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THE PAYOFF
EPISODE 03 (RELEASED ON: 07/29/2019)
EPISODE GUEST: Magnum T.A
WATCHING: Magnum vs Tully Blanchard - “I Quit Match” Starrcade 1985
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KEY QUOTES FROM EPISODE GUEST:
On his future aspirations before accident: “Well, the world title was next. I mean, it had already been discussed and agreed upon and all the parties involved that needed to say yes had said yes. What people don’t know is that wrestling was my passion and winning the world title was definitely my goal and something I wouldn’t be satisfied with until I’d get it. I wanted to have a year run, maybe a two year run back and forth with somebody with the belt. I had the opportunity to drive a NASCAR back when I was wrestling. I got to drive Benny Parsons’ car at Charlotte Motor Speedway. That was like one of the biggest rushes I’ve ever had in my life, and I liked it so much that Hal Needham who own the car was wanting to send me to Buddy Baker’s driving school, and this was before Jeff Gordon and all these guys that came through NASCAR later on, they were looking for a young guy to groom in NASCAR to be a big draw, and there was a huge similar audience between wrestling and NASCAR. Really, my hope was to win the title, hold the title, have a run with it, and by the time I was 30, retire from wrestling and go drive race cars.”
On comparisons to Stone Cold Steve Austin: “You know, it’s a really good possibility that I laid those bricks in that road for him, because that was the character that I was comfortable in. I wasn’t to the point of standing up on the turnbuckle and flipping off the crowd. But I was pretty in your face hard-nosed draw a hardline kind of character. Even though I wrestled some monsters, always guys bigger than me. I mean, I was 245 pounds and in pretty decent shape. I could take a beating. I could give a beating. I really liked this match. It was more like a brawl. I really enjoyed that more than the backdrops and dropkicks and all that stuff. I like the brawling side of it more so than the technical skilled pretty wrestling like Ricky Steamboat did.”
On Relationship with Dusty Rhodes: “Well, Dusty is my best friend in life. We were tied at the hip. We met down in Florida, and when I was on the underneath to the middle of the card and we traveled together and sang and talked about our dreams and things we wanted to do. We just formed this crazy bond. When he had the book for the Crockett’s and had this opportunity there. I mean, I left when that territory was on fire. I was this top star and I left to go help my friend Dusty turn the Mid-Atlantic around and the NWA into what we did with it. I believed in him and I believed in what he and I could do together. So, I was there when Cody was born, and I’m Cody’s real godfather. I was there when he was christened. We just had a really, really special thing that I’ve never had in any other setting with someone that wasn’t family.”
On Cody Rhodes and AEW: “He’d be so proud of him, because he mentored his son and invested so much into him that Cody has just been groomed to be where he’s at, do what he’s doing. He’s got a brilliant mind. His talent as a performer is amazing, but more amazing is that entrepreneurial spirit that he has and his ability to be a visionary and see things like his dad did through a different set of lenses. So, he’s got that unique touch that’s so special. I can’t wait to see what they do. I mean, they made a lot of noise. I’ve been to their first two big events. One in Chicago and the one in Vegas, and the events were amazing and I’m just really interested to see what kind of product they’re able to produce when they start doing episodic television on the Turner station every week and see what that looks like, because it’s going to be a challenge. Doing a big show and putting together a great big production is exciting and bringing all that talent together. Then going out there and doing it week after week with storylines and lots of different folks and the things that can go wrong and people can get hurt and all those kind of things is a real big challenge. So, I’m very excited to see what they do.”
On using the spiked chair as a weapon at the end of the match: “We knew we were going to have some kind of object or something that we were going to use at the end of it, but we didn’t even know what that was going to be at the time. That’s really kind of a classic thing about this whole thing, because it ended up being such a dastardly looking weapon we ended up having at the end of this thing that we couldn’t have written a script and come up with the way this thing worked out anymore epic if we tried.”
On why they didn’t go on last in Greensboro: “Well, see, the deal was we were supposed to be the main event in Greensboro. Dusty was the main event in Atlanta. They moved us to the middle of the card, because Dusty wanted me to get to Atlanta before the end of his match. They had an airplane waiting for me. I literally didn’t even take a shower or anything. I wiped my head off, threw my clothes on, jumped in a limo, bolted to the airport. I had a private plane waiting. Took me off and jetted me to Atlanta to try to make it there before the match was over, and we missed it. Yeah, this in the middle of the card. I don’t know who followed it, but I’m sure it wasn’t very pleasant.”
If Dusty would be happy his son is competing with Vince: “I think he would because – It’s funny. For Dusty and I, it was always a war. We had this mentality. It was like the north against the south kind of thing. Vince is up there in the ivory towers and we down there in North Cackalacky with the Crockett’s and going toe-to-toe with all these major cities. Dusty loved that competition. He loved it when we’d go to Baltimore or Philly, and they’d be in the same town the same night and we’d be head to head going after it. So, yeah, I think he would be loving it. It’s good for the business. Back in the day, Dusty was a huge Boston Celtics fan, and we used to just get round and round with Rick as he was a Lakers fan, and we just loved that competition. We viewed the WE kind of like the same thing. It wasn’t that they were bad. It wasn’t a bad organization. It was just competition.”
