Its an established fact, from long before the advent of reality television and TMZ: the only stereotypes who love celebrity gossip more than bored housewives at the supermarket checkout are smart professional wrestling fans. Thing is, normal celebrities try to avoid providing gossip, as a rule their whole lives are spent trying to live normal filthy rich lives, if you believe the official statements of their publicists. Pro wrestlers, on the other hand, spend their entire lives being pro wrestlers, and an old school mentality, for some, means that once you set foot in the arena/school gym/backyard of your mates dads house, you are your character. Some even live the kayfabe dream and never let their characters slip, if they can help it. Thats how the dirtsheets came to be: via the desire for wrestling fans to know the results of wrestling shows; to be privy to some of the backstage gossip, because none of the wrestlers were saying anything. In these post-kayfabe days, of course, things are a little different. These days, its not just Chinese whispers from locker room sources and scuttlebutt (like gossip in its underwear, smelling of Deep Heat) from local ring crew and disgruntled production assistants. Now, any writer or wrestler with an internet connection can have their half-stoned two-hour confessional on YouTube within ten minutes of recording it. For professional wrestling fans, this is the good stuff unhampered by editorial bias or sometimes even by common sense. Shoot interviews are where the veil gets lifted and, for good or bad, us outsiders get to feel like were inside for a few minutes at a time. Whether its from an official interview where they go off-script, a matey podcast chat, a filmed conversation from someone with an axe to grind or just someone venting in their hotel room to the uncritical eye of a camcorder, these are some of the most revealing shoot interviews in wrestling.
Dishonourable Mention: The Iron Sheik & New Jack
It seems like its practically impossible to write an article like this without mentioning two of the oddest exponents of the shoot interview form. In this instance though, weve chosen to mostly exclude the Iron Sheik, because his addled, profanity-strewn rants filled with violent sexual imagery are a) repetitive and b) possibly all a work, thereby defeating the object. ECW alumnus New Jacks frequent outbursts in interviews, however, are a different kettle of fish entirely. Theres a school of thought that says that New Jack cant work in the ring: thats nonsense. But its worth considering that, after all the violence and mayhem during his 22 year career, all the slicing and dicing, the flying headbutts, the weapons and the leaps from balconies, that maybe the mercurial Jerome Young doesnt know the difference between a work and a shoot anymore.