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JIMMY HART INTERVIEW ONLINE |
 He's managed more top stars than any other manager
in the history of the business. He's managed the self proclaimed "Greatest
Intercontinental Champion of All Time" Honky Tonk Man! He managed Bret "The
Hitman" Hart to his first major championship. He managed Hulk Hogan to numerous
WWF and WCW titles. He is the one and only "Mouth of the South" and he just
happens to be TII's latest guest! He is Jimmy Hart!
James and Dan go nearly an hour with the legendary manager
that has been involved in many of the top angles of all time including Andy
Kaufman! So, sit back and relax as James and Dan drive you through Memphis,
up to New York with the WWF, down to Atlanta with WCW, and through Orlando
where Total Nonstop Action's national TV debut "IMPACT" will be filmed!
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"THE
MOUTH OF THE SOUTH" JIMMY HART
-- Jimmy is currently in Orlando, Florida doing promotions
for NWA TNA's television show "IMPACT." Jimmy says he is assisting in putting
together the set and they have opted to use a 6-sided ring as opposed to
the traditional ring.
-- Fans wishing to attend the TNA tapings can do so with
a pass to Universal Studios in Orlando. It is not a separate ticket but part
of the park's attraction. Jimmy feels this is a gold mine idea and talks
about how he wanted to do this with the XWF. We'll talk more about the XWF
later!
-- Jimmy says 3 p.m. was selected as a good time slot
because it is fit for the school kids. Jimmy then puts over NWA TNA's family
oriented product. He then says Ryan Seacrest of American Idol has a show
on at 3 in the afternoon so he assumes it is a good spot. Jimmy does say
he hopes as ratings improve, they will be moved to a later time slot.
-- Jimmy feels common sense says weekly pay per views
with no national TV means your audience is going to stay basically the same.
Jimmy feels adding the Impact show to TNA will probably cause many more buys
for the weekly pay per views.
-- James asks, since they're in Florida, if his favorite
of all time, Hulk Hogan, would appear on any of the shows. Jimmy replies
by saying "Never say never!"
-- Hulk Hogan did Jimmy Kimmel Live at the request of
Jimmy Kimmel himself. Hogan loves that show so when Jimmy asked him to come
on, he hopped on a plane and there he was. As for what Hogan is up to now,
he is helping his daughter with her music career. She just signed a deal
with the same label the Backstreet Boys and N'Sync are on. James politely
doesn't share his thoughts on those bands.
-- Jimmy himself was in a band in the 60's called The
Gentrys. Jimmy says they had a million selling record while he was still
in high school and had a 9-year run. They are re-recording some of their
hits currently and will be putting out a new album soon.
-- Jerry Lawler is responsible for Jimmy entering
professional wrestling. Lawler wanted to do a wrestling album with him singing
and they had gone to school together so he called Jimmy and asked him to
be a part of it. The rest is history!
-- Andy Kaufman was a lot of fun to work with. He always
asked a lot of questions about various wrestlers and about Elvis since Jimmy
was a musician. Jimmy feels Andy was genuinely excited to be doing what he
was doing.
-- Jimmy talks about wearing the chicken suit. He says
a lot of guys didn't want to get tar and feathered or have anything goofy
happen to them because it would make them look bad. Jimmy feels having things
done to you makes you stand out the most because you are having things done
to you.
-- Hillbilly Jim was Jimmy's friend when Vince started
taking all the talent from across the country. Hillbilly was wrestling as
Harley Davidson in Memphis when Vince snagged him. So, Jimmy gets a call
one day from Vince McMahon. Jimmy didn't believe it and never returned the
call. A week later, Jimmy received another phone call this time from George
Scott who was Vince's booker at the time. A short time later, Hillbilly Jim
calls Jimmy just to see how he was doing and Jimmy told him about the phone
calls. Hillbilly asked Howard Finkel about it and Hillbilly told him to be
ready because Vince McMahon is going to call him in 5 minutes. Vince called
and the next thing Jimmy knew, he was in New York City.
-- Jimmy feels there are some form of mangers these days
pointing at Teddy Long and Paul Heyman but he admits he doesn't watch enough
of Vince's product these days to make that decision. He then puts over Vince
and his family for allowing him to be a part of the WrestleMania Legends
dinner the night before WrestleMania. James acts surprised not even knowing
Jimmy was there.
-- There was not much by way of competition between the
managers back then. Jimmy feels each character offered something different.
He feels part of what made managers unique was their promos and says it's
different today because promos are scripted. But, as far as competition between
managers, there was none. Jimmy mentions that "Classy" Freddie Blassie asked
Jimmy why he liked to go down to the ring and stay at ringside because the
other managers were paid the same amount of money and they took the jackets
back with them and weren't seen again. Jimmy says he enjoyed being out there
and feels it opened new doors so he could screw up more like throw the megaphone
in and the other guy catches it.
-- Vince came up with the idea of the megaphone. Vince
and George Scott went to Japan and when they returned, Vince gave Jimmy a
box. In the box was a megaphone. Jimmy painted it up and made it more colorful
and so it began. Jimmy wishes he could take credit for it, though!
-- Jimmy always knew Bret Hart would make it big. He
feels Bret was "different from everyone else" in that he always wanted to
make sense of what was being done and find the psychology in it. Jimmy says
while managing the Hart Foundation, he and Anvil were getting boo'd by the
fans but Bret would always have the girls screaming. So, they sort of arranged
it so Jimmy and Anvil were heel but Bret was kind of babyface.
-- A funny story Jimmy tells about managing the Hart
Foundation is one night a referee in New York approached everyone involved
and told them not to touch his hairpiece or they will be fined heavily. Everyone
agreed that was fine and prepared for the match. The Hart Foundation used
to take a while to get ready because Bret liked to wet his hair down and
get ready. For whatever reason, they were rushed and Anvil taped up his arm
pad quickly. So, the referee is in the corner facing the heel with his arms
around him trying to split the two and Anvil reaches over the referee's head
and hits the face, classic heel move. Well, when Anvil pulled his arm back,
a piece of the tape was the sticky side and pulled the referee's hair piece
off! Bret fell off the ring laughing, Jimmy had to crawl under the ring.
It was a classic. Vince paid the fine.
-- Jimmy can't believe James and Dan recall the battle
royal he won. He says it was a lot of fun and didn't really hurt anybody's
character. A lot of people expected JYD would win. Jimmy jokes saying he
still is owed the $50,000 from the match.
-- Jimmy did a lot of the music for the WWF back then.
He talks about the Wrestling Album where he performed Eat Your Heart Out
Rick Springfield. He also talks about how good Shawn Michaels was when Sherri
left the WWF. Sherri originally sang the "Sexy Boy" theme that Jimmy wrote.
When Sherri left, Vince wanted Michaels to sing the song himself. So, Jimmy
took him in and Shawn knew what he wanted and nailed it right away. He also
says Shawn has great ring psychology.
-- Jimmy met Hulk Hogan first in Memphis when he was
a Boulder Brother with Ed Leslie. There is a funny story here too. Jerry
Lawler asked Jimmy what he thought of the blond in the ring. Jimmy looked
and was impressed with his size and look. Lawler told him he was offered
the opportunity to be Hogan's business manager and make 15% of everything
he would ever make in his life. Jimmy asked if he was going to do it and
Lawler said, "he will never make a dime in this business." Jimmy says Lawler
denies ever saying that to this day but it's true.
-- Years later, Hogan was in a program with Flair in
the WWF. Bobby Heenan wasn't available to manage Flair so Hogan asked Jimmy
if he would fill in. Jimmy said yes because he always enjoyed Flair's work.
With that, Hogan and Hart became friends and eventually Jimmy was managing
Hogan. When Hogan left to do Thunder in Paradise and wasn't interested in
wrestling much anymore, he wanted Jimmy with him. He asked Jimmy how much
he was paid last year and shortly after Hogan gave Jimmy a cashiers check
and Jimmy took a leave from the WWF to go work for Hulk. Jimmy laughs saying
it was over a decade and he's still not there.
-- When Hogan saw WCW and was considering going in, he
told Eric Bischoff he wanted Jimmy with him. Eric said, "I'd love to have
Jimmy" and there he was in WCW.
-- Jimmy feels WCW was a cookie cutter of the WWF in
too many ways. He feels this was especially true later on when WCW was doing
the same kind of angles the WWF was doing with different people. But, he
says the difference was simply WCW was a cookie cutter copy of the WWF.
-- Paul Wight, known to wrestling fans as the Giant and
Big Show, sent Jimmy a photograph of himself. Hogan told Jimmy to hang on
to it as it could come in handy in WCW. During a charity Basketball game,
Hogan met Paul and Paul was such a great entertainer doing crazy voices.
Hogan set Paul up with Eric Bischoff and there was The Giant.
-- The reason Jimmy turned heel on Hogan and went with
the Giant was because they thought the reason Hogan was starting to get boo'd
by the fans was because Jimmy was a heel his entire career. Well, Hogan was
still getting boo'd after Jimmy turned on him. So, turning Hogan heel made
sense and really worked out to be big business.
-- The First Family failed because they didn't receive
the amount of TV time they needed. Jimmy tells a story about how WCW had
Evan Karagias, Shannon Moore, and Shane Helms known now as the Hurricane.
Chris Kanyon told Jimmy these guys were about to be released and since Jimmy
had been given control of Saturday Night, he asked if he could do something
with them so they couldn't. So, Jimmy came up with the 3 Count gimmick for
them feeling playing on boy bands would get heel heat. Jimmy put them up
against 3 other guys WCW were going to release in Kaz Hayshi, Jimmy Yang,
and Jamie Knoble and called them the Young Dragons. Jimmy even bought the
costumes himself and never was paid back by WCW for them. Anyway, instead
of being fired, those guys made it to Nitro and Thunder. Jimmy says it takes
TV time to get guys over.
-- Jimmy wasn't crazy about the adult turn of pro wrestling.
He feels the darker colors, backstage skits, and T&A is just not what
he wants to see in wrestling. So, he wasn't sure what would happen when Vince
Russo came in. He feels Vince tried to make WCW just like that but didn't
realize WCW had people that watched over what they did, standards and practices,
and couldn't go as far as the WWF had gone. Jimmy doesn't blame Vince for
the death of WCW but he thinks he took away the family friendly audience
they had built even though it was a smaller audience than the WWF.
-- Jimmy talks about a major gate being made when the
main event of Spring Stampede was Hulk Hogan against Sid for the title and
Jimmy Hart against Chicago DJ Mancow. With those two matches announced, $290,000
was made. When Hogan against Sid was knocked off the card and they were going
to take Jimmy against Mancow off, the gate only made another $40,000. The
late Zane Bresloff loved local promotional ideas to get interest and demanded
that match stay on. But, Jimmy points again to why T&A didn't work in
WCW and how stripping characters didn't work in WCW. Example, Hulk Hogan
was called Terry several times on the air. If that worked in the WWF for
him, it didn't work in WCW. He feels WCW excelled when it was different from
the WWF, not a cookie cutter.
-- Jimmy says he knew WCW was headed down. He makes a
Titanic comparison.
-- Jimmy was behind the XWF with Brian Knobbs. Jimmy
loved the idea of doing a TV pilot in Universal Studios. The people he had
backing him financially decided to do a whole collection of shows that weekend
and they used a lot of top talent like Bobby Heenan, Curt Hennig, The Road
Warriors, Hulk Hogan, Jerry Lawler, and guys of that nature. They also had
young guys that have made it today like AJ Styles, Kid Kash, Christopher
Daniels, Low Ki, and others. He feels the show could've worked but when they
started trying to sell the show to people, they loved the big name stars
like Hulk. Well, Hulk went back to the WWF Jimmy says it became easier to
write a list of guys they still do have as opposed to guys they once had.
Ultimately, it had no where to go.
-- Jimmy wanted to use Miss Elizabeth in the XWF but
for some reason it just never came to be. Jimmy said he wanted to sit her
in the crowd and have someone say "Hey, that's Miss Elizabeth" and go interview
her. Give the crowd a look at a beautiful woman and maybe find someone for
her to manage. Jimmy said she wanted to do it but it just never came to
be.
-- Jimmy talks about the day Curt Hennig died. He was
in town to do a show Jimmy himself was putting on. Curt was to come by early
and help with things the next day and never showed up. It was later discovered
he was gone. Jimmy puts him over as a great worker and a great guy.
-- James asks Jimmy about his catch phrase, "never trust
a midget." Jimmy says he used to have a sarcastic answer of "Well, you never
know where they've been" to that question but gives TII the REAL STORY! Want
to know it? Download the show!
-- We then roll into word associations with names like
Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Vince McMahon, and more!
-- Finally, Jimmy says he hopes the name Total Nonstop
Action stays true to form. He does not want to see the show become backstage
segments and adult content. He feels wrestling should be wrestling and says
he gets annoyed when he reads Internet reports with people saying they want
wrestling and when they find out someone is going that direction, they write
"here's why it won't work." Jimmy says give to give it a chance and James
whole heartedly agrees.
Plus, an interesting recap with James and Dan running
down Judgment Day, TNA on TV, and Konnan going to WWE. Plus, Daniel kills
a Daddy Longlegs on the air in perhaps the funniest thing I've ever heard
in my life. *laughs*
Catch NWA TNA IMPACT on Fox Sports Net (or your regional
sports channel) on Friday, June 4 at 3 p.m. and every Friday afternoon there
after!
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