Rico Constantino has shared the exact creative direction Vince McMahon gave him when he transitioned from the Billy and Chuck stylist to the more flamboyant Adrian Street-inspired character on WWE TV, stating on Insight with Chris Van Vliet the quote that defined the run.
Constantino’s character work on WWE TV across 2002 and 2003 went from the early “image consultant” stylist who managed Billy and Chuck through the wedding angle into a fully flamboyant ring presence inspired by 1970s-era British wrestler Adrian Street. He laid out the conversation with McMahon when the character was being reset.
“When we agreed to do that, when I got there, we had a meeting with Vince and said, listen, as long as we don’t embarrass that lifestyle or show it in a bad light, we’ll keep going, and I also did the same thing with Vince when I turned into the Adria Cheat flamboyant character, I said, I will not degrade these people, I will not embarrass these people. So, I said, so how far do you want me to go? Quote from Vince: strap a rocket to your ass and take off, I’ll tell you when to stop.”
Constantino framed the directive as the moment that unlocked the more out-there version of the character that became his most-remembered WWE work. The directive corresponded with the period of the Adrian Street-styled stylist character on SmackDown.
He also said he traveled personally to Gulf Breeze, FL, to ask Adrian Street for permission to base the character on him, going to the source rather than reverse-engineering the look from tape.
“Triple H came up to me and said, ‘Listen, Vince wants you to do an Adrian Street character. I said, ‘Okay, is Adrian still alive? Yeah, I said, ‘Where is he? He was, I think, somewhere around Gulf Breeze. I said, ‘I want to meet him. Why? I want to ask him what he did that made the character successful, and ask his permission to plagiarize his character. So they flew me to Gulf Breeze. I spent time with Adrian and Linda, and he told me, and he had a uniform making wrestling uniform outfit called Skull Crushers.”
Constantino said he agreed to buy all his ring outfits from Street’s company for the next year as compensation for the character borrowing.
“So when he told me, I said, ‘Listen, I can’t do what you did in the 70s to my family, I’ll get shot, you know, I can’t mistreat her. I said, but I got to bring it into the millennium, so I got to figure that out, how to bring it into modern times. And he said, okay. And then I said, I’m gonna buy my outfits from you for the next year, because you’re letting me do this. I appreciate it. Thank you. So, I was getting all my uniforms, you know, for a year from Skullcrossers.”
Constantino said he was committed to not degrading the audience the character represented, partly because of his own background as a former police officer and bodybuilder with no overlap with the character he was being asked to play.
“Like wrestling characters for people to believe that I was the stylist, not even coming from that background. Nothing in my life points to an effeminate stylist, but I had to internalize it here, and then I had to make it here.”
If you use quotes from this article, please credit Insight with Chris Van Vliet and include a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
