On the ‘Unleashed’ version of the Steve Austin Show podcast, Austin interviews former WWE and WCW wrestler Paul Roma for part 2 of their interview, which you can listen to its entirety at this link. Below are a few of the highlights:
On How Long It Took For Him To Learn the Business Side of Professional Wrestling:
Some people would say 6 weeks, and I would say at least 8 weeks, which was when I had everything down and started bringing things up to a higher level. Guys couldn’t understand what I was doing at the school because they didn’t have the athleticism, so when I was doing things and trying things, running over people like a hurdle, catching a back flip off a backdrop, just different things like that. Somebody would give me a monkey flip and I would land on my feet. I would tell someone to give me a monkey flip and will land on my feet; so those were some of the things I would try.
On Koko B Ware Punching Him in the Face:
Like I told you before, they either feared me or respected me, and either one was good. I didn’t want to fight. My biggest fear is what I am capable of doing, so when I was in New York, we were in Rosemont, and Koko B Ware said that I said something about him, and I thought he was joking, so he started cussing at me, I said, dude, relax I don’t know what you are talking about. He came and punched me in the face and I stood there. For me, if I punch you in your face [Speaking to Austin], and you don’t fall down, chances are I’m going to apologize and say that I didn’t know where that came from because if I can’t take you out and I hit you like that, I have to figure that you are tough, so he punches me in my face and I said, listen, dude, I don’t want to fight, I don’t want to get fired, enough—so he punched me two more times in the face, and I’m like, you know what, I have to stop this guy, I don’t want to hurt him, so I just grabbed him and tucked my arm over his head and tucked him by my side. So, I’m standing there and I feel him biting me, like this son of a b**ch is biting me. I’m calm about the whole thing, I tried to stay as calm as possible. I thought to myself, okay, if I can pull him down I can just hold him down. When I went to pull him, I just slipped and went on my back and he’s standing on top of me so I thought, okay I have to get him off of me because this isn’t a good position to be in. After I got him off of me he said to me, ‘I’m going to kick your a**.’ I’m standing there like, ‘you just punched me three times in the face, you can’t kick my a**, what is it that you are not getting?’ So I punched him with a left and it stopped him in his tracks. [Blackjack] Lanza stepped in and I’m trying to keep Lanza between us so then he starts crying ‘I’m going to go to the office.’ I said to myself, ‘well there goes my job.’ This guy is going to bit**, he’s getting a push, I’m going to get fired so I went downstairs where he had his own room. I knocked on his door, he said ‘who is it?’ I said, ‘it’s Roma, open the door. I’m going to kick the s**t out of you.’ He said that he was going to go to the office on me tomorrow, I repeated for him to open the door and said a few choice words. I told him that I’m going to beat the sh** out of him so open the door, and he kept telling me to go away, so I walked away. Pat Patterson grabbed me the next day and asked to speak with me. He said that he heard that I got into a fight the previous night, and I told him that I didn’t get into a fight, he told me, ‘what do you mean you didn’t get into a fight? You got into a fight with Koko B Ware.’ I said, ‘no I didn’t Pat. Koko punched me in the face like three times but I don’t consider that fighting. I didn’t hit him back. He looked at me dumbfounded and agreed with me. I said, ‘you know what, I don’t think there’s anything to talk about since I didn’t fight him.’ A week or two went by and we get on a plane and Koko is sitting in the back and I walk back there and everyone there is thinking, ‘here we go!’ I walk back there and he said to me, ‘hey man, sorry about that.’ I said, ‘about what?’ He said about what happened in Chicago. I responded with, ‘it’s alright, dude, there’s nothing you can do to hurt me.’ I just walked away and sat down. I figured that it was going to rile him up but it didn’t so, it was no big deal.
On the Idea of Power & Glory Tag Team:
Even the Hart Foundation said that nobody was better than us. Bret Hart told us that one day that we were the best tag team he’s ever seen and that it was a shame that we were not getting a push. We beat the Hart Foundation at the Nassau Coliseum and immediately took the belts away from us claiming that we cheated, which was obviously the angle. It was deafening in the arena. Everyone was upset that we didn’t keep the belts, and I turned to Ray [Hercules] Hernandez and said, ‘holy s**t, are you hearing this? They’re cheering us. We’re heels, and they’re cheering us over the Hart Foundation, we’re over with the crowd. After they took the titles away from us, Ray looked over at me and said that we will never see those belts again. I asked him what he was talking about and he said that we will never see those belts again and he was right. I think that I created Power & Glory and the office didn’t, and the way Vince, like he did with Luger, will pour a million in whatever he needs to do to get someone over. He couldn’t with Luger because he just didn’t have any charisma, but he didn’t create us and we were over. I asked Vince [McMahon] why don’t we get Power & Glory t-shirts? He said that heel stuff doesn’t sell, and I said, okay, what if I bankroll it and whatever Ray and I sell we keep? He said, ‘well, let me think about it.’ That was the end of that. We had a good run, not great, but it was a lot of fun.
On Lex Luger Not Getting Over in WWE:
I never spoke to anyone after that, as far as what was going on and why this wasn’t working. He just didn’t have ‘it.’ You [Austin] had it, but he just didn’t have it. Vince can put $1,000 behind you, and he can get you over. You’re likable, you have a likable personality—it doesn’t matter. If they’re going to love you or hate you. Luger didn’t have that. He was just that guy. He wasn’t a good looking guy, he was a big man, decent body, but he had no charm. No matter how much money Vince put behind him it just didn’t matter.
