by Rick Scaia    
Exclusive to OnlineOnslaught.com

Please go back and review Part One if you missed it or need a refresher... otherwise, here we go with the stimulating finale of this interview.  Enjoy!]

  
OO Interview with Shane Douglas and Tom Pritchard, Pt. 2  
Originally Published by WrestleLine.com on June 14, 2000

At the Brian Hildebrand Fantasy Camp two weeks ago, I was lucky enough to get to speak with the WWF's Tom Pritchard during a break in his training duties...  little did I expect that after about 10 minutes, we'd be joined by WCW's Shane Douglas.  It turned into a very interesting discussion on how both men perceived their companies and the state of the industry.  And in Douglas' case, it turned into an opportunity to fill up over 45 minutes of tape with an intelligent and articulate monologue about a wide range of topics, before leaving Pritchard and I to wrap up the interview we had begun an hour before.

At the time, I felt uncomfortable playing such a small role in the talk after Shane joined us, but the fact is that Douglas often anticipated my next prodding question, and continued in depth along exactly the tangent I would have asked about.  His eloquence obviously goes beyond the standard wrestling promo we've seen him cut so often in the past.  Both Pritchard and myself interjected sporadically, but Shane Douglas' lengthy and unassisted diatribes are what make this transcript a must-read.

LEGEND   
RS:  Rick Scaia   
TP:  Tom Pritchard   
SD:  Shane Douglas

SD:  The one thing I'll give Vince [Russo] credit for, after where's he's been and after what he did with you guys he got a pretty big head, but he still sat me down and said, "I want you to be my wrestling brain."  I asked him why, and he told me he knows how to write a storyline, but he doesn't know why a dropkick comes before this move, or why you pause to do something before you make a cover.  He's never been in the ring, so he doesn't understand these things.

Paul [Heyman] would never that  He'd make the same mistakes, but he'd never admit to them.  Vince is man enough to admit them.  So I've been sitting there talking with him the past couple weeks, going over the stuff he's been doing, the directions he's been going...  and good directions, but some of those directions... like the stuff he's doing with the New Blood...  well, I explained it to him, and he said he understood, and right away off of that he said we're going to go through to August and call it "New Blood Rising" as the summer wears on.  So instead of us each having an individual agenda, we'll start to come together and it'll turn out all this discombobulation in the New Blood was part of a ruse to work the Millionaires into believing that they have us.

I told him that's a good way to go, but if  you're gonna do it, you have to explain it to the marks.  If you don't, they'll never buy it.

TP:  You know, another thing is that Vince, and I'm talking Russo now, here... he shouldn't be on TV all the time.  It's....

SD:  [jumping in]  Yeah, but you know one time he said to me, "I'm the guy who put Vince McMahon in the ring, and then Vince got really saturated with it."  But he also says he knows why, because now that he's done it, he thinks it's really fun out there.  But he did, he asked me to let him know if I see him doing it too much.

So just last night, we were doing this one vignette with a big nose in a coffin, and Vince was setting it up and he was like, "OK, so start with the camera on me, then cut to this, then there, then bring it back to me..." you know?  So I had to tell him, "Do you hear yourself?  Me, me me?"  But he listened because he's been in like five segments on every Nitro, and last night he put himself in -- what? -- one or two.

I told him, "I'm not going to steer you wrong cuz I'm in this ship for three years."  I want this baby to go up.  I mean, my paycheck doesn't get any better or worse if the ratings go up, but I'd rather we close the gap a little bit, instead of the show being so crappy.

I'm actually glad I was gone those three months, because it was damned embarrassing.  I mean, "the Dog"?!?  Wow!  I was sitting back watching that and I was like, "Well things have been set back 20 years just right there." The barking, the pissing on the ropes...  Wow.

And they tell me now that Kevin Sullivan had poor Al Greene believing that he was gonna get a seven figure contract off that gimmick, that it'd be big money.  And I think Kevin probably even believed that.  The whole time they thought they were screwing me, I thought Vince or Eric -- I didn't know both of 'em, but I thought one of 'em -- they were being paid too much money to sit at home, and I knew Kevin wasn't going to survive.  I've known Kevin for 15, 17 years, and the whole time, he's never impressed me as a wrestler, as a booker.  I mean, when he first came to us after me and Johnny [Ace] were put together as the Dudes, he told us, [Douglas adopts phony Boston accent] "You guys should do nothing but monkeyflips and armdrags."  I was like, [in a sarcastic tone] "Monkeyflips and armdrags?  Wow, that's really get me over big."  So yeah, I knew the Sullivan thing was gonna change.

I had a chance to go home, let the arm heal.  I wasn't part of any of the shitty storylines.  I would talk to some of the guys, and they were just absolutely miserable.  They'd get to TV and just when they thought it couldn't get any worse, BANG, it would get worse and worse and worse.  Then when you start hearing all the negatory things...  I mean, even Goldberg, you heard the negatory things, and you knew that house of cards wouldn't stand much longer.

The sad part of it was, is the damage it does to the boys in general, because when that company got down to a 1.9, and "Walker, Texas Ranger" was beating us, I see Turner selling the place.  If they had never been to the top of the mountain, it'd be one thing to take those losses.  But once you've been number one, truckloads of money were pouring in, and all of a sudden you're losing lots more money and ratings are going the wrong way and reruns of b-grade shows are beating you...  I mean, if it's Monday night and you're a wrestling fan, you should be watching Nitro when it's unopposed for that hour.  And if you're not, it must be some pretty damned bad wrestling. So I just knew that whole thing would turnaround.

But what I was worried about is if this place folds, then what does Vince [McMahon] do?  When this guy's contract's up, or this guy's contract?  "I'll give you $75,000, but don't worry, I'll take care of you."  C'mon...  it's like, I was talking earlier to the mother of the one girl we're training here today, and she said, "With all the money Vince McMahon makes, he should be paying for health insurance for the guys."

TP:  Right!

SD:  You just think about all the money this business is generating, and we're all fearful of breaking a leg, for chrissakes.  You break a leg, you worry about losing your job.  I mean, when I was out for a while, there was a clause in my contract -- it's not there anymore! -- but there was a clause that said if I was injured for 30 days, they could fire me.  So they enacted that clause.

But they don't understand the contract and tort law, that even if they have it in everybody's contract, that actually makes it WORSE for them.  Because then, how do you get away with saying, "Well Sting's hurt," but they kept him on.  Goldberg is out for six months, but they keep him on...  you can NOT selectively enforce contracts.  And that's part of the old school of wrestling that's going to be gone as it becomes more and more of a multi-billion dollar business.  More and more business acumen is going to creep in.

You're gonna have a hard time in front of a jury saying, "Well, this guy was hurt, he had bone chips"...  and you get a doctor up there and ask him how long somebody should be out of the ring if they have bone chips removed, and when it was me, he told me two weeks, just long enough for the incision to heel.  Because you're not dealing with any of the structures.  Sting, he took three-and-a-half, four months, just because he didn't want to be part of the product at that point.  So you have a hell of a time explaining that...  and they KNEW something was going on at the time, because we're talking about people who deal with other sports teams.  They deal with baseball, football... this isn't anything new to them.  A rich athlete gets hurt, and he probably won't be in a hurry to come back to the losing team.  These aren't dumbshits we're talking about, they knew that stuff was going on. They just opened themselves up to so many problems just by very bad enforcement of law.

I'm just so thankful that the whole thing ended when it did, that we're getting it turned around when we did.  I think if it had gone any longer than it did, Turner was getting quite liable to sell.  And right now, they've got a new commitment to it.

It's the little things our show can't compete with yours, because we don't have the capacity to do it.  I was reading in a trade magazine one time that when companies are recruiting new computer graphics people and products, the first place those people go is to Vince McMahon because they knew he'll take it.  That's why your product looks so fucking slick constantly.  But WCW looked at it the other way, they were making boatloads of money when they were number one, so they figured, "We don't have to spend any more, because we're still number one."

For instance, when Austin comes out for you guys, you hear the glass break, you hear the [humming Austin's theme] "DA-da da-daa" coming through your TV, it grabs you by the balls.  Our music hits -- and we've finally got some good music that kicks ass now -- but I hear the playback on TV, and you can only hear it on the house mics coming through the system, because we didn't have the capacity to do that.  Little things like that...  but I guess they just spent $9 million on a new truck that's going to be ready in 120 days that will upgrade all of that.

The fact that they're investing that kind of money in us when we're down shows there is a commitment.  It also mean that if things are still down in 12 months, we may all be in big trouble.

RS:  Kind of a giving you guys enough rope to hang yourselves sort of a thing?

SD:  Yeah...  man, it could be....  [turning to Tom and laughing]  hey, Tom, could you or Bruce talk to Vince for me?

TP:  Heh heh...  well, that's the thing, with TBS, man, I was talking to somebody who said, if wrestling's down there, they'll send guys to the Braves game, Hawks game, send the production crew, whatever, and treat 'em like they're third stringers for Turner.  Because that's how they view wrestling, whereas with Vince [McMahon] all he does is the wrestling...

SD:  Another thing that amazes me is how hot the wrestling books are.  Now I think I've got a pretty interesting story to tell, and with Time Warner, it's the biggest publishing conglomerate in the history of mankind.  If I want to write a book, it should be a a simple matter of making a call and saying, "Hey Tom in publishing, I've got a guy here who wants to write a book" and making it happen.

Meanwhile, it's like quantum physics to these guys, and you guys up there have got book after book coming out.

RS:  Even the Fabulous Moolah has got a book coming out.....

SD:  Right...  and you know, it'll sell, too.

But you know, they told me they want to get exposure for Shane Douglas, get fans to know who the Franchise is.  They're wracking their brains like this is hard.  Why don't they just call Larry King, get me on there for a segment.  Or Billy Bob's Bug Theater or whatever that is, anything.... bounce us back and forth.  I can bounce back and forth, talk about whatever, current events, whatever.  But that's like an afterthought to them, it's the farthest thing from their minds.

I will say this, there's new people come in, talking about shaking the department up from head-to-toe, do stuff like Vince [McMahon] does like interviewing us about what our likes and dislikes are, a new creative services department.

There are so many things that need to be fixed, and I hope they keep tackling it one at a time and not gobble it up all at one time, because it's so systemic.  There's so many problems...  the sound, the lights...

Like the other day, for instance:  classic WCW fuck up.  I'm in the back, I interfere in one of the matches, and then we're in the back, it's a big fight, here comes Dallas Page, it's a big spot, we get tossed around.  Cut to the next segment, there we are pushing the coffin down the hallway, and there I am fresh, sunglasses, hair combed nice, like nothing ever happened. I'm getting beat up just two seconds ago, not even a cut to a commercial or anything.  Didn't somebody look at the thing and say "Shane's getting beat up here, we ought to spread this out."  It's horrifying.  That sort of thing just should never happen.  I can't imagine that thing EVER happening on your show.

TP:  Exactly.  That's the kind of thing where Vince really does pay attention to detail.  And again, Russo did a lot, I'm sure he did. But McMahon also curtailed Russo in a lot of ways.  That's why he did LiveWire like once and then [motions like pulling a plug].  I'm not saying Vince knows what's right all the time, but it's just more times than not.

And the thing is, maybe Russo didn't catch that.  He needs guys who can catch that stuff.  The production guys, the Kevin Dunns, or whoever it is.

SD:  There was something grotesque a couple of weeks ago, too...  I can't... oh, I remember what it was.  Hogan was in the ring and had the crowd on their feet -- and it's been a long time since we've had a full house and even longer since we've had a crowd on their feet -- but on the sheet, on the itinerary, that was the end of the segment... and now we've got to cut to... whatever, Tom Pritchard walking down the hall in the back.

Now, to me, if you get that crowd of people all fired up and chanting "Hogan Hogan," then at least stay with the live shot for seven fucking seconds longer.  Make the next 30 second thing 23 seconds instead.  It's not that big a deal.  I told Vince, have guys who understand that -- whether its the boys or the agents or whatever -- have them sit down with a tape of our show with the production crew and have them explain.  "Stop right here!  See that guy climbing the top rope?"  Stuff like that.

I can't even count how many times since I've been here that somebody goes to the top rope, and they cut to the crowd.  Then when we cut back to the ring, there's no action.  We're like "God!".

TP:  And that's where the details come in...  the agents, they have to know every move so that they don't miss it.  We sit there at Gorilla [the "Gorilla Position" right behind the entrance curtain] and we make sure we tell 'em what's happening next...

SD:  Terry [Taylor], he's getting on that.  He's come to me a couple of times and told me just to give him a little more notice.

One of my things I'm a stickler on is position and things, especially for TV.  I know how critical it is, and with our crew, I know how easy it is to miss stuff unless you put a big sticker out there that says, "Put a Camera Here!"...  you know?

TP:  Yeah, you gotta have somebody in the headset saying, "Don't miss it, it's coming next, so don't you miss it."

SD:  Like I said, there's a lot of things we gotta work on, a lot of things we gotta tackle.  We have to fix these things first before we even think about moving on to something else.  There was something with the lights.....

Oh, I know...  if I'm on your show, I come out to the ring, and the lights are going, it's like a live video game.  But then even as the match is going, the lights are still going.  Like the big TitanTron, the lights are still going.  Instead of just a wall, the lights are still going.  So I said to Vince, "Why don't we do that?" and now we're trying, we've got the lights on the ceiling moving back and forth.  We just have to start watching -- if we want to compete with you guys -- we just have to pay attention.

It's like I was on the plane with some of the crew coming here...  they were flying home to Kentucky, I guess, going home to spend their time fishing, this, and that, whatever.  So I said to one of them, "What's the WWF been up to lately?"  And he just goes, "I don't know, I work Mondays and Thursdays. We don't watch."  So I was like, "PLEASE watch.  That's how our show should look."

Part of my job in ECW was to sit with Paul, and tell Paul, "You know, that angle sucks, we should do a dropkick from this angle, because it'd show more height" or whatever.  Sometimes he'd say, yeah, but there's a drop out of the tape on that angle, and that's a logical reason, but still...

That'd just be a pretty good way of doing things:  sit down, watch a tape of our show, then watch a tape of your show.  I'd be telling 'em where you couldn't hear my music, but on your show, it's [humming Austin's theme again] "DA-da da-daa".  Stuff like that.

TP:  Again, I think it's about establishing the segments.  You cram too much into the segments, you don't remember what happened last segment, you don't pay attention to this segment, and you get to the last segment, and you not really sure what happened the whole show.  Now, I don't get to watch your show very often, with traveling and all, but I did get to see the last half hour, with the bloodbath with Nash....

SD:  Oh, did you see that?  It missed him.....

TP:  Yeah, and he tried to back up into it....

SD:  God, how do you screw that up?!?

TP:  It's little things like that.  There's GOTTA be a mark on the floor. There's gotta be SOMETHING.

SD:  A square of tape.  Or a piece of tape here, and a piece of tape there and you have to line yourself up exactly with both pieces.

Did you hear about Buff with the crewmember?  Buff punching the crew member?

TP:  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah....

SD:  A lot of the crew guys get along well with the wrestlers, but a lot of them will walk right by, won't even talk to them.  It's almost like two separate classes of people.  There's just that separation.

Like, I know Jackie Crockett is cool.  If I need a particular handheld shot or something like that, I know I can go to him.  But I've gone to other people, I've gone to the pyro guy and asked him if we could get something done.  Cuz I wanted to do it right, cuz if I'm not in the right place, they won't send it cuz I'm standing right on top of the fucking thing.  And for me, in the dark, without my glasses, it's really hard for me to see a piece of black tape on a black carpet or on something painted black or dark.  So I asked if we could use white, or something.  And they told me no, because it'd show up on TV.  So I asked if they would just, right before I come out, run out and put a piece of white tape there.  "Let's just get it right," I said.  It's like pulling teeth.

It's dark out there... I mean, I've almost walked off the edge of the stage before.  I get out there, and I get my focus, and I'm like "Whoa!".

How about...  did you hear about Arquette?  Aw, jesus, this was hilarious....  this was a couple weeks back.  We were coming back from the ring, getting beat up on the stage.  And all of a sudden behind me, I hear this WHAM, like the backdrop is falling or something.  Turns out the stage was gimmicked, and it was supposed to be for a big spot at the end of the show.  But Arquette, nobody told him, and he went right through it.

I mean.....

TP:  See that's exactly what I'm talking about...  little things, man.

SD:  Yeah...  hey, it was good to see you, Tom.  I'm gonna head out of here...

TP:  Yeah, good to see you, too.

RS:  Yeah, thanks for your time, Shane....

[Handshakes all around as Shane leaves.]

TP:  Sorry 'bout that man...  it's just I saw Shane, and it's been a long time, so it was cool to catch up.

RS:  Oh, don't worry about it.  It was interesting even just to be mostly a fly on the wall there.  So you and Shane seemed to share a lot of the same thoughts on how things are going for your respective companies?

TP:  Well, yeah, I think Shane has a lot of ideas, most of 'em good, and he's got a good head for this...  I don't totally agree with him that WCW TV is really making any great strides, I mean...

I look at it this way:  if I go see a bad movie, I'm not gonna feel like I got my money's worth.  It doesn't matter if it's better than another even worse movie I've seen, it's still a bad movie, and that's not fun to watch. That's WCW right now:  it's getting a little better, but it's still pretty bad.

RS:  Do you think that's really because of the "little things," the production things like you Shane talked about?

TP:  Definitely, that's a part of it.  Other little things, too, like the fact that there's just too much Russo on their show, and it's totally unwarranted.  Or their roster and who they're choosing to use on TV...

RS:  Well, it does seem like they're trying to make stars out of a lot of guys who haven't been in that spot before, but the only one who's really caught on is Jeff Jarrett.  That was probably because of where he came from, the fact that he jumped ship and made a splash that way...  do you think they're just experiencing the limitations of promoting from within?

TP:  I'm not sure I know what you mean....

RS:  Well, I've always kind of thought that the mere act of jumping ship MAKES you a bigger star, because it puts you in the news, makes people take notice of your first acts with your new company.  That's why Jeff Jarrett made a big splash for WCW more than anything, I think....  I also look at guys like Booker T and D'Lo Brown as guys who have seemingly reached their peaks with their current companies; both those guys have huge talents but have sort of hit the wall.

TP:  Yeah, I see what you mean, but I think I kind of disagree, too.  I mean, with D'Lo, trust me, we've got some ideas for him, and I think he'll do best to stay with us and ride it out.  He'll be a bigger star with us than he'd ever be down south.

But I mean, with Jarrett, I don't know that WCW really did anything with him, made him into any more of a star.  They got like our second best heel, a guy who was way over with our audience.  They didn't have to do anything with him.  It's just that our second best guy was that much better than anyone else they had, and they used him.  You can go back even to Nash and Hall, and it's the same thing.  They may have been higher on the card or been more important to the company after they left us, but they were already big stars thanks to us.

RS:  How about the talent moves that go the other way, like the Radicals coming up earlier this year?  Are those guys really in much better spots than they were six months ago?  I mean, Benoit's obviously going to be good wherever he goes, and Eddie's starting to catch on, but how about Malen.....

TP:  It's like I was saying earlier, there is a certain amount of frustration there, but there's also an effort in place to get all those guys to where they belong.  I know... I'm pretty sure you can look for a different direction for Dean Malenko in the next few weeks, for instance. We're going to let his real personality shine through, and I think you'll see a witty and intelligent Dean Malenko soon.

RS:  OK...  that's cool, but another facet of those guys' talents is that gimmick or no, they can just go [in the ring].  What do you think about Vince Russo's recent public statement about how the WWF's move towards more in-ring wrestling is a sign that Vince McMahon is out of ideas and his show is getting passé and boring?

TP:  [Laughing]  Oh, god....  you know, I totally disagree with that.  We're pretty well in tune with what the fans want, what they're responding to. Right now, I think this is a great direction for us to be going, especially since it plays to the strengths of so many guys on our roster.  If we keep giving the fans what they want, I can't see how we're out of good ideas.

RS:  In terms of staying on top with the fans, did you ever think you'd see the day when either company would rattle off 83 straight Monday night ratings wins again... I mean, did you realize that sometime in the next two months, you guys will be beating Nitro's streak?

TP:  Come again?

RS:  Back when you guys were struggling, Nitro beat you 82 weeks in a row....

TP:  Oh yeah, but now....

RS:  Yeah, now you're coming up on doing the same thing back at them. You'll beat that streak, I think in July...  did you even think it could swing so decisively, and do you see it continuing on much further before they close the gap?

TP:  Well, I know I hadn't really been thinking in terms of a streak like that, but I guess we always knew we could turn it around.  Since we really got back on top a couple years ago, we've always put our best effort out and wanted to win.  The fact that we've done it for however many weeks in a row just goes back to us being able to deliver something the fans want.  And with things the way they're going, I don't really see any reason to think our run will come to an end.  Our streak could end at some point in the future -- probably way, way down the line -- but I don't see us ever getting away from giving the fans a good show and losing that competitive edge. We'll be running strong for a long time to come.

RS:  Alright, Doctor Tom...  I know it's getting on dinner time, and I do apologize for taking up so much of your time....

TP:  [Chuckling] Well, that wasn't all you, you know!

RS:  Yeah, but in any case, thanks a lot for your time, and I'm sure our readers appreciate it as well.

TP:  OK...  see you later....

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Rick Scaia is a wrestling fan from Dayton, OH.  He's been doing this since 1995, but enjoyed it best when the suckers from SportsLine were actually PAYING him to be a fan.

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