In an exclusive for WrestlingNews.co, Steve Fall interviewed former WWE star The Warlord (aka one half of The Powers of Pain). We have some transcribed highlights below and we recommend that you scroll down to watch the full interview.
If Powers of Pain were meant to be Legion of Doom ripoffs:
“We were basically look-alikes with The Road Warriors, of course, but we had the size, we had the look, and we could pull it off. The Road Warriors at that time, especially in the NWA, they destroyed everybody. We were the first team that were actually bigger and stronger than they were that could actually make them sell in the ring and the people loved it because it actually made the Road Warriors be total babyfaces. Now they were true babyfaces, so it was actually a very good thing.”
On if The Legion of Doom were viewed as imitators of Demolition and Powers of Pain because they were in WWE before Legion of Doom:
“The Road Warriors are always going to be the GOATS of the business. They will always be the best of all time. No one can ever tell me and no one will ever touch the Road Warriors. They changed tag team wrestling. Animal and Hawk had people going. To this day, everybody with the spikes and everything else, it’s just unbelievable. I just say I’m lucky enough to be able to work with those guys for a long time and enjoy not only working with them, but also as friends.”
On holding the fastest WWE Royal Rumble Elimination for 20 years:
“I didn’t mind it a bit because number one, I was the last one going in the ring, so I only had to be in there for about a second or so. Number two, I got eliminated by Hulk Hogan and that didn’t bother me. I still hold to this day that he didn’t beat me.” (he laughs)
On wrestling Hulk Hogan at the height of his career:
“I’ll tell you what. When you step in the ring against Hogan and all those flashes are going off, and also he rips that shirt off, I’m the one that’s got goosebumps all over me and everything just goes black for a second. It’s like wow, I’m in with the biggest name ever in professional wrestling. He’s doing all this and all these flashes are going off. It’s like, man, this is awesome. It’s the coolest thing in the world to feel.”
On the backstage fight between Jacques Rougeau and Dynamite Kid:
“We just got in the room, put down our bags, and here comes Dynamite. He’s missing a bunch of teeth. Blood all over his mouth. I’m thinking, what the heck just happened? Then I heard what happened. The Rougeaus waited for him. When he came outside the cafeteria, the Rougeau Brothers jumped him and they beat him up pretty good.”
“Vince said, ‘I’m going to give you time off for a while. You guys need to take a break for a while. We need to cool this off. After a period of time, we’ll bring you back, but you got to have a cooling time right now.”
“I knew there was a lot of heat between them, but I didn’t know it was coming to that point. Dynamite had been bullying him a lot. That’s what I heard. He was bullying him around a lot and pushing his weight on him in their face and stuff. That’s mostly what I heard.”
On the Super Assassins tag team with Barbarian in WCW:
“For some reason, they wanted to do Super Assassins. They wanted to put us in masks which was the stupidest thing I’ve ever been around in my entire life because every time we walked to the ring, everybody was like, ‘Hey Barbarian, Warlord.’ I’m like, ‘Wow, these masks are really working. Great outfit. Thank you.’ It sucked.”
On being released by WWE:
“You get to that point where it’s like, ‘Okay, what am I going to do now with this stuff?’ It was just kind of a mutual thing at the time.”
On the muscle guys being released by WWE at this time:
“It was because of the steroid thing that came up and all that stuff. That’s what it came down to. That’s basically what a lot of it was right there.”
On why he joined a class action lawsuit in 2016 against WWE (The lawsuit was dismissed by US District Judge Vanessa Lynne Bryant in September 2018):
“Mostly because I’ve had a lot of bad problems with headaches and that stuff. My memory is not the same anymore as it was and issues like that. It slows you down. It’s embarrassing sometimes because of what you’ve done in your life and also something like this, it’s hard. There could have been precautions like the precautions they have today. They have so many precautions in place now. Back then, we didn’t have nothing and we just kept going. If you got a concussion, you just kept going. There was no break. There was no nothing because we didn’t have contracts back then. People were paid nightly, so if you didn’t work, you weren’t paid. We had to do what we had to do to keep going. It was very tough.”
On storyline with British Bulldog in 1991:
“Just the way he looked and I looked, it was a good combination. It was a total honor to go work with Davey Boy.”
Warlord was asked whose idea was it to have Slick as his manager and wearing a Phantom of the Opera metal mask, and a Warlord chest protector after the Powers of Pain broke up:
“It was the WWF creative. They thought it was kind of cool with how big I was and my body was that it would fit that character which was good. It did fit it.”
On his heel turn with Barbarian at the 1988 Survivor Series and siding with Mr. Fuji:
“It is what it is. It’s what they wanted and of course, you go along with the flow and that stuff. You try to make money. You try to make a good product, so you go along with it and just do it.”
This interview is exclusive to WrestlingNews.co. If you use these quotes, please include a link back to this page.
