SHANE DOUGLAS TALKS WWE NETWORK, AXL ROTTEN, ECW & MORE
- 02/16/2016 (3:53:37 pm)
- Bob Mulrenin
…
Prepare to be "franchised" as today The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling forms a lethal Triple Threat with an ECW Original and former ECW Champion, "The Franchise" Shane Douglas. In an over TWO HOUR discussion with John and Chad, Shane Douglas breaks down highlights of his amazing career, the in ring feuds that defined the Franchise persona and the backstage politics that always seemed to rear their ugly head in the organizations he was a part of for over three decades in the sport of professional wrestling. We also get keyed into what the Franchise thinks about today's wrestling landscape and what the reason is behind the fewest number of people in history consuming wrestling on a weekly basis.Full Episode Download Link:
Shane Douglas On His Favorite Incarnation of The Triple Threat In
ECW:
Shane Douglas On Having Heat w/ Taz In ECW & Paul Heyman Being The
Reason Why:
On the recent passing of ECW Original Axl Rotten & His Touching
Written Tribute:
Axl was first and foremost a friend and a colleague and one that I
respected as a worker in the ring. He was one of the guys that if I saw my name
on the card tonight versus Axl Rotten I knew I was in for a hell of a match on
my hands and I knew it was going to be a good match. Axl did more than up-hold
his end of the bargain in a good wrestling match. So often it is easy for us to
digress and we all want to say that the guy deserved what he got and whatever
else and there is some validity to that because at the end of the day each of us
is responsible for ourselves. I look at it from the perspective of having been
through that. Axl Rotten had worked to overcome his demons, he's been through
rehab how many times and if the guy didn't care he wouldn't even do that. I can
assure you that when you are addicted to something you are not having fun and
having a big old party and it's great, it is a real heavy burden and monkey on
your back. So the fact that Axl at so many times worked to try to over come them
tells me that he wanted to get well and the nature of that disease is it never
goes away, it tries to sneak up on you and is a cunning foe. He (Axl)
entertained a hell of a lot of people for a good, long time and he did that with
his body. Like I said in what I wrote and it came straight from the heart; all
Axl ever wanted was to be a professional wrestler and entertain people and in
that context Axl's life was a success.
Does a guy like Axl Rotten exemplify what ECW was all about in terms of
giving "cast-off" wrestlers the chance to perform to a passionate fan
base:
No question about it. With what we were doing in ECW the first thing you
had to overcome was the fear of getting hurt. ECW was extraordinarily physical
and you can see that in the tapes and Axl did that above and beyond. The Axls,
the New Jacks, the Sandmans, Terry Funk those guys went out and gave ECW its
flavor. This (ECW) was clearly something different then Saturday morning
"rasslin" or even Saturday evening wrestling. That started with the physicality
of it and to do that there was no smoke and mirrors and no trickery to what you
were seeing because guys were beating the hell out of each other. Axl certainly
personified what ECW was all about and helped give it its flavor.
ECW playing a vital role in the development of the WWE Network and
former talent not receiving royalties for their likeness being used:
Their are two ends of this compendium. The one end is the amazement of
the technology. When I was a kid it was black and white television with rabbit
ears to now with my son he can pull up with his smart phone WWE content or
historical content or pay per views or a video game. It is astounding with the
technology. It has made all of us present and accounted for to young kids. I
can't even tell you how many 8,9,10 year old kids have come up to me and said
you are my favorite wrestler and I've seen you on "the network" or on YouTube.
All of these social media's and networks have kept us current and brought us
back in a time past where our age would allow and that is the amazing part of
it. The other side of that compendium is you have somebody making an awful lot
of money off of footage that we all have worked and tore our bodies to pieces to
film and shoot originally. Nobody in 1982 or 1992 or even 2002 could have
conceived the incredible technology ever existing and coming into the market
everyday and that is only going to speed up. It's hard for you to sign away your
rights and say I just filmed you doing this wrestling match today and now we are
going to take this and you sign away so that we can use this whenever we want in
the future. Nobody could possibly conceive that, that is like Star Wars or Star
Trek back in those days.
I feel strongly that the guy who played Eddie Munster on The Munster's
back in 1965/66 or Leave It To Beaver still get residual checks. I think that
clearly we should be getting at least similar feedback and benefits and we are
not getting that. So that's why I have a big difference with Vince McMahon
because I think the technology is astounding and as he has always done he has
brought wrestling into areas that nobody could have ever conceived of. But again
as always in the past, Vince benefits from it and the wrestlers who are
literally dying to make that footage (are not). I am not saying that Vince
McMahon did it but do you think that Axl (Rotten) came into the business a drug
addict? All the banging and Tapie Death matches forced him to self medicate some
of that pain. So if we are going to do that then clearly we should be some
beneficiary of it. For me, I have two sons 10 and 14 years old and by my
thinking if anybody on the planet is going to benefit from what I broke my body
up to do it should be two kids named Connor and Caden ,nobody else. If Vince
makes a million dollars selling Shane Douglas merchandise or footage then should
get I $999,000 ? Absolutely not, but aren't I worth a thousand of it? Two
thousand? Ten thousand? Some percentage of that should be coming to me and my
kids and sadly there is a difference of opinion with Vince on that and to my
understanding there is a lawsuit being brought over it very soon so it will be
very interesting to see how that lawsuit turns out.
Becoming The Franchise in ECW and the original name of his
character:
It has really stuck after all these years. When Eddie Gilbert had called
me to come to ECW my first name in ECW was the "Fabulous One" Shane Douglas and
it was going back to the Memphis days for Eddie and my theme song was "Are You
Gonna Go My Way" by Lenny Kravitz and I think there would have been something to
that character and you would have seen some incarnation of the The Franchise
character at that time. But the name (The Franchise) was so perfect because the
NFL had each team name the franchise player and since Paul knew who he was
building the company around Shane Douglas's character and thats where the
franchise character came from and it stuck. Paul only gave me one direction of
the franchise character and he said you are the captain of the football team
that steals everyones girlfriends then screws them and leaves them at the dance.
It was a great character and very timely. As hard as it is to do something new
in wrestling, it was something new in wrestling.
In an over two hour interview Shane Douglas shoots on all aspects of his
career including, the death of ECW, throwing down the NWA title, Vince McMahon's
promises, How The Kliq killed the WWF, Ric Flair, The Dynamic Dudes and his
relationship with Johnny Ace, his last stint in WCW in 2000, The Triple Threat,
WWE today and so much more
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