offs would work and how there was always more money when you worked with Hogan (surprise, surprise). States when he would headline a show he would get $6000 and when he would headline the exact same arena with Hogan the pay-off would be $8000 even thought the gates would be the same

 

„X Talks about the night he refused to put Savage over for the I-C title and the lead up to it. I cannot do this story enough justice and has to be heard to be believed. I must say HTM must have had a huge set of balls to stand Vince up the way he did. Funny aside as HTM says that 10 years after Vince used part of their conversation in an angle between Vince and Steve Austin

 

„X That leads to how Ted Dibiase still holds a grudge for him not getting the WWF title at Wrestlemania because of the fallout. Can¡¦t say I blame Ted on that one.

 

„X Talks a bit about Randy Savage and how he would lock Elizabeth in closets or storage rooms so no one would get onto her and his general paranoia about other guys and her. HTM slips in a choice comment that Liz was Randy¡¦s rat back in Memphis.

 

„X Talks about various wrestler and his relationships with them.

 

„X Would have agreed to cut his hair in his run with Brutus Beefcake if he got a good enough pay-off for it and reckons he would have gotten great heat when he came back with a big fake wig. It worked well for Kurt Angel if you remember

 

„X They get into talk about drugs and steroids. Says steroid abuse was rampant and how workers today freak when they are asked about the juice. He says that Vince didn¡¦t ask them or force them to take steroids and that everyone was on them before they even got to the WWF. Don¡¦t forget, this was still in the day of independents, AWA and NWA soit wasn¡¦t like that had to be huge to find work.

 

„X They lead into Honky¡¦s program with the Ultimate Warrior and asking Hercules what he was like to work with and Herc stating your going to dread getting up in the morning because you know what you have to face that night. Honky goes a bit weird here saying that Herc was a good worker, proving he has been hit in the head a few times.

 

„X Believes Rick Rude owes him because he taught Warrior to relax and slow down.

 

„X Says there was no problem with how he lost the title to the Ultimate Warrior because Vince had told him that they were going all the way with the Warrior and Honky was fine with that because Vince treated him as a professional unlike they way they were going to job him to Savage.

 

„X Talks about his post reign position on the card and how the pay-offs dropped steeply the further down the card he got.

 

„X He gets into how he then would position himself to get the first feud with the hottest new things because he could still make the same money headlining C-shows with them as he did before as champ.

 

„X Gets into the team he had with Greg Valentine and loved how they would work together. He states that they would have gone all the way but Vince signed his ultimate wet dream, The Road Warriors, and the team quietly broke up after that.

 

„X Honky starts off on a great story on how he agreed to testify against Vince at the steroid trail, and how he avoided a subpoena. There¡¦s also a great story when he was to be flown in to do a deposition and using an unused ticket paid for by the WWF and the government reimbursing HTM for it.

 

„X Doesn¡¦t think much about Dusty Rhodes, who promised him and a bunch of the others a spots in WCW and no one got anything. Hated taking his splash because it hurt so much.

 

„X Talks about how he wanted to get onto commentary because it was the most secure job on the roster with the most prestige amongst the boys and the office

 

„X Pissed off that he didn¡¦t get the promised run with Hogan. Had a few spot shows and how the pay-offs went through the roof. The guys that worked with Hogan were getting $70,000 a week, so you have to wonder how much Hogan made and then how much Vince made.

 

„X Thinks the Undertaker gimmick was groundbreaking and gives Vince his due for the creation of that character. I should say Mark might have had something to do with that also, just saying.

 

„X He tells some sad stories about Kerry Von Erich and how fucked up he was.

 

„X Gets into following Hogan into WCW and how Bicshoff only hired him to shut Jimmy Hart up and Easy E saying he wasn¡¦t a fan of his work. Also relates how he refused Ric Flair when asked to come to a TV taping so they could get a look at him. HTM says that they already know what he is about so he shouldn¡¦t have to.

 

„X Calls Bicshoff an egotistical manic. Tells how Bicshoff was going to give him a contract when they freed up some money from pre-existing bad contracts. He goes on to say that the weeks past and he heard nothing and Brad Armstrong gets renewed for another three years and he hadn¡¦t worked there for over a year. Says he didn¡¦t care about the actual amount, just that he had a job the next week.

 

„X Talks about the general stupidity of WCW pushing him hard for 4 months and then not wanting to give him a contract.

 

„X Gets into how Hogan fucked up not bringing in a crew with him to WCW and how Hogan wouldn¡¦t look after the guys that did come in except for Ed Leslie. He relates that to his leaving of WCW because Bicshoff wouldn¡¦t give him a contract when he said he would. Honky said he would only lie down for Johnny B. Badd if he had a contract and when Hogan refused to help, he walked out of the building while his music was playing.

 

„X Talks about his second run with the WWF and how he thinks Vince brought him in and buried him as pay back from the Savage hold up. Decide to walk away when he when it was taking over a month to get clearance to do Indy shows. Is loyal to the Indy promoters and hated to screw them over because of WWF politics.

 

Random Honky Thoughts:

 

„X Start telling a story about how Dr D came up with the Wrestlemania concept and Vince and Hogan stole it from him and how he was never the same after. Personally I think Vince had plans for something like this for a long time. It¡¦s hardly an original concept and with Vince doing the national expansion it was only a matter of time.

 

„X Thinks the ¡§JJ¡¨ Jeff Jarret character was a shot at him by Vince McMahon. When it failed and he went to WCW, he only got over because he had ¡§that big-titted broad¡¨ with him. That would be Debra McMichael to the rest of us. When Jarret got back to the WWF he was back to being heatless with the same retread JJ gimmick. Thinks JJ was spineless for taking on the gimmick, especially when the HTM was in the WWF the 2nd time round.

 

„X Says The Rock was a superstar from the beginning and it was inevitable. Calls him a great worker because he is the complete wrestler, can talk, work, has the look and demand the money to go with it. Claims that¡¦s why he never rated Bobby Eaton as a great worker. But he thinks Hercules is?

 

„X Was there for the Bret Hart screw job but left the building early. Knew Bret wouldn¡¦t do a job to anyone, let alone Shawn. Wished he would have been there to see the Vince/Bret fight and say that Rick Rude told him Bret didn¡¦t miss. Honky was pissed because he was in the dressing amongst the Hart Foundation and would have had a good seat.

 

„X Not especially close with Brian Christopher, says Lawler disowned him when he was a boy and still treats him rough. Thinks he is a good talent, just too small.

 

„X Thinks Vince Russo was pushing him out of the commentary position. Would often get written out by him after the bookers had given him stuff to do. Thinks he let power get to him, sighting making himself the WCW Champ. Russo loved his T n¡¦ A so much that, at one point, he had 26 women under contract.

 

„X Never any tension with him and Shawn Michael and HHH. Thinks Hunter worked hard to get where he is. Liked Hunter because he was respectful of the veterans. He blossomed when he got away from Shawn.

 

„X Thinks Kevin Nash was lazy, over paid and overrated. Not very talented. Points out that Big Kev thinks he is new generation but goes out with the grey beard and the grey hair.

 

„X Was never impressed with Scott Hall. Questions whether he was worth $1.2 million a year.

 

„X Though there was room for a third fed. Just thought ECW was to extreme and that workers destroyed themselves for little money. Says they reached a level where they couldn¡¦t go any further and it hurt there product.

 

„X Thinks the Rock-a-Billy character was horrible. Didn¡¦t think it was a slight on him, more it was punishment for Billy Gunn trying to leave. Questions why they keep him on when he offers nothing. Three years later and we are all still asking that question

 

„X Says he didn¡¦t know that Sunny had problems and the he thought she was gorgeous. Treated him with respect and was sad to hear about her troubles. Says when Sable came in it was inevitable there was going to be friction.

 

„X Thinks the business will revert to the traditional heel/face rivalry. Would often tell new boys coming threw to ignore all the high spot stuff and learn how to wrestle. Most didn¡¦t and we have a generation of wrestlers that don¡¦t know how to work. Says guys like Russo will never understand that you don¡¦t create superstars overnight, there cultivated. Citing The Rock and Austin took years to get over.

 

„X Talks about ribbing and how he didn¡¦t like it when they would become destructive. Thinks them shitting in Tammy¡¦s food and Sables gym bag was wrong. Didn¡¦t mind when they had a dump in Jerry Lawler¡¦s crown however.

 

„X Doesn¡¦t ever want to book a territory. Doesn¡¦t think he was good at coming up with angels and such. Says he is good at adding to angels when there going and looking after his own stuff.

 

As usual there are a bunch of matches on here and I am no match reviewer so I won¡¦t do recaps. The actually matches are from his pre-WWF days as part of The Blonde Bombers and check out how different he looks. If you are curious on what a pre-Rock-n-Roll Express Rocky Morton looks like, he in one of the matches as well. There is also on post-2000 indie match that even I know is pretty bad.

 

As for the interview, this was just the major points and as with any great talker, there is no way you can put everything down they say. The mid to late 80¡¦s stuff is all fascinating and any smark worth his Kayfabe Breaker Card should see this. He is one of the few old timers that like the theatre of wrestling as much as actually working a match so he has opinions that are a little different than most.

 

Keep in mind this was recorded before Wrestlemania 2001 and you will see allot of what he was talking about was spot on. Honky sometimes has an over inflated sense of his self worth but I think what has been forgotten that after Hogan and Savage, Honky was the main draw for the fed in its first heyday.

 

If you are a fan of this era of wrestling get this tape now. B+

[Vanhalen 0]

http://forums.thesmartmarks.com/index.php?showtopic=17414

 

Brandon Truitt >>>>>> Anyone even attempting to review a shoot