Exclusive Interview

Interview with WWF's John Tenta by Tommy Boyd/Shahid Nazir/Alex Shane of TalkSport Radio (1053 am) 07/01 Transcripted by Tony Cottam of SmashWrestling with permission from Tommy Boyd. Shahid Nazir dropped John (earthquake) Tenta a call at his Florida home!

Disclaimer: All opinions contained within are those of the individuals connected to them.

Presenter : Tommy Boyd
Co-presenters : Shahid Nazir with Alex Shane (bit on the side)

Tommy begins by welcoming John to the show and explaining how the show is listened to all over the United Kingdom, and across the Internet, and introduces co-presenters Alex Shane (Former British Heavyweight Champion) and Shahid Nazir, editor of SmashWrestling.com.

Alex Shane: Hi, john, one of the things I’m sure you’ll want to speak about is your dealings with the promoter in this country, Shane Palmer. Now, I know for fact he’s notorious in this business, I’ve had dodgy dealings with him myself, and I know you really want to clear up what’s happened, so fire away.

John Tenta: Well, basically I cam over to the UK independently for the British Wrestling Federation, around two years ago I believe it was. I came over for three tours for him, the first tour went great, the second tour, he owed me money which he paid me before I left for the third one, and the third one I totally got screwed!

Basically, what it is he owed me £2,000, and when I came over for another promotion, he made a payment of £500, leaving me still being owed £1,500.

Tommy Boyd: Well, I tell you what, we won’t go too deeply into the allegedly’s and the legalities of something like that just in case his lawyers are listening, you know.

John: Oh, I’ve got all the proof I need anyway.

Tommy: Oh, I bet you do, I wouldn’t argue with you, and I’m surprised that he does.

John: As a matter of fact, he’s the one that should be careful, as I might get a lawyer for some of the stuff he’s put out over the Internet.

Tommy: OK, we’ll keep watching that space.

John: Anyway, I was promised everything plus a two match deposit before I left for the UK. I was supposed to originally leave July 6th, then he pushed it to July 8th, and basically nothing happened.

Tommy: I think the bottom line is you didn’t want to let your fans down, and you’re pleased to have the opportunity to tell them that you still love them, you still care about them and you’re looking forward to seeing us over here again sometime.

John: I was really excited when he called me asking me to come back over, like I said I had a great time over there, I love it over there and I started the rumors that I would not be coming, because as it got closer to D-day, so to speak, I saw that it wasn’t going to happen.

Alex: Just as a representative of British wrestling myself, I want to apologise for the fact that this happened. I know a similar thing has happened to the Bushwhackers and the Honky Tonk Man recently, I was reading about it in the Wrestling Observer, and it’s a shame there are some really bad promoters in this country, and I just want to tell you that not everyone over here is like that, and I’m sorry that’s happened John, because that’s a shame.

John: I think the Bushwhacker and Honky Tonk Man thing was a little bit different, they kind of agreed to disagree, and cut the tour short. Myself and the late Yokozuna, he had problems with this guy as well.

They then start taking calls form the listeners... a caller asks if John knows why Vince McMahon did what he did to Bret Hart, and who John respects the most in the business and why.

John: OK, I’m assuming you mean the big thing where Bret Hart lost his title, that just has to do with business. Basically, he was going to leave for the WCW and from a business point of view, you can’t let another wrestler leave as your champion. He had to lose, it’s just business. And as for the wrestler I respect most, right now, it’s probably Undertaker, he’s been there consistently for Vince McMahon for about 10 years now, and he’s just a great guy, a hard worker.

An email question tells John that he was he in the Coen brothers movie The Big Lebowski, and asks if he has any plans to be in any more movies.

John: I believe that is a mistake, as to the best of my knowledge, I have not appeared in that movie!

Next email asks John’s opinion of Hulk Hogan

John: I really don’t have anything bad to say about him. Basically, when I first went up against him, I guess that was the early 90’s, I knew I had made it in pro wrestling, I was in the big time, big league against the biggest name.

Shahid Nazir: How exactly did that come about, John? Cause the Hogan feud with yourself was one of the biggest ones of your early WWF career, did Hogan put you forward for that?

John: Yeah, with Hogan you go through a trial match, and if you don’t hurt him, you get to wrestle him again!

Alex: Probably why he didn’t do a long feud with Vader...

Alex asks if John knows anymore about Hogan’s new promotion.

John: No, I know about as much as you. I haven’t been contacted, and I haven’t contacted him. I’m trying to run my own little promotion over here, and all I read is on the Internet they were talking about August 8, but they’re probably going to push it back a little more, another month or so, they didn’t want to rush it.

Shahid: It’s a bit unrealistic for Hogan to try and push out a promotion that soon, but how’s things going for you with the IFW?

John: Things aren’t going to bad, I’m very small right now, trying to build up, looking into some local television, which should help both the promotion and my school, from there I want to develop I want to develop into one of the better independent promotions in Florida.

Shahid: You caught everyone’s attention when you got Scott Hall, and Kevin Nash to come to one of your shows, how did you get that done?

John: Well, Scott was on his way to Japan, and he was looking for a place to train, and I’m one of the few schools in Florida. He gave me a call, and of course we knew each other back from the WWF days, and he volunteered to help me out with my promotion and of course it was huge news, and we sold out in no time.

Next email question asks John what his weight and height was at his peak, and his best Tag Team match.

John: I was 6 foot 7 and about 470lbs, I don’t know how many stones that is.

Alex: Nor do we these days, it’s a lot though.

John: Right now I’m down to 400 and about 6 foot 6 1/2 because I had a disc taken out. As for my favorite match, I enjoyed going against Money Inc., which was Ted DiBiase and IRS, and the Legion Of Doom was fun as well.

Alex asks about a talent exchange scheme with the school and promotion he’s involved with.

John: That would be of course very possible, I just have to build up things on my end here, at this point I don’t import talent, but of course that’s one of my goals so I be legitimately a good wrestling promotion

Alex: That would be great, definitely.

Shahid: At the end of the day, everyone wants to work positively together, going back to what we started the show with, where John is getting ripped off by a UK promoter...

Tommy: Well, allegedly please. Can we temper this? I have to say at this point that some views have been made, strongly made views, they are not the views of TalkSport, they are the views of individuals who know and understand wrestling, and they are those people’s views, and if anyone wants to come back and defend anything they have heard in relation to any operation that they may have, they are more than entitled to do that on this talk wrestling slot. There, that keeps me out of court!

Shahid: And, I double that.

John: I don’t, you can bring it on to me!

Tommy: Well said man.

Shahid: Allegedly, what is happening is very negative, and the idea that we’re pushing of a positive British promotion, and trying to put British wrestling in a positive light is very difficult in this country...

John: There are good promotions, like you said at the beginning of the show. I came over for Scott Conway a few times, and I’ve never had a problem with him, and come over for Brian Dixon and never had a problem.

What you have with Honky Tonk Man, you have a man that won’t back down, you can’t scare him, you can’t threaten him. You’re talking about a man that walked away from WCW as a champion because he was told he had to do a job and he said “No, I won’t do it unless you give me X amount of dollars” Eric Bischoff said “I can’t do that” and Honky Tonk said “fine, here’s your belt” and walked away.

There’s always two sides to every story, as we’re trying to say, and there are good promotions there, and I know there’s a few that are working to become internationally known, like WrestleXpress and Extreme World Warfare, so I mean you have a chance here to develop something international, and that’s what I was trying to propose to Shane Palmer, we could do the interchangeable talent thing, and you know, it just isn’t going to happen right now with that promoter.

Tommy goes to a break. They come back from the break, and an email question : at what age did you get into wrestling, and who was your childhood hero?

John: I first became a wrestling fan when I was 6 years old. Back in those days we only had 4 channels, and Saturday mornings, my dad would come in and watch wrestling, so it was watch wrestling or watch nothing. I became a fan then, and had been all my life when I got into amateur wrestling in high school, went to university, went to Japan and became a Sumo wrestler and that is where I became I pro wrestler when I was about 24, I believe.

Alex: Do you prefer the Japanese style or the American style?

John: The American style definitely is a lot easy, but while I was over there, I enjoyed it - it was fun, it was very physical, but if I was to go back there now, I’d have to do a lot of training to get ready.

Shahid: Were you actually trained as an amateur wrestler to begin with.

John: Yeah, I took it up in high school. I lived in Canada, and I was the Junior National Champion my first year wrestling, which was 11th grade, and in 1983 I became Canada’s first ever World Champion at any level, I was the Junior World Champion that year.

Next caller asks what John thinks of the big merger of the WWF, WCW and ECW.

John: I think it’s a great opportunity for Vince McMahon to make another billion dollars. For the wrestlers, it’s little bit harder now, because there’s really only one big place for wrestlers to go, but I think for the fan, they’ll win as well, because it’s going to be real entertaining in the next little while.

Alex: You were at the last Wrestlemania, how did you find it compared to last time you were there? What was the atmosphere like when you were backstage?

John: I had been back there a couple of years ago as Golga, a lot of the guys knew me, so I was really comfortable with everyone. The dressing rooms there, we want to work, we want to wrestle, we want to entertain, and of course we want to make money. Just really good, the guys were getting along great.

Alex: Was there anyone who was a locker room leader amongst the boys?

John: I think that goes to Undertaker. He’s been there the longest, he has a lot of influence with Vince McMahon right now, and really, everything he’s done, he just gets respect, he demands respect, therefor I’d say he’s kind of the leader. If you’re not over with Undertaker, you’re in for a rough ride.

Caller asks John who was the one wrestler that he enjoyed working with the most.

John: I always have to put Hulk Hogan in there, he’s the one that really helped get me over as Earthquake, but there’s a lot of wrestlers I enjoyed working with, I enjoyed working with Jake Roberts, I enjoyed working with Andre The Giant, and I enjoyed working with wrestlers over in Japan as well, no one can always give one specific wrestler, there’s always a list of them.

Caller asks what it’s like to work for the WWF, and where did you go when you left?

John: Being in the WWF was great, it was hard work, I was on the road about 240 days a year the first time I was with them. I left for Japan after my first stint with the WWF, came back, and I wasn’t too happy with the way things were going, and I had a couple of people in my ear telling me how good it was down in WCW, I went to WCW after that, a couple of years later, I showed up again.

Shahid: John, when you came back to WWF, and you were at Wrestlemania 10, and you wrestled Adam Bomb, and the match lasted 32 seconds, that was the shortest match in Wrestlemania history, if I’m not correct?

John: I think someone had one a little shorter, but it was something they wanted me to do, they wanted me to be real good and strong, and I was happy. On a side note, I met Adam Bomb a few years later in WCW...

Alex: I sat with Adam Bomb on a tour in England a few years back and he was telling me that the heat that Shawn Michaels had backstage, is there anyone that stands out in your mind as a heat machine?

John: Shawn Michaels was a popular one to dislike, but I myself never had a problem with him, but I know his partner Marty always had a problem with him. Every now and then, Marty would come with a bunch of black eyes and a smile on his face, and it’s be “I guess they got into it again”. Again, I had nothing against Shawn, but I guess other people took it a little more personal.

Caller asks John what emotions he had when he walked into Wrestlemania 17.

John: It really came unexpected, I only knew about one week before that I was going to be involved in it. It was a short thing, but it was great to be there, because I never expected to be involved in another Wrestlemania again, so it was a big thrill.

Shahid: It must be like a real big thrill, just to get together with the guys again, a coming together of comrades..

Alex: Especially at Wrestlemania. As a wrestler myself, I remember watching the set-up and getting goosebumps, it was an incredible and as a spectacle, the most incredible looking event I’ve ever seen.

John: It was unreal, a lot of reunions, a lot of people I hadn’t seen in years, a couple that I wish I wouldn’t have seen for a couple more...

Shahid: I was a bit disappointed that Fred Ottman came out as Tugboat and not Typhoon, I wanted to see the reunification of the Natural Disasters on WWF TV, one of the best post Demolition / LOD wars on early WWF TV.

Alex: One of the things I was going to ask, what do you find were the differences backstage with WWF and WCW? You left WCW just before the NWO, could you sense with the amount of control they were giving wrestlers, did you feel bad vibes that WCW was going to go the way it went?

John: I heard about everyone else’s contract, mine was considered a pretty small contract, but I still had to work at least 200 days a year. Meanwhile there were guys that were making whatever, 750,000, 1million, 2million and they only had to wrestle 100 days, so you figure live TV 2 days a week, so that’s all they have to do, so the house shows suffered and that was the downfall of WCW. The big stars they save for TV, so the people went to the buildings, and didn’t see the big names, they only saw the mid card guys.

Shahid: I heard that near the end of WCW, their house shows and even the TV shows, they couldn’t fill the arenas, a lot of the time they didn’t bother putting the top tier on the house shows, and they couldn’t fill the whole place.

John: Exactly. On my one show with Scott Hall, we sold it out about 800 people, and he said that was a bigger house than WCW got...

Next caller ask John if he still wrestles, and what happened to his old tag partners Dino Bravo, Tugboat and his manager Jimmy Hart.

John: I’ll try and remember everything... I wrestle once in a while for my own promotion, I had disc surgery a year ago, so I’m slowly getting back into it, but it’s a slow recovery. Jimmy Hart is working with Hogan in his new promotion, Typhoon has a bar in Tampa, and still does a lot of independent wrestling, and Dino Bravo was murdered was murdered around 1992-93.

An email asks John what do you think of the standard of British Wrestlers and wrestling?

John: I think there are some very good British wrestlers. There are many promotions, but understand I’ve only worked for a couple, but one man that stands out in my mind is a young man named James Mason. I thought he was very good, he has a lot of psychology, a lot of technique, he can do the mat wrestling, and he can do the high flying, and I’ve been impressed by the British wrestlers that I’ve seen.

Another email asks John what his favourite move is and why.

John: It has to be my powerslam going into my Earthquake splash, just for all the ooh’s and ahh’s I always got when I powerslammed somebody.

Tommy: If I can say on behalf of everybody at TalkSport and this talk wrestling couple of hours, how honoured we’ve been to have you on the show this evening, and I know that Alex and Shah want to take the opportunity to say thanks and goodbye.

Alex: Definitely, I’m sorry what happened with the English thing, I hope at some point we can hook up via email and put right what went wrong with the other guy.

Shahid: 100%. We’ve chatted before, and without a shadow of a doubt, John Tenta is a gentleman, and hopefully soon enough the FWA, Smash Wrestling, TalkSport and the IFW will all team up and we’ll all work together and hopefully put on some good shows.

John: I thank you very much for giving me this forum to talk to the British fans, and I apologise to the fans that I didn’t get over this time - please watch for me I will be over there sometime soon. I love the UK and I look forward to getting back over there.

Tommy: John, it’s been a pleasure, thanks once again.

John: Thank you very much, gentlemen.

And don't forget to check out www.talksport.net every Saturday at 8pm UK time and 3pm Eastern time for the UK's top wrestling radio show with Tommy Boyd.

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