 I am a loud and proud member of the KISS Army. So, interviewing the wrestling version of KISS, "The Demon," was just a little too sweet for words!
In this 32 minute interview, Dale talks about everything from his baseball career to his days with WCW and the future of the Demon character. Oddly enough, Dale is conducting this interview during a thunderstorm in his area. Anybody else thinking "God of Thunder" right about now?
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"THE DEMON" DALE TORBORG
-- Dale was a big wrestling fan growing up. A lot of guys his age grew up on Hulk Hogan. Everyone loved Hogan at that time and it made his weekends. He knew what was behind it in the entertainment aspect, he isn't quite as big into the technical aspect as other guys are. He feels loving that entertainment and being a KISS fan since he was 5 years old helped the character of the Demon work so well and feels it was a perfect fit.
-- Hogan is and always will be the man. He doesn't think anybody will ever dethrone him as the king of wrestling. He doesn't say that to mock the Rock but says that if you ask 100 people who the Rock is and they know, they definitely will know who Hulk Hogan is. He says if you ask 100 people who Hulk Hoagn is, not everyone will know who the Rock is. In terms of other favorites besides Hulk Hogan, he loved Jimmy Snuka and Roddy Piper. Also, the Ultimate Warrior was an influence on him to start working out because he just had such an incredible phasic.
-- He went to North Western University in Chicago and played baseball for them. He then went pro and played for the Mets and Yankees.
-- When North Western got in the Rose Bowl in Football in 1995, Dale went. On the same flight with him was Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. They started talking to him about getting into wrestling and that's how he got started.
-- Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart and The Warlord trained him to wrestle. He eventually got on the AWF and had a match there and the match made TV although it was not supposed to air. JJJ DIllon saw the match and he was brought to WCW and was training in the Power Plant with guys like Sarge, Goldberg, The Wall, and others.
-- The MVP character was dreamed up by both Dale and The Warlord. They had seen the movie The Warrior and thought it would be a perfect character for Dale since he had that Baseball background.
-- An interesting story about the MVP character was that when he was brought in to WCW, they decided that they liked the MVP character so they would put the gimmick on two other guys and slide him into it later on. Dale ended up copyrighting the character to prevent them from using it without his permission. He said that was in the same vain as the AWF running his match on TV without his permission though he didn't mind that because it ended up getting him into WCW.
-- Dale was signed to WCW in May of '97.
-- His first match in WCW was on a Nitro was against Kendle Windam and it ended up resulting him with a dislocated knee. He said it wasn't a very good debut to him.
-- Dale says he did a dark match at Slamboree (I presume in 1999) and faced Johnny Swinger. That night is when Dale met his wife, Asya. When he walked through the curtain, Eric Bischoff told him right away that he would have the Demon character which would debut in August. The next week, Brian Adams got it. He has no idea what happened.
-- Brian Adams was not all that happy as the original Demon. He said that it should have gone to Dale in the first place. So, the character was given to him and he was very happy to have it.
-- Dale mentions that if you saw his VH-1 special, you know that he really was/is a KISS fan and he isn't just saying he was.
-- The Demon character was brought back but management and others had the idea that they wanted to prove that Eric made a bad deal with Gene Simmons (KISS legend and owner of the Demon character) so they wanted to try to run the character into the ground by having him job all the time. Despite this, the character got over and after a while they realized that it would be more beneficial to take advantage of the fact that it was getting over than to bury it like they were.
-- They wanted to do a Screamin' Deamon tag team. The idea behind it was to have Norman dress as a KISS member and have the gear and stuff give him courage. Any other time, he'd be more cowardly. He loves Norman and says he is one of the nicest guys, the story just didn't translate to film.
-- At that time, WCW was very unorganized. He said that it was always fly by the seat of your pants at that time. He feels that you could see that is what ultimately lead to the demise of WCW.
-- The night the casket didn't open was in Philadelphia. He said they would bring the casket to the ring and the doors would open with a hydraulic lift. When the casket was being moved to the ring, it got stuck on the ramp and the crew kept pushing and it unhooked the doors. He was locked in there for just a few minutes but it felt like so much longer. Ultimately, he had to kick open and damage a $100,000 casket to get out because he was nervous that the fans would explode. He jokes saying that Philadelphia is not the place you want something to go wrong because they'll let you know about it. He adds, though, that the funny thing was how Lex Luger and Billy Kidman reacted backstage. WCW was so out of control that the guys were not always in the best of moods but Kidman was hysterical laughing because of the casket not opening so in a weird way it was good for morale. He has the hard tape copy of that event.
-- The more "Dale" Demon was kind of cool because it allowed him to involve his wife Asya more. He says sometimes the stories were rushed too much like when Vampiro kidnapped her and he found her the same night. He said even the fans were thinking they should've let that play out more.
-- Jimmy Hart was a supporter of the Demon character. When Jimmy was in charge of the Saturday Night show, he used the Demon heavily and Dale feels that in terms of ratings for the Saturday Night show, he saw an improvement because it was being given a fair chance on that show. He says that Saturday Night was not as high standards as Nitro, though.
-- Working with Vampiro was a lot of fun. He said the pain, and there was a lot, that he suffered in those matches was worth it because they put on a good show. He also liked being in the upper mix like that.
-- The graveyard match is an interesting story. Apparently the people that owned that piece of land were asked if there were any gators in the swamp. They didn't know but Dale and Vampiro went ahead and did the match anyway. He said in that match, he thought he broke his neck but he just jarred it and heard cracking like when you just get hit hard. But, he says the match was filmed too dark and it didn't translate. He says they should have had the announcers rigged like they do occasionally on TNA so you can hear the announcers in the arena so that the fans would have had more of an idea of what was going on.
-- Working with Sting was always a pleasure. He says they had a pay per view match and it was messed up from the start. He says on house shows, they had great matches but at the pay per view, Sting was supposed to not come out right away and then be dropped from the rafters. The stunt worker dropped him early and the timing and emphasis of the entire match was off from that point on. He hopes to wrestle him again.
-- In terms of the death of WCW, he did speak to the WWF. But, Dale's dad got a job with the Montreal Expos and Dale went along. Later on, Dale went and was the Strength Trainer for the Florida Marlins so the WWF was sort of put off for his work in baseball.
-- The reason Dale's baseball career ended was because he was hit in the face by a pitch.
-- The XWF was a blast. He said Jimmy Hart and Brian Knobbs did a great job putting those shows together. Dale says that the shows looked so great on pay per view and now that there is talk of the owner of the Dallas Mavericks getting involved in the rebirth of the company, he would love to work there again.
-- Dale talked to Gene Simmons over the weekend about going to Japan with the character. Gene is behind the idea. James carries on like a goof because he is such a KISS fan and can't believe Dale talked to Gene.
-- Dale has talked to NWA TNA but he just doesn't see it happening. He would like to go but he doesn't see it happening.
-- The future for the Demon is in wrestling. That is what he is getting back to now. He says he hopes the Japan deal goes through because KISS is huge in Japan and he feels it would work great there.
Plus, WORD ASSOCIATIONS with names like Sting, Hulk Hogan, Vampiro, Gene Simmons, Jeff Jarrett, and more!
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