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From Obscurity To Super Stardom: Part Two with the New Age Outlaws
Interview conducted by Kevin Kelly
(from WWF RAW magazine, September 1998)

Last month the New Age Outlaws broke it down about what it�s been like to rise from the ashes to rewrite tag team history. In Part Two, Badd Ass and the Road Dog talk about being a part of DX and the comparisons between Billy and Shawn Michaels.

KK: And certainly when you got here in the Federation, you�re now here longer than most of the people on the roster. When you first came in, the program was mostly geared toward kids. And now the company has shifted to more adult-oriented programming. When the Smoking Gunns first came out, they sold big giant foam cowboy hats. Now they sell big giant foam Xs that people put over their crotches. Has that been an adjustment for you, as far as your mindset and what you project as your character?

BILLY: Not really. You just have to change with the times, just roll with the flow as they say. I know my role and I know what I have to do in it. The bottom line is making money so I can sit back and my family can live good, and so I don�t have to worry about them or worry about what I have to do if I break my neck the next time somebody dumps me on my head. At least I�ll know I won�t be living in a trailer park somewhere. You just have to change with it. I�ve never had any objections to doing anything I did because we�re just good at doing what we do. We can do anything.

JESSE: We�re kinda like that in real life, but I�m not like that toward my children. It�s almost called selling yourself out - doing things that you know are morally incorrect. But at the same time, you�re doing it for all the right reasons. I want to make enough money where I can take care of my family.

KK: Now you�re in DX, a group in which the original three were Shawn, Hunter and Chyna. Was there immediate acceptance by Hunter and Chyna, of DX, or did you think the Outlaws had to prove themselves to Hunter and Chyna to be over with them?

BILLY: @#$%, no! We didn�t have to prove ourselves to anybody. We were over before we went into DX. To me, that just makes DX and the Outlaws step up a notch. Even if we never decided to go with DX, it was a big joint effort. Hunter just didn�t say, �Oh, you guys are in DX.� It doesn�t work that way. You just don�t come to us and tell us that we�re doing something. It doesn�t work like that. You come ask us, and we�ll sit down and have a little powwow and see what we can do. What can DX do for the Outlaws that we weren�t on the brink of doing ourselves? We had already won the Tag Team Title. Me and Jesse were fixing to be at a level that DX was already at. We were just getting there all on our own and just doing it the way we wanted to do it. We just let our personalities come out and the people were digging it big. So, when you join DX and the Outlaws, I look at it more like we just made a merger - like Volkswagen buying out Rolls Royce, and then purchasing Lamborghini. You take the best car ever made in a Lamborghini and mix it with a Volkswagen that�s been around forever and you�ve got something good. You could sell cars forever. Now you stick DX and the Outlaws together, and there�s nothing we can�t do.

KK: I know that Chyna has been a calming influence in the group. I talked with X-Pac recently, and he said Chyna has assisted him. Hunter had said how Chyna has helped him. Does Chyna also help you guys in her own way?

JESSE: Chyna is a good friend of mine. She�s a good girl, and I love her to death, I really do. She really has helped me a bunch. Lord knows... far be it for me not to be led astray from what should be done every now and then, but she�s always supportive and has helped me a great deal.

KK: Would you say in some respects that she�s a behind-the-scenes leader in DX?

JESSE: She�s so soft-spoken, but when she barks we listen. When she says something loud and forceful, you know she means it. I�m not gonna fight her! [laughing]

BILLY: Me and Chyna have more of a brother/sister thing. We�re always hanging out together. She�s a great person like Jesse said. She�s impressive to look at and even nicer to talk to. She�s well-spoken and a great person.

JESSE: She�s such a good ingredient that if you took her out, it would be bad. The cake wouldn�t fall, but it would taste like shit.

KK: What did X-Pac�s return mean?

JESSE: He�s been through the ringer down south and up here. He�s a big plus. People like to see him, he�s good, and he knows what it takes to make a good match and to make people watch. He�s amazingly smart when you talk to him. Sometimes people will say that he doesn�t talk, or that he doesn�t say two words. He�s taking it all in. I�ve got a lot of respect for his wisdom, and it�s not so much about the wrestling as it was years ago, but about the wrestling business today. He has a great deal of wisdom about that, and I look up to him for that.

KK: You�ve seen him grow up within this company as the Kid, when a lot of people almost viewed him as a laughing stock. Then to come back the way he did - it was a real metamorphosis.

JESSE: I think he�s a great talent, a good worker, a good solid guy in the ring, and you can depend on him to do anything. I know he was out about nine months with his neck injury, and we worked with him right after he came back and he didn�t skip a beat. He had very little ring rust. Very little. And that�s impressive to anybody who knows what the hell we do.

KK: Billy, do you think that there�s a time when you could outgrow the New Age Outlaws - when your interests might venture to a singles title?

BILLY: Yeah, but it won�t cause any conflict between the New Age Outlaws.

JESSE: We talked a lot about that last night. He�d be a great Intercontinental Champion.

BILLY: But that doesn�t mean I�d have to stop being a Tag Team Champion. Sure I�d love to try a venture in singles, but that�s not to say Jesse couldn�t come with me, or to say that if Jesse tried some singles for a while that I couldn�t go with him. We�re so versatile that it doesn�t really matter.

JESSE: I think that is what�s good about us is our versatility. Good guys/bad guys or tag team/singles. And doubles tennis tournaments - we�re hell on those! Just ask Billy Jean Johnson and Norm Burton. They were the tag champs at Wimbledon, I think.

KK: Billy, a lot of people say that you could very well be the next Shawn Michaels - that you have all the physical gifts to do it. The only thing that could hold you back is an ego that could sink a battleship.

BILLY: That�s my deal, though.

JESSE: Shawn Michaels has a tremendous ego.

BILLY: He�s got a huge ego, but look where it got him! Billy Gunn has a hell of an ego. It�s maybe just from growing up and being really good at everything I did. Not that I�m giving you the ego shot now, but it�s just that everything I�ve ever done I�ve been really good at. I could play any game I wanted to. But that�s only because I put 100 percent into it when I want to do something. Anybody who knows me knows that Billy has a big ego, but it�s not an ego that I would ever use to @#$% anybody. I would never do that. I�d give anybody the shirt off my back. The ego part is more of a put-on than people think. But people take it as �Oh, my God, what a @$!#$ head this guy has!� But I don�t care what people think about me, because Billy Gunn is whoever the @#$% he wants to be. Besides, most of the ego is a put-on.

KK: Is the ego the third person in the car? [laughing]

JESSE: The ego is definitely the third person in the car! But I still think it�s outweighted - and it hurts me to say something like this - but it is outweighted by his talent. It even makes you madder because he give you that egotistical bullshit and then he goes out in the ring and proves that he is that good. Then I really want to whip his ass, but I�m scared I�ll get beat up, so I think better of it.

KK: If you guys look into the crystal ball, where do you see the New Age Outlaws in a year?

JESSE: As TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS OF THE WORRRRRRRLD!

BILLY: Still on top. I don�t see us diminishing. The only person who can put a clamp on that is Vince.

JESSE: The deal is that it�s all in the push. We knew we could do it. They put us together, they saw we could do it. And we�ve done it. Now, the only thing that can take that away is if they take us off the television and stop letting us do what we do good. If they do that, then in a year I�ll be Double J Jesse James working in Memphis and he�ll be Rockabilly tagged up with Honky Tonk Man for some show. It�s all in the television time, and if they don�t want to change our story line, we can roll with it - we�ve proven that. That�s what we want to do. Not just for the next year, but for the next however many years.

KK: Thanks, guys. That�s it!

JESSE: And we�ve go two words for ya - SUCK IT!!!

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