Sgt. Slaughter Opens Up About Bomb Threats, Capturing Criminals, All In, & GI Joe

WWE Hall of Famer Sgt. Slaughter was the most recent guest on the Prime Time w/ Sean Mooney podcast.

The former WWE Champion opened up on a myriad of subjects during his three hour interview with Sean Mooney.

On friction with Vince McMahon over GI Joe:

I said, ‘Hey Vince, guess what? I’m gonna be GI Joe, the All American hero.’ He said, ‘Well, that’s great Sarge; but, I can’t let you go. I said, ‘Why not?’ He said, ‘Because I’ve got another toy company: LJN. We’re gonna be doing cartoons and we’re gonna be doing this and that. If you want to go, you can go; but, you can’t be here with us. It would be a conflict of interest. I said, ‘Oh my God, you burst my bubble.’ I went home dejected not knowing what to do, so that became kind of a bad situation between Vince and I. At the time, I gave him my notice. He said, ‘You’re not leaving. You can’t leave.’ I said, ‘I’ve got to leave. I’ve got to go.’ I said, ‘I can always be a wrestler, Vince, but I can’t always be a GI Joe.

On inadvertently helping capture one of America’s Most Wanted:

We had a cage match in Orlando, Florida (Ultimate Warrior and I). Some guy in the third row decides he’s gonna go help the Warrior and he jumps out of his seat, goes through the three rows, jumps up on the cage, climbs in the cage, the match is over. The next thing I know here’s comes The Nasty Boys and they clean this guy’s clock: pulverize him. There’s nowhere for the guy to go. He’s in a cage. Two days later we find out he was a fugitive. He was on that show America’s Most Wanted, so The Nasty Boys and I got kind of a pat on the back from the guy that ran that show. In fact, he came and made an appearance and told everybody how that happened.

On being refused service after his Gulf War era heel turn as an Iraqi sympathizer:

We stopped at a place….we go in there, there’s only like three or four of us in there and we’re waiting and we’re waiting. Finally, I said to the lady, ‘Can we get some service? We’ve been waiting for awhile.’ So this guy comes out of the kitchen and he’s got an all white hat on. He’s the chef, the cook, and he rolls up his sleeve on his tee shirt and he’s got a USMC tattoo on his arm and he says to the lady and he walks over to me and says, ‘Your friend there, he can eat.’ He points at me and says, ‘You’re not.’ He had watched the show that day.

On receiving death threats:

I call Vince [McMahon] and he says, ‘Hey Sarge, everything good? You alright?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ He says, ‘Well, did you talk to your wife?’ I said, ‘No, is there a problem?’ He said, ‘Somebody called the office today. They threatened to kill you and your family. They threatened to kill me and my family. Threatened to blow up your house, blow up my house, blow up the office and the studio. I took a precaution to call your wife and I asked her if she could spend the night at a friend’s house or a hotel until I could get some security at your house.’

On being asked to burn the American flag:

Someone got in Vince’s ear. I don’t know if it was Bruce Prichard or who it was said, ‘You got to have Sarge burn the flag. That will really put them in the seats.’ Word came over to me, ‘They want you to burn the American flag.’ I said, ‘No. I’m not doing that. I will not burn the American flag.’ I thought about it for awhile and I sent back word, ‘Why don’t we take a flag stick and put Hogan’s tee shirt that says Hulkamania and I will say it represents Americana and start that on fire?’ Boy, when we did that it was…I think that was the best heat that ever was in the world of sports entertainment or professional wrestling or whatever you want to call it, the hottest I ever saw a crowd because I took their hero, his shirt, and said it was Americana and lit that thing on fire. If I had lit the American flag on fire, those people would have walked out and never come back. When they saw that Hulk Hogan shirt on fire, they wanted to come back and see him kick my butt.

On feeling misled about Starrcast:

I signed up to be at Starrcast not knowing there would be a wrestling match [referring to All In] involved. I’m not sure I would have did it had I known there was a wrestling match involved. I was just called by an independent person that they’d like to hire me to sign autographs for two or three days at the Starrcast wrestling convention. I said, ‘I’ll tell you what: I can’t go into any arenas. I can’t have any logos. I still work for WWE. I’m an ambassador. I work hard for their charities. I work hard promoting their product, TV, newspapers, radio, pay-per-views, television, their Superstars and I don’t want anybody running a camera on me with a logo that isn’t WWE.’ They said, ‘That’s good. No problem.’

On Vince McMahon deserving credit for All In & Starrcast:

I’m happy for them and I’m glad that they’re doing well. It might only happen a few times. I hope it does well for them all the time; but, they’ve got to remember that the only reason they’re there and that I was at Starrcast to sign autographs and all those guys that were at Starrcast from the top of the heap to the bottom making money selling autographs and our pictures and everything like that – there’s one person to thank for all that and that’s Vince McMahon. Vince McMahon is the reason we’re all there because he started all that.

Readers interested in listening to Sean Mooney’s interview with Sgt. Slaughter in its entirety may do so below:

(Transcription Credit: Michael McClead, WrestleZone)

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