Tape Reviews
Crash Holly Shoot Interview
By Brandon Truitt
Jan 19, 2004, 19:00

This is late because I got too caught up watching The Shield: Season Two.

No new shoot next week, so I'll try to find a good one to repost. The next new one will either be the Cornette Q+A from 1994 or something else on my shelf at the moment, such as Dustin Rhodes' 2001 shoot.

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.



Crash Holly Shoot Interview (7-25-2003)

How did he get into the business? He knew he wanted to be a wrestler when he was in high school, but didn�t know of many schools in his area. The only one he knew of for sure was Buzz Sawyer�s school in Sacramento, CA, which had verbally accepted him on the phone but he was scared they were just going to �beat the fuck out of me� because he�d heard bad things about Buzz. (Ken Shamrock was one of Buzz's tryout guys and was told by Buzz to make sure that some people didn't pass the tryout.) He ended up hearing about a wrestling school run by Woody Farmer while he was working at a liquor store, so he went over and signed up. In addition to Farmer, the school was also run by Mae Young and Pepper Gomez.

Pepper Gomez- Laid-back cool guy. Woody�s son did most of the actual in-ring training and kicked the shit out of him, but that�s par for the course when it comes to wrestling schools.

Mae Young- Really cool, but she�ll stretch your ass too.

Bay Area Wrestling- It was a promotion run much like Memphis that was on TV in the Bay area. The only other guy of any repute he remembers working with there was Chris Jericho.

First match- It was against Boris Goodenov, who used to work for the WWF as a referee when they�d do shows on the west coast.

His first gimmick- It was Johnny Pierson, which was supposed to be a babyface gimmick. He used his middle name to get the first name then took the last name from a Dallas Cowboys player. He mentions that he actually HATES the Cowboys and has been a big Rams fan for years, but that people thought he was a bandwagon fan when the Rams stopped sucking in the late 90s. He had to pull out a lot of his stuff from the Eric Dickerson years of the Rams to counter those claims.

All Pro Wrestling- He was working shows for Woody�s school but he had to have surgery on his shoulder because he kept dislocating it and, by the time he recovered a year later, Woody�s school was gone. He ended up hearing about APW through Mike Modest, who he�d met around this time, and ended up there by 1996.

Early memories of APW- He wrestled against Spike Dudley as his tryout there then was critiqued by APW owner Roland Alexander. He says that Roland�s also full of shit when it comes to his list of people he�s trained, as Roland only owned the school but never trained anyone. Mike Modest and a few other guys were the ones doing all of the training while Roland just took credit for it.

Other guys in APW Gym Wars- Other guys in APW at the time included Donovan Morgan as well as other talented guys. Despite what Beyond The Mat likes to portray, Gym Wars was rather successful because they started bringing in about 100 fans every two weeks for free and gradually started charging higher prices for admission until they were making $25 a head. Combine that with the fact that Roland owned the building they ran and didn�t have to pay rent and you�re clearing some serious money. The people running the armory up the street wanted them to start running shows there instead of at the gym but Roland screwed up. The armory was willing to let them keep all gate receipts in exchange for the armory getting all of the concession money, but Roland pitched a fit and the deal fell apart.

Roland Alexander- �He�s worse than he�s portrayed in Beyond The Mat.� A true scumbag. He mostly talks shit, which is part of why most of the people who came out of APW refuse to talk to him, including Spike Dudley, Mike Modest, and Donovan Morgan.

Roland�s cut of the contract- Roland never tried to get his 10% when Crash signed his deal with the WWF because Crash never signed anything to go to the school, although he may have tried to collect that from Vic Grimes, who was signed at the same time as Crash.

The business- The business doesn�t owe anybody anything and a lot of the people who are bitter are guys who feel that the business owed them something that they didn�t get.

Payoffs by Roland- If you stuck around after the show, you�d get probably $20 to $40 and dinner. Roland pissed and moaned about how he came off in Beyond The Mat but Crash and others told Roland that he came off as bad as he did because he was acting like a scumbag.

Positives of APW- All of the wrestlers got along and just tried to have good matches.

Erin O�Grady- He came up with it and feels it would have been a great gimmick in the 80s, as he was a Leprechaun and dressed in green.

Proudest memory of that time- The match he had where he hit Vic Grimes with a car. �I shoulda hit him harder but you can�t hurt Vic because he�s such a fuckin� idiot.� He compares Vic to one of the Samoans, who can take anything and keep on going. Part of why he likes that match is that it helped get him his tryout with the WWF, as a friend of theirs had forwarded the tape to Jim Cornette, who then started talking to Vic about a tryout.

The crossbody off of the balcony- They did all kinds of stuff there, not to outshine each other but, rather, to have as good a match as possible.

ECW- He got his gig there because Spike Dudley had gotten into ECW and Mike Modest started sending tapes to the ECW office in an attempt to get booked there. While Tazz didn�t like Modest, which Crash believes was due to Modest using a lot of suplexes, they saw some footage of Crash on the tapes, liked his style, and decided to give him a tryout.

His side of the ECW story- Tazz brought him in, got him on the ring crew, and got him to start going to ECW�s House of Hardcore. What happened, though, was that a lot of the ECW guys who�d been there a long time started feeling like anyone new coming in had to pay their dues. He does admit that he screwed up on the ring crew shortly before one of the Pay Per Views because he and the rest of the ring crew were drinking because they weren�t supposed to set up the ring until the next day but, after quite a bit of partying, Mikey Whipwreck came in and said that Tazz wanted them to set the ring up that night. Crash feels it was a huge rib on the ring crew because they were all House of Hardcore guys and the trainers knew they�d be drinking. Crash passed out in the car on the way to the arena and, when he woke up, the ring was already set up. After enough crap from Tazz, coupled with the knowledge that he was going to get a WWF tryout in California within a few months, he left ECW shortly thereafter.

Did he have any direct confrontation with Tazz? No, it was mostly Tazz berating up for doing stuff wrong. Bubba Ray Dudley later explained to him that everyone in ECW was trying to stay on the same page but that he wasn�t quite there, which is why they�d been hard on him. He does say, though, that they have all acted totally professional with him whenever they wrestled.

The ECW locker room- He wasn�t there long enough to get a real feel for it. The only people he really hung out with were Spike Dudley, Chris Chetti, and Danny Doring.

Doing an impression of Tazz in APW- He didn�t know what Modest or Morgan would do in the interview, but he just wanted to let off some steam about his brief run in ECW.

Mexico- When he started with the WWF, they sent him to Memphis for a few months then sent him to Mexico. He was there for around four months because the WWF was doing the Super Astros show at the time and, because of his size, wanted him to be a Luchador and speak Spanish. The conditions there were horrible and it was a no-win situation for him because he got a spot on the card because he was white, which got him used because there were no other whites there at the time, but that he unintentionally took away a spot from the Luchadors who�d been there longer than he had which gave him heat. �I don�t need to know Spanish to know the guys were talking shit about me in the locker room.� He eventually called up Bruce Pritchard to get him out of Mexico ASAP because he was getting stiffed by the Luchardors consistantly and he was having trouble with the authorities because he didn�t have a passport on him and didn�t have a work visa for Mexico.

How did he get his tryout in the WWF? Jim Cornette saw a tape of a match between him and Vic Grimes and started to talk to Grimes about setting up a tryout. Crash heard from Vic about it but figured that it wouldn�t happen because �Vic�s a fuckin� liar.� Cornette then contacted him and told him that they would be getting at tryout during early 1998, when the WWF was making a swing through California. They got their tryout on the second day of TV tapings there. They were allowed to do whatever they wanted for seven minutes, so they laid out things well beforehand. He says that Vic can perform good moves and take bumps but that he�s worthless if he doesn�t have a small guy to bump for him. They wanted to do a combination of high-risk maneuvers and psychology, with at least one high-risk maneuver being a spot in which Vic sat Crash in a chair at ringside then Vic did a Liger flip from the ring onto the floor and crushed the chair.

Did he get any advice before the tryout? No, he and Vic just got together with Modest and Morgan to come up with ideas of what the WWF would want to see and how they could impress them.

Developmental deals- As far as he knows, he and Vic were the only two guys ever signed to developmental deals based solely on their tryout match. Most people getting those kinds of deals tended to be people that the company had plans for but, eventually, they just started signing all kinds of people who never made it onto WWF TV. He wonders why some of the guys like that, such as Steve Bradley, never got the chance he feels they deserved.

Memphis- The main deal with Memphis was that the WWF wanted them to come into the territory knowing how to work for TV, as in being given a certain amount of time to do a match and to perform for the cameras. He actually likes Memphis and the wrestling style of the area. The only part that sucked was that you never knew if you were going to get called up or released if the WWF bigwigs contacted you. His big regret was that he never got to work against Jerry Lawler, despite being booked in a tag match with Vic Grimes against Lawler and Bill Dundee one night. It ended up being changed to Lawler vs. Grimes when Dundee ended up missing the show.

Who did he travel with? He traveled and lived with Vic Grimes there. He compares living with Vic to living in a dumpster behind a supermarket.

Shawn Stasiak- �Talk with him for five minutes and you�ll never want to talk with him again. He really IS Planet Stasiak.�

OVW- They worked TV tapings at the Danny Davis Arena and some Louisville Gardens shows. Those trips were mainly him, Albert, and Shawn Stasiak.

His call-up to the WWF- He was sitting at home wondering what they were going to do with him when Bruce Pritchard called him up to be Bob Holly�s cousin. He ended up wrestling a dark match against Kurt Angle before they finally started him on TV.

Bob Holly- �If Bob�s not on your side, you better watch out. Bob�s someone you want on your side.� Bob didn�t want a cousin, so he had to earn Bob�s respect. Vince Russo came up with the name and general idea behind the character, but the rest was all him, such as playing off of Bob�s overly serious nature by being a total spazz �for him to beat the fuck out of.�

How long did it take for Bob to accept him? A few weeks, partially because the gimmick started working, which meant his push was going to increase.

How long did he think the gimmick would last? Writer Ed Ferrara told them that the whole thing was getting over very quickly. It really started to hit him how well it was working when they won the tag titles.

Tough Enough 3- He calls Matt Capotelli, the guy Bob beat up on the show, �a fucking crybaby� because Bob�s probably kicked his ass ten times harder several times. If Matt�s going to bitch about it, he probably shouldn�t be in the business.

Was Bob the stiffest guy he worked with? Maybe, but it doesn�t even bother him because he worked strong style for so long. He doesn�t care as long as tehre�s no injuries at the end of the match.

Winning the tag titles- He never gave any thought to winning titles in the WWF because it was always a big man�s company and, besides that, he figured he�d be stuck doing Super Astros forever because that�s what they told him he�d do when he started with the company.

Being given the ball by the company- He didn�t want to be given the ball then fumble it because it pisses people off. On top of that, it really shows how fake the business is when a company tries to get someone over, fails, repackages them as something else, tries again, fails, repeat ad nauseum.

Being the Hardcore champion- Writer Chris Kreski came up with the idea of doing 24/7 defense of the title, which Crash loved because it would be some funny stuff. He thinks that the angle couldn�t have been done by most people, as the way to make it work would be to get your ass whipped on a nightly basis and pretty much play defense the whole time instead of being on offense. He says that many good babyfaces have that kind of trait, as Hulk Hogan, Spike Dudley, and Tommy Dreamer have very limited offenses, but they can sell like madmen and get the crowd behind them.

Favorite 24/7 vignettes- The arcade one, the airport one, and others were good.

The Wrestlemania 2000 match- The finish was supposed to be Tazz having Crash in the Tazzmission, Bob Holly clocking Tazz with a jar of candy then pinning Crash, but the count was supposed to hit 2 exactly when the match ends. Unfortunately, referee Tim White screwed up and Bob actually won the match as time ran out. The reason White screwed up was that the clock in the back had one less second on it than the clock in the arena, so he was following the instructions on the earpiece as they were given and ended up letting Bob pick up the pin as time ran out by accident.

How often to finish not go as planned? It�s a rare event and, in that case, only happened because it was a time-limit match. Most of the time that a finish doesn�t go as planned has to do with a wrestler getting hurt in mid-match. He then goes on to say that the wrestling mentality tells guys to keep on going no matter how hurt they are, which is why Bob Holly completed a match with Kurt Angle after Kurt broke his arm, Triple H finished the tag match against Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho after tearing his quad, Chris Kanyon finished a match with a torn ACL, etc. It goes to show that wrestlers are much tougher than many other professional athletes because most other athletes will sit at home and collect their paycheck after the slightest injury.

King of the Ring 2000- The only thing he knew going in was that he was going to be an underdog in the tournament. He didn�t know he�d advance to face Kurt Angle or do a run-in in the Hardcore Evening Gown match and regain the title. He then goes onto an anti-Internet rant about how Internet fans hate everything and that, if things were booked to please them, the company couldn�t draw a dime. He specifically brings up the smark hatred of Rikishi then talks about how graceful he is for a man his size, his selling, his charisma, etc. He compares wrestling to the music business because wrestling is all about the perception of its stars and that the music business does the same things, such as having Nora Jones win all five Grammy awards she was up for. Crash feels that Nora Jones is very boring but that the perception she got from music fans by winning those Grammy awards probably sent her album sales up dramatically by the next week. He says that music�s obviously a work if Jones won and that someone in the back probably decided to give her the awards because her voice sounds great even though she can�t do anything else right, much like some people get huge pushes because they look good but absolutely suck.

Favorite singers- Elvis Presley for one, but he likes a little bit of everything.

Entertainment in general- Most of the wrestlers are big movie fans because they want to be entertained and appreciate a good performance.

Being moved out of the Hardcore scene- The company just decided that they didn�t want him doing it anymore, so they moved him out and moved other people like Raven into that spot. He feels that Raven did a wonderful job there and had one of the best Hardcore matches ever with Rhyno at Backlash 2001.

The Light Heavyweight Title- They weren�t doing anything with Dean Malenko while he had the title so someone came up with the idea of putting the belt on him. Crash thinks that Dean himself came up with the idea and puts him over as a legend. He feels that some of the best matches in his career were against Dean. They were both disappointed that they didn�t get to have a Light Heavyweight title match at Wrestlemania 17 considering that every other title was defended on the show and he feels that they could have had a hot opener.

Guys who never got the push they should have in the WWE- The biggest misused talent was Tommy Dreamer, although he pisses and moans about the Internet fans bitching about Rikishi and Billy Gunn and that Jericho�s been held down despite the fact that he headlined Wrestlemania 18. Dreamer was more misused because he was hardly ever on TV and wasn�t given a chance to show what he could do considering what he obviously had as a babyface and as a writer in ECW. He puts over Dreamer heavily as a seller.

The Plane Ride From Hell- Wrestlers are like big kids and adding alcohol into the equation made it worse. He feels that the incident was at least slightly overblown.

Drugs and the business- The reason people like these interviews and the Internet is because it�s real. He doesn�t have a comment about drugs and the business though. The only thing he�ll say, though, is that people who take drugs or drink too much then do something stupid should realize at the end of the day that any problems caused by it are their own fault. There is no peer pressure to do any drugs or drink up there. (This is contradicted by Jeff Hardy�s interview in which he says that he and Matt Hardy were pressured by Bradshaw to get drunk as a part of a judgment against them in wrestler�s court.)

The Invasion angle- People say it�s blown because hindsight is 20/20. He wouldn�t have wanted to be the guy to try and write than angle because it was a big responsibility. His theory was that, since they own the ECW name, they should run ECW as a small promotion on the side under the control of Paul Heyman and Tommy Dreamer so that it can be an alternative to the WWE and as a developmental territory.

Is the current slump in the business due to the writers? Vince McMahon has said in interviews that the slump is due to them not giving the fans what they want and, since the show is totally scripted, bad writing will result in bad television, which upsets the fans. He doesn�t fault the talent at all for the problems and feels that creative is the problem.

How would he change the writing? He wouldn�t want the job because they work horrible hours and are under tons of stress. He thinks that the wrestlers could write a better show than the writers but that it won�t happen. He says specifically that any of the wrestlers could write a better show than writers Brian Gerwitz and Dave Lagana. He feels that those particular two don�t know enough about the business to be writing for it because they haven�t been in the ring and that all the Dave Meltzers and the smarks should remember that they�re fans and nothing more than that.

Dave Meltzer- He couldn�t put a match together to save his life because he�s never been in the ring, even though he�s been around the business forever. He has a particular axe to grind with Meltzer because of a comment Meltzer made when Crash first appeared in the WWE about how he�d have �no shelf life� because he was boring. He feels that�s just one example of how people not in the business don�t know shit.

His idea- The only one of his was the Spike Dudley and Molly Holly relationship. Outside of that, he never really pushed ideas because he thinks the writing staff don�t want to hear ideas besides their own. He thinks that because he knows that most wrestlers don't like to be told how to wrestle their match so the writers probably feel that no one should tell them how to write. �I may pitch my ten ideas and they may not like them because they have their ten ideas and theirs may be better, but where�s their credibility from working?�

Mattitude- He brings up that people used to compare Matt Hardy to Marty Janetty of The Rockers, implying that Matt would fade from the scene while Jeff Hardy would become the big star like Shawn Michaels. However, the opposite ended up happening because Matt has been working and cutting great promos. He was excited when he was paired with Matt and Shannon Moore, but that the group never went anywhere because they company never gave them the opportunity. The apparent lesson he got out of that was that no matter how good you are, you don�t go anywhere in the business unless someone likes you, meaning management rather than the fans. He compares it to the toybox theory put forth by the Honky Tonk Man in his own interview, as he says that a promoter will be focused on a few toys that he has in front of him rather than some of the fifty others in his toybox which may be fun but that he likes the ones he has now. Once he�s done playing with those toys, he puts them back in the toybox and gets some others out and then those get played with until he�s bored with them.

Getting signed to a tour with NOAH- Donovan Morgan and Mike Modest set it up for him. He�s never been to Japan and he�s excited to go. It will be in August. (Note: Crash died shortly before the NOAH tour, presumably from a fatal mix of Soma pills and Southern Comfort as of the last reports of the investigations.)

Watching Japanese tapes- Back in California, they used to watch a bunch of Japanese tapes and they liked the �slow, realistic style� of selling like a Misawa, Kobashi, or Kawada.

His dismissal from the WWE- He knew it was coming because he wanted to go elsewhere. He didn�t understand the company�s direction and just wanted to go. He doesn�t rule out a return but he doesn�t see it happening.

The life of a wrestler- People think that the life is more glamorous than it is, partially because everyone�s over-stressed due to time constraints. He then goes off on a tangent about how you may put a match together but, ten seconds before you go out, the road agent tells you that you have five minutes instead of the original seven minutes and you have to rethink the match on the fly. He says that all the people who piss and moan about the match that results have no clue, yadda yadda yadda, they�re fucking clueless. (To clarify, that last part WAS a sarcastic paraphrase by me because I�m getting sick of this �only workers know� shit. Fans may not be able to tell you why you should use an armbar instead of an arm wringer in a match but many have decent ideas about the overall direction of an angle or the promotion as a whole.)

Travel- No one bitches about it because it�s just a part of the business.

The Internet- You can say whatever you want because it�s your right but you should either stop watching the show or start doing something to help change it instead of bitching about it in long reports week after week. You have to know what it�s like to walk in our shoes, yadda yadda yadda. He also says that it�s hard to judge how stressful it really is until after you�ve left that situation.

His wife and his daughter- He was never married to his daughter�s mother and goes off on a tangent about how his daughter�s mother is a world-class bitch. He tries to keep in touch with his daughter, who�s seven, but doesn�t want her watching the WWE shows. �I wouldn�t want my daughter watching someone fuck someone in a casket.� (Amen.)

His next two years, ideally- He thinks NWA TNA has a lot of potential and that they can compete with the WWE if they get a national TV spot. He sees himself wrestling for the next two years and feels that he can do a lot especially on the comedy front.

Funny stories- Gerald Brisco has a weak stomach and will throw up if he sees certain things. After Chris Nowinski had a tumor removed from his jaw, he brought it to TV because someone wanted to see it and someone decided to throw it at Brisco, which got him to puke. He says he�d have probably puked too if it was him.

Closing- He starts talking about how you never know what could happen in two years. Three years ago, ECW and WCW were still there. (This is especially disturbing because Crash died a few months after this interview) He also thinks that a lot of the WWF Divas could use some of the Lucha masks that Highspots has displayed in the room he�s in, and that Stevie Richards should probably bring some home to put on some of the girls he�s been with.


Thoughts- I don�t want to be too negative about a deceased individual, but Crash was being a real dick on the subject of the Internet fans. Much like Ole Anderson last week, Crash seemed a little TOO obsessed with the Internet fans considering how he says their opinions aren�t really worth anything. As a whole, this wasn�t a particularly great shoot.




© Copyright by TheSmartMarks.com