Virgil Shoot Interview
by Brandon Truitt
Jun 30, 2003, 19:00

Nothing much going on here... I put myself into the Contract Termination Pool here at the Smart Marks forums and one of my choices has already been proven true, as Crash Holly has been released according to the Wrestling Observer website. Hulk Hogan is claiming he's done with the WWE for now, which would have helped me if I hadn't dumped him in favor of Nathan Jones.

For those wondering, my remaining picks are Nathan Jones, Scott Steiner, Eric Bischoff, and Goldberg. Jones, Steiner, and Goldberg are likely to get fired because they lose their temper backstage while Bischoff will likely be a public scapegoat for some of the company's problems.

As always, you can feel free to Drop me an e-mail, read the archives, buy me stuff, or buy yourself stuff at Highspots.com.


Virgil (nWo’s Vincent) Shoot Interview (Smart Mark Video, 1/6/01)

How did he get started in the business? When he got out of college in 1983, he got a job working at a YMCA. He became friends with a boxer who worked out there and was asked by the boxer’s promoter if he was interested in wrestling. He’d done amateur wrestling but never pro wrestling at that point. He worked a few squash matches for Jim Crockett against guys like Nick Bockwinkle. He was then referred to Afa Anoai of the Wild Samoans to be trained.

Who else trained with him? Afa and Sika Anoai trained him, Rikishi, and Yokozuna at the same time. Samu and the Tonga Kid also helped train them.

Tonga Kid- Tonga Kid was a great flyer and did a lot of stuff you didn’t see at that time.

Sika- Both Afa and Sika are great teachers but Afa’s English was better than Sika’s. He then relates a story about Sika teaching him how to backflip over his opponent after hitting the ropes. He did that by throwing Virgil into the ropes, punching him in the nose, getting the point across through gesticulation and broken English that he wanted Virgil to backflip over him, then had him do it. They did the same thing for the leapfrog and sliding between his legs. At the end of all this, Virgil was able to read what Sika was doing so that he could pick the right times to backflip, slide, leapfrog, block punches, and counter with a dropkick.

He then goes off on a tangent about how it’s supposed to be wrestling and not a bunch of punching and kicking. “The marquee reads wrestling!” (This is making me remember a joke Marty Janetty made, which Mick Foley repeated in Have A Nice Day, about Verne Gagne where he replaced the word “wrestle” with the word “fuck.” “JESUS CHRIST kid, where did you learn how to fuck?!? Certainly not in this territory because this is where fucking is all about! See that marquee over there? It says ‘FUCKING’”) He also talks about having to set up the ring, wrestling, taking the ring down when you were done, then putting the ring back in the truck and driving it home.

How did he get involved with Afa and Sika? While working shows for Crockett, he ran into the Tonga Kid who told him that some family members of his could help him.

Samu- He helped out a bit but he was only in the business about 2 years at that point. Tonga Kid had been in around that long but got a big program with Roddy Piper early in his career due to some problems with Jimmy Snuka.

Tonga Kid- He apparently didn’t have his head on straight because he flew home to San Francisco with no notice which burned his bridges with the WWF. That broke up his tag team with Haku, the Islanders.

Pay at the beginning of his career- If there were only about 25 or 30 people there, you might get a beer as your pay. Since he doesn’t drink, he ended up working for nothing. “You get broke breaking into the business.”

Breaking in back then vs. breaking in now- It was a lot of work back then and you might get $50 for a match if you’re lucky. He says that people who worked territories and had to scratch to survive and learned a lot before they ever reached the big time.

Mentors- Working against guys like Jake “The Snake” Roberts, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Tito Santana, Jeff Jarrett, Ric Flair, Curt Hennig, “Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase, Rick Martel, and others would teach you a lot about the business. You learned a little bit from each different person by how they spoke, did certain moves, etc.

His first big push in Memphis- He was “Soul Train” Jones there. It started off as ST Jones, a play off WWF wonderjobber SD Jones, although they wanted him to have the initials mean something. He just used Soul Train because he’d seen the show on TV and it was the first thing that popped into his head for the initials ST. He worked against Jerry “The King” Lawler, Bill Dundee, Jeff Jarrett, the Freebirds, and others. He describes the weekly loop of Memphis to Nashville to Louisville to Evansville, Indiana, and so forth. He used to ride with Rocky Johnson, Jeff Jarrett, and Mark Callus (Undertaker), amongst others.

Greatest ribs in Memphis- When he first started in the territory, his first show was in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Being unfamiliar with the area, he thought that being told to go there might have been part of a rib since he was the only black guy in town when he arrived. Outside of that, there weren’t too many ribs in Memphis.

How did he get brought into Memphis? Larry Sharpe had seen him before and, when he went to Memphis, Sharpe mentioned him to Lawler.

Name association-

Jerry Jarrett- He ran a good promotion for young guys to start out in. It was a good area to learn how to work a crowd and to learn match psychology.

Jerry Lawler- One of the masters of match psychology.

Bill Dundee- He was there occasionally. He was more into doing his own thing while Lawler tried to help people out because making a new guy meant Lawler could make money working with that guy.

Going to the WWF- He called home one day while in Memphis and his mother told him that Pat Patterson had called looking for him. He called the number provided and was told that Patterson was unavailable for a week. That pissed him off because he thought that someone was ribbing him by pretending to be Patterson. A few days later, he called home again and was told that Vince McMahon had called for him. His exact response was “bullshit” because he thought it was another rib. He started taking the whole thing seriously when he compared the number for Vince McMahon with the one he’d gotten for Pat Patterson and noticed they were different. He called the number and a young woman answered and said “Oh, I’ll go get my daddy…” It turns out Vince had given him his home number and that Stephanie McMahon had happened to get the call. Vince flew him up to New York for a meeting at Titan Towers.

His first meeting with Vince- The company pulls out all the stops to make you feel welcome when they’re trying to sign you. He had no idea of what was being planned for him but got the sense that Vince was trying to see if he fit the mental image of what they wanted for a particular spot. He was flown back a week later to meet with Vince, Patterson, Hulk Hogan, and Ted Dibiase. That was the start of the Virgil gimmick as the Million Dollar Man’s bodyguard/flunkie.

The name Virgil as a rib on Dusty Rhodes- He’d heard that because Dusty’s real name is Virgil Runnels. He wasn’t trying to rib Dusty but just took what he was given.

Working with Ted Dibiase- “Field general” He’s certainly one of the top three workers in the ring as well as for giving interviews. He worked with Dibiase for five years and never had a fight or harsh word with him which he finds amazing. “He’s a great man.”

Who did he travel with? They worked the Million Dollar Man gimmick so he got to tag along with Dibiase while he was being put up in top-flight hotels and being driven around in limos. It was night and day with what he had to do in Memphis. The paydays were HUGE and it was so unusual to throw wads of cash out to the audience or make them do degrading stunts. He doesn’t remember the degrading stunt they did with Linda McMahon although he does recall the one with the kid dribbling the basketball. Right before the kid was about to win the money, someone booted the ball and the kid broke down crying because he didn’t win the money. (Dibiase mentions in his own interview that the kid and his family knew that they were getting the money anyway but the kid was so into the moment when he did the vignette that he really DID think he lost out on the money.)

Was he disappointed to be a manager rather than a wrestler? No, because he learned just by being at ringside with Dibiase as he worked against Hogan, Jake Roberts, Randy Savage, and other top-flight workers.

The match with him and Dibiase against Dusty Rhodes and Dustin Rhodes- It was a good match and they legitimately tried to beat both of them down. They beat the crap out of Dustin in particular. They teased the feud between himself and Dibiase at the end of this match.

Feuding with Hogan- The first time he and Dibiase ever got into the ring was after a Hogan title defense at the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago. While Hulk was celebrating, Virgil grabbed him from behind, Dibiase took the WWF title, proclaimed it to be his, then laid out Hogan with it. They already had big heat with the crowd from the vignettes they’d done on TV but this got them over in the ring. After they beat the crap out of Hogan, Dibiase got on the house mic and proclaimed that the Million Dollar Man gets everything he wants and he wanted the WWF title.

Feuding with Dibiase- It was teased to begin with by Piper talking to him and trying to convince him that he didn’t need Dibiase. It finally started because Vince felt that the people had waited long enough to see it. They had their big match at Summerslam 91 and he beat him for the Million Dollar Belt.

Name association-

Hulk Hogan- “The man who made the business what it is.” One of the best guys to work with and a good guy in general. Whenever you were on a card with Hogan, you knew you’d make more money because the building would sell out. He doesn’t know if the Bash at the Beach 2000 incident where Vince Russo ran off Hogan was a work or a shoot.

Ultimate Warrior- Good guy but if he didn’t get what he wanted, he wouldn’t stick around long. He drew but was unreliable.

Kerry Von Erich- He had a tag match with him once at Madison Square Garden. He’d heard about Kerry’s foot and said that him moving the way he did with only part of a foot is a testament to his athletic ability.

Nasty Boys- Brian Knobbs is a good friend of his. He’s working as a single because Jerry Sags retired due to injury.

Curt Hennig- “He’s a character.” Probably the best one-on-one wrestler in the busness. Great at psychology. The king of ribs. “If you don’t watch out, you’ll have your shoes tied to your asshole.” Chief Jay Strongbow used to call Curt “Dennis the Menace.” His best rib was taking the air out of all four of a guy’s tires in Winnipeg when it was below zero. Curt got him once by taping one of his boots to a pipe on the ceiling. (My personal favorite Hennig rib that I’ve heard of was putting GHB in the coffeemaker at a WWF. That story has gotten around from someone claiming to be Marty Janetty although it was never confirmed by anyone else.)

Rick Martel- “Field general. One of the best guys ever in this business.” He remembers doing a 30-minute broadway (draw) with him where he started to get blown up at 8 minutes in and had to time himself the rest of the match because Martel refused to slow down.

Vince McMahon- “One of the best promoters in the business.” He starts bootlicking here but I’m not going to go into it.

Dusty Rhodes- He couldn’t promote like Vince McMahon but he’s a good wrestler, which you can see by how Dustin Rhodes has progressed. He’s very big in the Mid-South and Jim Crockett Promotions areas but couldn’t cut it in the WWF when he arrived because it was more Sports Entertainment than wrestling.

Undertaker- Good friend of his. “Worked his gimmick to the max.”

Bret Hart- “Technically, one of the best wrestlers period.” He went from a curtain-jerking jobber to the WWF champion. You learn a lot from him because he can work so many ways. He didn’t get the treatment he deserved in WCW, though.

Shawn Michaels- “Hard worker.” He met him when they worked a small territory in Texas together. “Shawn could work with anyone, anywhere.” If he ever comes back from his injury, he’ll be a great asset to whatever company he works for.

Memories of working overseas- When he was eating lunch in Paris, everyone kept coming up to him and asking for autographs. Even though they didn’t speak English, they all knew the name “Virgil.”

Going to WCW- He’d had a match with Terry Funk in 1996 then got a call from Ted Dibiase saying “How would you like to come back and be in the main event?” They brought him to Cleveland and introduced him as a member of the nWo, the fifth or sixth person to join.

Was the name Vincent a slap back at Vince McMahon? The company picked the name since Virgil was trademarked by the WWF.

Thoughts on the split between nWo Hollywood and nWo Wolfpac- At first, it was great because everyone was seen as WWF people invading the WWF, as it was himself, Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Ted Dibiase, and Sean Waltman (X-Pac, Syxx). The problem started when they had the nWo membership drive where any WCW wrestler could join. It should have just stayed as the nWo Black and White by itself instead of splitting into Black and White vs. Red and Black, which let the WWF catch up.

Name association-

Kevin Nash- “Good friend of mine.” One of the best big men in the business.

Scott Hall- “Great mind for the business and one of the best workers in the business.” He puts him over heavily for the Wrestlemania X ladder match. He doesn’t care what anyone has to say about Hall’s problems, he’s one of the best guys out there.

Sean Waltman- He tried out several times for the WWF before he was signed. Great worker.

The cowboy gimmick after he got kicked out of the nWo- “I never left the nWo… the nWo left me. Me and Horace Hogan are still nWo. See this shirt I’m wearing? This ain’t just to keep me warm.” Anyway, he joined the West Texas Rednecks as Curly Bill, which he didn’t mind. For that character, he wanted to be playing the role of Bart, the black sheriff from Blazing Saddles. He thought there wouldn’t have been any bigger way to get heat than to have a black guy as a part of the rednecks, but it got out of hand and “I guess it was getting over too much.”

Bobby Duncum Jr- “He was a good worker.” Bobby Duncum Sr. helped him out when he was starting in the business.

The Steiner Brothers- Scott Steiner is a great guy and can work. Rick Steiner “will bring it to you”, which is a nice way of saying “He’ll beat your ass.”

Harlem Heat- He’s closer to Stevie Ray than Booker T because of the nWo. Booker is a great athlete but Stevie has a lot of power.

Goldberg- “Intense.” He’s also a good guy.

Ric Flair- He popularized wrestling all throughout the south and flaunted the high-rolling lifestyle, which is why the Hogan vs. Flair match was always so anticipated.

Sting- Great athlete and speaker. When Sting took on the nWo, it made BIG money for the company.

Vince Russo- He doesn’t know him very well. He kind of knew him in the WWF as the guy who handled the meet-and-greets. He wonders if Russo did so much for the WWF, why would Vince McMahon let him go? He figures, instead, that Russo had some ideas but that Vince McMahon had most of the ideas.

Eric Bischoff- He liked him as an individual. His track record shows that when he was in charge, they drew money and when he wasn’t in charge, they were in trouble.

How were the politics different in WCW from being in the WWF? In the WWF, you just worked your ass off since there were no guarantees. Because of it, everyone pulled together so that they could pack the house and make more money. In WCW, you had a guarantee and no one worked hard as a result. He thinks that WCW should have given a minimum guarantee per year plus a percentage on top.

His career prospects- He’d love to go back to the WWF or WCW because he just wants to work hard and make a living.

There are no matches included.


Thoughts- There wasn’t much to this interview because Virgil was either in kayfabe most of the time or trying to avoid saying anything that would keep him from returning to the WWF or WCW. He might have also been in the Abdullah Zone™ where he really thinks that everything was a shoot and that he beat all those people in legit fights. Outside of the stories of how he learned the business from Sika by getting punched in the nose whenever he did something wrong, this one is a waste of time. Strong recommendation to avoid.