Neal Jones passed this recap along.
Recap of Bull Buchanan on In Your Head Wrestling Radio, 08/15/2014
by Vic Schiavone
Hosts Jack E. Jones and One Inch Biceps welcomed former WWE wrestler Bull Buchanan to IYH Wrestling Radio. Bull talked for 90 minutes about his experiences in professional wrestling and his upcoming retirement match on Saturday, November 22nd in Bowdon, Georgia.
Highlights included the following:
* His thoughts on whether John Cena is a good worker:
“That’s the thing that people don’t understand about this business; there are a lot of guys that are really good workers that never get the credit for it. And I’m going to go ahead and throw this out here, and I can hear the cascade of boos all over the country when I say it: John Cena is a good worker…A lot of people haven’t seen him do a lot of stuff that he can do. But when you’re making a gazillion dollars a year to shake your hand in front of your face and do the five-knuckle shuffle, why do it? (Hulk) Hogan was a lot better worker than people give him credit for. Most people have never seen Hogan work over in Japan. When they do see it, they’re like ‘Wow, I never thought he could do anything like that.’ Of course he can do it; he just doesn’t have to. The Rock, (Steve) Austin, all those guys were great workers, but when you make a million dollars by flipping somebody off and giving them a stunner, why go out there and do fifteen armdrags and dropkicks and all that stuff?”
* On getting yourself over:
“The guys that truly get over are not playing (a character). Part of the problem as I see it today, and it’s not a knock on anybody or any group of guys, it is what it is, but you have these people telling them ‘OK, this is your character; this is who you’re going to be.’…You can’t tell somebody how to be their self. Nobody had to tell Steve Austin how to be Steve Austin…I had the pleasure of meeting Dwayne Johnson down in Memphis when we both went down there and we used to take a lot of road trips together…When he was Flex Kavana in Memphis, he was still The Rock. We’d make these trips and he was saying stuff like laying the smack down on people; he just wasn’t doing it on TV yet…The first day I met Ron Simmons, not five minutes after I met him he said ‘DAMN!’ You can’t tell somebody how to be their self, and the people that truly get over in this business like Ron Simmons are themselves. They’re not playing a character, they are a character. Ron Simmons is a character; Tommy Rich is a character; all these guys are characters without having to be told ‘Hey, be a character.’ If you spend five minutes with them, you’re like wow, that guy is a really funny guy, and it comes across on TV, too.”
* Changes in the business after the WWE bought WCW:
“I’ll be honest with you; it changed once we bought WCW. Once the option was gone, it changed. I’m not sure what our total roster number was, but overnight our roster doubled with all the guys that were brought in from WCW…A lot of these guys were already established stars; you’re crazy not to use them on TV…When the option isn’t there anymore it goes from ‘Can you do this for us?’ to ‘Hey, this is what you’re doing for us.’…The business changed a lot overnight…When we eliminated our competition, right off the bat houses started dropping. I think the feeling was that if we buy WCW all of their fans are going to come watch the WWE. But there were a lot of WCW fans that really didn’t like the WWE, and once WCW wasn’t there anymore they just quit watching…It was a competition, and we were excited we won, but in all the excitement I think we forgot this might hurt business, and I really think it did. I really think it’s going to be hard to recapture that perfect storm when you had WCW versus WWE and ECW.”
Other topics discussed included:
* What was it like working for Smoky Mountain Wrestling and Jim Cornette?
* Did he ever have any talks with Paul Heyman about going to ECW?
* Who does he feel he’s had his best matches with?
* Why did The Godfather hate the Right To Censor gimmick?
* Did he see any of the aftermath from Survivor Series 1997 (the Montreal Screwjob)?
This interview is available for listening at http://www.iyhwrestling.com/viewnews.php?autoid=25379
or www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YJEhfHYs4c
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