– ECW Legend On How He Used To Be In Tears After His Wrestling Training Sessions, Talks About How Wrestling Trainers Nowadays Have To Be Very Careful Regarding Getting Sued
During a recent edition of “The Taz Show” podcast, ECW Legend Taz discussed the part from Ric Flair’s “30 For 30” documentary regarding how wrestling trainers were like back in the day. Below is what he said:
“When Ric Flair quit and I thought that was great, the animation when he went to some bar whatever the hell it was and then Verne Gagne went to find him and he just knocked him on his a$$ – Get in the car, you’re going back to dojo. I thought it was great. That was funny. And that’s how it was back then.
When I was running the House of Hardcore, the original House of Hardcore, ECW wrestling school that Paul Heyman and I ran, I remember when we had The Erotic Experience, a tag team that never made it and it was Pat Schmitt and it was Chris Chetti.
They were gonna do this tag team called the Erotic Experience. And they both broke in the House of Hardcore. Now Pat ended up leaving the business very early and no one even knew who he was but Chris had a good amount of success.
Now before their first match, I remember they were nervous and they were my guys, they were Perry Saturn’s guys, we trained them. And I went up to them. They were terrified. They were nervous and they had a good amount of training under me and Perry. And then I just slapped them both. And they looked at me like they wanted to f***ing kill me. And I go – “The first hit is done. Now you’re not nervous. Go kick a$$”.
That’s how it was back then. I did that to wake them up, get that nervousness out of them so they went in the f***ing ring and they were pi$$ed.
I’m not saying that should happen today, but that’s how it was back then. Now what I’m talking about was the mid-90s. But now could you imagine stories coming out of the NXT, Performance Center that Triple H runs? That would never happen.
So what Verne Gagne did to Ric Flair when you saw that animation of him knocking Ric on his a$$ and saying – get in the car and we’re going back to the dojo. It’s from a place of love because he knew Ric had it. He’s not a quitter. And obviously Verne Gagne doing that in this day and age would be frowned upon, but yet if he didn’t do that we wouldn’t have “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair in the wrestling world.
It’s just interesting when I saw that I thought about how I came up and how Johnny Rodz was with me and how difficult it was and I’d get my a$$ kicked. Guys like me and my friend who I miss dearly, Alex Rizzo, who was Big Dick Dudley for many of you people and we broke in together.
Coming up on the Johnny and how difficult it was physically and mentally. I come back and then I would go see my girlfriend, who is now my wife, and I’d be in tears. I’m not kidding, like it was so hard to learn. I wanted to quit so many times. So when I heard Ric talk about how much you wanted to quit….I’m just letting you guys know this, it’s not just Ric during that era who that happened to. There was so many of us. No matter where you train.
His era or my era, it was crazy then. How difficult it was because the trainers withheld so much information because the business was so protected unlike what happened obviously with the internet and all this stuff, it gets out there about the business. And all of our private inside terms or this or that or the way things are done.
So now trainers today, even if they’re veteran trainers and guys that are respected, they have to train people differently than it was when I got trained. They got to be careful they don’t get sued.
They got to be careful that they make sure that people sign certain type of contract so they don’t get sued. They got to make sure they don’t disrespect verbally or be too tough on anyone.”
– Another Return To Take Place On Next Week’s Raw (Spoiler)
According to PWInsider, former WWE Divas Champion Paige is scheduled to return to WWE programming on next week’s episode of Raw.
She’s been off WWE programming since last Summer and since then she has underwent neck surgery and collected two WWE Wellness Policy violation in her name. She recently began training at the WWE Performance Center.
There were rumors a few months back that Paige will be a part of SmackDown Live when she returns, but it looks like that’s not going to happen.
Current plan for Raw is for Paige to get added to the Bayley vs. Dana Brooke vs. Mickie James match and win it to qualify for Raw’s Women’s Survivor Series team.
Speaking of Raw, “The Big Dog” Roman Reigns is scheduled to return on the show as well.
