J.J. Dillon Shoot Interview Page 2
- Onto Florida, as he moved down there to keep the character fresh,
but first relates a story about an idiot fan who charged the ring
against Blackjack Mulligan a match with Dillon, and got absolutely
demolished as a result. The kid's father sued, so Dillon was advised
to stay the hell away from Texas while that blew over, and thus off to
Florida he went.
- Relates a story about a hellish flight to Florida in a downpour, as
the other plane crashed in the bay, nearly killing Gary Hart and Buddy
Colt. Bobby Shane was found dead in the wreckage later. JJ stayed in
Florida for a year, and that was the last territory he worked fulltime
as a wrestler.
- He made the move to managing Archie "Stomper" Gouldie in
Dallas because Archie needed someone to talk for him, and that lasted
until Archie went crazy (as usual) and went back to Calgary. They
liked him as a manager, however, and kept bringing in new guys for him
to manage.
- He moved to Atlanta under Jim Barnett, managing Gouldie again when
he realized his mistake in leaving, and that's where the JJ Dillon
image really got created. He moved to managing Abdullah the Butcher
and that worked so well that the Funks asked them to come to Texas
again and revive the territory. This was where he officially retired
as a wrestler.
- Talks about Abby for a bit and how he had sleep apnea and would tend
to fall asleep out of nowhere, meaning that long trips were too tough
on him. So he stayed in Japan most of the time, and always made sure
that Dillon was taken care of when he was over there.
- Booking with Ole in Georgia: JJ apparently speaks dumbshit-ese,
because he got along fine with Ole despite his tendency to piss off
everyone around him.
- Goes off onto a tangent about the current WWA tours and how Andrew
McManus doesn't know what the hell he's doing because of shitty
5-minute main events that are going to kill the towns in the long run.
Relates it back to the good ol' days and guys like Flair doing 30
minute matches for the hell of it.
- Started bouncing around as a manager to all sorts of weird places
like Australia and the smaller Japanese islands. This leads to a weird
story about watching a snake and mongoose battle as part of an island
tradition.
- He went back to the Crocketts and had a great run in the 80s in the
glory days. Talks about the spontaneous formation of the Four Horsemen
and how Arn came up with the name and hand sign.
- His first program in the NWA was managing Buddy Landel against Ric
Flair in the "real Nature Boy" deal. Buddy, known
for having personal issues, flushed the biggest moneymaking
chance he ever had down the toilet as a result of drugs. As an example
of the Landel Experience, Dillon talks about how he got a shot at a
big money deal with the WWF, but walked into a door and tore up his
leg.
- The formation of the Horsemen: Dillon was managing Tully and
inherited the Andersons when Gene left, and it went from there. The
Horsemen basically had carte blanche to do whatever they wanted in
their promos because there was tons of time to fill on TBS and Flair
had tons of energy to burn.
- The basic idea behind the group was to use Flair's celebrity to
elevate everyone else in the group by rotating the mic time and
treating everyone as equals. TAKE NOTE, HHH.
- Onto the famous Dusty-Flair ego clashes backstage and how Dillon's
job was to make Dusty look as good as possible behind the scenes. This
led to Flair griping about doing so many jobs to Dusty, that Dillon
would go to Crockett behind both their backs and plead for sanity.
Crockett would then play peacemaker and convince Dusty to put Flair
over a few times. Dillon often felt torn apart because he was booking
with Dusty by day and working with Flair by night.
- Doesn't really have any favorite angles from the big period, he just
enjoyed doing it.
- Talks about the Big Collapse in 1987 and how a few small towns dying
became a harbinger of the death of the entire promotion until Turner
was forced to step in and buy Crockett out in 1988. Dillon thinks that
the ultimate downfall was Crockett's retarded decision to move the
whole operation to Dallas after buying the UWF in 1986. In particular,
the plane trips were brutally expensive, with no monetary return.
- Into the Turner era, as Jim Herd came in to run the promotion and
Dillon was having bad vibes, so he jumped to the WWF after the
Brainbusters. At any rate, he switched from on-screen to off-screen
and became a writer under Vince.
- Back to TBS, and the influence of cable TV on the wrestling
business. In particular, fans being exposed to things outside of their
own territory and thus killing the appeal of bringing in outside stars
for temporary programs. For instance, fans in Texas getting tired of
the Funks could watch Tommy Rich fighting Buzz Sawyer on TBS for free,
and thus a new business model was needed. Vince McMahon had that
model. JJ thinks that cable TV killed the territories more than Vince
- the WWF was just the nail in the coffin.
- Back to the Four Horsemen in general. Flair lived the gimmick and he
was a dream to work with. Flair actually bought a limo and driver for
himself and made sure to always be seen in it. Dillon regrets that
Flair never got his big final run due to the collapse of WCW. Talks
about having to remind Sting to howl and beat his chest before the
Stinger splash.
- Resentment from the Horsemen after all the selling for the faces?
Not really, but they did feel that all the losing would eventually
hurt the territory if it wasn't kept in check. Thinks the old
"gone to the well once too often" theory ended up killing it
for everyone once the fans no longer viewed the Horsemen as the elite
threat to the babyfaces.
- Onto Dusty and his screwy booking - sometimes it worked, sometimes
it didn't, but like everything else it was just too much of the same
thing. Like Dusty, JJ credits Eddie Graham with the creation of the
Dusty Finish and incredibly intricate finishes in general. The
difference between a manager holding the ref on the apron for an
eternity and a manager distracting the ref for the split second needed
for the heel to cheat is huge.
- Talks about the famous parking lot beating of Dusty. JJ has a
problem with all the backstage stuff today where you have to first ask
why the hell a camera is there in the first place. The explanation for
the camera being there for the beating is that the Horsemen wanted to
make an example out of Dusty and hired someone to film it. Great
point.
- Onto an angle where Dillon confronted Dusty & Blackjack Mulligan
at their ranch, but he's confronted with a shotgun and is forced to
spend the night sleeping outdoors and fighting off armadillos. The
key, he says, is to laugh on the inside but not let the fans know
you're laughing. It's all about suspension of disbelief and wrestlers
being real-life superheroes who can carry the character through to
public appearances, unlike someone dressed up in the Spider-Man
costume at a mall. That's why he hates all the backstage segments with
wrestlers pulling up in limos backstage and hanging out in the
dressing room - if there's no mystique to the business, there's no
reason for fans to lose themselves in the moment during the show. He
also thinks Tough Enough is a spectacularly bad idea, especially when
you show how the highspots are done.
- He thinks, however, that things will go full circle at some point
and things will go back to the basics of two guys battling it out in
what the people consider to be a real fight. Case in point - Lennox
Lewis and Mike Tyson drawing a huge house despite all the overexposure
of the sleaze involved in boxing. I'd also add Ken Shamrock and Tito
Ortiz to that list. The basic point is that in the end, if you can
convince 20,000 people that while the rest may be fake, THESE two guys
REALLY hate each other, then wrestling will always survive in its
purest form.
- Talks about guys like Scott Steiner using a club to beat up guys
when he's a friggin' MONSTER and should be manhandling the faces, and
also the use of catchphrases and entrance pops are confusing the fans
and leaving the matches heatless. This is REALLY great stuff, folks,
and exactly the kind of thing that the WWE should be paying close
attention to. It all comes down to one guy being good and one being
evil, and scripts aren't needed. Non-wrestling people getting involved
in the business and trying to make it something it's not have screwed
things up. The simple ideas work the best. The challenge is figuring
out the what a given audience wants to see and delivering, rather than
doing your little routine verbatim night after night without knowing
how to tell a story. Awesome stuff.
- WarGames: Just kind of the logical continuation of the whole Dusty
v. Horsemen feud, and another way to present the same story in a
different package. Sustained the worst injury in his career during one
of those matches when Animal dropped him on his head because of a low
ceiling.
- Magnum and the accident: Terry Allen had unlimited potential, and
visiting him in the hospital after the crash was a moving experience.
Life went on, however.
- Doesn't really remember Nikita's babyface turn.
- The decision to remove Ole in favor of Luger was made because it was
hard to establish babyfaces and it was an easy way to give the
Horsemen a natural opponent.
- Doesn't remember much about the 45-minute draw with Sting aside of
the usual need to tutor Sting on his own gimmick. Thinks that Sting
changed to the Crow gimmick in order to attract attention from
Hollywood.
- Wasn't really part of the decision for Tully & Arn to jump to
the WWF, and thinks it just came down to money for them.
- Talks about his dreams of wrestling in MSG and getting one chance
against Tito Santana in 1984, and thus living his dream.
- Jim Cornette: Respects the work ethic, and respects that he doesn't
have to work at being annoying.
- He kept a journal of all his experiences as a wrestler and manager
for tax purposes. Talks about his favorite guys to manage and relates
a road story about a disastrous drinking session that Dillon had to
cover up for one of his guys so as not to incur the wrath of Paul
Boesch.
- Goes into a story about Lawler popping into Florida for a shot
against Kendo Nagasaki that popped a house and turned the one shot
into a week, and another, and on until the blowoff. This led Lawler to
create his own facepainted monster using down-on-his-luck jobber Jim
Harris as an African witch doctor. His new name was Kamala.
- He values his privacy away from the business, and doesn't take the
gimmick home.
- Back to the NWA's death, as he talks about Crockett not being able
to see the inherent weaknesses in the people he had handling his
money. When Crockett started needing one and two million dollar loans
to make it through the week, Dillon knew the ultimate end was near.
Talks about Vince's similar downturn in fortune in the 90s because of
the legal fees, but Vince knew enough to trim the fat at Titan Towers
and pinch every penny possible to make it through the lean times.
Dillon himself was a victim of that and had to declare bankruptcy as a
result. Lord Alfred Hayes quit and hasn't been seen by anyone since.
The Vince giveth and the Vince taketh away.
- He retired as a manager because of the travel demands eating into
his family time. Dillon's experience with doing live TV for WCW were
sorely missed when he left and in fact Clash VI ran long and cut off
the Sting and Luger matches as a result. The WWF wanted his experience
in that area and he wanted to be reunited with Tully.
- He was never asked to be talent rather than an office guy because it
was felt that he couldn't do justice to both. He's shocked Jim Ross
hasn't bowed out as announcer at this point because of his workload.
- He was brought in slow because he was regarded as a Crockett guy and
Vince didn't want resentment from the talent. His time working
creative with Vince & Patterson was a tremendous learning
experience for him. Talks about the nuances of booking TV that he
picked up from Vince like not putting tag matches back-to-back and
keeping guys with similar looks apart. Also relates the difference
between NWA and WWF house shows.
- Vince has no life outside of wrestling and JJ couldn't keep up with
that kind of drive. Vince resented people who took vacations and
didn't understand the need for them. He hasn't spoken with him since
leaving because of "philosophical differences". He doesn't
want to get into details, but basically he was just a heat shield for
Vince and ended up having no individual input in the long run. He was
the designed fall guy when talent was pissed, so that Vince wouldn't
have to deal with it personally. Thinks a lot of guys get screwed over
in terms of credit for great ideas. The paranoia about staying home
and getting passed over got to him and he finally quit outright.
- Talks about how it amazed him that audiences would stick around for
4 hours at a TV taping on the promise of seeing Hulk Hogan at the end
of the night. Vince would paint in the empty seats on Hulk's posters
and photos.
- Talks about the whole creative process and how Vince would throw out
TONS of stuff and how people would just not pitch stuff because they
knew it didn't fit with Vince's narrow view of what wrestling is.
Credits Jerry Jarrett's brief run there with the pushes of Bret Hart
and Shawn Michaels.
- Didn't have any real problems working with talent in the WWF. Some
guys were better prepared than others, but that was just another
challenge for him. Toughest challenge was pinning down Ultimate
Warrior for promos, and they ended up barricading him in the building
until he taped them.
- Atmosphere during the trial was very stressful, and Vince was
convinced that he was gonna do time. Vince's feeling was that the
government was going to make an example out of him for political
reasons and find him guilty of SOMETHING. Contingency plans involved
Vince booking via prison phone. Thus, Jerry Jarrett was brought in and
eventually Jeff, and Dillon rekindled his friendship with Jerry.
- JJ's role in the drug tests: Vince made a lot of noise about holding
the wrestlers to a higher standard than other sports, and JJ wishes he
hadn't been involved but can't comment further on the situation. Damn,
that's where all the REALLY juicy stuff (no pun intended) happened!
- He became VP of Talent Relations (JR's current job) in 1992 while
doing most of the creative end of things with Vince. Wrestlemania VIII
was pretty much his baby with Patterson on hiatus. He doesn't remember
the whole Flair blade controversy.
- Talks about how Vince used to negotiate insanely lowballed contracts
(like $500!) with promises of merchandise and exposure driving the
rest of the revenue. Bischoff's guaranteed contracts of course forced
him to drastically change that strategy. Dillon's job was basically to
go to the talent and say "Here it is, take it or leave it."
Most took it. Negotation was not an option.
- JJ v. The Clique: He thought HHH had talent but he wasn't really in
the trenches and thus didn't see what was going on with them so much.
The MSG Incident didn't sit so well with him, however. Ditto Vince,
although he didn't find out until a few days after. He wasn't in on
the decision that left HHH as the whipping boy for the incident.
- He left in 1996 for "other reasons", a combination of
paycuts and Vince's endless bullshit. He didn't give notice and had no
clue what he was going to do afterwards.
- He ended up in WCW because he figured it was worth a shot.
- First time he met Bischoff was when he went to WCW in 96. All Eric
ever talked about was putting Vince out of business. Conversely, all
Vince ever talked about was putting Ted Turner out of business. If
Eric was a better leader and organizer, he might have done exactly
what he wanted with Dillon's help. However, JJ thinks that Eric was
all about selling the sizzle and had no steak to back it up. Bischoff
got threatened by Dillon's ability to see through his bull
and things were touch-and-go from the beginning.
- Talks about Eric's "creative resume" and how he used
people already inside WCW as references, and then fired them once he
got into power so they couldn't expose him. The promotion was a huge
mess and Dillon ended up being powerless. A lot of it came down to not
being able to keep the spending in check and hiring useless people
like Harvey Schiller to run the business aspect.
- Onto Bischoff's departure in 1999 and Bill Busch arriving. JJ and
Kevin Sullivan knew what was going to happen well before it did
because it was just a bigger version of the same stuff that happened
in the smaller territories. Excess and greed from the television
people who wanted to keep milking the ratings ended up doing them in.
He uses a bizarre analogy about watermelons to illustrate how WCW was
bleeding money so fast.
- Bischoff tried getting involved with creative during Nitro's peak,
but couldn't get past a blank piece of paper. As a result, the usual
suspects manipulated him towards their own goals because he didn't
understand wrestling. The general rule for wrestling is that talent is
25% of the budget. WCW was approaching 60% and simply couldn't stay in
business.
- Talks about the futility of trying to cut talent costs with ironclad
guaranteed contracts and guys like Stevie Ray making main event money.
- Thinks that stuff like Scott Steiner going off on a rant about Ric
Flair on live TV was death to the company and needed to be made an
example of. Steiner was given the equivalent of a slap on the wrist,
but called his lawyers and had JJ & Busch overruled.
- Bischoff talked himself into another job, and that leads JJ to talk
about being the go-between in the Vince Russo hiring. At the time, he
thought it was at least worth a shot, but his opinion QUICKLY changed.
So he started taking notes on what Russo was doing with Nitro, and
charting the ref bumps and screwjobs, and his head exploded. The
in-ring time dropped from 40 minutes per show to 15 minutes, and
Dillon started getting seriously worried. The key was that the WWF was
maintaining the PPV revenue stream whereas Russo had no clue about
building to shows and thus the bottom fell out. Talks about the
disaster on Nitro where Jarrett wrestled Santana, George Steele and
Jimmy Snuka in the same show and ended up getting injured and thus
ruining the PPV. Russo then wanted to do an angle with Terry Funk and
a flaming branding iron, and asked Jim Crockett how much it would cost
to bribe the fire marshal and BURN DOWN THE ARENA. You can't even make
this stuff up.
- Russo got all indignant about Standards & Practices and finally
Brad Siegel pulled the plug after all the injuries and wasted money.
The talent roster was basically down to Jarrett, Sid and Lex Luger by
the time Russo crashed and burned. Bill Busch told Brad Siegel
outright that he'd quit if Russo was brought back, and did so. JJ
talks about the difference between scripting ideas and creating stars
and how the higher-ups never understood it. The final losses projected
were $62 million. Dillon can't understand how Siegel dodged the bullet
for those losses.
- Talks about Russo's pathetic cheapshots at him on live TV when he
returned in 2000, although JJ felt better in the long run seeing what
a disaster that run was for Russo. Talks about the Fusient deal and
how no one told them about the contract situations until after the
press conference announcing the sale. They called him for
clarification, and he blew them off and suggested they call Bischoff
instead. The deal was dead a month later.
- He wanted to put the belt on Benoit in 2000, and even Sullivan was
on board with that call. Talks about the Radicalz departure that
resulted, but feels that management had to stand their ground for the
good of the company. He thinks that the other three manipulated Benoit
because he was the only real asset out of the team, and turned on
Shane Douglas for the opposite reason. Thinks that the WWF overpaid
for Guerrero considering the downtime. The bottom line: They wanted to
keep Benoit, and didn't care about the other three, but didn't want
him badly enough to undermine management in order to do so.
- He returned as talent under Bischoff (which I don't even remember,
which shows how closely I was watching from 2000 on) in a commissioner
role. He was just following orders.
- The final days of WCW: They couldn't drop the losses any lower than
$62 million without cutting contracts, and legally that just wasn't
possible. Points out that a $210 million gross isn't that impressive
when you're spending $205 million. Talks about stupidity like hiring a
guy with an actual crow (including plane ticket and handling costs)
for $5000 for a five-second shot.
- He was surprised that Vince bought WCW because of a lifetime of
branding wrestling in general as "WWF", and the costs of
bringing in the fatcat contracts was prohibitive. So now you've got a
handful of guys as your "invasion" force and Vince unwilling
to let his WWF brand ever be put in jeopardy, and thus it was doomed
to fail from day one. Also thinks bringing in Bischoff a year late was
useless because there's payoff for the fans - no one pays money to see
Bischoff.
- Worst days in each promotion: Getting his pay cut in the WWF in
1996, and the Vince simulcast on the final Nitro, as he proceeded to
get his final shots in at Turner. Dillon thinks that had Turner used
the same strategy with WCW as he did with the Braves, they'd still be
around.
- Talks about the problems faced because of the deteriorating main
eventers in the WWE without anyone to replace them, and he thinks that
the business is in real trouble. When business sucks and you still
have to pay 50 guys, you're in trouble. And if you start cutting
talent, you can't fill up your four hours of TV anymore, and it turns
into a downward spiral.
- JJ hopes that NWA-TNA succeeds, if only to give Vince competition.
If Vince goes under, it'll take a new crop of talent and a Ted Turner
to jumpstart things again. It's all about making new stars, and
without stars to make other stars, you're dead.
- He thinks that TNA can succeed, but not without TV and Ted Turner
backing them. He has no interest in working with them.
- JJ wraps things up and thanks RF for the opportunity to ramble about
the business for 5 hours.
The Bottom Line:
FABULOUS shoot interview. It takes a little while to get JJ going, but
once he starts going into the front office politics of the WWF and
talking about the WCW downfall, it's incredibly fascinating stuff that
reveals a side of the creative process that you don't often get a
chance to hear about. His thoughts on what went wrong with WCW and
what's wrong with wrestling in general today are absolutely must-hear
and such deceptively simple ideas that you have to wonder why no one
is doing them.
Highly recommended for old-school NWA fans and those interested in the
backstage workings of the business alike.