Earl Hebner’s book is now out called “Earl Hebner: The Official Story” as well as an action figure from Asylum. In an exclusive for WrestlingNews.co, Steve Fall interviewed Hebner about his book and his wrestling career. Click below for the full interview.
Earl Hebner’s Mount Rushmore of wrestlers:
“Steve Austin, Undertaker, Ric Flair, he’s my hero, and Hulk Hogan.”
Hebner on Randy Savage vs Ultimate Warrior at WrestleMania VII:
“Well, you can say that Randy gave me a script probably thicker than my book before the match. I probably read it about maybe two weeks before the match because I had to deal with Randy. The Ultimate Warrior, it was just a waste of time me sitting with him trying to get stuff out of him on what he’s doing because he never even knew what direction he was going in. So it was basically me Randy leading that match.”
Earl Hebner on Nailz attacking Vince McMahon over a SummerSlam ‘92 payoff:
“I was right there and saw it all in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He had Vince McMahon up against the wall like a chicken going into a Perdue chicken line. If it hadn’t been for Slaughter being in there or close by, he would have messed Vince up. It was over a payday. They paid Bossman more than they paid Nailz and Nailz found out. The rooms were down in a basement. He came down the steps. He went into Vince’s office and all I could hear was screaming and hollering. I looked in there and he had Vince up against the wall. He said, ‘I want my money.’ He said more than that, but I’m making it polite. ‘You f’d me. You paid him this. I deserve that.’ After that, Vince always had an agent in his room. He was never left alone or he had them at the door.”
Hebner went on to say, “I wish Slaughter would have never gone in there and saved him. I would love to see him whip his ass.”
On if he feels the show should have been stopped after Owen Hart died in the ring at Over The Edge ‘99:
“Anytime there’s a death in any sport, I think it should be stopped and cut off. There’s always tomorrow. You can always go back tomorrow. If you had a big thunderstorm, power outages, you wouldn’t have the show, right? Okay, so what’s the big deal? A man lost his life and you’re still gonna have the show? It’s horrible. It’s called money.”
Vince McMahon’s reaction when they brought Owen through gorilla after his fall:
“He’s sitting right where he was. When it all happened, he saw it and he never moved. He stayed right there. When they brought Owen through the gorilla, he was in that same chair. He might have stood up, I can’t remember, but he never made a way to get closer like everybody else was.”
Earl Hebner on Owen Hart’s plans of retiring in 1999:
“The year Owen passed away, he was building a brand new house. He had told me and probably a lot of other people that at the end of that year, he was going to retire and go home with his family because of the new house he built.”
Earl Hebner on Owen Hart’s feeling towards him after the Montreal Screwjob:
“Owen truthfully came up to me and said, ‘I want you to know something. I’m not mad at you. I have no hard feelings about what happened. We’re still friends. I understand.’ I said, ‘Well, I really appreciate that.’”
Earl Hebner on an offer to go to WCW around ‘95 or ‘96:
“My brother and I had a deal to go if we wanted to. The thing was that before Vince went public, it was like a family company. My brother and I were so loyal to Vince that we turned the deal down. We went into Vince’s office and somebody had let it out of the bag. We went in there and sat down with Vince. He said, ‘Here’s the pad on the table. Write down what you want. I’ll be back in a little while. What do you want to make?’ We told him and he said, ‘Okay. You got it.’ I told my brother, ‘Hell, we should have wrote more.'”
Earl Hebner on Rick Rude beating up Ultimate Warrior:
“I was in Savannah, Georgia. We had a house show and then we had a pay-per-view the next day. The Warrior cut a promo on Rude and Rude was at the building. As soon as the Warrior got there, Rude started telling me this, that, and the other. The Warrior got outta hand with his mouth and Rude beat the sh*t out of him right there in the building. He beat him around the ring and he was screaming, ‘Earl, get him off me. Earl, get him off me.’ Rude was a tough guy. He’ll kick your ass, and that’s what he did to the Warrior.”
This interview is exclusive to WrestlingNews.co. If you use these quotes, please include a link back to this page.
