The following highlights were sent to us from the interview that Chris Van Vliet did with DDP on Insight With Chris Van Vliet:
On his Royal Rumble surprise entry:
“No one knows it. We have The Resurrection of Jake the Snake at the Slamdance Film Festival, the same time as the other big Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, no one knows. I fly up to Jersey and they drive us into Philly, they’re having a big party, and everybody’s saying I’m not there because my throat, oh my God, my throat was so bad. There was an interview on YouTube of me with Larry King and Scott [Hall] and Jake [Roberts] and I blew it out pushing myself too much. So I got enough of a voice to talk, and I get a text from Cody [Rhodes]. He goes, how apropos, I will be the first that you hit with the cutter. And it was Cody, and then Fandango, and then the immortal Bray Wyatt, bring it in, boom, boom, boom.
Then PS Hayes, the booker, right? He’s booking this whole thing. He goes, and then you know what happens? Me and Bubba, who’s also going to be in the Rumble, look at each other. Here comes Randy. [Hayes said] So he’s going to take you out, me and Bubba looked at him like, really? Wait a second, The Legend Killer? Randy, a lot of people have heard me talk about him. One of my favorites, one of my favorites of all time. I think the most underrated guy maybe ever in our business. Because even though he’s seen here, he could be on Mount Rushmore. I mean, he’s had everything, and he’s still got the look and the size and the rap and the work and the promo. I mean, again, he’s a guy who’s gotten all the breaks and freaking kicked their asses. The Legend Killer, but hasn’t killed me yet [laughs]. I want to take it so bad. I had this vision of the Rumble. He comes down. Here, comes Randy. He goes for it, and I get out of it. Then I go for it, he gets out of it, and then it turns into, of course, the RKO.”
If Randy Orton asked to use the cutter:
“Randy wasn’t there when I left. I called him later on about it. I wanted him to use it. But he never remembered the phone call, because he was coming out of surgery, and it was right around the time that I had called him, he was all banged up, because you come out of surgery and stuff. Johnny Ace is really the originator of the one arm kick it out. Randy took it with the jump, and Randy did things with that sh*t that I wasn’t athletic enough to do what he did, and I love what he did with it. But my favorite cutter ever, I had him on an interview with me recently, Sammy Guevara and Cody. Before that, it was Frankie [Kazarian] and Chris [Daniels].”
On working with Lex Luger:
“When he saw the Butterbean video, we were both at Sting’s last match. I’m sitting there watching the monitor, and we’re the two guys who are WWE guys, basically said we’re going, you good with that? We’re not going to go on camera. And they were great.
He rolled up next to me, and he goes, ‘Dally, I saw the Butterbean video, bro. I didn’t know you had chair workouts.’ I said, ‘Well, I didn’t have them back when you and I were working, I got them now.’ He goes, ‘Do you think maybe we could start?’ I’m like, ‘Dude, how many times have I asked you to start back up again? Absolutely, come over Monday.’ And we got met up after that and we’ve been working together, whenever Sting’s match was, that following Monday?”
Could Lex Luger walk again?
“I don’t know. I mean, I really don’t. There’s so much nerve damage in there. I really don’t know, but I do know that if it’s possible, Lex is gonna do it. There’s so many things I do in the chair workouts, even the bed. No one could tell me you can’t do DDP Yoga. It starts in bed. You can’t get out of bed? I got nine workouts for you in bed. Then sitting in a chair. That’s where I focus most of my things, chair and then getting him to stand up and then go back down and stand up and go back down.
Standing is one thing. He can stand, but it’s for moments, that’s a huge deal. We’re going to put that video out soon to let people see that he can stand. It’s shaky, but it’s pretty amazing. And again, what I do is every time he works out, it’s a completely different workout. I’m adding, subtracting, changing, growing, and I’ve never done this before with anyone.
So I’ve got our first workout. Do you know how many people are in chairs that aren’t paralyzed? There’s a lot. How many people are in those little scooters? There’s a lot and they’d like to be out of that. Well, you could start here because this guy was paralyzed and he’s got nerve damage, you can surely do what he did on day one. But every week, we’ll be on the app at some point, when we get to wherever we’re going to, it’ll all be in a sequence. So you could wherever you’re at start where he’s at.”
