 Show: The Interactive Interview
Guest: Sam Houston
Date: 2/19/09
Your Hosts: Patrick Kelley, James Walsh, & Nick Noel
Sam Houston has been around the wrestling business for the better part of
25 years himself. But, in reality, wrestling was in his blood from birth.
Brother of Jake "The Snake" Roberts and Rockin' Robin and son of Grizzly
Smith, Sam Houston has some deep roots in wrestling. And, it is our honor
and pleasure to bring to you an interview that I compare to our Marty Jannetty
interview. It is light, fun, but also very deep and serious. It is truthfully
one of the best we've done in some time and we hope you'll tune in and find
out why we feel this way!
SAM HOUSTON
- Sam joins the show introducing himself as working at
a pool hall and calls himself "8 Ball". We're underway!
- James welcomes the one and only Sam Houston to which Sam says there's been
a few before. James says there has but he's the only one who wears tights.
Sam agrees but says that is only because it is the required
uniform.
- Sam has been well. He had left the ring for a while but is now getting
back into it. He says he left and then was asked to give a speech at a wrestling
show. He hit the ropes,looked out in the crowd, and realized that this is
where he belongs. He said he and Kofi Kingston are the only people you ever
see smile while wrestling.
- James asks after his sister, Rockin' Robin. Sam laughs and says she's doing
great and is still rockin' in the tree tops all night long. He says she's
cut her hair short but is still Rockin' Robin, his baby sister. James also
asks after Jake who Sam says he gets along fine with despite what some seem
to think.
- Things weren't always a breeze for Sam Houston, though. Sam tells the story
of how he when he was young, he was pronounced dead for 2 minutes in a hospital
due to difficulties with a tonsilectomy. When he recovered, he turned on
Mid South Wrestling (where his dad Grizzly Smith worked). On the show, they
announced that Grizzly's son was not expected to live and that's why he wasn't
at the show. It freaked Sam out at first, but his dad reassured him that
the show was taped days earlier before his health improved.
- He couldn't get into wrestling right away because of his health, but once
he started getting better, he began to train heavily. Grizzly tried to discourage
him, but Dusty Rhodes gave him his break mainly because it was Grizzly who
gave Dusty his big break.
- His interaction with The Four Horsemen was "intense" He felt like he was
in the ring with the best. He also references working with Abdullah The Butcher
at an early age, and he says that working with those stars brought the best
out of him.
But he says that if you go back and watch the tapes "you can tell I'm shaking
in my boots"
- He won the Bump of the Year after a match with Krusher Krutchev and says
that the bump scared alot of people it was so brutal. He took pride in trying
to make everything he did as real as possible. He then jokes that "My nickname
is Frankenstein.
I can walk away from anything"
- Sam never liked grabing the ropes when taking an over the top rope bump
because he felt it would make the bump look fake. He got advice from Hector
Guerrero to "never be second best" And he used that advice both in the ring
& when dealing with ribbers.
- He was known as a great practical joker & ribber. He never hurt anybody
or cost them money, but he always got them good.
- Houston ended up leaving the Crockets for Bill Watt's promotion after getting
poor paychecks & getting stiffed on a big show in which he was in the
main event. James & Sam then talk about how poor promotion can hurt a
wrestling event.
- The next step was the WWF, which Sam ended up at once Watts sold to The
Crockets. When the change in ownership took place, Sam was told that he was
the only one losing his job when the change of ownership took place. But
Vince picked him up soon after.
- He got along with his half brother Jake Roberts. There was never a plan
to ever mention that they were half brothers because they were so different.
He said that Jake DDT'd him once during his blindness feud with Martel, but
that was meant more for the smart fans than to ever make a story out of
it.
- Sam left the WWF after Vince offered him 3 months off with no pay, so he
decided to go to WCW instead. He didn't go into too much detail about what
happened in WCW, but there were issues that arose with the booking for a
match he had with Terry Taylor and he soon left.
- After leaving the WWF, Sam went to Global, a promotion that James was a
big fan of.
James recalls instances where Sam did really creative spots, and Sam says
it was his goal to try and come up with new things: "I want everybody to
go either Wow or How"
- As for working at Global, he says he was there to have fun and work hard
at the same time because he enjoyed what he did. Sam has no idea with what
happened to the product losing TV slots and slowly fading away. Things ended
up going south in GWF when they didn't pay him for his traffic expenses,
and then he decided to pawn his title belt to get the money
back.
- A long time ago, he was a "hardcore" partier & admits that he's an
alcoholic, but he's been getting help, & admits that he's been able to
give up on any drug he's ever done, but alcohol was the hardest to give
up.
- The interview takes a sudden stop when Sam Houston gets hit in the head
with a ceiling fan!!!
- He says that right now his relationship with Baby Doll is great, and James
says that when he spoke to her, she had nothing but nice things to say about
Sam.
- Sam also says that Rockin Robin, his younger sister, is doing fine. In
Jake Roberts' DVD, Jake mentions having altercations with his sister, and
Sam confirms that it was not Rockin Robin, but rather a sister of Jake's
that was kidnapped.
- The interview then goes into Word Associations where Sam gives some very
interesting answers:
Arn Anderson: "I did things with Arn that I couldn't do with anyone else...He
brought out the best in me"
Barry Horrowitz: "Always wonderful" (both in and out of the
ring)
Danny Davis: "You had to be strategically involved with him. It was always
like a chess game with him...he always had to have somebody coaching
him"
Mike Davis: "He was crazy" and he then tells a story about how Mike ribbed
him and Sam hit him and got him to cross his eyes. Sam then did this to him
every match they had with each other & when they got to Global, Mike
decided he'd rather be his tag partner.
Black Bark: "Our matches were so brutal, so involved, and so real, but I
hadnothing but the highest respect for Black Bart" He also mentions that
several states tried to prevent them from facing each
other.
Bull Payne: "He was good, but I wish he had been around longer"
Missy Hyatt: "I showed up at her wedding dressed up as Skandor Ackbar" and
he also recalls the first time he met Missy, and how a picture of Missy once
got him in trouble with a girlfriend.
Jim Powers: "The only mistake with him was when they hooked him up with Paul
Roma...he couldn't get any guidance with Roma...But Powers, if I was a girl
I'd have slept with him!"
- Sam Houston's Favorite Ribs were two that he pulled on Nikolai Volkoff.
In telling these stories, Sam admits that Nikolai was a scary guy and still
is. He asks if Nikolai is still alive and then has to be coaxed to tell the
story after finding out that he is.
1) The 1st story is about "Mr. Perfect" Curt Hennig. They arrived at a hotel
and Hennig had things to party with and Sam had a case of beer in his trunk.
Curt told Sam to join him in his room to hang out and party. So, Sam threw
his stuff in his room and went down to Curt's room and they partied with
the alcohol and ... cigarettes, lets just say. So, after partying for a while,
they got the munchies, I mean hungry, and decided to call out for some pizza.
Curt went into the bathroom to wash out his ring gear and left Sam to make
the call. Sam called and pretended to be Curt Hennig and cut a promo on the
poor guy answering the phone at the pizza parlor, "Do you know who I am?
I'm Mr. Perfect! I make more money in one night than you do in one year,
you nothing happening pizza boy!" Apparently Sam blasted the guy on the phone
for a good 10 minutes and left it with, "And you'd better get that pizza
here within a half hour or I'm going to kick your butt when you get here!"
Well, 15 minutes later the pizza arrives and Curt Hennig chows down on it
and eats basically an entire pie while Sam sits there holding his first slice
and starts thinking, "Should I really eat this after what I said to that
guy?" Well, apparently Curt ate a pie and a half and Sam never even took
a bite because he knows darn well the guy on the phone spat in the pizza
at the very least and still watched as Curt ate it not suspecting a
thing.
2) The other, the one Sam was afraid to tell, involves WWE Hall of Famer
Nikolai Volkoff. Sam was sitting backstage in the WWF and watched as Nikolai
strung up his Russian flag. For some reason, Sam had a bad idea. He went
into the bathroom with a bandade and stuck it to a long roll of toilet paper.
He walked up to Nikolai and slapped him on the lower back and wished him
good luck out there. This, of course, stuck the toilet paper to Nikolai's
back and made it look like he had toilet paper hanging from the inside of
his tights. The referee, Howard Finkel, Jim Powers, and the entire crowd
laughed when he went out there. Nikolai did the whole thing he normally did,
the Russian National Anthem and the works and everyone just laughed at him.
Powers actually slumped over in the corner laughing so hard. It wasn't until
the second or third time he hit the ropes that the toilet paper fell off.
Backstage, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan and Jake "The Snake" Roberts confronted Sam
saying they knew he did it.
The only way he escaped with his life from Nikolai not finding out is he
had to pay for the beer of Duggan and Roberts for a month!
- Then Sam goes into a discussion about the people that accuse wrestling
of being fake. Sam says that he always did everything in his power to make
his matches believable and that there is always a great chance of getting
hurt. He says what they do is not easy and while the mat has some give, it
isn't a great deal of give.
- When asked about Chris Benoit and the media's reaction to the murder/suicide,
Sam says it was a black eye on wrestling. And, the media always is looking
for a sensational story. But, he just isn't sure he believes Chris Benoit
did it. He says he knows a few things that were told to him by friends that
makes him not as ready to believe he did it even mentioning the position
Benoit himself was found in.
:: GO BACK TO THE HOME
PAGE
:: DISCUSS THIS POST
ON THE FORUMS!
:: BUY WRESTLING DVD'S
THROUGH OUR STORE!
Home |
News |
Editorials |
Interviews |
Forums |
Chat Room |
Store |
Divas |
PPV Results |
TV Results |
Shows |
Links
| Metal Epicenter |
Contact Us/Staff |
