I was fortunate enough to interview “The Genius” Lanny Poffo before he makes an appearance at the upcoming ’80s Wrestling Con in Freehold, NJ on April 27th. Poffo touches upon several of his recent ventures in wrestling including his commentary “vacation” he took with New Japan Pro-Wrestling, his memorable appearance at All In back in September with Jay Lethal and shares a fascinating story regarding the generosity of Matt & Nick Jackson after he made that said appearance. Lanny and I also talk about some baseball legends including Roberto Clemente and Ted Williams. Quotes from the first half of the interview are below:
On his commentary time spent with New Japan Pro-Wrestling:
“Well let me tell you what, Kevin Kelly is a fantastic person as well as being a great announcer. I really, really enjoyed meeting him (for the second time, I’ve met him before, but this time I really got to know him and he did everything he could to help me) and the thing is I really love the people of New Japan. They actually went out of their way to make sure I had a good vacation as well as a good experience with them. There was only thing I never saw in all the wrestling I saw from New Japan. You know what that was? An empty seat in the audience. There never was an empty seat, I promise you that.”
On appearing at All In, Jay Lethal and the sincere generosity of the Young Bucks:
“Well it was actually Jay Lethal’s idea. He called me up and he said, “Hey, I got an idea, why don’t you walk in with me?” He said, “How do you feel about buying your own ticket and putting yourself up for a hotel?
I would have done it for free and I would have paid, no skin off my nose. It was something I would have done by myself, I didn’t expect to be reimbursed. Then I get a letter from the Young Bucks with a check in it, that not only reimbursed me, but gave me a handsome payoff on something I would have done for free.
They talk about people with no integrity, let me just say this with great vehemence in my voice, The Young Bucks have integrity and so does Cody Rhodes and all those guys. I wish them nothing but success because they have integrity and I want the fans to know that. In a world without integrity, they have all of it.”
On what he wants for the wrestling business:
“I had my run in wrestling. I made a lot of money, I made more money than I deserve. I want WWE to be successful, I want Ring of Honor to be successful, I want All Elite to be successful and I want every indie organization throughout the world to do well because it wasn’t as easy for these people as it was for me back in the territory days where you could hone your craft before you got to the big time. I want nobody to fail because the more opportunity for choices, the better it is for the fans and the wrestlers.”
More transcriptions to come from this interview but you can listen to our entire chat below:
