Did you often clash with other members of WWF management?
Constantly with some people, but not with others. Jim Ross and I have always got along. He's helped me a lot: he's taught me a lot about announcing and the wrestling business in general. Gerry Brisco, Jack Lanza: guys like that. Great. I love (working with them). But guys like Kevin Dunn, who's the biggest enemy professional wrestling fans have, and the non-wrestling people who are taught from day one that WWE isn't wrestling: it's sports entertainment, and it's got to be hokey or whatever. No.
It's not really their fault because that's what they're taught by WWE. But, at the same time, they're so obnoxious about it (
laughs). Kevin Dunn hates wrestling! He refuses to allow you to call it professional wrestling while you're in the room with him. He will argue with you about it! He makes a million dollars a year as the executive producer of a show that he doesn't even like!
Dunn, WWE's Executive Vice President of Television Production, dislikes what he does for a living?
No. He likes what he does; he just doesn't like
wrestling. WWE has succeeded in fulfilling the prophecy: they always said they weren't wrestling. Now, they aren't. But the problem is, they've killed the business for the rest of us who want to be.
When (the WWF/WWE) was wrestling, Kevin Dunn would fight and argue with you. He would say: "We're not wrestling! No, we're not, God damn it!" Finally, he's right: WWE is not. But it's still frustrating when you're trying to work for the success of a company, and people won't even admit what they're doing.
Vince McMahon created sports entertainment as a way to fool the
ing advertisers into thinking they weren't buying time on good, old-fashioned wrestling. That's it. There's no such thing, really, as sports entertainment. Have you ever heard a fan say. "Did you see the sports entertainment last night?" Have you ever heard anyone say, "Did you get your sports entertainment tickets?" Have you ever heard anyone ask, "Have you ordered the sports entertainment pay-per-view?"
I don't think so.
No! Don't disrespect me when you hire me to be a part of your company and tell me that I don't know what we're doing.
At one time, the WWF/WWE was describing Raw as an "action adventure programme".
They're delusional! Kevin Dunn wants to win an Emmy one day for being a real TV guy. All the rest of them owe everything they have to wrestling, and the last thing they want to admit is they're
in wrestling!
I'm proud of being in professional wrestling all these years and of what I accomplished in it. Instead of being a crummy flop at anything else in the real world, I was the best at what I did in this world. WWE would rather be crummy flops as football promoters, bodybuilding federation promoters or
ing restaurant owners than admit they do wrestling.
So, to answer your question: Yes, I clashed constantly with some people because they would fight with me about the business we were working in. All I wanted was the respect from them that I knew what was going on.
All that conflict sounds like such a waste of time and effort - time and effort that could have been devoted to something constructive.
It was a constant waste of time. We would spend 30 minutes in production meetings, talking about ways Sable would wear a T-shirt. Who gives a shit? It was frustrating. Being around that atmosphere was the most frustrating period of my life. I'm not good at regular compromise. But their compromise was, "Say whatever you think Vince will like to hear". Compromise in the WWF was: agree with Vince.
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