ECW Original The Blue Meanie recently spoke with Justin Barrasso for the Five Questions portion of this week’s Sports Illustrated Extra Mustard Week In Wrestling. You can read a few highlights below:
The Blue Meanie comments on the creation of the bWo, if any of the nWo members had an issue with the parody:
Stevie Richards and I were doing parodies of other acts in other promotions, and that was the brainchild of Raven. He saw me and Stevie interact, and he came up with the idea for us to do these parodies. Our first parody was of The Fabulous Ones, who were these two, handsome, Chippendale-esque wrestlers – and here we were, two goofs in half-shirts and daisy dukes, and it grew from there. At the time, the hottest act in wrestling was the New World Order. I had been talking to my mentor and best friend, Al Snow, and I mentioned that Stevie and I should parody the New World Order. I was just bouncing ideas off him, and I finally said, “Blue rhymes with new, we could be the Blue World Order,” and Al popped. His reaction was so strong that I pitched it to Stevie, then Stevie pitched it to Raven, and Raven brought it to Paul E. We finally did it one night, and it was only supposed to last for one night, but just the sheer reaction from the crowd gave this look of astonishment on [ECW owner] Tod Gordon and Paul Heyman’s faces. They realized we could do a parody t-shirt, and the Blue World Order t-shirt was one of ECW’s highest-grossing t-shirts, which was mind-boggling.
When I went to the WWE, I had interactions with Sean Waltman, who was part of the NWO. I said, “Hey man, I hope you guys didn’t mind the whole BWO parody.” Sean responded, “Oh no, man, we loved it.” Later on, I found out from Scott Hall that he would rib Kevin Nash and say, “The leader of the Blue World Order is Da Blue Guy, and he’s supposed to be me, so I should be the leader of the New World Order.” I had the honor and privilege of working a couple shows with Kevin Nash, and he always said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Scott Hall even asked me for a BWO shirt, so I hooked him up with a shirt.
Meanie shares a story about how he celebrated Mick Foley’s first world title win with him:
We were at a Holiday Inn in Massachusetts, and I should have booked a room well in advance but I hadn’t, and there was a major snowstorm so the place was booked up. I decided to wait in the lobby all night, and Mick wanders in and said, “Hey Meanie, what’s going on?” He saw how dejected I looked that I couldn’t get a room. He felt bad that I had to sit there, and he let me stay with him in his room. He’d won his first ever WWE world championship that day, and that night, we watched A Bronx Tale on his hotel bed with his WWE title and ten pounds of Chinese food. I owe a lot of my success to Mick Foley, and that goes back to ECW, and he’s been a big part of my life.
Related: Wrestlezone’s Bill Pritchard also spoke with The Blue Meanie at WrestleCade V in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, talking about the anniversary of his ECW debut at November to Remember 1996 and working as a trainer for the Monster Factory in Paulsboro, New Jersey:
