Highlights:
On Wrestlemania 8 with Roddy Piper and his chance with the Intercontinental Title.
“When I realized I was going to wrestle Roddy Piper, my gut instinct told me that Piper was going to keep the title for a while, and I would sort of be back up to him. It didnt work out like that, and I’m glad it didn’t because I kind of had my heart set on a good healthy long run as the Intercontinental champion. I thought at the time I got the title that I earned it and I wanted to have my chance. When i lost it to “The Mountie” I thought ‘They never gave me my chance.’”
On Piper ‘passing the torch’ to him and other wrestlers not doing the same
“For him to pass the torch down to me, kind of thing, was a pretty big step for me. At that time a lot of wrestlers didn’t want to make that kind of effort for me, and I’m not sure why or what their arguments might have been. So many guys when I look back on my career, like even when I won the World Title I was supposed to go over on ‘Warrior’, i would have gone over on ‘Warrior’ at the ‘Rumble’, never happened. I was supposed to wrestle Jake Roberts first at ‘Survivor Series’, never happened,” … “its too bad in the case of Jake Roberts, he’s a guy that, I had this great career and never wrestled Jake Roberts one time.”
On creating the ladder match and Shawn Michaels stealing the idea
“[Vince] told me to pick anybody I wanted, I said ‘I’ll pick Shawn’ because I was good friends with Shawn back then. I went to Shawn and said ‘We’re going to do a ladder match’ and he didn’t know what it was either. I tried to explain it to him. I knew it was a million dollar idea. Once I showed him how to do it I knew it would be a great idea” … “And then Shawn stole then idea from me. It was the idea that was the the million dollar idea. A lot of guys could have had a great ladder match, a lot of guys have. But it was the idea that I brought forth that they stole from me.”
Knowing that Summerslam 1992 was his “audition” to prove that he was a main event talent ready for the WWE championship
This and much more in part 1 of this 3 part interview.
