AS: Did you ever have anyone in mind for who should have ended The Streak? DDP: Yeah. Youre talking to him! (laughs) And its not just because its me winning the world title. All that hype. All that push. If he had taken The Diamond Cutter and didnt kick out the place would have went insane. Totally believable because no one kicked out of the Diamond Cutter. And it would have elevated me like a son of a bitch. I could have dropped the strap right back to him. You know, but he would have lost like any other guy loses. We all lose. We all lose in life. I know he hated the way he frickin lost with the cattle prod and all that s**t. But they were just trying to protect him like hes invincible. He should have went down to that. Ill tell you what, if it would have been Stone Cold Steve Austin, he would have went down for The Stunner. It is what it is. It was an amazing push, and I love Goldy man. I tried to talk to him six years earlier about getting in the business when he was playing for the Falcons. I think he made a really amazing impact in wrestling. Back when we were red hot in 97, going on 98, and we were just crushing the WWF at the time. There was a political cartoon type thing and it was a picture of Goldberg being put up on the wall, and underneath there was a garbage can and it was a picture of (Michael) Jordan, and they were putting up Goldbergs. It was really like "holy s**t, like what kind of impact is that?" http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xf77t8_ddp-vs-goldberg-halloween-havoc-199_sport AS: Halloween Havoc 98, you and Goldberg had a match which is pretty widely considered the best of his career but you guys went on after Hogan and Warrior which was kind of a debacle. What was that experience like? Well, they went 40 minutes or something. The really crazy thing is that it got to the 3-hour mark, so about a third of the people never saw the match, because Warrior and Hulk went so long. My ring music was over like crazy, so when they hit the music the place went crazy and then Goldbergs hit and they went even crazier. Because our entrances were so long, I dont think it really mattered how long the match before us went, and we were what everybody came to see anyway. Think about that. Hogan and Warrior. The biggest names of all time besides Stone Cold, The Rock, Sting and Flair, and we main-evented them, because they didnt want to follow us. Pretty awesome compliment considering the last time I saw Warrior was when I was driving the car for Rhythm and Blues at WrestleMania 6
On Leaving WCW Sooner
AS: Back in 2000, Kevin Sullivan offered The Radicalz (Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit and Perry Saturn) their releases from WCW. Was there any thought in your mind in joining them or wish you had? DDP: Wish I had? Maybe, but then again you never really know. You never know whats going to be done. Eric Bischoff was my good buddy at the time, over those years, but it was never a nepotism thing with him like people think. If you listen to Kevin Nash and Scott Hall they were right there. When I was supposed to drop those guys in New Orleans (giving them Diamond Cutters), that was just my idea. I went to Kevin to ask him and he was like Lets do it and he said well ask Scott first. I created that whole look. The WWE gets the credit for Razor Ramon, but I created that whole look from A to Z from the blonde hair to the jet black hair to losing the mustache, to growing the five o-clock shadow. Scott Hall will tell you word for word to the toothpick! Everything! I mean A to Z he was the Diamond Stud before he was ever Ramon. And Pat Patterson, Scott had called them for two years trying to get them to pick up the phone and call him back. As soon as they saw him on one of the shows with me on Saturday Nights main event, they called him that night. They were like whenever you get done, give us a call youve got a spot up here. I forget what the question was. What was the question? AS: In hindsight do you wish youd joined The Radicalz? DDP: Right! Right! Bischoff didnt really help me when it came to financial or nepotism, but where he did help me big time was protecting me from people trying to stab me in the back, because he knew who I was as a person. And I dont know if I would have gotten that same love if I came in with all those guys. I dont know. In retrospect I wish I didnt go in the first time. I shouldnt say wish. I would have liked to have made a better decision, because it was not a good decision for me. I try to look to the silver lining. I try to live life at 90% based on the concept that life is 10% of what happens to you, and 90% how you react to it. So when I look at my decision to go into WWE when I did. I walked away from $487,000 that was mine. Because WCW owed me 1.2 in change. Million. I took like $700,000 and something and left because I knew I was going to get a $450,000 contract with WWE. But you know, that was minimum. So I could make 5 million. Thats what I thought at the time for as hot as I was at the time. And I thought thats where were gonna go. And when I was offered the Stalker angle I brought up Peoples Champion vs. Peoples Champion, but I didnt really focus.
On Lessons Learned
DDP: Every goal Ive ever, ever, ever set, Ive achieved. I may not have exactly made the goal, but theyre pretty damn close. A lot of times theyre way better. But its all about setting goals and working towards it. I let the WWE change my view of what the goal was. Now heres what Ive learned. It was the most valuable lesson. Understand this. I made millions of dollars in wrestling. Ive made more with DDP Yoga. For the first eight years I was in $548,000 of my own money and didnt make a dime. Just putting in. Putting in and believing. When everyone else laughed. I mean think about it. Now at any point in time, of course people are going to laugh at me. But they laughed at me when I started wrestling at 35. They laughed at me when I said Im going to get Jake Roberts straight. Oh yeah, now Scott Hall too. The main point to know about people who laugh at me, so when anyone laughs at me for saying Im gong to do anything anymore I think to myself...hmm Im onto something. The lesson that I learned that day when my meeting was with Shane and Vince, the lesson that I learned from this is if you really believe in yourself, if you really believe in a goal. Like I believe The Peoples champion? The Rock and me. Im the original peoples champion of professional wrestling. Muhammad Ali is actually the original one, but the bottom line is when it came to that I was that guy. That feud would have drawn monster money and think about who The Rock is today. It would drawn monster money with the top entertainment star in the world. So pretty good fucking idea. And I let someone change my mind. Now what lesson did I learn? The lesson I learned is that you cant be afraid to walk away from the table. You cant be afraid to sit up. Stand up. Shake that persons hand and say Thats great, and I think youll be really successful with this, but not with me. When youre ready to do: fill in the blank, blah, blah, blah, in my case it was Peoples Champion vs. Peoples champion, give me a call. Now I didnt do that. But you can bet your ass in every business deal I have done since then if I dont feel 100% on the project. I get up, walk away from it. I did that with Shark Tank. Ive done it with infomercial companies that wanted to produce with us. Ive done it with every single production company that wants to do a reality show on me. The bottom line is you cant let anyone take you away from your goals if you really, really believe it. You cant be afraid to get up and walk away from the table. Because I do that every time in every business deal I have. Its the smartest advice I can give anybody. Because youll be stuck with it and go Oh god I wish I wouldve done this. And again if I dont do this with Vince. If I dont make that mistake. Then Im never in the position I am today. I couldnt be any happier about how s**t ended up working out. And then at Old School Raw, when Vince brought me in and brought Snake in and they let me do my mini-infomercial in the back and then had Jake show up in the main event and then had me induct Jake in the Hall of Fame I mean I couldnt be any happier. So thats the lesson bro. Check out more of DDP and DDP Yoga at ddpyoga.com, DDPYoga on Facebook. On Twitter @ddpyoga, and @realddp
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
