https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfLCbXbRPTs AS: This has always bothered me: when you went to WWE why did your music change from The Smells like Teen Spirit type theme to that other song? DDP: It pissed me off so bad! I mean it really did. WWE didnt buy the music. I dont know why they didnt buy it because it sells all the time. And oh God it frustrated the hell out of me. They also wanted to completely change my character obviously, because Vince likes to create his own stuff. If I would have known that, I dont think I would have ever went. I really dont think I ever would have went. It would have been like Were doing DDP and all the s**t that goes with it right? I didnt know and I should have known just because of coming in as a heel when so many people wanted me as a babyface. They wanted to cheer for me. And towards the end of it, when I did the thing with Jericho, it was so easy to flip the people. The music thing, I talked to Jimmy Hart about it, were going to go down and do it again ourselves. This way I can get something close to that, but not exactly that. Just so it sounds something like it. Jimmys like Im not charging you, well just go out and redo it. Because Jimmy and I did that. So thats one of my goals for this year, because its going to be up on the WWE network and because of games and stuff like that. Id love to have Its me, its me, its D-D-P! and then have it go Self High five thats the combination I put together for doing indy shows and stuff. Then they get the two effects Its me DDP works, but the self high five was so important because that was the whole character. AS: Good to know. Because back in the day during your WWE run I was like What is this? Where is my Smells like Teen Spirit? I was watching on the network recently and I noticed that its a different song when you came out in WCW matches. DDP: Its a different song when I come out on the network too? A different song? Dammit. I didnt know they went back and edited everything.
On Raven and Benoit
AS: Lets switch over to your feud with Raven. DDP: You want to know something that bummed me out? Im going back to to the very best of Nitro 3, I go up and do that in October. I get to pick a lot of the matches that go on there. I wanted to put the whole Raven feud, but Benoit is there through it all. And that was by design at the time. I knew Chris was going to be a friggin monstrous star. I didnt care how much they tried to hold him down he worked so hard I knew that he was going to be in that spot at some point and I wanted to help him get there. If he could ever look back and see what happened to his life oh my god...it would be brutal. He would never believe it. None of us would. A lot of people are really mad at him still and what they need to understand is that his father put his body in for an autopsy at a Canadian University, I dont remember which one it was, but his brain came back the brain of an 87-year-old alzheimer's patient. That guy I cant remember his last name...Chris AS: Nowinski. Yeah. Great guy. Hes such a smart guy. Look at whats happening in the NFL today, I think Chris Nowinski has to do with a lot of that. DDP: Do you have any memorable specific memories of your feud with Raven? Scotty and I are real good friends. You have to understand the Raven character pretty much started with me coming back from Germany and I was with a buddy of mine, Tony Pallagrosi, and Kimberly she was in the back seat and I was talking about I think it was 94 or 95 and we just toured Germany and the UK. What happened was I happened to catch the MTV music awards and it was the first time I noticed that theres a s**t ton of bands that I have no idea who they are. A lot of them were from the grunge era. I hadnt done my Smells like Teen Spirit soundtrack yet I dont think, and I realized like Bruce Springsteen and Aerosmith were the only ones that were from the 80s era you know? So I thought who is the person in wrestling that these kids are identifying with? And there was no one at the time. And I was just speaking out loud and and to my buddy Tony and said God, I wonder who could do that gimmick when it comes to this day and age and music? and Kimberly said right from the back she said Scotty Levy could do that and I'm like Oh wow. Because he hadnt really found his character yet I said Thats a great idea So I called him up and I told him, and I had a really good relationship with Paul E. Dangerously (Paul Heyman) at the time and so I was sort of grooming some of the guys through there for WCW to help Bischoff with talent that would come in the WCW and I called Paul E up and I told him the idea and he loved in. So I said Ill let you know when we got it together so I called up Raven, Scott at the time, I asked him and he goes Yeah, I could do that and then I said well work on some promos to find the character. He called me up and he would start to get in that little dark side of Raven and then he would slip and shift to Ooooo boyyyyy! when hed go to that black kid trapped in a white kids body that he would do occasionally. And I just go Thats not it. Click. You know just hang up on him. *laughs* Me and Scotty would not argue, but we could debate back and forth and I didnt want to debate with Scotty anymore so Id just hang up. Im like I dont have time for this nonsense, youve gotta change that and then one day he just nailed it and the What about me? What about Raven? which was really Scott Levy at the time. Like big time. I always say the guys that really get over, and if Raven would have had even a mediocre push...I put the strap on him! We were going to go back and forth over that thing and Goldberg, they got afraid because WWF at the time was coming up strong in the ratings. We were still winning but they wanted to put the belt on Goldberg and then put the world title on him as well. That was hotshotting Goldy cause he did awesome, but he wasnt ready yet. He had to work on his mic skills and all that stuff. And if they would have waited a little longer and they would have worked on his mic skills. You talk about being thrown into the water. I mean learn to swim man. I think he did a hell of a job, but he wasnt ready for that monster push yet. With Raven, I think he could have been world champion. I think he would have been unbelievable if he would have just been given the opportunity.
On His MTV Appearance
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2rt95_raven-attacks-ddp-on-mtv_sport DDP: And heres one of the back stories at MTV. One of Chris Jerichos lead guitar players, his partner in Fozzy, his name is Rich and he had a band called Stuck Mojo at the time. And those guys were huge. They asked me to be in the video that they did and theyre playing, and they came out with the World Tag Team Titles, and Corey (Lowery) came out with the World Title, and they slid to the ring and played their music in the ring. And then Raven and the Flock showed up and slid in, and I started giving everybody Diamond Cutters except for Raven. He back pedaled out. So Im on MTV with Carson Daly talking about it and they played the video with Stuck Mojo. They never had exposure like that, so it was a monster boost for Rich and Stuck Mojo. And David Grohl who of course, Mr. Nirvana, and his keyboard player are sitting next to me. And Raven comes out, and the only people that knew about this were me, Raven and Carson and he hit me in the head with a stop sign and it was so loud that David Grohl jumps in the air and lands in his keyboard players lap almost. So Raven comes around and then DDTs me through a table. So that was funny. A little behind the scenes thing that happened and we were all sitting around laughing about it afterwards. Click "next" for part 3...
As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at."
Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week.
Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com
