Anthony Gundacker sent this recap in:
Former TNA Superstar and X Division Champion, Johnny Devine, was the guest on Thursday’s episode of talkIMPACTradio. Here are some notes from the show:
-Johnny confirmed that he was indeed backstage at both the Royal Rumble and Monday Night RAW. Indy asked if this could lead to anything and Johnny said he’s always open to get paid to wrestle. He did confirm that he has a lot of friends in WWE locker room.
-Johnny relived the Stu Hart dungeon citing it as dirty as everyone says it was. People flew in from all over the world to train and that room might as well been a furnace in the summer.
-Johnny says he’s doing indies every now and then, trains atleast one day a week at Can Am Wrestling School.. He’s focused on school, where he’s taking a course in broadcasting.. Johnny said he’s taking a 2 year class scrunched down to 8 months and that if he does well enough writing maybe he’ll replace Vince Russo (jokingly?). Indy said it wouldn’t be too hard to write better then Russo.
-Devine said when he originally pitched the X Division traitor idea to Bubba and company, He said he had heat with 90% of the Xdivision, i.e: Shelley, Williams, Kazarian, etc… But ofcourse none of that heat got explained on the air.. The deal was to help 3D get the title off those guys and they would help him keep it. If he had creative control he said the first person he would have feuded with would have been Petey Williams… Then Kazarian in a cage match.. or “a Giant Birdcage Match or whatever they call it.” It was then joked that TNA should actually call it The Giant Birdcage Match and tie it in with Giant Turkey Suit match.
-Devine shared a crazy story from Wednesday.. He was driving back from an audition and is almost involved in a multi car pile up, but thanks to his expert driving and veteran years driving in winter conditions.. he only became a witness. He said it probably ended up being an 8 car pile up but he didn’t see how it ended up as he didn’t regain control of his car for probably another mile and a half.
-A caller asked Johnny about internet wrestling fans and if TNA books to “mess with TNA fans.” Devine said if you’re talking about wrestlers, Everyone under the age of 35 hits up the internet for feedback. Whether it be through a website, Myspace or Forums. He said the internet is a valuable tool for workers.. But there are some guys that get bent out of shape over it as peoples opinion can be valuable marketing tools but they are also just people’s opinions.. As far as TNA, WWE and ROH doing things to directly piss off the internet community, ABSOLUTELY THEY DO.. As much as the internet community is a low percentage of fans.. They are a large percentage of profit margin as far as ppv’s and products.. On one hand, Booking to swerve internet fans is done for reaction but at the same time it’s to put them in their place to prove they can still do things that internet fans had no idea about. He made a good example involving him, Russo and talkIMPACT.com.. Johnny went on to make some more great points on the topic.
-a talkIMPACT user submitted a question asking what was the significance of the GI Joe Cobra Logo on his vest in TNA.. Devine talked about how GI Joe was his favorite cartoon.. He then talked about how if someone changes over 40% of the logo then it’s not the same logo.. He explain how he changed it. Indy set Devine up by saying “And now they know..” To which Devine replied, “And knowing is half the battle.. GI JOOOOOOEEEE.”
-Devine brought us back to the infamous night that he got stabbed. He went into great detail as to what happened.. in all it was a random group of guys.. And he and Andy had gotten the best of the 4 guys in a 2 on 4 fight.. and had both been stabbed by the same kid resulting in obscenely expensive hospital bills.
-Johnny then brought the mood back up with a story that occurred the day before the show after his near death multi car pile up where he had to pee.. While driving in a tunnel in Detroit.. he had no other option other then to pee in a bottle. He said he had more in him then the bottle could hold so he had to empty the bottle and refill it.. In the process he managed to get the lovely liquid all over his pants.
-A caller from the United Kingdom got through the line and asked who he would like to wrestle in ROH. He immediately said Danielson. He would love to have a 30 minute showdown with Danielson. He then named Nigel McGuiness citing him as one of his favorite people in the world and one of the funniest people he’s ever met.. He also named Austin Aries and Delirious stating he’s a huge fan of the character and that he would to have a promo battle with Delirious. Devine was the asked about Tyler Black, He said that he had actually already worked with Tyler Black..
-Indy then asked Devine who would he love to dance with in WWE. His first choice was Rey Mysterio saying he knows him and Rey could tear it up. He named Matt Hardy.. and thought hard saying, “…damn, I was just there..” He also named John Cena and to some surprise, The Big Show and then put over Big Show’s amazing athleticism.. They talked about Show skinning the cat at Royal Rumble, Devine dubbed that as pretty [bleeping] impressive for a 500 pound guy. But the guy he thinks he would have the best match with is Chris Jericho..
-Indy said that he heard Mickey Rourke backed out– Devine then said “Here’s a great talkIMPACT.com exclusive…” Telling us about how he and Jericho watched the Mickey Rourke clip together backstage at RAW.. and how he joked with Chris Jericho about how Mickey Rourke wants to toss his salad. The group talked about how the media coverage is huge, with the toss salad clip and how the media probably doesn’t actually know what that means.
-Indy brought up that Johnny Devine did some stuff with ECW.. Devine said he LOVED ECW with a passion and that it was the place that he wanted to go because he knew that it was the place that he would get a shot.. It’s the place where he could get over with talent alone. He said that Heyman said if Devine moves east, that he will be on every show that they run.. Devine was amped for that… And a few months later ECW folded before Johnny could begin full time with ECW. Indy and Devine agree’d that Johnny Devine as we know it would be completely different if ECW had not folded.
-Indy then asked Johnny Devine if he was good at karaoke.. Devine said he was FANTASTIC AT KARAOKE.. and that his rendition of AD/DC’s “Big Balls” is legendary. Indy asked Devine if he would battle The Human Tornado is a KARAOKE BATTLE.. And Devine said ABSOLUTELY.. So there you have it.. Within the coming week or two, Live on talkIMPACTradio… JOHNNY DEVINE .VS. THE HUMAN TORNADO IN A KARAOKE BATTLE.. Devine said he will not battle Tornado in a dance off though cause he can’t touch him there.
-Devine was then asked about his time with Serotonin. He did a beautiful impression of Vince Russo coming up to them with the plan. He said that Russo actually let them come up with their own characters. He said the original idea they came up with was that they were all supposed to be genre’s of music. Bentley was 80’s Hair Metal. Kazarian was Emo Goth Rock. And Devine was more Black Sabbath/Punk side of Metal.. all crossed with kind of a comic book feel. He said that a lot of the ideas they had were so good that if they were allowed to do them were so good that they would have gotten over big. He told us about an idea that Raven had inspired by SAW. He wanted to lock BG James in his underwear in a hallway full of doors with broken glass and lemons. In the ring Serotonin would beat down Kip in the ring.. And BG would have to either forfeit by taking the door to his left.. or find the door to the ring and save his partner.
-Johnny was asked what he thinks he would be doing if he was in TNA today.. Devine said he’d probably be sitting at home like a lot of the good TNA guys are.. Simply because TNA claims that they don’t have enough time for everyone. Devine gave examples of how ironic it is to put guys that are already over and that have been around for years and years on television so much, i.e: Kurt Angle getting 4 segments a show. Devine said instead of building up future stars for the top guys with that time, They just keep devoting that time to the same people. Indy said that he don’t want to say that the top stars (i.e Angle, Booker, etc) next opponents are falling off the back of the WWE truck but he bets some of the recent WWE releases will be at the top of TNA soon.. Devine said he’s sure some of them will be headed to TNA.
-The crew mentioned D’Lo working ROH soon.. They asked Devine if he’s going to do some work with ROH. Devine said that he’ll be at the ROH show in Detroit to check them out and see what’s behind that door.
The interview contained all this and much more.. You can hear the interview in it’s entirety at talkIMPACTradio.com
And stay tuned for incoming details on Johnny Devine in a karaoke battle with The Human Tornado.