DISCLAIMER: Copyright © 2002 AudioWrestling.com.
This interview is to be used for entertainment purposes only.
GIR: On the phone right now, he is not a surprise guest anymore, he is Dean Malenko. Dean get in the ring.
DM: You’re not surprised. What do you mean you’re not surprised?
GIR: You’re not a surprise guest anymore.
DM: Oh, okay, I am surprised I am on.
GIR: We were afraid to say it just in case you weren’t able to come on or you weren’t able to make it. You’re a busy guy. A busy guy. You are a road agent now, Dean.
DM: I was waiting for the right moment, the right time. They say timing is everything.
GIR: You are the freaking ‘Ice Man’ that’s why.
DM: That’s right.
GIR: We’re on the phone with the WWE’s own Dean Malenko. Now, Dean, I was talking to you on the phone a couple of weeks ago and I asked you how you feel being a road agent now and you love it.
DM: Yeah, it was an easy transition after spending 21 years on the road actively wrestling and I had a wrestling school. Of course my dad had a wrestling school for 15-some odd years. I was always helping guys at the same time I was wrestling, so it was a pretty easy transition. The only hard thing was trying getting used to all of the years going to all of the different venues and arenas around the world with a pair of tights and boots, now I am going with a notepad and pencil.
GIR: You don’t wear a suit do you?
DM: No. No suit. No suit.
GIR: Now Dean, you said something very interesting to me. You like going through the matches with the guys and then watching them go through it in the ring. It’s like you are a director, almost.
DM: Yeah, you know, I’ve been very fortunate in the business that I am in that you can’t get the gratification that I get in a 9-5 job when you are in front of 15,000 people and are able to manipulate the people to stand up and boo you or cheer you. That part for me is over, but I can still kind of live vicariously through the guys I am working with. I can still get that same fulfillment, that same excitement as when I was in the ring. Now I am kind of living through the guys that I am working with.
GIR: Wow.
DM: But, it’s good and I am having a lot of fun with it.
GIR: The fans really want to talk to you. It’s been a long time since you’ve been on the show. Eric, get in the ring with Dean Malenko. Eric? Dean?
DM: Yeah, I’m here.
GIR: Eric must of hung up. He got scared of the ‘Ice Man.’
DM: He doesn’t want to get in the ring with Dean Malenko and Dean Malenko doesn’t want to get in the ring with him either.
GIR: We were talking before you came on about what it would be like to be a Four Horsemen. The Four Horsemen is an idea, a concept that has lasted for so many years. The wrestling fans always want to see it come back. It’s something the wrestling fans always remember fondly and they never want to see it go away. What makes it so special?
DM: I think it was the first real group of guys that really jelled well together. Starting from the very first conception of it with Arn Anderson, Ric Flair, and Tully Blanchard. It was a group where every guy had their own two cents that they could put into the group. They just meshed really well. I think through the years there have been a couple of characters that have taken over the role as that and some guys haven’t really panned out like some guys in the past
GIR: Mongo…
DM: And the list goes on. It was always intriguing and when you got a guy, a lead horse so to speak, like Ric Flair, it was a great time. It was a lot of fun for me while I was doing it.
GIR: There are a lot of rumors right now that the Horsemen are going to come back or that the WWE is going to reform it. Do you know anything about that?
DM: No, I don’t really try to get involved in that part. I just try strictly try to do my job. That would be something interesting, but at the same time I think we would be taking a step backwards and at this point in time I think we need to start moving forward in our business.
GIR: Right. I’ve just got to interject this as well. When Perry Saturn and you went on a double date together, a double date…
DM: Let’s get that straight, I did not go out with Perry Saturn.
GIR: No, no, you had your own date coming. You were like, ‘This date is hot, I think I could get with her’ and Perry Saturn got all of the laughs, but I enjoyed you in that as the straight man. Your facial expressions were incredible.
DM: Yeah, that was…you know, it’s funny I spent 13 years in Japan just doing my job and then I started doing the tv stuff and I think that was one part of me that the general public has never seen before and I had a great time doing that and all the time I spend doing the pre-tape stuff and all of the stuff with Lita. I got to show the fans out there a little different side of Dean Malenko they have never seen before.
GIR: Eric is back, I don’t think he’s scared of you Dean Malenko. Eric?
Eric: What’s going on Dean?
DM: Hi Eric.
Eric: It’s nice to talk to you. I have a couple of questions for you. First of all, what’s going on with the cruiserweight division? It looks like it’s coming along pretty well and it looks like you guys will be dumping some more wrestlers into there.
DM: Yeah, we are moving it kind of slow because you don’t want to shove it down people’s throats. It takes 1 or 2 guys to really make that thing click. We have a really bunch of talented guys. Jamie Knoble just came on board this week. He was a guy that I was fortunate enough to train with a few years, a terrific performer. Billy Kidman, a guy that I got to wrestle in WCW with for a long time, really talented. Tajiri. There are a couple of other guys coming in. I think give it time, let it saturate a bit and let the guys do what they do best, and that’s wrestle, and it will definitely catch on.
Eirc: Yeah, I am really excited about it. It’s looking pretty good.
GIR: What’s you next question, Eric?
Eric: My next question is are we going to see you on tv again?
GIR: Yeah, he was in the ring last week.
DM: I was in the ring last week. Did you hear the pop I got?
GIR: Hey, at home, I was screaming for you. It’s always cool to see the guys you used to love come out as road agents and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, it’s freaking Tony Gerea.’
DM: One thing I have learned in this business is never say never, but as far as any plans in the near future, I don’t really have any. There are a lot of young guys that we need to get going, get up and running and I don’t want to take anything away from them. I did my time and I did what I wanted to do. I know my job and what it entails to do and part of that job is to help some of these young guys get over.
GIR: Wow. Thanks for the call Eric. Dean there has been a lot of talk, I don’t know how much you follow the Internet or the sheets that they call about wrestling, but there has been a lot of criticism for what is not working for the WWE right now and some of the things that are working. What do you think are some strong points and we are going to build on these in the future?
DM: Well, I think we are in a rebuilding process right now and that’s going to take a long time. Since we split our brands, I am on the Smackdown side, we are airing our program 2 hours a week as opposed to the 4 hours that we had before so it is going to take a little bit longer time to develop and get over our younger talent. I hope the fans and the talent and everyone involved will be a little bit patent with it. It’s something that we knew was going to happen when we split the brands in the first place. We expected that ratings might drop a bit and the house show attendance would drop a little bit. In the long run, I think it will be a good thing for the wrestling. It’s a good thing for the fans. Because now lets say once a guy has run with Smackdown for 2 or 3 years and he’s been with everybody he can have a program with and things start to go south, he can jump ship and almost start off his career again. Long-term effects, I think it was a good decision by Vince and everybody.
GIR: Now Dean, I was talking to you and you feel really bad with what happened to the WWF’s name. You were upset that Vince McMahon took all these years to make the WWF a product and a name that everyone associated with wrestling and now the WWE comes around and the stupid koala bear…
DM: Panda bear.
GIR: Panda bear, whatever the GIR: I can’t believe you just said political on the radio. GIR: Does someone like panda bears this much? Why are they fighting for the panda bears so much? GIR: There’s like 3 of them and they are all in the zoo, right? Don’t worry about the panda bears. No one is going to kill the panda bears on the streets. I don’t want to ever hear in the news again that the panda bear had a baby or the panda bears had sex. I could care less. GIR: Yeah, I agree. We got some more calls for you Dean. We got Paul for East Meadow. Get in the ring with Dean Malenko. Paul: Dean, some of the matches you did with Chris Benoit were the most entertaining and you are the ‘Man of 1,000 Holds,’ why don’t they put you on Tough Enough 3? I think that would be the most logical thing? GIR: Ah, that’s a very good question. GIR: Does anyone know if there is a suggestion box right near Vince’s office? Paul: I will. GIR: Dean, send a letter to Vince and sign like Test’s name or someone. Say, ‘I think Dean Malenko would be great for Tough Enough 3. Love, Test.’ GIR: We got John on the phone next. John, get in the ring. Johnny? John: Good afternoon. It takes the amazing Dean Malenko to get my lazy John: I got two questions. Out of all of the places that you have wrestled in the world, which was your favorite place? John: New Jersey? GIR: Oh, you’re a Jersey guy? GIR: I had no idea. What do you think about the Nets? GIR: The Nets. GIR: Me either. I think of Jersey and all I think of are the Nets and garbage dumps. GIR: Answer the question, Dean. John: I got one more question. Since he does wrestle all over the world, what other languages does he speak? GIR: Well, those are the ones you need. Is Viking still around? I thought it was a dead language. Thanks for the call, man. Dean, talking about different places you have wrestled, one of the most unique ones that comes to mind is the Spring Break WCW matches were they used to have the ring kind of like in a pool and everyone was in bikinis and bathing suits all around the ring. What was it like wrestling in that atmosphere? GIR: What WCW went under, did you have any soft spot in your heart? You were there for how long? 5 years? GIR: Was it something you thought was bad for the business? Good for the business? GIR: I know those guys had their own reasons for leaving WCW when you guys all jumped ship, but was your reason also Kevin Sullivan coming into power or was it just, ‘I need to get the GIR: It absolutely does. GIR: Dean, we got to go to a break, could you just hang on with us. We have so many calls for you. GIR: Perry Saturn, he is a tough guy. GIR: Do you hang with Perry Saturn? GIR: How’s he doing now? GIR: Are you concerned with the amount of injuries? I mean the Ross Report is like a laundry list of wrestlers who are injured. GIR: Are you Klinger? GIR: What do you attribute it to? Do you think it is a different style or do you think it is just a fluke thing? GIR: Yeah, that stuff will really get you. You need to get one of those Brita’s (Note: Brita is a company that produces water filters). GIR: Don’t you think, sometimes I look at the roster and a lot of guys are out, but there are a lot of guys you aren’t even using. I am thinking of Hugh Morrus. I am thinking of Chavo Guerrero. I don’t understand why they are not being put at the forefront because Hugh proved a lot in the last days of WCW. Caller: I want to know, do you feel you were used right in the WWF in the time that you were there? GIR: I just miss you in the ring man. And I know that you enjoyed it because you could see, the way you wrestled was just effortless almost. You didn’t realize how GIR: Mike, get in the ring with Dean Malenko. Mike: Yeah, Dean, I’d like to know one thing. What’s up with Mike Awesome and Kane? Mike: Yeah. GIR: Anything going on between Mike Awesome and Kane? GIR: Coming this Fall, the new odd couple, Mike Awesome and Kane. GIR: He wears a mask. He wears a mullet. A mask and a mullet. Hey, we ought to start writing a show together. GIR: Hey look, the Golddust and Booker T thing is the most entertaining thing going around today. You never know Kane and Mike Awesome could be the paring. GIR: Now Dean, when they are writing storylines, do they ever come to you and say, ‘What do you think of this? Do you have an idea of how we do this?’ GIR: Is it true that Paul Heyman is taking over the writing for Smackdown? GIR: And when you watch Raw, do you agree with a lot of fans out there that your show is the stronger show? GIR: Dean we have our notes in front of us and we have a list of questions to ask you and unfortunately we are not going to get to all of them, but we don’t know if we should even bring this up, but what the GIR: Are you grateful? GIR: Is it still the talk of the office or has that calmed down? GIR: There people were gone. There were some firings out of that. Do you agree that that was the right thing to do? GIR: Especially as athletes in the public eye, you really have to watch your conduct 24 hours a day, but especially when the boss is sitting right there on the plane with you. GIR: Right. As far as the road agents, who do you call a friend there? Who are you close with? GIR: Is he shaved bald now? GIR: I saw him jump in, too, and I was like, ‘Is that Fit Finley?’ GIR: In WCW, where they almost destroyed his leg. GIR: Oh, his matches with Steven Regal back in the day were brutal. GIR: Dean, we are out of time. But we really appreciate you coming back on the program. Anytime you have anything on your mind, please feel free to give us a call. We really enjoy having you on. Best of luck and if you come into the ring again like you did last week, you know the two of us will be standing at home. GIR: Hey we got to find out about that Viking language. I want to learn it from you. GIR: Wow. Alright, so you will have to make a return appearance now.
DM: Yeah, again, you throw in all of the political
DM: Unbelievable. These people over in Europe who have the World Wildlife Fund have nothing better to do than chase down a wrestling company and create a whole bunch of chaos over absolutely nothing.
DM: I have no idea.
DM: More importantly, who in the
DM: I wanted to do it, but the problem with that was I never got asked. Go figure.
DM: Yeah, it would be something I would be interested in doing. Of course it would be very time consuming cause I think they film, from what I understand, 4 to 6 weeks and you are gone the whole period, length of time. It would be something I would be interested in doing for 1 or 2 of the shows. Hey, Paul, bring that up somewhere.
DM: Yeah, no I don’t think I’d put ‘Love, Test.’
DM: It’s good that I know that I can get you up.
DM: Brick, New Jersey.
DM: Actually I had to say that because I am from Irvington.
DM: Yeah, I am a Jersey guy.
DM: The what? Did you say ‘What do I think about a Net?’
DM: Go see Frankie, I don’t know. I am not into basketball too much.
DM: That’s right.
DM: Ah, my favorite place is probably, from a fan’s perspective, probably is in Japan because I spend so many, a long time there. It was a place for my style of wrestling. I was very appreciative of the fans over there. It was always great to go over there and work in front of the people.
DM: A little Yiddish, I speak Viking...and a little bit of Carnie once in a while.
DM: Hold on, I need a cigarette. No, does life get any better then wrestling in Club LaVilla in front of a pool? No it doesn’t. That was one of those crazy concoctions of WCW and Eric Bischoff. It wasn't the right atmosphere for wrestling, the same you could say about Sturgis, the same situation there.
DM: Close to 5 years.
DM: Definitely bad. I hated to see it go only because of the fact that I think we need competition. There were guys that were left there without a job. I am not saying everyone was bad there. There were some good people in the promotional department and the guys working behind the scenes were left without a job. These guys also have families and people they need to support, so I felt bad from that perspective. That was a place that lasted 15 to 20 years and there were some good memories in WCW, wrestling for many years. And it was the place that gave me the first opportunity to really, for the fans in the United States to see my style of wrestling and what I did and also the guys that I came in there with, Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit. When we left there a year earlier, actually it was almost a year to the date that they folded, it was a ‘I told you so’ and ‘Thank God I got out of there when I did.’
DM: Actually, I think I probably had the hardest decision out of all of them because I am a little bit older than them with one little baby toe out the door already and I was at the end of my career, so it was harder for me. It was a harder decision because, not that I didn’t have the talent or that I didn’t think that they would pick somebody up that was 39 or 40 years old at the time, but these guys, if they failed, they had a whole career ahead of them. I could have probably gone back to Japan and worked, that wasn’t a problem. I knew I would have been taken care of financially. Maybe not the same amount of money, but I would have still gotten a paycheck from somewhere. I believe in my ability and I think my ability speaks for itself.
DM: It was one of those opportunities where I said, ‘Hey, I am going to go.’ The story is that Eddie Guerrero walks in that day and he’s like, ‘What are you guys doing?’ and we said, ‘We’re leaving.’ and he said, ‘I’m with you.’ He just came with us.
DM: Yeah, no problem.
<
DM: A tough guy.
DM: I used to travel with Perry a lot. I don’t travel with him anymore.
DM: He’s doing okay. He had an ACL tear on his leg and he should be back hopefully in a couple of months.
DM: It’s like a MASH unit already.
DM: Excuse me while I pull up my panty hose. It’s unbelievable. It seems like the last 5 years, I’ve never seen more injuries in my life. And serious ones too, it’s not like we have a slight sprain here. We’ve had ACL tears and 5 or 6 neck surgeries in the year and a half alone.
DM: Just bad water. Tap water.
DM: I think a lot of it has to do with, you know, the bar is always constantly being raised in the business, and guys are always trying to outdo each other. The crazy stuff the guys are going. And every time you do that, the risk factor increases. Because you are wrestling, there is no time off and you’re wrestling then you are playing the numbers game. It’s really hurting our business because there are some top guys that are our right now and we have a lot of people that are out. There are some people that are very hard to replace.
DM: Yeah, there is a list of great talent that we have and of course, you can’t push everybody at the same time. And you can’t push the guys down people’s throats either. Everybody is going to get their chance. Like I said, it is a slow process. The problem with wrestling fans sometimes, wrestling fans are very greedy. It’s like, ‘I want it now and I can’t wait.’ You know? We did good business for a long time and then we split our brands and I think it is still being digested by a lot of people out there. You know, lot of the, if you are a Smackdown fan, if there were certain people you liked on Smackdown and now they moved to Raw, you might feel a little bitter about that. But, you know, it’s going to be a long process and I think long term is going to be a very good thing for the fans and the business in general.
DM: Like I was used? Yeah, I think I could have probably done a little bit more with the cruiserweight stuff. Only for the fact that there are so many talented guys there. But, no, I had a good time. I had a great time. I thought it was a good decision. I always said that I wanted to go, to walk away from this business, with a company and worked for a company that respected wrestling and Vince McMahon does, unlike the people that I worked with prior, but I won’t mention any names. I wanted to go out on a good note, and I did.
DM: I am not going to lie when I say that there are nights when I sit there and I watch a match and part of me wishes I was that guy out there. And then when I see a guy at home with his legs propped up, I wish I was that guy, too. No, I was very fortunate. I did 20 years of something I enjoyed doing. A lot of people don’t get to go to work and enjoy it, so I have no regrets. I did everything I wanted to do and probably more.
DM: Mike Awesome and Kane?
DM: Sounds like a sitcom on NBC.
DM: Kane had arm surgery and Mike Awesome had an ACL tear on his leg and he should be back in a month or so.
DM: Unbelievable.
DM: You never know.
DM: No, not really. We have a, one particular area, called our creative team that creates the shows and then as road agents, we take their ideas and put it into the show with the particular talent.
DM: I am not exactly sure on that. I would hate to quote that, but I know Paul has a lot of influence on the writing of the Smackdown show.
DM: I think Smackdown, both shows have great talent, I think Smackdown just has a couple of the younger guys that move a little bit better. The guys that I would say, the style of wrestling that I like, the Chris Jericho’s, the Lance Storm’s, the Billy Kidman’s, those types of guys I enjoy watching. Nothing against the guys that work on Raw, there are some talented guys over there.
DM: No, I wasn’t.
DM: Yes, I was.
DM: No, that’s gone. That’s gone.
DM: Yes, of course I do. Of course it was. People tend to forget sometimes that our business is a business and it’s an employee/employer relationship. As a part of talent you are an employee and you work for somebody and you work for Vince McMahon, who is an employer. If you misbehave or do anything that disgraces the company that you are working for in any manner, you should be let go. And that works for IBM or any other major company out there.
DM: Another thing is if there weren’t any repercussions, look at the example you are setting. You are saying you can pretty much do whatever you want to you can still have a job here.
DM: Ah, none of them are my friends. I hate them. I try to work with Dave Finley, Fit Finley, who is a guy I have the ultimate respect for. I’ve had the opportunity to wrestle him many times through the years.
DM: Yeah.
DM: Actually, he was trying to rib himself before somebody got a hold of him. Dave’s a great, great guy and he has a lot of experience in this business. It was an unfortunate happening, what happened with him and his career. Actually, we were just in Jackson, Mississippi where the incident happened with…
DM: Yeah, to me going back to something, you take a great pure wrestler like Finley and put him in a hardcore match, I don’t get it. And that one night because of the direction and the things they were done in WCW that cost this guy his career. To me, what a sad thing and for the fans. To me he was one of the best.
DM: Yeah, Dave, Fit’s the real deal and a lot of people don’t know about that.
DM: Yeah, next time maybe I’ll disrobe a little bit and do a little, I don’t know, whatever.
DM: Acutally there are two dialects. There is Southern Viking and Northern Viking.
DM: No problem. Thank you guys.