- 08/05/2005 (6:42:34 pm)
- Georgiann Makropoulos
Also transcript of interview with Mike Awesome
Hey everyone,Eric Gargiulo interview with Mike Awesome
Eric Gargiulo: Mike Awesome, welcome to the show. How are you doing? Mike Awesome: I’m doing pretty good man, just hanging out right now, getting ready for a Japan tour coming up, August 15. Eric: Are you going back for NOAH? Mike: Yes. Eric: What have you been up to since ECW One Night Stand? Mike: Um let’s see, I have been going to the beach, swimming in the pool, hanging out at the house, working out, spending some time with the kids, basically just doing things around the house. Eric: What are your thoughts on the whole show (ECW ONS) itself and your match (vs. Masato Tanaka)? Eric: After the show everybody was raving about how great your match was with Tanaka. Did you have that same feeling after the match? Did you know you guys hit it out of the park? Eric: Was that the first time that you had wrestled Masato Tanaka in awhile? Eric: Speaking of Japan you had the opportunity not to long ago to wrestle Kenta Kobashi who is universally regarded as one of the best in the history of the business. What are your thoughts on wrestling him? Eric: How were you received in the locker room at ECW One Night Stand with the way you had left ECW? Eric: Did you sense any heat with anyone? Eric: Speaking of the whole ECW situation, let’s tell people what we are talking about. You left ECW as World Champion and went to WCW. What is your side of the story and how things played out? Eric: When you went to WCW did Eric Bischoff or anyone ask you to come out on television with the ECW World Championship belt? Eric: How crazy was that week between the time you appeared for the first time on Nitro to the night you wrestled your last ECW match against Taz? Mike: Oh my God it was absolutely nuts. Even the week leading up to me appearing there (WCW) I heard stories that Paul had the Federal Marshals coming down and they were going to arrest me and take the belt away or something, my phone was ringing non-stop, I just said the heck with everything and I took my wife and kids and we went to the beach and we hung out on the beach for a couple of weeks. Nobody knew where we were. (Laughs) And you know, just flew out and did my gigs. In the week after I’d say it slowed down the week after I had debuted because everything was already set, what was going to happen, but I still didn’t come home, I stayed out on the beach. Any excuse for the beach. I live down here in Florida by the way. Eric: When you did go to WCW did Eric Bischoff or somebody from WCW first contact you or did you contact them first? Eric: Speaking of Hogan, have you watched Hogan Knows Best? Eric: What do you think? Mike: Yeah, he’s got his hands full with that girl (his daughter Brooke) doesn’t he? Mike: Actually you know I haven’t really been around (Hulk) Hogan in about, oh at least three, four years we kind of drifted apart after he left WCW, still hung out with him a little bit, but then just kind of drifted apart. I went back to Japan so when I knew his daughter she was like twelve and she looked like she was sixteen. I knew Nick, he was you know, four years younger, he looked like a little kid and now I see them on television and they look so much different it’s pretty wild. Eric comments he is a pretty big kid for fourteen Mike: Yeah, yeah he is and I remember seeing him before and we used to call him Nitro Nick and I was thinking, “Man this kid is kind of small for being Hulk Hogan’s kid.” But he spouted up so that is good. Eric: Another great story is the night you actually wrestled Taz. Could you tell it? Mike: Yeah, it was. That was actually I will say one of the most exciting nights of my wrestling career. Even though I was on the heel side, on a shoot heel side I guess you could kind of say, just the atmosphere, the intensity, man it was electrifying. I didn’t even go in the dressing room. It was all set up, they put me over in this different hotel, they were coming over with the script, I was going to go over it, we had to completely go by what was written down. Oh my God it was ridiculous, I had never had to have gone by a script before, you know? (Laughs) They just wanted to make sure everything was set in stone I guess. Man when I came through them front doors at that crowd and they were chanting, “You sold out,” it was just deafening. It was great. You wouldn’t have happened to have been there were you? Mike: Oh yeah it was great though, it was great being there. And you know tapes never ever capture the true essence of the sounds and how loud and I don’t know just the feeling. The videos never capture the true feeling of what it is like when you are there live, when it’s a great show. Eric: And you had to change in the car right? You weren’t in the locker room? Eric: You weren’t even in the locker room all night? Mike: No not at all. Actually we drove up to the show I don’t know maybe twenty minutes before our match, sat out in the car and waited. Eric comments that its like a throwback of when heels and baby faces would dress on opposite sides of the building and not see each other until they got into the ring. Mike: Yeah you know that’s maybe something they should go back to. (Laughs) Eric: Have you watched a tape of the match you had at ECW One Night Stand. Mike: Can you believe I have not. I have not. No. All I have seen are the first couple of matches because I watched them (live). I haven’t seen it yet. Eric: Have you gotten the DVD at least? Mike: No I don’t even have the DVD, nobody sent me anything can you believe that? I was expecting they will send me something, you know what I mean? C’mon, send something! Nothing. (Laughs) Could you believe I haven’t even seen the match I had with Kobashi yet. I need to get this stuff. Everybody just automatically thinks you know, “Hey you did the match and they just give you loads of DVDs and stuff,” Man I never get crap, never. I guess you have to ask, I don’t know. Maybe I should start asking? Eric: I ask because I was wondering if you had heard any of the comments that Bradshaw made during your match while he was doing commentary. Mike: No I haven’t. Were they good or what? He’s a controversial guy. Eric comments that he doesn’t have the exact wording in front of them but that he made fun of them for using so many false finishers and killing the business. Mike: That’s fine, that’s fine and you know a lot of people feel that way and you know maybe it is true to a degree but that’s kind of what we did in ECW, that’s what they wanted, and that’s what they got. I can’t disagree with him 100%. Maybe it helped revitalize the business at one point when the business was going down in the freaking dumps. You know? Then it comes up the whole adage, “How do you top that? Eric: Something that got you noticed here in the States early on was your infamous match in ECW against J.T. Smith. Mike: Oh yeah, where it looked like I broke his back. That’s actually when I thought my career ended in the United States, at that exact moment. I hit him, and he, I don’t know, if you haven’t seen it, you need to see it. If you have seen it, see it again. Every time I watch it I can’t help but cringe and I know he is OK now but I still, I can’t help it. It looked like I snapped his back. Eric comments that as old as that clip is that ECW would continue to use it in promotional clips several years later. Mike: Right, right, yep. Eric: Are you a distant relative of Hulk Hogan? Eric: In WCW, after the Bash incident with Hulk Hogan and Vince Russo, was your career affected by Hulk and Eric Bischoff’s departure? Mike: I’d like to blame it on that, you know? It makes me feel better. At the time I sure felt like it. I mean it just seemed like all of the sudden Hogan helped bring me in, it was through Bischoff, not really through Russo as much, and then it just seemed like wham! It was like, “We can’t fire the guy, let’s see if we can make him quit.” They could have fired me I guess. They could have found a reason they can always find a reason to fire you. But you know it would make them look bad, they didn’t want to do that. They were all concerned about what they look like and how they come off to everybody on the Internet, the chat rooms and all of that, so. Yeah so that is probably what kept me from actually getting fired I believe. Eric: So that’s what started you chasing fat chicks huh? Eric: Was ECW your favorite time of your career? Mike: Oh man I don’t know if I would say that or not. I mean it was a great time but when I was working with FMW there were some really good times there. I mean Sabu was working there, my cousin (Horace) was working there we had a great crew at one time with Hayabusa and (Masato) Tanaka. Man for a couple of years in FMW, I wouldn’t say the last couple of years, I would say leading up to the last couple of years things were just really good there and other guys there, Super Leatherface we had some really good times there, and I enjoyed being in ECW too because my friends were there. Sabu was there and the guys I hung out with, Rob Van Dam, it was a great time, yeah. Eric: I remember seeing tapes of your early days teaming with Rick Bogner. The both of you were very big and very agile at that time. Were you two contacted by anyone to bring the team over here to the United States? Eric comments that it didn’t help being saddled with that Razor Ramon gimmick at the time. Mike: Yeah that’s true, that’s true. We can always blame ourselves on bad gimmicks. I have done it to so. (Laughs) We don’t want to blame our wrestling do we? Eric: Did you find it odd that as soon as you went over on Rhyno for the WWE Hardcore Title to begin the WCW Invasion angle that you were losing on the house shows? Eric: Were you guys (ex WCW wrestlers) labeled the, “WCW guys” when you started integrating into the WWE locker room? Eric: How did the whole Team ECW angle come about because to a viewer at home it came across as something that came out of left field? Eric: Speaking of chanting ECW, do you find it odd that coming off of ECW One Night Stand that it has become forgotten about on WWE television? Mike: Right, right, you know what I thought was really odd? And I guess this information that I got was correct. Is that the Dudleys got fired right? All of them? Eric comments that from what he understands Bubba and D-Von were not exactly fired and it was more of a contract thing, but they won’t be back, but Spike was released and that was odd. Mike: Oh. Hmm. Yeah, especially after the pay-per-view, you’d think they would want to retain them, have them there for sure. Yeah. Eric: I presume any thoughts about an ECW brand extension are non existent? Mike: Right unless they wanted to release them all and then get some kind of ECW thing going on and have them under different contracts. Eric comments that after last week’s interview with Rhino where he said he had signed with NWATNA that it probably isn’t the case. Mike: Oh did he? Good for him. Glad to hear that. Rhino’s a good guy. Eric comments that he and Jeff Jarrett and wrestling Raven and Sabu in the main event of the next NWATNA pay-per-view. Mike: Oh so, you know I haven’t talked to Sabu in awhile. Everybody was speculating that the lights were going to go out and he was going to be popping up in WWE or something. I guess that didn’t happen did it? Eric: How did your tenure in WWE come to an end? Eric: Speaking of day one, were you excited about the possibilities of the WCW vs. WWE angle? Eric: What is the landscape in Japan like today? NOAH seems to be the only company making money especially after their big show last week. Mike: Actually I didn’t even know about the show in July. They had a good show? Mike: You know they got a lot of good talent over there, when those guys want to perform on them big shows they can go at it, they can do it. I can see it but yeah, wrestling over there has gone down. I was working with All Japan and it was just so bad I couldn’t do it, you know? I couldn’t stay there because they just weren’t making enough money. They weren’t drawing any people. We were doing the Budokan (Hall) and what, geez, 2,000 people? That’s a 15-20,000 seat arena, well it’s not that big. It’s 10-15 (thousand) maybe? Yeah it’s just terrible and that’s in Tokyo. And that’s one of the high drawing places. One of the places where they make their money and they couldn’t even make enough money to pay for the building. Eric comments that Kawada working for NOAH speaks volumes in itself. Mike: Yeah it does. If these guys want to make some money and survive this is what they have to do. They have to put the match ups together that the people want to see I guess. Eric: Will you be doing any wrestling at all in the States? Eric: How sore were you after your match at One Night Stand? Mike: Oh actually I hurt my knee so I was pretty sore. Yeah that’s where I power bombed Tanaka over the top rope through the table. Um I did the plancha over the top and landed on it. I think my pad hit the top rope or something. I kind of came down head-first and my knee kind of jammed into the wooden part of the table or the metal part. I got about nine stitches in my knee. It sliced part of my tendon. But it’s better now. They (WWE) had a surgeon the WWE surgeon that they had on hand was really good and just fixed me right up there in catering. Eric: How could you describe the chemistry you have with Masato Tanaka? Eric: In the remaining time I have with you here, is there anything you want to promote? Eric: Mike I want to thank you so much for coming on. I’d love to have you back and I wish you nothing but the best. Mike: Oh hey I appreciate it. I’d love to be back. It’s been great. |