May 2001
The Master of Too Cool
By Stephanie Levitt
But as more wrestlers developed or were added to the WWF roster, Too Cool�s television time was significantly reduced. Recently, Brian Christopher, the man behind the Grand Master Sexay persona, discussed what transpired and what needs to happen for Too Cool to recapture its championship status.
Q: Too Cool went from one of the most visible tag teams in the WWF to one of the most underused. Once regular performers on RAW and Smackdown!, you both have disappeared from the WWF�s radar screen. Talk about your buildup as a team and then the decline. Why the change?
A: It seems that every day of my life, regardless of where I am or what I am doing, I am always asked that question. For a while, Too Cool was the hottest tag team going in the WWF. We won the tag team title a short time after we came on the scene as Too Cool. Scotty and I had actually been a tag team for almost three years, but we only became Too Cool after I came back from knee surgery. I had a complete reconstruction on my right knee. I was supposed to be out for an entire year, but I knew the Too Cool gimmick was going to take off and the fans were going to like it, so I tried to get back in the shortest time possible. I came back in the fourth-shortest amount of time in the history of sports, right behind football's Jerry Rice and Rod Woodson and hockey's Dave Campo.
If there is one thing Scotty and I can do, it is entertain the people. We may not be the most talented in the ring or on the microphone, but we can definitely entertain. And we were doing that. Then, all of a sudden, it was like the rug was taken out from under our feet, and we just disappeared. That has nothing to do with me or Scotty; it is up to the people with the pens and pencils who write the WWF shows. I can understand for a while that Rikishi was with us and we were doing the dancing thing, and he was helping us and vice versa, and that was a nice thing going there. Fans got to see a different side of Rikishi, a 400-pound Samoan guy who could not only wrestle, he could dance. But then it changed. We got taken off the prime-time shows like RAW and Smackdown!, and pushed down to shows like Jakked, Metal and Sunday Night Heat. These are good shows, but they are on at different times of the week in different cities, and it is not prime-time. Basically only one-third of the people who watch RAW and Smackdown! Watch these shows, so a lot of people don't see us anymore. They think we are gone or we quit the wrestling business. But what they didn't know was that we were still wrestling on all the house shows, and Scotty and I put every bit of effort we can into these shows. But the bottom line is, to this day I have never been told why we are in the position we are in right now.
Q: How does it feel to give all you can to a character and the fans only to have your role reduced?
A: Everyone knows we have writers who write the television shows, but a lot of them don't determine who wrestles. It ultimately comes down to a few people in the back who know the wrestling business. They determine who appears on what television show. Scotty and I have discussed why we think we are in this position 100 times, and we have no idea. Maybe we are not getting to the arenas early enough and sitting down with the right people and shooting the breeze with them like some wrestlers do. What you do in the ring should determine how far you go in the wrestling business. Once I get in the ring, I always give it all I have. I might joke around in the back, but when it is time to conduct business in the ring, I am 100 percent business.
Q: The tag team division is extremely popular and crowded. Is that one reason why Too Cool's role has been reduced?
A: I wouldn't necessarily say it's because the tag team division is crowded, because this is the wrestling business. Anything and everything can happen. We could split up, we could turn heel, Scotty and I could wrestler against each other. It doesn't matter to me. It is all about making money and supporting my family. I am willing to do whatever. The writers can do anything they want to any of the teams. I firmly believe that since it happened to us, it could happen to any other team out there. It's up to the writers. Either way, I wish I knew what we could do to fix it.
Q: It may not be the case, but some may argue that Too Cool is down because the popularity of hip-hop culture is down. How do you respond to that?
A: Our gimmick is down only because people aren't exposed to us as much anymore. If we were on television every week and we were the tag team champions, and we were cutting and strutting and dancing, the fans could not wait to see us again. It�s all tied into the amount of exposure people get and what you are able to do with the TV time you get.
Q: How does a push - or increased exposure on television - help certain tag teams?
A: When I first broke into the WWF, I was not given as big a buildup as people are now. A lot of times, before guys even get here, they have their entrance music done and they've got their pyro and their video wall finished. You get this big buildup. I didn't get any of that. I actually signed with the WWF two years before I was seen on television. I stayed down and helped my father's promotion in Memphis, Tenn. I love the wrestling business and was glad to stay down there. Today, some fans know more about some of the developmental guys than they do the veterans. That and the money invested in a lot of the guys really help them to get over with the fans much faster.
Q: What do you believe the key is to getting Too Cool back to being one of the elite teams in the WWF?
A: Anyone who watches wrestling for any period of time can tell when a guy can wrestle and when a guy just doesn�t have it. If you watch Scotty and me, you know we are a couple of guys with some talent. We need more exposure on the major WWF television programs, and we need to be able to pick up a few more wins. It all boils down to more television time and more exposure. Win or lose, television or no television, the checks still cash the same. But more television time means more of your merchandise will sell, more times your matches will appear on WWF videos, more time your entrance music will be on those compilation CDs, all of that. That kind of stuff means a lot, and Scotty and I are waiting with our arm wide open. We just really need to be put back on television.
Some passages of this article have been omitted