1 00:00:07,590 --> 00:00:12,178 {\an8}The World Wrestling Entertainment Ladies Champion, 2 00:00:12,262 --> 00:00:15,265 {\an8}Wendi Richter! 3 00:00:16,641 --> 00:00:21,396 {\an8}Wendi Richter was the champion, and everything was fine for a while. 4 00:00:21,479 --> 00:00:24,858 {\an8}But Wendi had become a problem, as I recall. 5 00:00:26,401 --> 00:00:29,029 Every woman in professional wrestling wants my belt, 6 00:00:29,112 --> 00:00:30,697 but I want it too and I had to... 7 00:00:30,780 --> 00:00:32,532 When it was time to do the honors, 8 00:00:32,615 --> 00:00:36,536 and pass that championship to someone else, she resisted. 9 00:00:37,120 --> 00:00:41,458 And it's like, "This is show business." You know? "I'm writing a script." 10 00:00:42,042 --> 00:00:44,502 "You're holding my championship belt." 11 00:00:44,586 --> 00:00:45,962 "It's mine, it's not yours." 12 00:00:46,046 --> 00:00:47,422 "I'm not gonna give it up." 13 00:00:48,256 --> 00:00:49,340 "Well, all right." 14 00:00:50,717 --> 00:00:52,385 "I'm gonna make you give it up, then." 15 00:00:52,469 --> 00:00:56,139 This contest is for the ladies' championship. 16 00:00:56,222 --> 00:00:57,891 {\an8}The audience is expecting a match. 17 00:00:57,974 --> 00:01:01,352 {\an8}You don't wanna fire someone when you're expecting a match, 18 00:01:01,436 --> 00:01:03,188 because you're screwing the public then. 19 00:01:03,271 --> 00:01:06,357 So, get the match in the ring, as my dad used to say, 20 00:01:06,441 --> 00:01:07,525 and then you figure it out. 21 00:01:09,235 --> 00:01:11,863 Bell's gone, and we're underway in this title match-up. 22 00:01:11,946 --> 00:01:14,282 The match is in the ring, Wendi has the championship. 23 00:01:14,365 --> 00:01:15,241 It's really easy. 24 00:01:15,992 --> 00:01:18,620 Somewhere in this match, Wendi's gonna get rolled up. 25 00:01:18,703 --> 00:01:20,872 Told the ref simply, "Just count to three." 26 00:01:20,955 --> 00:01:24,417 Oh, small package. Nicely executed. 27 00:01:24,501 --> 00:01:25,960 Whoa, was that close. 28 00:01:28,755 --> 00:01:30,131 What was that? 29 00:01:30,215 --> 00:01:34,344 The referee counted, "One." I lifted my shoulder up, 30 00:01:34,427 --> 00:01:38,807 and he counted, "two, three," even with my shoulders off the mat. 31 00:01:38,890 --> 00:01:41,434 Wendi Richter has lost her title. 32 00:01:41,518 --> 00:01:43,895 That was a very painful night. 33 00:01:43,978 --> 00:01:46,856 My dreams were completely shattered. 34 00:01:47,482 --> 00:01:52,862 I was humiliated, and it was on television. 35 00:01:52,946 --> 00:01:54,364 I didn't care. 36 00:01:54,447 --> 00:01:56,699 It was like, the public being in an uproar... 37 00:01:56,783 --> 00:01:59,953 "Oh my God, you know, it really wasn't a fair count." 38 00:02:00,036 --> 00:02:02,705 My answer to that is life's not fair sometimes, 39 00:02:02,789 --> 00:02:05,208 and, you know, I don't fight fair. 40 00:02:05,291 --> 00:02:09,420 There's a saying in wrestling, "It's nothing personal, just business." 41 00:02:09,504 --> 00:02:12,841 And I think that's what Vince McMahon is. He's a businessman. 42 00:02:13,716 --> 00:02:16,886 Wendi came back after the match. 43 00:02:16,970 --> 00:02:19,180 She looked at me, bowed her head, and walked out. 44 00:02:19,264 --> 00:02:21,641 That was the last I ever saw of Wendi. 45 00:02:21,724 --> 00:02:24,310 But for me, it was nothing personal. 46 00:02:24,394 --> 00:02:28,731 This is business, and there's nothing I wouldn't do for our business. 47 00:02:37,782 --> 00:02:41,452 {\an8}Vince McMahon came in wearing a neck brace and smiling, 48 00:02:41,536 --> 00:02:45,415 {\an8}in his second week on trial for steroid-selling conspiracy. 49 00:02:45,498 --> 00:02:50,378 Today, McMahon was upstaged by his former number one star, Hulk Hogan. 50 00:02:50,461 --> 00:02:53,673 The man behind the character would shed his Spandex 51 00:02:53,756 --> 00:02:56,176 and jump into the ring at US District Court 52 00:02:56,259 --> 00:03:00,054 to testify with immunity against Vince McMahon, his former boss. 53 00:03:00,638 --> 00:03:02,390 This was to be the main event 54 00:03:02,473 --> 00:03:05,810 in the prosecution's conspiracy case against McMahon. 55 00:03:05,894 --> 00:03:09,063 It was time for me to go testify. I walked across the courtroom. 56 00:03:09,731 --> 00:03:12,984 As I walked by, there was Vince McMahon sitting there, 57 00:03:13,067 --> 00:03:16,529 and we were at each other's throats at the time. 58 00:03:17,697 --> 00:03:20,992 The feds thought that this is the perfect opportunity for me 59 00:03:21,075 --> 00:03:22,410 to throw dirt on Vince 60 00:03:22,493 --> 00:03:25,872 and all of a sudden run wild with the wrestling world. 61 00:03:26,539 --> 00:03:31,628 Went and testified, and I think they were shocked. 62 00:03:31,711 --> 00:03:34,881 On cross-examination, a powerslam by the defense. 63 00:03:46,559 --> 00:03:48,561 One of the last times I talked to Vince, 64 00:03:48,645 --> 00:03:51,147 and it had been months and months since we talked, 65 00:03:51,231 --> 00:03:52,774 one of the last things I said to him, 66 00:03:52,857 --> 00:03:55,860 "Brother, we go all the way up together, and we go all the way down together." 67 00:03:55,944 --> 00:03:57,362 "Don't forget that." 68 00:03:57,445 --> 00:03:59,697 As far as Hulk Hogan on the stand, 69 00:03:59,781 --> 00:04:01,658 I can tell you that the government was surprised. 70 00:04:02,533 --> 00:04:04,702 I could see the faces on the prosecutors. 71 00:04:04,786 --> 00:04:08,623 "This is not what we were expecting." Because Hogan totally backed Vince. 72 00:04:08,706 --> 00:04:10,708 Did the government know what you'd say? 73 00:04:10,792 --> 00:04:12,460 No, I wouldn't tell them. 74 00:04:12,543 --> 00:04:16,089 I just said, "I'll say whatever you guys need me to say." 75 00:04:16,172 --> 00:04:19,092 Told them what they wanted to hear, but I knew what I was gonna say. 76 00:04:19,175 --> 00:04:20,551 I was gonna tell the truth. 77 00:04:20,635 --> 00:04:23,888 He didn't sell steroids. He didn't tell people to take them. 78 00:04:23,972 --> 00:04:26,516 All the stuff they said about him was not true. 79 00:04:26,599 --> 00:04:30,311 He was crafty in terms of giving the government what they wanted 80 00:04:30,395 --> 00:04:33,231 to a certain extent, but not what they really wanted. 81 00:04:33,314 --> 00:04:38,194 They really wanted someone to say, "Vince McMahon told me to take steroids." 82 00:04:38,278 --> 00:04:41,823 They even called me. They wanted me to testify against Vince. 83 00:04:41,906 --> 00:04:43,825 "Did Vince encourage you to do steroids?" 84 00:04:43,908 --> 00:04:46,577 I said, "No, I was using steroids before I met Vince." 85 00:04:47,161 --> 00:04:51,040 He let us do it, let's put it thataway, but he didn't sell it to us. 86 00:04:51,124 --> 00:04:55,420 There was a strong influence to take them, just based on common sense 87 00:04:55,503 --> 00:04:58,756 and realizing all the guys that are on steroids are the main event guys, 88 00:04:59,674 --> 00:05:03,469 but Vince telling me or any other wrestler to take steroids? 89 00:05:04,846 --> 00:05:05,805 I never saw it. 90 00:05:06,889 --> 00:05:11,102 Vince isn't going to someone and going, "Hey, you, go on steroids." 91 00:05:11,686 --> 00:05:14,605 But would he say, "Hey, you need to work out harder," 92 00:05:14,689 --> 00:05:16,441 thinking they'll go on steroids? 93 00:05:16,524 --> 00:05:18,735 Um... who knows? 94 00:05:18,818 --> 00:05:20,528 I wasn't guilty of anything. 95 00:05:20,611 --> 00:05:23,948 Didn't change the fact these bastards were coming after me for no good reason. 96 00:05:24,032 --> 00:05:25,533 So, naturally, I'm concerned. 97 00:05:27,285 --> 00:05:28,953 This is my liberty, 98 00:05:29,037 --> 00:05:35,335 and when you're about to hear the... the verdict, it's like, "Holy shit." 99 00:05:35,418 --> 00:05:37,337 That's a moment you'll never forget. 100 00:05:37,420 --> 00:05:41,632 That's a moment whereby my life is about to change. 101 00:05:42,216 --> 00:05:44,594 World Wrestling Entertainment head Vince McMahon 102 00:05:44,677 --> 00:05:47,263 allowed himself just the slightest expression of relief 103 00:05:47,347 --> 00:05:48,598 as the verdict was read. 104 00:05:49,349 --> 00:05:51,225 The verdict, not guilty. 105 00:05:51,309 --> 00:05:53,853 Cheers from fans roared through the courtroom. 106 00:05:53,936 --> 00:05:57,690 An emotional hug from his wife of 27 years, Linda. 107 00:05:58,191 --> 00:06:00,568 I was there. The verdict happened and, uh... 108 00:06:01,486 --> 00:06:03,488 it was relief. 109 00:06:04,739 --> 00:06:08,159 it shouldn't have gone to trial. They didn't have evidence to convict him. 110 00:06:08,242 --> 00:06:09,243 Hello, I'm Vince McMahon... 111 00:06:09,327 --> 00:06:13,039 I think they did it because they thought Vince was a bad guy, 112 00:06:14,165 --> 00:06:17,335 If you're a newspaper reporter, you can go after him for that. 113 00:06:17,960 --> 00:06:21,798 If you're gonna put him on trial, you have to have more than that. 114 00:06:21,881 --> 00:06:23,257 If there were any doubters 115 00:06:23,341 --> 00:06:27,345 as to what World Wrestling Entertainment was and is all about, 116 00:06:27,428 --> 00:06:29,597 I think this just cleared up all of them. 117 00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:32,600 I remember Linda, "It proved we didn't have a steroid problem." 118 00:06:32,683 --> 00:06:36,729 And it's like, no, the case proved, by all testimony, 119 00:06:36,813 --> 00:06:40,274 that most of your guys were on steroids, and your biggest stars were on steroids. 120 00:06:40,358 --> 00:06:42,443 That's what the case proved. 121 00:06:42,527 --> 00:06:45,738 Gonna try to portray him as the good guy, but Vince was the bad guy. 122 00:06:45,822 --> 00:06:47,532 He wasn't convicted, nor should he have been, 123 00:06:48,199 --> 00:06:50,201 but he wasn't the good guy. 124 00:06:50,284 --> 00:06:52,578 I don't know that I learned really anything. 125 00:06:52,662 --> 00:06:56,791 The only thing I learned about business is some people in the government suck. 126 00:06:58,084 --> 00:06:59,168 World Wrestling... 127 00:06:59,252 --> 00:07:02,505 Vince always paints himself as the victim in this trial. 128 00:07:02,588 --> 00:07:05,216 I don't think it was a surprise that he was found innocent. 129 00:07:05,299 --> 00:07:08,344 I don't... I don't mean to imply that he should have ended up guilty, 130 00:07:08,428 --> 00:07:10,388 but there are rumors and reports 131 00:07:10,471 --> 00:07:13,224 about everything Vince's team did to try to win. 132 00:07:13,307 --> 00:07:17,562 Stories of contacting witnesses, of payoffs, jury tampering, 133 00:07:17,645 --> 00:07:20,731 all of which paints Vince in a way that's very different 134 00:07:20,815 --> 00:07:22,984 than the way he would like to portray himself. 135 00:07:23,568 --> 00:07:24,402 Stay tuned... 136 00:07:24,485 --> 00:07:27,488 So after the trial, after this whole series of scandals, 137 00:07:27,572 --> 00:07:29,824 Vince probably felt invincible. 138 00:07:30,408 --> 00:07:32,285 But that wasn't the case. 139 00:07:33,286 --> 00:07:35,788 Regardless of what the outcome was, 140 00:07:35,872 --> 00:07:39,083 the trial affected business in a huge way. 141 00:07:39,167 --> 00:07:41,836 Things got tight, and things got scary. 142 00:07:42,420 --> 00:07:44,964 Some executives left. I don't blame them. 143 00:07:45,047 --> 00:07:48,176 Would I wish they didn't leave and what have you? 144 00:07:48,676 --> 00:07:49,552 Sure I do. 145 00:07:49,635 --> 00:07:52,763 Uh, because it hurt the company, the fact that they left. 146 00:07:52,847 --> 00:07:55,266 During that period, their business struggled. 147 00:07:55,349 --> 00:07:58,352 They had years that they lost money. Their revenues were way down. 148 00:07:58,436 --> 00:08:01,564 They were, um, in pretty big financial straits. 149 00:08:02,148 --> 00:08:04,942 The company took a huge drop in attendance. 150 00:08:05,026 --> 00:08:06,152 No more sell-outs. 151 00:08:07,028 --> 00:08:10,406 Business wasn't the same as it was when Hulk Hogan was on top. 152 00:08:10,490 --> 00:08:12,742 What Vince was looking for 153 00:08:13,326 --> 00:08:18,498 was someone that would replace Hulk as the face of WWE, 154 00:08:19,081 --> 00:08:21,501 and Vince thought it could be Lex. 155 00:08:21,584 --> 00:08:26,255 Made in the USA, Lex Luger! 156 00:08:26,339 --> 00:08:29,300 We did put the machine, so to speak, behind Lex Luger 157 00:08:29,383 --> 00:08:30,801 and thought he was gonna be awesome. 158 00:08:30,885 --> 00:08:35,264 Let's take a look now at some footage of the Lex Express. 159 00:08:35,348 --> 00:08:39,602 Lex was okay, but nowhere near Hulk Hogan. 160 00:08:39,685 --> 00:08:43,481 I know it, you know it, everyone out there knows it... 161 00:08:43,564 --> 00:08:47,401 Lex just wasn't capable of connecting with the audience. 162 00:08:48,110 --> 00:08:51,948 Lex was just another in a long chain of guys 163 00:08:52,031 --> 00:08:54,033 trying to fill Hulk's shoes. 164 00:08:54,116 --> 00:08:56,160 They had to replace Hulk Hogan, 165 00:08:56,244 --> 00:08:59,330 and the guy that pulled the sword out of the stone was Bret Hart. 166 00:08:59,413 --> 00:09:01,040 Bret! 167 00:09:02,833 --> 00:09:04,961 Go get 'em, champ. 168 00:09:06,546 --> 00:09:07,588 Wow. 169 00:09:07,672 --> 00:09:11,467 The New Generation was a new era. We have new stars. We have Bret Hart. 170 00:09:11,551 --> 00:09:14,387 You know, in the WWE, there is a lot of changes. 171 00:09:14,470 --> 00:09:16,556 {\an8}Then we have Razor Ramon. 172 00:09:16,639 --> 00:09:21,769 There's only one man who is oozing machismo. 173 00:09:21,852 --> 00:09:23,521 We had Kevin Nash. 174 00:09:23,604 --> 00:09:26,315 On lives the new generation! 175 00:09:26,899 --> 00:09:28,693 And we have Shawn Michaels. 176 00:09:28,776 --> 00:09:30,945 I'm the Heartbreak Kid, Shawn Michaels, Jack. 177 00:09:31,028 --> 00:09:33,114 I'm the man that made history. 178 00:09:33,197 --> 00:09:37,618 Once you knew that it was no longer sort of the Hogan era, 179 00:09:37,702 --> 00:09:40,580 it kind of just put a question mark on everything. 180 00:09:40,663 --> 00:09:42,123 Everything is up for grabs. 181 00:09:43,040 --> 00:09:45,543 For most of us in the locker room, it got a bit more hopeful 182 00:09:45,626 --> 00:09:48,296 that this was kind of anybody's ballgame. 183 00:09:48,796 --> 00:09:51,173 Hulk's gone, now who's gonna step up? 184 00:09:51,799 --> 00:09:53,342 That was the mindset. 185 00:09:54,218 --> 00:09:58,264 And there were plenty of guys that were waiting to fill that void. 186 00:09:59,473 --> 00:10:01,559 The guys that we had, the New Generation guys, 187 00:10:01,642 --> 00:10:03,686 like myself and Undertaker, 188 00:10:03,769 --> 00:10:07,064 some of the best wrestlers maybe ever. 189 00:10:07,565 --> 00:10:11,444 I was kind of proud to be the torchbearer for the New Generation. 190 00:10:12,111 --> 00:10:15,114 There were many liabilities on the company at that time, 191 00:10:15,197 --> 00:10:17,116 and I was the safest guy. 192 00:10:17,700 --> 00:10:21,037 Bret Hart's not gonna get busted with an underage girl in a hotel, 193 00:10:21,120 --> 00:10:24,040 or, "We found a kilo of cocaine in his bag." 194 00:10:24,123 --> 00:10:27,543 It seems to me that you bring a certain humility. 195 00:10:27,627 --> 00:10:28,628 That's why Vince said, 196 00:10:28,711 --> 00:10:30,796 "We're gonna make you champion for a long time." 197 00:10:30,880 --> 00:10:35,760 "You can hold the fort while we deal with all these issues right now." 198 00:10:36,677 --> 00:10:38,721 Bret comes from the Hart family, 199 00:10:38,804 --> 00:10:41,849 {\an8}which has produced many, many performers in the past. 200 00:10:42,433 --> 00:10:43,809 Very interesting family. 201 00:10:44,518 --> 00:10:46,937 Bret didn't have all that much charisma. 202 00:10:47,021 --> 00:10:48,689 He had some, enough. 203 00:10:49,190 --> 00:10:51,359 So it was kind of nip and tuck for a while. 204 00:10:52,026 --> 00:10:54,111 At the same time, during the course of that, 205 00:10:54,779 --> 00:10:57,114 Ted Turner starts grabbing some of the talent, 206 00:10:57,198 --> 00:10:59,200 so had to deal with that as well. 207 00:10:59,283 --> 00:11:03,245 Ted opened up the checkbook and said to the people working there, 208 00:11:03,329 --> 00:11:06,540 "You can do whatever you want. Just make this happen." 209 00:11:06,624 --> 00:11:08,876 WCW is different than WWE, 210 00:11:08,959 --> 00:11:10,961 because there was so much more money there. 211 00:11:11,545 --> 00:11:14,423 I mean, I cut these crazy deals when I first walked in, 212 00:11:14,507 --> 00:11:18,302 and it was like dying and going to heaven as far as the wrestling business. 213 00:11:18,386 --> 00:11:20,638 The amount of money he was offering them 214 00:11:20,721 --> 00:11:23,683 was far greater than the amount they had ever made here, 215 00:11:24,433 --> 00:11:28,896 so it was logical for a lot of them to leave and go join Ted's organization. 216 00:11:28,979 --> 00:11:30,356 And what you gonna do? 217 00:11:30,439 --> 00:11:31,982 Shortly after Hulk Hogan, 218 00:11:32,066 --> 00:11:35,653 Randy Savage all of a sudden became available. 219 00:11:36,237 --> 00:11:40,032 Unfortunately, Randy Savage has been unable to sign a contract 220 00:11:40,116 --> 00:11:41,534 with the WWE... 221 00:11:41,617 --> 00:11:43,202 That was the next big one. 222 00:11:43,285 --> 00:11:46,956 That's when things started to really feel like we had momentum. 223 00:11:47,540 --> 00:11:50,543 After Hulk jumped on board and after Randy jumped on board, 224 00:11:50,626 --> 00:11:53,170 people were looking at WCW a little differently. 225 00:11:53,921 --> 00:11:56,549 At one point, I had a meeting with Ted Turner, 226 00:11:56,632 --> 00:12:01,095 and he said, "Eric, what's it gonna take to be competitive with WWE?" 227 00:12:01,178 --> 00:12:03,389 I said, "Well, Ted, Monday Night Raw, 228 00:12:03,472 --> 00:12:06,642 you know that's on Monday night on USA prime time, right?" 229 00:12:06,726 --> 00:12:10,688 "We're on Saturday night at 6:05 Eastern, 3:05 Pacific." 230 00:12:10,771 --> 00:12:12,857 "We can't compete." 231 00:12:12,940 --> 00:12:15,067 And without missing a beat, 232 00:12:15,151 --> 00:12:17,737 Ted looked over to the head of TNT and said, 233 00:12:17,820 --> 00:12:20,823 "Give Eric two hours every Monday night on TNT." 234 00:12:21,407 --> 00:12:24,076 And I was like, "Wh... What?!" 235 00:12:24,827 --> 00:12:26,579 I just thought it'd be a good idea, 236 00:12:26,662 --> 00:12:30,124 that'd at least show that we've been on the map for so long. 237 00:12:30,207 --> 00:12:33,919 We have been hammerlocked, sucker-punched, 238 00:12:34,003 --> 00:12:36,547 beat up, jumped on, stomped out, 239 00:12:36,630 --> 00:12:38,841 chairs broken over our heads, 240 00:12:38,924 --> 00:12:41,927 all the wrestling stuff, by Vince for so long, 241 00:12:42,011 --> 00:12:44,805 that I just thought we'll just go head-to-head with him 242 00:12:44,889 --> 00:12:47,224 and see how it goes. We'll get in the ring with him. 243 00:12:47,892 --> 00:12:50,227 As soon as I heard they were gonna go head-to-head, 244 00:12:50,311 --> 00:12:53,230 that was like, "Ooh-ooh. We're in trouble." 245 00:12:53,814 --> 00:12:55,816 I don't know what's gonna happen, but won't be good. 246 00:12:56,817 --> 00:12:59,528 Or it was gonna put us out of business, quite frankly. 247 00:13:00,112 --> 00:13:04,283 Welcome back to the action here on the debut edition 248 00:13:04,366 --> 00:13:07,787 of WCW Monday Nitro... 249 00:13:07,870 --> 00:13:09,789 Now I've got this thing called Nitro, 250 00:13:09,872 --> 00:13:13,125 I've got to figure out a way to create some real surprises. 251 00:13:14,668 --> 00:13:17,505 What a matchup we have got in store. 252 00:13:17,588 --> 00:13:20,633 What?! What in the hell is he doing here? 253 00:13:20,716 --> 00:13:23,886 For their first show, they had Lex Luger show up. 254 00:13:23,969 --> 00:13:27,264 {\an8}We had him on one of our live events the Sunday night before, 255 00:13:27,348 --> 00:13:31,060 {\an8}and then he appeared on Nitro the very next night. 256 00:13:31,143 --> 00:13:32,770 Whoa! Wait a minute! 257 00:13:32,853 --> 00:13:35,022 It was a big surprise. It was like, "Oh my God." 258 00:13:35,105 --> 00:13:36,565 What are you doing here, Luger? 259 00:13:36,649 --> 00:13:40,069 When Lex walked out, not only was the audience in shock, 260 00:13:40,152 --> 00:13:42,363 but everybody in WWE was in shock, 261 00:13:42,446 --> 00:13:44,657 because they thought he was still under contract. 262 00:13:45,366 --> 00:13:46,450 And he's not. 263 00:13:48,410 --> 00:13:51,455 It was fortuitous in the sense of timing 264 00:13:51,539 --> 00:13:54,834 because Lex Luger was tired of WWE. 265 00:13:54,917 --> 00:13:56,502 He wasn't happy there. 266 00:13:56,585 --> 00:13:59,171 So I said, "Lex, here's the deal. We're gonna do a deal." 267 00:13:59,255 --> 00:14:02,007 "You cannot tell anybody. You can't tell WWE." 268 00:14:02,091 --> 00:14:03,926 "You just go about your business." 269 00:14:04,009 --> 00:14:06,136 I'm here for one reason... 270 00:14:06,220 --> 00:14:09,098 Yeah, that was embarrassing. That was really embarrassing. 271 00:14:09,181 --> 00:14:10,850 It pissed Vince off. 272 00:14:11,433 --> 00:14:13,227 It was a beautiful thing. 273 00:14:13,310 --> 00:14:16,146 Lex Luger, you're a good man. 274 00:14:16,230 --> 00:14:19,400 All I had with these guys was handshakes, not a contract expiring. 275 00:14:19,483 --> 00:14:21,986 I just had handshakes. It had worked for years. 276 00:14:22,653 --> 00:14:27,116 No longer was it working because of Ted's enormous wealth. 277 00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:31,871 And I was like, "Man. Wow, this is brutal." 278 00:14:31,954 --> 00:14:35,207 Because you helped get these talents over, you helped build them, 279 00:14:35,291 --> 00:14:37,960 then all of a sudden, poof. They're gone. 280 00:14:38,043 --> 00:14:39,420 They'd one-upped us. 281 00:14:39,503 --> 00:14:42,089 It looked like that was the cool place to go, 282 00:14:42,172 --> 00:14:46,427 that people are leaving WWE to go to WCW 283 00:14:46,510 --> 00:14:48,846 because WCW is new, it's cool, it's different. 284 00:14:49,430 --> 00:14:50,931 Eric was ruthless. 285 00:14:51,015 --> 00:14:53,851 It absolutely set the tone. And that was the intent. 286 00:14:54,768 --> 00:14:57,521 After realizing I can't be better than them at what they do, 287 00:14:57,605 --> 00:14:58,647 what are my options? 288 00:14:58,731 --> 00:15:04,236 I started making a list of every way that I could be different than the WWE. 289 00:15:04,320 --> 00:15:06,363 Top of the list, they're taped. 290 00:15:06,906 --> 00:15:09,033 Hmm. Okay. I'm live. 291 00:15:09,116 --> 00:15:11,827 At Nitro, we are coming to you live! 292 00:15:12,411 --> 00:15:16,248 They're cartoonish, because they're appealing to a teen and preteen audience. 293 00:15:16,332 --> 00:15:17,875 I'm gonna be more real. 294 00:15:18,459 --> 00:15:21,629 I wanted my characters to appeal to an older audience. 295 00:15:22,212 --> 00:15:25,382 I wanted my stories to be more reality-based. 296 00:15:25,466 --> 00:15:27,718 I'm not gonna try to land my plane over here. 297 00:15:27,801 --> 00:15:29,511 I'm gonna land my plane over here. 298 00:15:31,096 --> 00:15:34,642 I wanted Nitro to be recognized 299 00:15:34,725 --> 00:15:38,896 as the wrestling company where you never knew what was going to happen. 300 00:15:40,022 --> 00:15:42,358 I knew it was full-blown warfare from that point on, 301 00:15:42,441 --> 00:15:45,486 because I know how Vince feels about his competition. 302 00:15:45,569 --> 00:15:47,947 He wants to destroy it and then eat it. 303 00:15:50,491 --> 00:15:54,370 Hello, everybody, and welcome! We are live! 304 00:15:54,453 --> 00:15:57,331 We are not like the World Whining Entertainment, 305 00:15:57,414 --> 00:16:00,042 which is a taped, canned show. 306 00:16:00,125 --> 00:16:01,502 I had live TV now, 307 00:16:01,585 --> 00:16:05,589 so I had the ability to do things that my competition couldn't do. 308 00:16:05,673 --> 00:16:08,842 That gave me a really strong tactical advantage. 309 00:16:08,926 --> 00:16:12,513 At that time, Monday Night Raw was still being taped, 310 00:16:13,097 --> 00:16:16,392 and the results of those tapings were public, 311 00:16:16,475 --> 00:16:19,812 because there were five or six or seven thousand people in the arena. 312 00:16:19,895 --> 00:16:23,857 As soon as our show would open up, I would say, "Yeah, we're live 313 00:16:23,941 --> 00:16:27,361 and anything can happen. Not like those other guys." 314 00:16:27,444 --> 00:16:30,531 "In fact, don't bother watching that show. Here's what happened." 315 00:16:30,614 --> 00:16:32,241 And I'd give away the finishes. 316 00:16:32,324 --> 00:16:35,119 In case you're tempted to grab the remote control, 317 00:16:35,202 --> 00:16:37,287 check out the competition, don't bother. 318 00:16:37,371 --> 00:16:39,623 Shawn Michaels beat the big guy with a superkick. 319 00:16:39,707 --> 00:16:42,543 Stay right here. It's live. It's where the action is. 320 00:16:43,127 --> 00:16:46,547 They would give away the results. That hurt us for quite some time. 321 00:16:46,630 --> 00:16:48,340 Aggravated the hell out of us for sure. 322 00:16:48,424 --> 00:16:52,469 It's little things like that that just went and... 323 00:16:52,553 --> 00:16:55,389 It was digs, constant digs. 324 00:16:55,472 --> 00:16:58,350 I wanted to upset the WWE audience, 325 00:16:59,351 --> 00:17:01,103 because I knew if I upset them enough, 326 00:17:01,186 --> 00:17:04,106 they'd tune in to see what kind of dastardly stuff 327 00:17:04,189 --> 00:17:06,233 I was gonna do next week. 328 00:17:06,316 --> 00:17:09,695 There were many things that they did to aggravate the hell out of us, 329 00:17:09,778 --> 00:17:13,323 uh, which, when I'm angered, um, 330 00:17:14,116 --> 00:17:16,035 then I'm gonna focus all the more. 331 00:17:16,910 --> 00:17:19,163 Everybody that I knew that was close to Vince, 332 00:17:19,246 --> 00:17:23,375 like Hulk, like Randy, they would say, "Vince will never sell." 333 00:17:23,459 --> 00:17:25,169 He doesn't sell. 334 00:17:25,252 --> 00:17:26,670 He never sold a thing. 335 00:17:26,754 --> 00:17:29,381 Selling is wearing your emotions on your face. 336 00:17:29,465 --> 00:17:31,341 Yeah, Vince'll never let you see him sweat. 337 00:17:31,425 --> 00:17:34,678 "Don't sell it. Never acknowledge the competition." 338 00:17:35,512 --> 00:17:39,767 The more people would tell me that, the more I'd go, "Watch. I'll get him." 339 00:17:39,850 --> 00:17:42,686 Eric would bring out our former women's champion 340 00:17:42,770 --> 00:17:44,229 with our championship belt, 341 00:17:44,313 --> 00:17:46,106 and live on their show, 342 00:17:46,190 --> 00:17:47,858 throws it in the trash. 343 00:17:47,941 --> 00:17:49,443 That was upsetting. 344 00:17:49,526 --> 00:17:51,153 It was like, "Oh my God." 345 00:17:51,236 --> 00:17:53,906 "What else are they gonna do to us?" 346 00:17:53,989 --> 00:17:56,909 I kept gnawing at him and biting him and doing everything I could 347 00:17:56,992 --> 00:17:58,619 to get him to react, and he did. 348 00:17:58,702 --> 00:18:00,412 {\an8}Billionaire Ted. First of all... 349 00:18:00,496 --> 00:18:02,623 {\an8}They started doing the Billionaire Ted skits. 350 00:18:02,706 --> 00:18:04,875 That was the first real sell. 351 00:18:04,958 --> 00:18:08,295 {\an8}I finally got him to react, which means he was off balance. 352 00:18:08,378 --> 00:18:11,673 Well, why can't I buy the WWE? 353 00:18:11,757 --> 00:18:15,928 When I saw them, it's like, "Let's tape these things. I gotta run 'em up to Ted." 354 00:18:16,011 --> 00:18:20,599 We brought them up to Ted, and Ted laughed his ass off. 355 00:18:20,682 --> 00:18:22,101 He thought they were funny as hell. 356 00:18:23,227 --> 00:18:25,854 That's supposed to be the Hulkster. 357 00:18:25,938 --> 00:18:28,482 I said, "We're trying to have some fun with him." 358 00:18:28,565 --> 00:18:31,026 And then Kay Koplovitz shut us down. 359 00:18:31,110 --> 00:18:33,070 It was really distasteful. 360 00:18:33,153 --> 00:18:34,738 We didn't like it particularly, 361 00:18:34,822 --> 00:18:36,782 even though we were competitors with Turner. 362 00:18:36,865 --> 00:18:41,787 It just didn't belong on our air. It isn't who we wanted to be at USA. 363 00:18:42,496 --> 00:18:46,542 Kay Koplovitz made us stop because Ted was a friend of hers. 364 00:18:46,625 --> 00:18:50,170 We're friends. Friendly competitors, I guess you might say. 365 00:18:51,130 --> 00:18:53,632 USA Network suggested that we stop, 366 00:18:53,715 --> 00:18:58,846 because they were receiving heat from folks in the Turner organization, 367 00:18:58,929 --> 00:19:01,014 saying, "This is over the line, 368 00:19:01,098 --> 00:19:04,184 and now you're talking about how much lithium he takes..." 369 00:19:04,268 --> 00:19:05,644 Jane, where's my lithium? 370 00:19:05,727 --> 00:19:08,981 In hindsight, I wish that we hadn't done that. 371 00:19:09,565 --> 00:19:12,109 I think we should have been above it. But we did. 372 00:19:12,192 --> 00:19:18,407 {\an8}And that's also where I figured out Razor Ramon and Diesel, 373 00:19:18,490 --> 00:19:19,658 {\an8}they're not staying. 374 00:19:19,741 --> 00:19:22,578 Because I asked Razor and Diesel to do one, 375 00:19:22,661 --> 00:19:24,121 and they didn't wanna do it. 376 00:19:24,204 --> 00:19:26,498 "Why wouldn't you do this?" "Yeah, I just don't want to." 377 00:19:26,582 --> 00:19:29,293 "Are you going there?" "No, no, no." 378 00:19:29,376 --> 00:19:32,963 I had a long conversation, with Scott Hall, Razor Ramon, 379 00:19:33,547 --> 00:19:35,507 and Diesel, Kevin Nash. 380 00:19:35,591 --> 00:19:38,010 They really didn't wanna go to WCW. 381 00:19:38,093 --> 00:19:41,388 At the same time, they have to look into the mirror 382 00:19:41,471 --> 00:19:44,057 and have to know, "Wait a minute. It's better for my family 383 00:19:44,141 --> 00:19:47,394 from a paycheck standpoint to go there than it is here." 384 00:19:47,477 --> 00:19:49,396 That was just pure money and schedule. 385 00:19:49,479 --> 00:19:51,523 They were offered more money and a better schedule. 386 00:19:52,357 --> 00:19:55,152 When Scott and Kevin signed with WCW, 387 00:19:55,235 --> 00:19:57,821 certainly from a professional standpoint, thrilled for them. 388 00:19:57,905 --> 00:20:02,242 From a personal standpoint, it hurt a bit because I was gonna miss my buddies. 389 00:20:02,326 --> 00:20:07,497 There was a group of us that were all friends backstage. "The Kliq." 390 00:20:08,165 --> 00:20:09,416 Kevin Nash, 391 00:20:09,499 --> 00:20:10,918 Scott Hall, 392 00:20:11,418 --> 00:20:13,253 Shawn Michaels, 393 00:20:13,337 --> 00:20:14,504 and myself. 394 00:20:15,130 --> 00:20:18,008 The Kliq sort of became this famous thing 395 00:20:18,842 --> 00:20:20,677 that everybody knew about 396 00:20:20,761 --> 00:20:23,805 even though it was never portrayed on TV. 397 00:20:25,307 --> 00:20:30,562 {\an8}So, you flash forward to the final night of Diesel and Razor Ramon. 398 00:20:31,396 --> 00:20:34,399 It's not a pay-per-view. It's a live event with no TV. 399 00:20:35,150 --> 00:20:38,320 Earlier in the day, Shawn had talked to Vince 400 00:20:38,403 --> 00:20:41,949 about doing some kind of tribute to those guys at the end of the night, 401 00:20:42,032 --> 00:20:44,952 and Vince agrees to, "Something can happen." 402 00:20:45,035 --> 00:20:47,704 I remember him asking me, "Is it important to you, Shawn?" 403 00:20:47,788 --> 00:20:51,083 I said, "Yes, sir." And he goes, "Then it's important to me. Go ahead." 404 00:20:51,166 --> 00:20:55,879 Since two of them were leaving, you know, "Okay. You got my blessing." 405 00:20:57,130 --> 00:21:01,134 Kevin and Shawn were wrestling each other in a cage match. 406 00:21:01,218 --> 00:21:05,597 They get to the end of the match, and we all end up in the cage together. 407 00:21:05,681 --> 00:21:08,392 There's this big embrace moment. 408 00:21:08,475 --> 00:21:11,270 Oh yeah! 409 00:21:11,353 --> 00:21:13,605 Basically, a curtain call. 410 00:21:14,564 --> 00:21:21,321 From an old-timer, uh, it was sacrilege to have rivals do that 411 00:21:21,405 --> 00:21:25,367 and to just let everybody know, "Hey, guys. You know, show's over." 412 00:21:25,450 --> 00:21:28,120 "We really love each other. Everything's good." 413 00:21:28,203 --> 00:21:30,289 I was actually there at the Garden that night. 414 00:21:30,872 --> 00:21:33,750 I'm sitting there in the audience like, "What is this?" 415 00:21:33,834 --> 00:21:36,962 "I can't believe they're doing this. My dad's gonna be so mad." 416 00:21:37,045 --> 00:21:39,506 Part of me thought it was a little bit cool, 417 00:21:39,589 --> 00:21:42,342 but part of me was like, "Oh, I know how wrong this is." 418 00:21:42,426 --> 00:21:44,845 To anyone of my age, it was cool. 419 00:21:45,429 --> 00:21:50,058 But to your older generation of producers and wrestlers, 420 00:21:50,142 --> 00:21:51,977 it was the cardinal sin. 421 00:21:52,811 --> 00:21:56,189 I wasn't there that night, but, yeah, I was with the company. 422 00:21:56,273 --> 00:21:59,735 - Yeah, I got thoughts on that. Yeah. - What are your thoughts? 423 00:21:59,818 --> 00:22:00,861 I didn't like it. 424 00:22:00,944 --> 00:22:02,446 They killed wrestling that day. 425 00:22:03,530 --> 00:22:05,574 That was when wrestling wasn't real anymore. 426 00:22:05,657 --> 00:22:08,535 We'd pulled the curtain back and said, "This is how it works." 427 00:22:08,618 --> 00:22:11,955 That was the unveiling of the new direction that wrestling would be. 428 00:22:12,039 --> 00:22:15,584 It's not wrestling anymore. It's entertainment. 429 00:22:16,501 --> 00:22:19,755 When they came back out of the... out of the ring, 430 00:22:20,756 --> 00:22:23,342 well, there were a number of performers other than them 431 00:22:23,425 --> 00:22:25,635 who really hit the roof. Like I can't imagine... 432 00:22:25,719 --> 00:22:27,971 It was what we call a kayfabe type situation. 433 00:22:28,055 --> 00:22:33,477 So if you go back to the way the business was, 434 00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:34,978 there's a thing called kayfabe. 435 00:22:35,062 --> 00:22:36,021 Kayfabe. 436 00:22:36,104 --> 00:22:37,105 Kayfabe. 437 00:22:37,189 --> 00:22:38,231 Kayfabe. 438 00:22:38,315 --> 00:22:42,110 Kayfabe is a carnival term, initially. 439 00:22:42,194 --> 00:22:49,034 Kayfabe is the fiction that is being produced by a con artist 440 00:22:49,117 --> 00:22:54,414 where everybody who's involved in the con agrees to maintain this reality. 441 00:22:55,374 --> 00:22:59,544 Kayfabe is basically keeping the illusion that it's real. 442 00:22:59,628 --> 00:23:02,631 You say "kayfabe," and you know that you gotta be in character 443 00:23:03,340 --> 00:23:04,925 and pretend everything is real. 444 00:23:05,008 --> 00:23:07,427 You know, good guys stayed with good guys, 445 00:23:07,511 --> 00:23:09,388 and bad guys stayed with bad guys, 446 00:23:09,471 --> 00:23:11,431 and never should the two intermingle. 447 00:23:11,515 --> 00:23:17,437 And for years and years, we tried to work off of the premise 448 00:23:17,521 --> 00:23:20,732 that wrestling was not predetermined, 449 00:23:20,816 --> 00:23:24,736 and that when you had a feud with somebody, it was a blood feud, 450 00:23:24,820 --> 00:23:27,906 and it carried on outside of the ring. 451 00:23:27,989 --> 00:23:31,159 The way I came up, and in the time period I came up, 452 00:23:31,243 --> 00:23:34,371 I, I lived that, and I believed in that mindset, 453 00:23:34,454 --> 00:23:39,418 even though I knew, like, they know that I'm a real person, 454 00:23:39,501 --> 00:23:42,295 I always wanted to cast that doubt, like, 455 00:23:42,379 --> 00:23:44,589 "That dude is legit not right." 456 00:23:45,340 --> 00:23:47,342 "He thinks he is that guy." 457 00:23:47,426 --> 00:23:51,847 I kind of protected the business and protected the character so much. 458 00:23:51,930 --> 00:23:55,350 I was just always trying to keep people intrigued. 459 00:23:56,476 --> 00:23:59,771 But it was becoming this antiquated thing. Like, everybody knew. 460 00:24:00,605 --> 00:24:05,277 In that period of time, there were what were called newsletters, dirt sheets, 461 00:24:05,360 --> 00:24:07,904 with a lot of rumor and innuendo. 462 00:24:07,988 --> 00:24:09,614 So, if you went to a show, 463 00:24:09,698 --> 00:24:12,659 people are talking about what's real and what's not. 464 00:24:12,742 --> 00:24:16,663 I honestly don't have any idea why kayfabe and all that 465 00:24:16,746 --> 00:24:17,914 was still so important. 466 00:24:17,998 --> 00:24:20,834 And I guess that was our point with the curtain call. 467 00:24:20,917 --> 00:24:23,128 We felt like everybody already knew then. 468 00:24:23,837 --> 00:24:27,257 What was sincerely meant to be just an innocent act 469 00:24:27,340 --> 00:24:29,050 turned into such controversy. 470 00:24:29,634 --> 00:24:32,762 I felt like, "I don't know, was I talked into this?" 471 00:24:32,846 --> 00:24:33,930 "Was I not?" 472 00:24:34,014 --> 00:24:35,348 You know, I let it happen. 473 00:24:35,432 --> 00:24:38,351 At the same time, I can't let it happen again. 474 00:24:38,435 --> 00:24:41,062 So, um, there were some repercussions. 475 00:24:41,646 --> 00:24:47,110 Kev's gone, Scott's gone, Shawn's WWE champion. 476 00:24:48,487 --> 00:24:50,113 Heads are gonna roll, 477 00:24:50,197 --> 00:24:53,992 but it's gonna only be one, and it's going to be mine. 478 00:24:54,075 --> 00:24:56,244 Somebody has to pay for that, 479 00:24:56,328 --> 00:24:59,206 and, you know, in that particular case, it was Hunter. 480 00:25:00,123 --> 00:25:03,084 So, at that point in time, I was supposed to win King of the Ring, 481 00:25:03,168 --> 00:25:05,086 and that's all gonna go away. 482 00:25:05,170 --> 00:25:09,090 I said, "You know, Vince, the one thing that's crazy to me..." 483 00:25:10,175 --> 00:25:15,055 "...the biggest reaction of the night by far was that moment." 484 00:25:15,138 --> 00:25:17,224 "The world is changing, 485 00:25:17,307 --> 00:25:19,893 and we're going to have to change with it, I think." 486 00:25:19,976 --> 00:25:22,687 And he said, "Yeah, but it's not right now." 487 00:25:23,230 --> 00:25:26,024 "I gotta do something. I can't just let this go." 488 00:25:26,107 --> 00:25:28,985 And to quote Vince, "You're going to have to learn to eat shit 489 00:25:29,069 --> 00:25:30,320 and like the taste of it." 490 00:25:31,238 --> 00:25:36,076 Vince was not yet ready to adapt, to evolve into the modern age. 491 00:25:36,159 --> 00:25:38,161 But WCW was. 492 00:25:41,164 --> 00:25:44,251 Welcome back live to the first hour of this edition 493 00:25:44,334 --> 00:25:46,336 of WCW Monday Nitro on TNT. 494 00:25:46,419 --> 00:25:49,172 I'd been thinking about this storyline in my head for a long time. 495 00:25:49,256 --> 00:25:50,966 Called it "The Outsiders." 496 00:25:51,049 --> 00:25:53,802 But I couldn't quite make it work the way I wanted to make it work 497 00:25:53,885 --> 00:25:55,595 because I didn't have the right talent. 498 00:25:56,721 --> 00:26:00,642 And now with Scott coming in and Kevin Nash becoming available, 499 00:26:00,725 --> 00:26:02,936 I now have the perfect cast. 500 00:26:03,019 --> 00:26:06,648 You people, you know who I am. 501 00:26:09,526 --> 00:26:13,613 But you don't know why I'm here. 502 00:26:13,697 --> 00:26:19,619 It was two guys coming in from the outside to wreak havoc inside of WCW. 503 00:26:20,287 --> 00:26:22,581 This is where the big boys play, huh? 504 00:26:24,082 --> 00:26:25,667 We ain't here to play. 505 00:26:26,751 --> 00:26:30,297 The Outsiders showing up and coming to WCW 506 00:26:30,380 --> 00:26:32,549 is maybe the last example 507 00:26:32,632 --> 00:26:35,427 of where fans could not fully tell, 508 00:26:35,510 --> 00:26:37,220 "Is this real?" 509 00:26:38,138 --> 00:26:42,434 The way I brought them in, some of the less-than-nuanced dialogue, 510 00:26:42,517 --> 00:26:46,980 led certain people to believe that they were there on WWE's behalf. 511 00:26:47,063 --> 00:26:50,609 Do you work for the WWE? 512 00:26:50,692 --> 00:26:54,487 The audience wasn't sure if it was real or if it was scripted. 513 00:26:54,571 --> 00:26:56,156 That's the sweet spot. 514 00:26:56,239 --> 00:26:58,366 You don't jack us around. Don't jack us... 515 00:26:58,450 --> 00:27:01,077 Oh, for crying... Oh! 516 00:27:01,161 --> 00:27:02,162 What are they doing? 517 00:27:02,245 --> 00:27:04,831 - Security! - Get up there right now! 518 00:27:07,834 --> 00:27:09,461 Call security! 519 00:27:10,086 --> 00:27:12,088 It was a hell of a great idea. 520 00:27:12,172 --> 00:27:14,924 Worked so well that Vince McMahon decided he had to sue us. 521 00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:21,431 We sued them because they were trampling on our intellectual property. 522 00:27:21,514 --> 00:27:24,351 They were presenting Scott Hall as Razor Ramon. 523 00:27:24,434 --> 00:27:27,228 They didn't say his name was Razor Ramon, 524 00:27:27,812 --> 00:27:30,190 but it was as close to Razor Ramon as you could get 525 00:27:30,273 --> 00:27:32,651 without saying, "Hey, Razor Ramon." 526 00:27:33,151 --> 00:27:34,319 You're stealing. 527 00:27:34,402 --> 00:27:37,697 You know, that's... That's not the right way to do business. 528 00:27:38,406 --> 00:27:41,576 Eh, stealing is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? 529 00:27:41,660 --> 00:27:46,831 It's funny, because immediately, Vince went into sympathetic babyface mode. 530 00:27:46,915 --> 00:27:49,626 He started whining like a little schoolgirl with that. 531 00:27:49,709 --> 00:27:52,462 "Big bad billionaire Ted's trying to run us out of business." 532 00:27:52,545 --> 00:27:56,424 When you have the resources of a, uh, of a Ted Turner, 533 00:27:56,508 --> 00:27:59,678 and you use these resources in a predatory fashion 534 00:27:59,761 --> 00:28:04,099 in an effort to put a family-owned business out of action, 535 00:28:04,182 --> 00:28:05,141 I think it's time... 536 00:28:05,225 --> 00:28:07,310 "Big bad billionaire Ted 537 00:28:07,394 --> 00:28:11,106 is trying to hurt this small little family-run business." 538 00:28:11,189 --> 00:28:13,983 There has been a systematic, uh, attempt 539 00:28:14,067 --> 00:28:17,529 to raid the World Wrestling Entertainment of its talent. 540 00:28:17,612 --> 00:28:19,072 "They raided our talent." 541 00:28:20,365 --> 00:28:23,827 Vince did the exact same thing to Verne Gagne and the AWA 542 00:28:23,910 --> 00:28:24,911 and other territories. 543 00:28:24,994 --> 00:28:30,041 {\an8}He literally went into those territories and offered their talent better deals. 544 00:28:30,125 --> 00:28:34,421 That is exactly the MO of Vince McMahon in 1984 and 1985. 545 00:28:34,504 --> 00:28:37,841 He took stars other people had created in certain parts of the country 546 00:28:37,924 --> 00:28:40,135 and signed them up for more money, 547 00:28:40,218 --> 00:28:42,429 and God bless him, he had the right to. Free enterprise. 548 00:28:42,512 --> 00:28:45,432 But they had the right to do it too, because it's free enterprise. 549 00:28:45,515 --> 00:28:49,394 One of your quotes was that Turner engaged in predatory practices. 550 00:28:49,477 --> 00:28:50,729 - Right. - Did you... 551 00:28:50,812 --> 00:28:55,400 You didn't see any similarity to what you were doing in the territories? 552 00:28:55,483 --> 00:28:58,069 No. Again, Ted's philosophy was, 553 00:28:58,153 --> 00:29:00,405 "Let's go hurt. I'm gonna hurt my competitor." 554 00:29:00,488 --> 00:29:03,575 And that's not mine. I wanna go compete. 555 00:29:03,658 --> 00:29:06,745 You didn't look at what Ted was doing as competing? 556 00:29:06,828 --> 00:29:07,871 Sure, I did. 557 00:29:09,539 --> 00:29:12,125 You said your philosophy is different than Ted's. 558 00:29:12,208 --> 00:29:14,502 -He's trying to hurt the person. -Right. Correct. 559 00:29:15,879 --> 00:29:18,381 Some would think it might be hypocritical for me to say, 560 00:29:18,465 --> 00:29:22,385 "Uh, okay, I don't hurt someone else. I just do what's best for me." 561 00:29:23,011 --> 00:29:26,681 Yet, when someone comes after me, I don't think they have the right. 562 00:29:26,765 --> 00:29:29,893 Sure, they have the right. Again, what I say a lot of times 563 00:29:29,976 --> 00:29:32,270 is totally different than what I think. 564 00:29:32,353 --> 00:29:36,441 Um, and the public doesn't understand that sometimes. 565 00:29:36,524 --> 00:29:40,153 As a businessman, you have to throw things out there. 566 00:29:40,236 --> 00:29:42,405 It's not really the way you feel, 567 00:29:42,489 --> 00:29:43,490 but... 568 00:29:44,491 --> 00:29:47,744 it controls thought process by doing that. 569 00:29:50,371 --> 00:29:52,791 Vince is going to do whatever it takes 570 00:29:52,874 --> 00:29:55,376 to be successful on the business side. 571 00:29:55,960 --> 00:30:02,133 And during the Monday Night Wars, WCW was challenging us to fight. 572 00:30:03,134 --> 00:30:08,640 A lot of people would tell you that when Hall and Nash went to WCW, 573 00:30:08,723 --> 00:30:11,100 that that was the turning point. 574 00:30:11,184 --> 00:30:13,812 But if you go back and you really look at the numbers 575 00:30:13,895 --> 00:30:15,563 and you look at everything that happened, 576 00:30:15,647 --> 00:30:19,734 what really turned the corner for WCW 577 00:30:19,818 --> 00:30:21,152 was the Bash at the Beach, 578 00:30:21,236 --> 00:30:25,615 where The Outsiders were going to bring in the third member. 579 00:30:25,698 --> 00:30:26,783 Who's it going to be? 580 00:30:27,742 --> 00:30:30,245 I was there at the Bash at the Beach, 581 00:30:30,328 --> 00:30:34,457 and Scott Hall and Kevin Nash have come from WWE 582 00:30:34,541 --> 00:30:36,292 to almost wreck shop. 583 00:30:36,376 --> 00:30:38,711 They were bad guys on this mission, 584 00:30:38,795 --> 00:30:42,298 and they were claiming that they had a third man. 585 00:30:42,382 --> 00:30:45,093 He's here, and he's ready. 586 00:30:45,176 --> 00:30:49,264 Now the "Who's the Third Man?" mystery is out there in the audience, right? 587 00:30:49,347 --> 00:30:52,350 The third man is here, but he's not in the ring. 588 00:30:54,644 --> 00:30:57,355 Now we're looking at two-on-two in this hostile takeover. 589 00:30:57,438 --> 00:31:00,316 Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were winning. 590 00:31:01,776 --> 00:31:05,196 And so, Hulk Hogan's coming out to make the save. 591 00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:07,824 - Hulk Hogan is here! - Damn right he is! 592 00:31:07,907 --> 00:31:09,200 Get 'em, Hulkster! 593 00:31:09,284 --> 00:31:11,703 When I walked out at Bash at the Beach, 594 00:31:11,786 --> 00:31:13,580 Kevin Nash and Scott Hall ran for their lives, 595 00:31:13,663 --> 00:31:16,249 Yes, sir! Get 'em, Hogan! 596 00:31:16,332 --> 00:31:19,919 The roof was coming off. The hero was coming to save the day. 597 00:31:20,003 --> 00:31:22,714 Hulk Hogan arrives... Hulk! 598 00:31:22,797 --> 00:31:24,382 What's he doing?! 599 00:31:24,465 --> 00:31:26,551 - Is he the third man? - Third man! 600 00:31:26,634 --> 00:31:28,678 What the hell is going on?! 601 00:31:28,761 --> 00:31:32,223 When Hulk finally dropped the leg on Randy Savage, 602 00:31:32,307 --> 00:31:34,934 people were literally shocked. 603 00:31:35,018 --> 00:31:37,520 - What the hell is going on?! - Oh God! 604 00:31:37,604 --> 00:31:41,733 It was a huge defining moment in all of sports entertainment, 605 00:31:41,816 --> 00:31:46,487 because it was surreal to think that the biggest babyface, 606 00:31:46,571 --> 00:31:50,033 the biggest good guy in the history of the industry, 607 00:31:50,617 --> 00:31:52,493 is gonna go the other way. 608 00:31:52,577 --> 00:31:53,953 Feels it all. 609 00:31:54,037 --> 00:31:55,997 Hulksters with tears rolling down. 610 00:31:56,080 --> 00:31:59,709 You can't turn Hulk Hogan bad. You can't do that. 611 00:32:00,627 --> 00:32:04,005 That was a big "holy shit" moment. 612 00:32:04,088 --> 00:32:07,300 - A career of a lifetime. - Right down the drain, kid. 613 00:32:07,383 --> 00:32:10,053 When I walked out to be a bad guy, 614 00:32:10,136 --> 00:32:12,847 I knew this was either gonna be the greatest moment of my career 615 00:32:12,931 --> 00:32:14,807 or this would destroy my career. 616 00:32:16,309 --> 00:32:20,688 That's the first time I'd ever been told there's a thing that's too much heat. 617 00:32:20,772 --> 00:32:22,190 And maybe this was. 618 00:32:23,399 --> 00:32:26,694 That rumble was there. It got kinda quiet. I'm like, "Shit." 619 00:32:26,778 --> 00:32:29,238 I know we didn't have anybody watching the ring 620 00:32:29,322 --> 00:32:31,240 in case they started coming. 621 00:32:31,324 --> 00:32:33,368 Back in the day, I was used to them coming. 622 00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:38,331 {\an8}What do we got here? We got a fan coming in. 623 00:32:38,414 --> 00:32:39,999 He didn't last long. 624 00:32:40,083 --> 00:32:43,753 There were people throwing stuff in the ring and booing and screaming. 625 00:32:43,836 --> 00:32:45,546 There were people crying. 626 00:32:45,630 --> 00:32:48,466 I never thought I'd see people throwing debris... 627 00:32:48,549 --> 00:32:50,635 - At Hulk Hogan. - ...at Hogan. 628 00:32:50,718 --> 00:32:53,179 It was the most amazing moment of my career. 629 00:32:53,262 --> 00:32:56,474 When you want to get everything you can out of the audience, 630 00:32:56,557 --> 00:32:58,768 sometimes it's gotta be uncomfortable. 631 00:32:59,435 --> 00:33:04,732 And it was just a very strong punch to the gut for wrestling fans. 632 00:33:04,816 --> 00:33:07,235 When they made Hogan a heel, 633 00:33:07,318 --> 00:33:10,029 had that been something you guys were considering ever? 634 00:33:10,113 --> 00:33:12,407 No. Terry and I always thought 635 00:33:12,490 --> 00:33:14,993 that we would simply keep Hulk Hogan as a good guy, 636 00:33:15,076 --> 00:33:17,704 always be someone standing up for justice. 637 00:33:19,205 --> 00:33:22,709 Vince McMahon missed out on the most lucrative opportunity. 638 00:33:22,792 --> 00:33:25,586 He could've been the one to turn Hulk Hogan heel. 639 00:33:26,504 --> 00:33:28,715 Every piece of trash that got thrown in the ring 640 00:33:28,798 --> 00:33:32,760 was like a gold brick as far as WCW was concerned. 641 00:33:33,553 --> 00:33:38,474 When he did turn heel, it was like, "Wow." He did that very well. 642 00:33:38,558 --> 00:33:41,352 A lot of fans forget that I was a bad guy 643 00:33:41,436 --> 00:33:44,731 when I first went to the WWE to work for Vince's father, 644 00:33:44,814 --> 00:33:47,734 so it wasn't like this was my first barbecue. 645 00:33:47,817 --> 00:33:52,405 And so I just slid into that Snidely Whiplash evil Hollywood character. 646 00:33:52,488 --> 00:33:55,908 Tell these people to shut up if you wanna hear what I gotta say. 647 00:33:57,368 --> 00:33:59,829 I went out there, and I wheeled that promo from my hip, man. 648 00:33:59,912 --> 00:34:01,706 That was nobody talking but me. 649 00:34:02,457 --> 00:34:08,588 These two men right here came from a great big organization up north. 650 00:34:08,671 --> 00:34:11,549 I made that organization a monster. 651 00:34:11,632 --> 00:34:13,926 I made people rich up there. 652 00:34:14,010 --> 00:34:16,637 I wanted to push hard against Vince 653 00:34:16,721 --> 00:34:19,724 to prove a point that it takes two to tango. 654 00:34:19,807 --> 00:34:24,145 It just wasn't one guy that did all this. It just wasn't Vince that did all this. 655 00:34:24,228 --> 00:34:29,817 The man Hulk Hogan got bigger than the whole organization, brother. 656 00:34:29,901 --> 00:34:32,612 In those days, it was a personal relationship 657 00:34:32,695 --> 00:34:34,489 as well as a business one. 658 00:34:35,198 --> 00:34:38,159 And when business goes wrong, generally speaking, 659 00:34:38,242 --> 00:34:40,203 the personal relationship goes wrong. 660 00:34:40,286 --> 00:34:43,331 Vince is very much "business is business." 661 00:34:43,414 --> 00:34:50,088 However, there are certain times where the human being gets hurt. 662 00:34:50,171 --> 00:34:52,840 With Hogan, it was personal. 663 00:34:52,924 --> 00:34:55,051 That was the moment in time that... 664 00:34:56,010 --> 00:34:57,178 shit changed. 665 00:34:57,261 --> 00:35:03,643 You can call this the New World Order of Wrestling, brother. 666 00:35:03,726 --> 00:35:06,729 The Outsiders eventually became the nWo storyline. 667 00:35:06,813 --> 00:35:10,441 Here's the nWo! 668 00:35:10,525 --> 00:35:12,610 Ready or not, here we come! 669 00:35:13,736 --> 00:35:17,156 nWo was coming in to take over WCW 670 00:35:17,240 --> 00:35:21,452 and take all their biggest stars, and eventually overcome WCW. 671 00:35:21,536 --> 00:35:25,748 The nWo is the only way to go! 672 00:35:25,832 --> 00:35:28,960 Yes, it was a storyline. Yes, they were characters. 673 00:35:29,043 --> 00:35:31,254 But in every sense of the word, 674 00:35:31,337 --> 00:35:36,217 the nWo brand was in many respects more powerful than the WCW brand. 675 00:35:36,926 --> 00:35:39,679 During that period of time, WCW was cool. 676 00:35:39,762 --> 00:35:41,973 It had the cool factor going on. 677 00:35:42,056 --> 00:35:45,143 I started to see the WWE as "less than." 678 00:35:45,226 --> 00:35:50,106 New World Order. It was edgy, like nothing that anyone had ever seen. 679 00:35:50,189 --> 00:35:53,609 And they started kicking our ass week after week after week. 680 00:35:54,193 --> 00:35:55,945 When Hulk became a bad guy? 681 00:35:58,197 --> 00:35:59,031 Switched. 682 00:36:00,199 --> 00:36:04,036 And they beat us in the ratings, and they didn't look back for 83 weeks. 683 00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:06,289 How many weeks? 83 straight weeks! 684 00:36:06,372 --> 00:36:07,748 For 83 straight weeks! 685 00:36:07,832 --> 00:36:10,918 For 83 weeks? Was it 83, or was it 84? 686 00:36:11,002 --> 00:36:12,712 My podcast is called 83 Weeks. 687 00:36:12,795 --> 00:36:18,009 For 83 straight weeks, we were stomping a mudhole in WWE. 688 00:36:18,092 --> 00:36:20,178 We were so far ahead of them, it wasn't funny. 689 00:36:21,095 --> 00:36:25,099 {\an8}For us to be winning, you know, week after week after week, 690 00:36:25,183 --> 00:36:26,392 {\an8}it became infectious. 691 00:36:26,475 --> 00:36:30,438 We thought we had the strongest team, the better stories... 692 00:36:31,022 --> 00:36:32,440 No way we thought we could lose. 693 00:36:33,149 --> 00:36:36,235 Not only are they kicking our butts in the ratings, they're mocking us. 694 00:36:36,319 --> 00:36:38,988 They're really having their way with us. 695 00:36:39,572 --> 00:36:44,327 This was a war, and I didn't know whether or not we'd even stay in business, 696 00:36:44,410 --> 00:36:46,996 because Turner was coming after us. 697 00:36:47,079 --> 00:36:49,540 I'm either all the way in, or I'm all the way out. 698 00:36:50,416 --> 00:36:54,212 So, once we committed to go after Vince, I was all in. 699 00:36:54,295 --> 00:36:56,547 Is there any question now 700 00:36:56,631 --> 00:37:01,928 what is the most powerful organization in professional wrestling? 701 00:37:02,011 --> 00:37:06,098 At some point, it was suggested to me that I become a part of the nWo, 702 00:37:06,182 --> 00:37:07,475 and it... it made sense. 703 00:37:07,558 --> 00:37:08,976 I'm Eric Bischoff! 704 00:37:09,060 --> 00:37:13,981 Because I was running WCW, I was recognized as the president of WCW. 705 00:37:14,065 --> 00:37:16,776 - Bischoff! - Look who is leading them! 706 00:37:16,859 --> 00:37:21,656 Who better to take over than the guy that's actually writing the checks? 707 00:37:21,739 --> 00:37:25,326 For this man, I would do anything. 708 00:37:25,409 --> 00:37:27,328 In the beginning of Monday Night Wars, 709 00:37:27,411 --> 00:37:30,623 I don't think that Vince even considered Eric Bischoff. 710 00:37:30,706 --> 00:37:35,169 Vince looked at the Monday Night Wars as something between Vince and Ted. 711 00:37:35,253 --> 00:37:38,256 When you go back and you listen to the interviews, 712 00:37:38,339 --> 00:37:40,591 Vince always talked about Ted Turner. 713 00:37:40,675 --> 00:37:42,218 Ted Turner's wrestling organization... 714 00:37:42,301 --> 00:37:44,220 Ted Turner tried to put him out of business. 715 00:37:44,303 --> 00:37:45,972 Ted Turner this, Ted Turner that. 716 00:37:46,055 --> 00:37:47,306 -Ted Turner... -Ted Turner... 717 00:37:47,390 --> 00:37:51,143 Ted... Ted... Ted, trying to own World Wrestling Entertainment. 718 00:37:51,227 --> 00:37:53,813 Was Vince McMahon going to come out and say, 719 00:37:53,896 --> 00:37:57,108 "Hey, this guy named Eric Bischoff that's never been a wrestling executive, 720 00:37:57,191 --> 00:38:00,569 has only been in a creative role for about a year and a half, 721 00:38:00,653 --> 00:38:03,322 is kicking my butt every week for 83 weeks"? 722 00:38:03,406 --> 00:38:05,825 He wanted the perception of the battle 723 00:38:05,908 --> 00:38:10,121 to be between Ted Turner the billionaire media mogul 724 00:38:10,204 --> 00:38:12,123 and little old Vince McMahon. 725 00:38:12,206 --> 00:38:15,167 That elevated Vince, it made him the sympathetic babyface, 726 00:38:15,251 --> 00:38:17,545 which is exactly what Vince wanted. 727 00:38:18,587 --> 00:38:20,298 Do you remember the first time 728 00:38:20,381 --> 00:38:22,383 hearing about Eric Bischoff? 729 00:38:22,466 --> 00:38:26,178 Um, I didn't know... Well, actually, I didn't realize this, 730 00:38:26,887 --> 00:38:32,852 {\an8}but years before, Eric had come to WWE and auditioned as a television announcer. 731 00:38:33,561 --> 00:38:34,979 Who's your hero, Eric? 732 00:38:35,062 --> 00:38:37,481 My hero? Hulk Hogan, absolutely. 733 00:38:37,982 --> 00:38:40,651 The man, the myth, the legend. 734 00:38:40,735 --> 00:38:43,779 And I didn't get the job. I was very disappointed. 735 00:38:44,363 --> 00:38:47,533 Did you regret not hiring him when you saw him show up? 736 00:38:47,616 --> 00:38:49,660 - Regret not hiring him? - Yeah. 737 00:38:49,744 --> 00:38:50,661 Um... 738 00:38:51,662 --> 00:38:53,331 - No. - You don't regret it? 739 00:38:53,414 --> 00:38:56,667 Um... I don't think I regret anything in my life. 740 00:38:59,003 --> 00:39:02,381 Eric did everything he possibly could do, as anyone would, 741 00:39:02,923 --> 00:39:05,760 but everything that they basically did 742 00:39:06,552 --> 00:39:09,138 pretty much was a WWE creation to begin with, 743 00:39:09,805 --> 00:39:13,893 including when Turner took our talent that we had created. 744 00:39:15,978 --> 00:39:20,191 At that time, I wanted to hang on to one of my stars. 745 00:39:20,274 --> 00:39:21,650 So I made a deal with Bret. 746 00:39:21,734 --> 00:39:24,028 He flew up to Calgary, flew up to my house, 747 00:39:24,111 --> 00:39:27,406 and gave me his offer of a 20-year contract. 748 00:39:27,490 --> 00:39:32,328 I owe it all to my WWE fans. I'll be with the WWE forever. 749 00:39:34,288 --> 00:39:37,249 All right! All right! 750 00:39:37,333 --> 00:39:39,668 As soon as I signed, I said, "This isn't gonna be good." 751 00:39:39,752 --> 00:39:41,379 "Wrong thing ego-wise." 752 00:39:41,462 --> 00:39:44,799 It's a... It was a bad move, bad business move to try and keep Bret. 753 00:39:44,882 --> 00:39:46,300 "I had to keep Bret." 754 00:39:46,384 --> 00:39:51,097 "No, dumbass Vince, you didn't have to. Just create new stars, Vince." 755 00:39:51,180 --> 00:39:54,475 So in any event, now there's a big contract, and it's not working. 756 00:39:54,558 --> 00:39:58,896 So I go to Bret, and I said, "Bret, look, I can't afford to pay you 757 00:39:58,979 --> 00:40:00,272 what I'm paying you now." 758 00:40:00,356 --> 00:40:04,318 My dad took Bret's contract and showed Bret where the loopholes were, 759 00:40:04,402 --> 00:40:08,364 and said, "You can use this as leverage to help negotiate yourself 760 00:40:08,447 --> 00:40:10,449 a much better deal with WCW." 761 00:40:11,992 --> 00:40:16,455 So Bret went for the other guys and, uh, was paid a lot of money. 762 00:40:16,539 --> 00:40:19,959 Bret Hart happened to be the WWE champion at the time. 763 00:40:20,042 --> 00:40:23,129 All that my dad expected back was for Bret 764 00:40:23,212 --> 00:40:25,965 to do the right thing business-wise since he was leaving 765 00:40:26,048 --> 00:40:28,551 and lose to Shawn Michaels. 766 00:40:28,634 --> 00:40:33,097 "You know, Bret, you have the property around your waist that belonged to WWE." 767 00:40:33,180 --> 00:40:37,017 "It didn't belong to you. You didn't win it, you were granted that." 768 00:40:37,101 --> 00:40:40,855 "I can't let you go to Turner with the WWE championship belt." 769 00:40:40,938 --> 00:40:42,356 "That doesn't make any sense." 770 00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:44,233 Bret had different ideas. 771 00:40:44,900 --> 00:40:48,988 Everybody felt like he should drop the title to somebody before he goes, 772 00:40:49,071 --> 00:40:52,491 and I don't even think Bret had a problem losing the match. 773 00:40:53,492 --> 00:40:55,286 It was losing it to me. 774 00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:59,165 Shawn was a real dick at that time, 775 00:41:00,166 --> 00:41:01,667 and that's just the truth. 776 00:41:02,251 --> 00:41:07,673 The Bret and Shawn rivalry thing, it was real and authentic. 777 00:41:07,756 --> 00:41:12,094 Both Bret and I felt that Vince and the WWE were kind of capitalizing 778 00:41:12,178 --> 00:41:15,389 on this real-life dissension that we had. 779 00:41:15,473 --> 00:41:20,019 Shawn and Bret, two great performers, uh... were not getting along. 780 00:41:20,686 --> 00:41:23,564 Shawn starting cutting what we call shooting promos. 781 00:41:23,647 --> 00:41:26,484 They would go off-script and say something personal. 782 00:41:26,567 --> 00:41:29,570 He stabbed World Wrestling Entertainment in the back. 783 00:41:29,653 --> 00:41:33,824 Why? For his financial gain. 784 00:41:33,908 --> 00:41:35,284 After a while, 785 00:41:35,367 --> 00:41:37,786 you begin to know what bothers somebody, 786 00:41:37,870 --> 00:41:40,414 and, man, I poked that bear like nobody's business. 787 00:41:40,498 --> 00:41:43,918 I was... Look, I was such a prick. 788 00:41:44,835 --> 00:41:48,714 I came close to punching Shawn quite a few times. 789 00:41:48,797 --> 00:41:52,801 Even though, lately, you've had some "sunny" days, my friend... 790 00:41:52,885 --> 00:41:58,057 {\an8}Telling on national TV that I'm banging Sunny, when I'm a married man, 791 00:41:58,140 --> 00:42:01,769 you're crossing a line where you're messing with my family. 792 00:42:01,852 --> 00:42:06,315 You're messing with me on a personal level, and it's bullshit. 793 00:42:06,398 --> 00:42:08,901 What were your thoughts about that? 794 00:42:08,984 --> 00:42:12,321 My thoughts at the time was, "Well, this is good for television." 795 00:42:12,404 --> 00:42:14,990 {\an8}The Survivor Series, presented live by Milton Bradley... 796 00:42:15,074 --> 00:42:17,535 {\an8}So we had this last match in Montreal. 797 00:42:18,285 --> 00:42:20,621 {\an8}"Bret, I want you to do the honors for Shawn tonight, 798 00:42:20,704 --> 00:42:24,291 uh, because we need someone to replace you." 799 00:42:24,375 --> 00:42:27,086 And Bret said, "Well, I don't wanna do that." 800 00:42:28,128 --> 00:42:30,005 "Especially in Canada." 801 00:42:30,089 --> 00:42:35,594 There was a... a phone call that happened with Shawn, myself, and Vince. 802 00:42:36,303 --> 00:42:39,890 Vince said, "Look, Bret's not gonna do it. He refuses to do it." 803 00:42:39,974 --> 00:42:43,102 I don't remember all the specifics, but I was the one that was like, 804 00:42:43,185 --> 00:42:45,145 "Fuck that. If he won't do it, do it for him." 805 00:42:45,980 --> 00:42:48,190 I met Vince when I was 23 years old. 806 00:42:48,274 --> 00:42:51,110 I've spent more time with him than I have my own father. 807 00:42:51,193 --> 00:42:54,280 I get emotional about it, 'cause it's... uh... 808 00:42:55,030 --> 00:42:56,991 You know, I put him through a lot. 809 00:42:57,658 --> 00:43:01,704 I was in a bad, bad place for a lot of years, and he put up with it. 810 00:43:01,787 --> 00:43:05,416 To me, he deserves something in return for that. 811 00:43:05,499 --> 00:43:07,710 And so, for that, I gave him my loyalty. 812 00:43:07,793 --> 00:43:11,380 All he had to do was look at me and say, "Shawn, this is what I want," 813 00:43:11,463 --> 00:43:12,590 and I did it. 814 00:43:14,675 --> 00:43:16,844 On that night, he did not want Bret Hart 815 00:43:16,927 --> 00:43:19,305 walking out of that building with the championship, 816 00:43:19,388 --> 00:43:20,806 and I made sure that happened. 817 00:43:21,765 --> 00:43:25,477 Day of, I was told that it was gonna be a schmoz finish. 818 00:43:25,561 --> 00:43:28,147 Everybody was gonna get involved. We were gonna throw the match out, 819 00:43:28,230 --> 00:43:31,400 and we'd figure out what to do afterwards. 820 00:43:32,067 --> 00:43:35,195 A schmoz is a big brawl with a bunch of different guys, 821 00:43:35,279 --> 00:43:37,156 and the referee just throws it out. 822 00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:40,743 No one really wins or loses, and it was like, "That works for me." 823 00:43:41,827 --> 00:43:46,206 But WWE had been screwing wrestlers in different ways for a long time. 824 00:43:46,832 --> 00:43:50,961 I knew about Wendi Richter, so I didn't trust anything. 825 00:43:51,045 --> 00:43:53,297 Never took my eyes off Shawn. 826 00:43:53,380 --> 00:43:54,965 If he wants to make this a real fight, 827 00:43:55,049 --> 00:43:57,509 we can make it a real fight anytime he wants to. 828 00:43:57,593 --> 00:43:59,178 I will fight him to the death. 829 00:43:59,261 --> 00:44:01,847 - Look out! - Shawn Michaels is in. 830 00:44:01,930 --> 00:44:04,767 If you watch that match, it's a great match. 831 00:44:04,850 --> 00:44:09,897 It's a down-and-dirty fight between guys that hate each other's guts. 832 00:44:11,649 --> 00:44:13,984 Eventually, Shawn puts me in the sharpshooter, 833 00:44:14,068 --> 00:44:16,111 which is my finishing move, 834 00:44:16,195 --> 00:44:17,946 and he, in fact, puts it on wrong. 835 00:44:18,030 --> 00:44:21,033 If you see it, I correct Shawn while he's doing it, 836 00:44:21,116 --> 00:44:24,995 and he switches it and puts it on right, and then turns me over, 837 00:44:25,079 --> 00:44:28,957 and I can see the timekeeper, and I see Vince yell at him. 838 00:44:29,041 --> 00:44:32,544 I'm yelling at the timekeeper, "Ring the bell, ring the bell." 839 00:44:32,628 --> 00:44:35,089 Even though Bret never tapped out. 840 00:44:35,798 --> 00:44:38,092 And he won't ring it. He's, like, stunned. He's like... 841 00:44:38,175 --> 00:44:41,762 And then I see Vince snap at him, "Ring the fucking bell!" 842 00:44:41,845 --> 00:44:44,056 Ring! Ring the bell, ring the bell! 843 00:44:48,936 --> 00:44:52,815 The bell rings, and I'm screaming on the headset. "Why'd you ring the bell?" 844 00:44:52,898 --> 00:44:54,692 Oh shit! 845 00:44:55,609 --> 00:44:58,278 And I can feel it. 846 00:44:58,362 --> 00:45:02,157 Everything is coming to me now. Like, "They did it. They did screw you." 847 00:45:02,783 --> 00:45:07,079 I wanted to be out at ringside so that he would know what happened, 848 00:45:07,162 --> 00:45:09,873 and I took back what was mine. 849 00:45:09,957 --> 00:45:12,042 Bret obviously didn't like that. 850 00:45:12,126 --> 00:45:14,461 When you have a match as hard as I was wrestling, 851 00:45:14,545 --> 00:45:16,880 you get a fair bit of froth in your mouth. 852 00:45:17,464 --> 00:45:19,967 I leaned over, and I spit on his face. 853 00:45:20,050 --> 00:45:21,885 I got him bullseye. 854 00:45:23,595 --> 00:45:25,139 Right into my eye. 855 00:45:25,222 --> 00:45:29,309 That was gross, but nonetheless, I thought, "Damn, how did he do that?" 856 00:45:31,311 --> 00:45:33,313 Then I went out and broke all the monitors 857 00:45:33,397 --> 00:45:36,191 and smashed all them to pieces on the floor. 858 00:45:36,275 --> 00:45:37,401 It was just chaos. 859 00:45:38,235 --> 00:45:40,612 Bret writes "WCW" in the air. 860 00:45:41,363 --> 00:45:44,450 It's hard for people to imagine how mad you can get 861 00:45:44,533 --> 00:45:47,119 when you get betrayed like that on national television 862 00:45:47,202 --> 00:45:49,163 and, in a lot of ways, made a fool of. 863 00:45:49,830 --> 00:45:52,374 My brother Owen was very calming. 864 00:45:53,041 --> 00:45:55,335 He goes, "It wasn't right, what they did. That was wrong." 865 00:45:55,419 --> 00:45:58,005 "You have all the respect of everybody in the dressing room." 866 00:45:58,088 --> 00:46:00,257 That kind of stuff. He was very... 867 00:46:00,340 --> 00:46:03,761 ...consoling to me at that time. And... 868 00:46:09,224 --> 00:46:14,480 {\an8}Fourteen years, I've given Vince McMahon 100% every night. 869 00:46:14,563 --> 00:46:18,817 I've bled for him, took front turnbuckles at 100 miles an hour. 870 00:46:18,901 --> 00:46:22,070 I've given him Christmas mornings with my kids that never happened. 871 00:46:22,154 --> 00:46:25,282 I've never missed a show. I've given this guy everything I got. 872 00:46:25,365 --> 00:46:28,911 I couldn't have given a man more than what I gave Vince McMahon. 873 00:46:28,994 --> 00:46:32,331 None of that meant anything when Vince screwed me that day in Montreal. 874 00:46:34,750 --> 00:46:38,921 When I walk back to that dressing room, I'm ready to kill him. 875 00:46:39,004 --> 00:46:40,881 Like, kill him. Beat him to death. 876 00:46:40,964 --> 00:46:42,716 Shawn, you weren't in on that? 877 00:46:43,425 --> 00:46:47,471 No fucking idea. I didn't know, God as my fucking witness. 878 00:46:47,554 --> 00:46:50,557 He came up immediately and said, "Did you know?" 879 00:46:50,641 --> 00:46:52,726 I said, "Hand to God, I did not." 880 00:46:52,810 --> 00:46:54,728 Vince was so adamant. 881 00:46:54,812 --> 00:46:59,107 We had to absolutely swear that we knew nothing about this. 882 00:46:59,191 --> 00:47:02,820 He was like, "I don't care who asks you, you bold-face lie right to them 883 00:47:02,903 --> 00:47:06,114 and say, 'I knew nothing about this. This was a Vince McMahon call.'" 884 00:47:06,198 --> 00:47:07,699 {\an8}I swear to God, I knew nothing... 885 00:47:07,783 --> 00:47:12,079 {\an8}Yeah, swear to God all you want, but someday, God is gonna strike you down. 886 00:47:12,162 --> 00:47:16,124 It was chaos in the back, and people everywhere were freaking out. 887 00:47:16,208 --> 00:47:19,878 Just remember, someday, Hunter, what goes around comes around. 888 00:47:19,962 --> 00:47:25,467 I remember being just so pissed that they did things this way. 889 00:47:26,134 --> 00:47:27,803 I think Vince was in a panic mode, like, 890 00:47:27,886 --> 00:47:32,558 "What can I do to stop this rebellion right now?" 891 00:47:33,809 --> 00:47:39,022 I felt like, in a strange sort of way, because Bret and I had this relationship, 892 00:47:39,106 --> 00:47:42,317 I felt like I sort of owed Bret something, 893 00:47:42,401 --> 00:47:46,196 uh, because from his standpoint, I'd double-crossed him. 894 00:47:47,739 --> 00:47:50,617 Vince said, "He's gonna want to hit me, and I owe him that." 895 00:47:51,285 --> 00:47:54,746 I can picture him walking in that locker room in Montreal. 896 00:47:54,830 --> 00:47:57,583 Everybody else fired up, everybody else emotional. 897 00:47:58,417 --> 00:48:01,003 I leave the room, 'cause I don't wanna watch Vince get punched. 898 00:48:01,837 --> 00:48:04,131 Finally, Bret gets up, walks across the room. 899 00:48:04,214 --> 00:48:05,841 They all kind of meet. 900 00:48:05,924 --> 00:48:09,720 I walk over to his locker room, hands down, 901 00:48:09,803 --> 00:48:13,265 and Bret hauls off and, man, he hit me so hard. 902 00:48:13,348 --> 00:48:14,474 Right in the temple. 903 00:48:14,558 --> 00:48:17,603 There was no, like, "Vince is gonna give me a shot." 904 00:48:17,686 --> 00:48:21,273 I don't know where they get that story, because that is such a bunch of bullshit. 905 00:48:21,982 --> 00:48:24,443 It was Vince and me came at each other, 906 00:48:24,526 --> 00:48:27,070 and we actually tied up like a wrestling match. 907 00:48:27,154 --> 00:48:30,616 Everybody's ready to pounce on me as soon as we grab each other, 908 00:48:30,699 --> 00:48:33,452 and I remember going, "The only way I can get a shot in, 909 00:48:33,535 --> 00:48:36,914 one shot, maybe, is an uppercut." 910 00:48:36,997 --> 00:48:40,083 And I came right up between Vince's arms, 911 00:48:40,167 --> 00:48:45,172 and it was like, um... You know when you hit the bell and the thing goes up? 912 00:48:45,255 --> 00:48:49,384 To this day, I have no idea how the punch got through. 913 00:48:49,468 --> 00:48:51,303 He was out cold like a starfish. 914 00:48:51,887 --> 00:48:53,597 - Drilled him. - I'm proud of you. 915 00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:54,598 They're over there. 916 00:48:55,223 --> 00:48:58,518 - As hard as I could. Knocked him out. - I'm scared. 917 00:48:58,602 --> 00:49:01,438 Probably the best thing I ever did, and he deserved every bit. 918 00:49:02,230 --> 00:49:05,108 Vince did get seriously hurt, I mean... 919 00:49:05,192 --> 00:49:07,653 Vince had, you know, a big, nice shiner. 920 00:49:08,779 --> 00:49:10,906 That night, I'm limping around, 921 00:49:10,989 --> 00:49:15,160 and, like, "Oh my God, stars are all over the place in terms of my head." 922 00:49:15,243 --> 00:49:16,453 Pretty good concussion. 923 00:49:17,245 --> 00:49:20,874 I felt bad. I felt bad for Bret. I felt bad for Vince. 924 00:49:20,958 --> 00:49:24,586 Vince didn't wanna do that, but he had to do what's best for business, 925 00:49:24,670 --> 00:49:27,339 and that's what he's always gonna do. 926 00:49:28,632 --> 00:49:31,843 That was the Montreal Screwjob, as it was called, 927 00:49:31,927 --> 00:49:35,263 and, to this day, I don't regret any of it. 928 00:49:36,139 --> 00:49:40,435 Things just got real, and it gave me a whole different perspective 929 00:49:41,603 --> 00:49:42,771 for the business. 930 00:49:43,897 --> 00:49:46,525 The Montreal Screwjob was like a moment in time 931 00:49:46,608 --> 00:49:48,902 where you can see the shift. 932 00:49:48,986 --> 00:49:51,697 You know, it's like a land mass moving. 933 00:49:51,780 --> 00:49:53,740 You don't see it, but then there's a big earthquake 934 00:49:53,824 --> 00:49:55,492 and it moves, and you go, "Ooh, I saw it." 935 00:49:57,119 --> 00:50:00,288 It, like, shifted, and there was a... a seismic change. 936 00:50:02,040 --> 00:50:04,042 The real-life event that happened, 937 00:50:04,126 --> 00:50:07,421 the dispute with Bret and the controversy afterwards, 938 00:50:07,504 --> 00:50:12,676 led to the birth of a Mr. McMahon character 939 00:50:12,759 --> 00:50:15,804 that became one of the most hated characters 940 00:50:15,887 --> 00:50:19,182 and most beloved characters of all time. 941 00:50:20,934 --> 00:50:24,688 In the midst of chaos, a lot of times, genius comes out of it. 942 00:50:24,771 --> 00:50:29,651 Is this the final nail, so to speak, in World Wrestling Entertainment? 943 00:50:29,735 --> 00:50:32,446 Au contraire. We're just getting started.