23.11.2006, 19:30
Keller: Did it ever come up in conversation with other top guys about forming a union or some sort of organized labor, either official or just grouping together and going in as a group saying, "Vince, we want a bigger merchandise cut"?
Hall: Well, the closest thing was the Clique. But, you gotta remember, too, with independent contracts, promoters are slick. If I was a promoter, this is what I'd do. I'd go to my top few guys and I'd say, "Look, I'm gonna take care of you and f––– these other guys." Right? Why would you ever let anybody unionize, right?
Keller: That's the whole key—make sure the guys who make 90 percent of the difference are 100 percent happy.
Hall: Yeah, if you take care of the top guys, f––– the other guys. One thing I always remember about Vince, too. I remember my first match in Madison Square Garden; it was with Randy Savage. Half way sold out. My last match there wasn't a pay–per-view and it was sold out, which makes me proud. The music is playing, Vince is there, and I'm stretching, waiting to go out. And he goes, no wait. Make 'em wait. So I went out and all that. Blah blah blah. We had our match. It was what it was. I beat Randy. But, the feeling I got was before you go through the curtain, you're a big star. Then when you come back through the curtain, you're lucky to have a job because there are twenty guys who would do it for less. So keep that in mind. And you better pack your bags and get to the next town. Which is all fair, you know. I signed on for it, you know?
Keller: Do you followed the UFC at all?
Hall: I've been starting to watch it.
Keller: Because, they're pay structure is the same thing. Chuck Liddell gets $250K plus a massive pay-per–view bonus percentage, and you go two spots down on the card and the top payoffs are between two thousand and ten thousand.
Hall: Well, good. F––– them. Whatever. Who's making all the money? Dana White and his partners.
Keller: And they poured a lot of money into it. They lost a lot of money with no guarantee of a return.
Hall: Those guys are beating the f––– out of each other and they ain't making nothin'.
Keller: The lower guys don't make a lot, but Dana White's attitude is, everyone is happy because they're making more than they could make anywhere else. I think that was Vince's attitude. If you're not happy, go see how if the grass is greener elsewhere.
Hall: You have to remember, there is nowhere else to go. There is no place to go, unless you're bad ass enough to go to Japan. There's K1 or one of the bad sons of *****es who go over there, because they're all heavyweights. The UFC guys are all like 205. You go to K1 and they're big sons of guns.
Keller: Pride actually has a heavyweight division and UFC has three guys who are not even at the same level as the top guys in Pride.
Hall: Well, the heavyweights are brutal. At 205 is the money weight. I watched Liddell the other night and I thought it sucks. It was so short.
Keller: That's one of the downsides of UFC. You end up with no guarnatee you're going to see (a good fight). It's like boxing. You don't have a guarantee that it's going to be competitive. At least with wrestling, Vince's contention is that wrestling will outlast MMA, mixed martial arts, "because we have control over the storylines." Dana White's response is, "You can't create reality better than actual reality." The problem is, with UFC, you know there's a chance there's going to be a letdown. It's just like the Super Bowl. It might be 35 to 3, or it might be 6 to 3, or it might be a classic. It depends on whether fans are willing to be patient and take the good with the bad.
Hall: See, I always enjoyed the drama. See, I never had a problem, like I told you before—I don't care if it's real or not real, is it fun or not fun? I don't care about all them crazy naked rear chokelocks and all them armbars and all that sh––. I mean, is it fun, is it not fun, did you get your forty bucks worth or not? Cause, I'll tell you what, with that Liddell thing, that sh–– ended, and then they always have some preliminary guys who you don't even want to watch. Liddell knocked the punk out so early, then they had some other guy and I turned it off. I didn't even wanna watch these guys.
Keller: That's the tough part with UFC. There's good and bad with it being real. The good is, you know it's real, so to a lot of people it makes a difference. Then, to other people, they're going to stick with pro wrestling because they know the main event is going to come last and they know it's going to go 15, 20 minutes. At least in wrestling if it's not a good show, you actually have someone to blame. In UFC, if it's not a good show, sometimes it's just the way the cards fell that day.
Hall: Ask (Ken) Shamrock what he likes better.
Keller: I'd think he likes MMA better.
Hall: Because he's trying to get his rep back.
Keller: That's where his natural passion lies. That's where he's a hero in wrestling. He was kind of just another guy who wasn't pushed quite right (in the WWF) and he didn't quite know how to… Ken's one of those guys, when you were talking about promos earlier, Ken's one of those guys who did a great promo in the mixed martial arts world when he was being himself. Not to compare him to Jake Roberts, but in that same sense, he would just talk calm, with confidence, authoritatively, and he didn't yell. Then he got to WWF and they had him do these yelling and screaming promos.
Hall: Yeah, the angry guy interviews. I just hate angry guy interviews.
Keller: You had mentioned size, and 205 is where it's at in UFC. I wanted to talk for one second as a sidebar about light-heavyweight wrestlers. When 1-2–3 Kid came along, that was a huge break from WWF tradition that he got a push. So, talk a little bit about the dynamic you had with him, which I'd say broke a size barrier in wrestling. And then talk in general about whether you think smaller guys have a chance to draw money, but just aren't given the chance.
Hall: I'll tell you one thing that led to that, when I first started working with Shawn Michaels, he had come out of that tag team situation. I came in and was working with Shawn, but he'd still have to do spots where one dropkick, double dropkick to get guys down. Because I was considered a pretty big guy. But when I worked with Sean, I said f––– that, man. I used to go down off a punch. To me, if you can't get in trouble, then you're not worth any money. You're limited the number of opponents you can work with. See, you've never been in the ring with Kid, obviously, because Kid will knock your teeth out. Kid is a crowbar. So, I'd rather work with Kev (Nash) than Kid. But I learned to sell. Plus, I learned from Ricky Steamboat that when you're selling, guess what? The camera's on you, bro. You want the camera on you. So, let the guy whip my ass. Put his sh–– over, because I'll tell you one thing, it's a relationship. The better you sell for the guy, of course, the better he's gonna give you a comeback, you know. Then you do whatever the boss tells you to do for the finish.
Keller: What made the dynamic with you and 1–2–3 Kid work so well on camera, because historically, I don't think it gets enough credit for what it changed. Small guys had worked with big guys before, but that was just one of the more successful angles and it broke from what had been the tradition in the WWF. A skinny guy like Sean would not have gotten a push at any other time. What was it about him that made Vince give him the opportunity to get a push?
Hall: Six months before we did the angle with Kid, Vince called me into his office and he goes, "Scott…" Actually, he always called me Razor. He said, "Razor, the people are starting to chant your name in towns. I know you hear it. We gotta do something about it."
He said, "I don't want to turn you babyface like every other f–––in' guy where we run in and make a save or some sh–– like that. I got this guy who weighs a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet." Back then, remember when Global (Wrestling Federation) was on (ESPN)? He said, "I've seen this kid in Texas." I said, "Lightning Kid?" He said, "Yeah, yeah, you know him?" I said, "I don't know him, but I've seen him and I love him."
I said, "You know when he got over with me, Vince?" Because in Global, on the outside, he got thrown out. He had a 20 count to get back in. Instead of ten, it was twenty. So I'm watching the match one time and some guy throws kid out to the floor. Back then, he looked like he was nine. So what he does is, the referee is going "two, three, four…" But Kid knows it's twenty, right? So he lays on his side, puts his elbow under his head, and makes the referee count to eighteen-and-a-half, then he rolls in. When I saw that, I went, "This f–––in' guy knows." Because it was just heat. Plus he could go. So when Vince said that, he says, "Look, we're gonna do this thing. This guy is gonna beat ya'. Then six weeks later, you keep offering him money, six weeks later we're gonna have a rematch for ten grand. He's not going to beat you, but he's going to steal the money and run away. Then what we're gonna do…" This was before we did live TV when we used to syndicated market interviews. He said, "Every heel, no matter what they say about their opponent, right at the end, they're going to go, ‘Oh, speaking of losers, Razor Ramon, what a loser.'" So then he told me, six months ahead of time, you'll work with, I think, (Ted) DiBiase at Summerslam. Just beat him with your finish. And that's what I did. But what worked so cool was all the heels, when you get people talking about ya', that's better than being on TV. So all the other heels kept burying me. Pretty soon, I didn't change, the fans changed. That's the most important thing about turning. Chief Jay Strongbow taught me that. You don't change, the people change. You don't change a move, you don't change nothing, you stay the same. You can't be slappin' hands and all that sh––. Pretty soon, the fans started going, "We don't like you, Razor, but we can't let him say that about ya'." It built for six weeks. We had the rematch. Kid ran off with the money. I don't know, man, it launched his career.
Keller: Yes it did. Were you ever hesitant to sell for somebody of his size?
Hall: No, not at all.
Keller: A lot of guys would be who didn't understand.
Hall: No. I always prided myself on trying to be a television entertainer. It's sports entertainment. I broke in when it was 'rasslin, then Vince made it sports entertainment. I was very happy to be a part of sports entertainment. I had no problem with that. I had no problem with that. I'll tell ya' what, when Kid beat me on Raw, seventy percent of the people thought it was a shoot. I've had guys in Mexico tell me, "Man, his thigh hit you in the head. We thought you were knocked out." If you look at the audience picture, there were actually people with their hands on their heads going, "Oh my god!"
Hall: Well, the closest thing was the Clique. But, you gotta remember, too, with independent contracts, promoters are slick. If I was a promoter, this is what I'd do. I'd go to my top few guys and I'd say, "Look, I'm gonna take care of you and f––– these other guys." Right? Why would you ever let anybody unionize, right?
Keller: That's the whole key—make sure the guys who make 90 percent of the difference are 100 percent happy.
Hall: Yeah, if you take care of the top guys, f––– the other guys. One thing I always remember about Vince, too. I remember my first match in Madison Square Garden; it was with Randy Savage. Half way sold out. My last match there wasn't a pay–per-view and it was sold out, which makes me proud. The music is playing, Vince is there, and I'm stretching, waiting to go out. And he goes, no wait. Make 'em wait. So I went out and all that. Blah blah blah. We had our match. It was what it was. I beat Randy. But, the feeling I got was before you go through the curtain, you're a big star. Then when you come back through the curtain, you're lucky to have a job because there are twenty guys who would do it for less. So keep that in mind. And you better pack your bags and get to the next town. Which is all fair, you know. I signed on for it, you know?
Keller: Do you followed the UFC at all?
Hall: I've been starting to watch it.
Keller: Because, they're pay structure is the same thing. Chuck Liddell gets $250K plus a massive pay-per–view bonus percentage, and you go two spots down on the card and the top payoffs are between two thousand and ten thousand.
Hall: Well, good. F––– them. Whatever. Who's making all the money? Dana White and his partners.
Keller: And they poured a lot of money into it. They lost a lot of money with no guarantee of a return.
Hall: Those guys are beating the f––– out of each other and they ain't making nothin'.
Keller: The lower guys don't make a lot, but Dana White's attitude is, everyone is happy because they're making more than they could make anywhere else. I think that was Vince's attitude. If you're not happy, go see how if the grass is greener elsewhere.
Hall: You have to remember, there is nowhere else to go. There is no place to go, unless you're bad ass enough to go to Japan. There's K1 or one of the bad sons of *****es who go over there, because they're all heavyweights. The UFC guys are all like 205. You go to K1 and they're big sons of guns.
Keller: Pride actually has a heavyweight division and UFC has three guys who are not even at the same level as the top guys in Pride.
Hall: Well, the heavyweights are brutal. At 205 is the money weight. I watched Liddell the other night and I thought it sucks. It was so short.
Keller: That's one of the downsides of UFC. You end up with no guarnatee you're going to see (a good fight). It's like boxing. You don't have a guarantee that it's going to be competitive. At least with wrestling, Vince's contention is that wrestling will outlast MMA, mixed martial arts, "because we have control over the storylines." Dana White's response is, "You can't create reality better than actual reality." The problem is, with UFC, you know there's a chance there's going to be a letdown. It's just like the Super Bowl. It might be 35 to 3, or it might be 6 to 3, or it might be a classic. It depends on whether fans are willing to be patient and take the good with the bad.
Hall: See, I always enjoyed the drama. See, I never had a problem, like I told you before—I don't care if it's real or not real, is it fun or not fun? I don't care about all them crazy naked rear chokelocks and all them armbars and all that sh––. I mean, is it fun, is it not fun, did you get your forty bucks worth or not? Cause, I'll tell you what, with that Liddell thing, that sh–– ended, and then they always have some preliminary guys who you don't even want to watch. Liddell knocked the punk out so early, then they had some other guy and I turned it off. I didn't even wanna watch these guys.
Keller: That's the tough part with UFC. There's good and bad with it being real. The good is, you know it's real, so to a lot of people it makes a difference. Then, to other people, they're going to stick with pro wrestling because they know the main event is going to come last and they know it's going to go 15, 20 minutes. At least in wrestling if it's not a good show, you actually have someone to blame. In UFC, if it's not a good show, sometimes it's just the way the cards fell that day.
Hall: Ask (Ken) Shamrock what he likes better.
Keller: I'd think he likes MMA better.
Hall: Because he's trying to get his rep back.
Keller: That's where his natural passion lies. That's where he's a hero in wrestling. He was kind of just another guy who wasn't pushed quite right (in the WWF) and he didn't quite know how to… Ken's one of those guys, when you were talking about promos earlier, Ken's one of those guys who did a great promo in the mixed martial arts world when he was being himself. Not to compare him to Jake Roberts, but in that same sense, he would just talk calm, with confidence, authoritatively, and he didn't yell. Then he got to WWF and they had him do these yelling and screaming promos.
Hall: Yeah, the angry guy interviews. I just hate angry guy interviews.
Keller: You had mentioned size, and 205 is where it's at in UFC. I wanted to talk for one second as a sidebar about light-heavyweight wrestlers. When 1-2–3 Kid came along, that was a huge break from WWF tradition that he got a push. So, talk a little bit about the dynamic you had with him, which I'd say broke a size barrier in wrestling. And then talk in general about whether you think smaller guys have a chance to draw money, but just aren't given the chance.
Hall: I'll tell you one thing that led to that, when I first started working with Shawn Michaels, he had come out of that tag team situation. I came in and was working with Shawn, but he'd still have to do spots where one dropkick, double dropkick to get guys down. Because I was considered a pretty big guy. But when I worked with Sean, I said f––– that, man. I used to go down off a punch. To me, if you can't get in trouble, then you're not worth any money. You're limited the number of opponents you can work with. See, you've never been in the ring with Kid, obviously, because Kid will knock your teeth out. Kid is a crowbar. So, I'd rather work with Kev (Nash) than Kid. But I learned to sell. Plus, I learned from Ricky Steamboat that when you're selling, guess what? The camera's on you, bro. You want the camera on you. So, let the guy whip my ass. Put his sh–– over, because I'll tell you one thing, it's a relationship. The better you sell for the guy, of course, the better he's gonna give you a comeback, you know. Then you do whatever the boss tells you to do for the finish.
Keller: What made the dynamic with you and 1–2–3 Kid work so well on camera, because historically, I don't think it gets enough credit for what it changed. Small guys had worked with big guys before, but that was just one of the more successful angles and it broke from what had been the tradition in the WWF. A skinny guy like Sean would not have gotten a push at any other time. What was it about him that made Vince give him the opportunity to get a push?
Hall: Six months before we did the angle with Kid, Vince called me into his office and he goes, "Scott…" Actually, he always called me Razor. He said, "Razor, the people are starting to chant your name in towns. I know you hear it. We gotta do something about it."
He said, "I don't want to turn you babyface like every other f–––in' guy where we run in and make a save or some sh–– like that. I got this guy who weighs a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet." Back then, remember when Global (Wrestling Federation) was on (ESPN)? He said, "I've seen this kid in Texas." I said, "Lightning Kid?" He said, "Yeah, yeah, you know him?" I said, "I don't know him, but I've seen him and I love him."
I said, "You know when he got over with me, Vince?" Because in Global, on the outside, he got thrown out. He had a 20 count to get back in. Instead of ten, it was twenty. So I'm watching the match one time and some guy throws kid out to the floor. Back then, he looked like he was nine. So what he does is, the referee is going "two, three, four…" But Kid knows it's twenty, right? So he lays on his side, puts his elbow under his head, and makes the referee count to eighteen-and-a-half, then he rolls in. When I saw that, I went, "This f–––in' guy knows." Because it was just heat. Plus he could go. So when Vince said that, he says, "Look, we're gonna do this thing. This guy is gonna beat ya'. Then six weeks later, you keep offering him money, six weeks later we're gonna have a rematch for ten grand. He's not going to beat you, but he's going to steal the money and run away. Then what we're gonna do…" This was before we did live TV when we used to syndicated market interviews. He said, "Every heel, no matter what they say about their opponent, right at the end, they're going to go, ‘Oh, speaking of losers, Razor Ramon, what a loser.'" So then he told me, six months ahead of time, you'll work with, I think, (Ted) DiBiase at Summerslam. Just beat him with your finish. And that's what I did. But what worked so cool was all the heels, when you get people talking about ya', that's better than being on TV. So all the other heels kept burying me. Pretty soon, I didn't change, the fans changed. That's the most important thing about turning. Chief Jay Strongbow taught me that. You don't change, the people change. You don't change a move, you don't change nothing, you stay the same. You can't be slappin' hands and all that sh––. Pretty soon, the fans started going, "We don't like you, Razor, but we can't let him say that about ya'." It built for six weeks. We had the rematch. Kid ran off with the money. I don't know, man, it launched his career.
Keller: Yes it did. Were you ever hesitant to sell for somebody of his size?
Hall: No, not at all.
Keller: A lot of guys would be who didn't understand.
Hall: No. I always prided myself on trying to be a television entertainer. It's sports entertainment. I broke in when it was 'rasslin, then Vince made it sports entertainment. I was very happy to be a part of sports entertainment. I had no problem with that. I had no problem with that. I'll tell ya' what, when Kid beat me on Raw, seventy percent of the people thought it was a shoot. I've had guys in Mexico tell me, "Man, his thigh hit you in the head. We thought you were knocked out." If you look at the audience picture, there were actually people with their hands on their heads going, "Oh my god!"