Spike Dudley doesn’t see the spontaneity in wrestling as there once was.
“Little Spike” Dudley recently joined Chris Van Vliet to reflect back on his storied career in the squared circle and the former extremist shared his thoughts on what today’s wrestling happens to lack.
“It’s changed a lot. I got into it pre-Kayfabe, you know, when Kayfabe was still in existence and, to me, it was an improvisational art form, make it up on the fly, and that was where the spontaneity and the magic happened. And now today everything is so choreographed that, even if it’s a cool thing, it just doesn’t grab me anymore the way it used to.”
Spike also shared his experience of getting his start in the wrestling business and receiving a phone call from Taz to try out with ECW.
“I put together a videotape of highlights, and I sent them out to everybody. At the time, it was WCW, and then at the time it was still WWF, and Japan, ECW, I sent them to everywhere. I got all these rejection letters from everywhere, but then I got a call, it was actually at work. I was working an office, it was a temp somewhere in downtown San Francisco. I got a call, it was Taz. ‘Hey, we saw your video. Can you get to New York?’ Yeah, sure.
“So I packed everything up…drove across the country, went to Long Island, New York, like I pulled into a hotel and an hour later, Bubba [Ray Dudley] picks me up and takes me to the House of Hardcore. And there’s Tazz and Perry [Saturn] and then Mikey [Whipwreck] and Bubba and it was kinda like, ‘Okay, what do you got, kid?’ And then they debuted me that Saturday night at the arena, and I worked every show ’til it left and that was it. So it was a matter of circumstances, really. I was at the right place, right time.”
(Transcription credit should go to Colin Tessier of WrestleZone.com)
