Thanks to Sam Roberts for the following:
This week on Notsam Wrestling, R Truth talked to Sam Roberts about getting guidance from Vince McMahon, Wesley Snipes almost becoming 24/7 Champion, his relationship with Road Dogg, the value of the 24/7 title to the WWE, and more…
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R Truth on Vince McMahon guiding him as an entertainer (21:24)
“SR: Who are the people that you think taught you the most about the entertainment aspect of sports entertainment?
RT: …Two people. One person I studied and the other one kind of talked and pretty much guided me into it. I watched The Rock, and Vince McMahon. Vince is, he’s the godfather of entertainment, man. He would talk to me, I would do promos, Sam, I would do an interview and things, and Vince was like, ‘that’s not R Truth, who the hell was that? You’re entertaining. You can speak and be entertaining. You can go in the ring and be entertaining. You can just be around people and be entertaining,’ man, and I know naturally I’m an entertaining guy. It’s like, you can’t go, I don’t know if college has a class where you can go and learn how to be entertaining, but it just, I think it’s something that naturally people have it in them and it just has to be brought out. I’ve always had it, …with my music, just from being funny, I’ve always had the entertainment, and to be in a business like wrestling and be able to use that, add that as another little thing I have, a little niche, it just brings it full circle to me.”
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R Truth on Wesley Snipes Almost Winning the 24/7 Championship (37:06)
“RT: Fox got me in to interview for the new movie, ‘Dolomite’s My Name,’ I got a chance to interview Eddie Murphy, Michael Keegan Key, Wesley Snipes, and these people, man, were wanting to come to the show that night. – Wesley Snipes was talking about becoming the first actor to become 24/7 Champion.
SR: Can you imagine if they’d put that title on Wesley Snipes? How great that would’ve been if blade walked out with the title
RT: Man, Wesley Snipes has his hand on his chin while I was interviewing him and he was still contemplating on what do I have on my schedule tonight, because I think I’m going to go to the staples center and try to win this title. That would have been great man.”
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R Truth on Getting Passed the Ugliness of the 24/7 Championship (13:38)
“RT: This title ain’t nothing but what you make it, you know, and me and my colleagues have made the best of it, man. We took, I guess you could say shizit and made lemonade out of it… they didn’t want to give it a chance at all, man. Like “Oh man, look how ugly that belt is,” when Mick Foley pulled it out of the bag, the belt was so ugly when it was a baby. they put it in an incubator with tinted windows…. but now everybody loves it, man. Everybody wants to hold it.”
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R Truth on his relationship with his 1st tag partner, Road Dogg, and how they got together (19:28)
“RT: Me and road Dogg, me and Brian, man, we are friends first of all, friends who feel like we’re family man. I think it’s a mutual respect thing. When we see each other now, man, we can look at each other’s eyes and know what each other’s thinking about. The appreciativeness of, of both of us, man, bro, from where I come from to getting my first contract and, I remember like yesterday Road Dogg come in and was like, “hey man, Billy Gunn’s out for shoulder surgery. Would you mind being my tag partner?” I’m like, “you want me to be your tag partner?!” It’s just, nothing but the most love and respect for Road Dogg man, and if you put him in a squared circle right now, he can still gizzo and do his thing. You know what I’m saying? I think it’s just a mutual respectful for each other. Man. He likes the fact that I’m still in the ring. He pops every time. He’s like, “bro, you still doing splits”, and I’m like, “yeah man, you got to get some spiffier suits too, you know?”
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R Truth on why the 24/7 Title is so valuable for WWE (32:58)
“SR:Â I was thinking about it, especially when I saw it on New Year’s Eve, but you’ve seen it pop up. Whether it was a comic con, whether it was a, like I said, like the Fox up fronts, all these spots, the 24/7 title, whether people realize it or not has become this thing that WWE has never had where they could actually send talent to these spots, and instead of just having guys like you show up and explain to the world what WWE is, you can actually give them an example. You can go into their world, they don’t have to enter into the WWE world anymore, that you and Mojo or Elias or Drake or the Singh brothers or whoever it is. You guys can show up now and have been showing up into anybody else’s world and all of a sudden the WWE is in their world and, their eyes are on it, and to me, it’s this great commercial for the product that didn’t exist before.
RT: Sam, you get it, man. You get it, you get it. And that’s what makes that 24/7 title so different than any other title WWE has and has had, because we are stepping into a different genre of everybody’s walks of life and that’s a great thing. Man, the more people find out and know about WWE, the better. You know, better for everybody, and I think that 24/7 title man, just it sets the ground, it sets the stage, like you said, it’s the way without even having to explain what WWE is, what we do, it’s giving them a demonstration and you get to see it, and not one time has nobody been entertained.”
Notsam Wrestling is published every Monday & Thursday on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, SoundCloud, YouTube.com/notsamwrestling, notsam.com, and wherever podcasts are available.
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This podcast has been posted at http://notsam.com/wrestlingpodcast
