Shane Helms Talks Final Days Of WCW, WWE Buying WCW, Early WWE Run, Rock & More

WrestlingINC: What was the appearance like on ECW?

Helms: We went and worked out in the ring. I know one of the guys was [Super] Nova and I want to say the other guy was Steve Corino. I may be mistaken about that but I think it was Steve Corino and Nova. The only real memory I have was that I never do head butts and for some reason I did and I head butted the absolute piss out of Nova and about knocked us both out. We ended up laughing about it; it was no big deal. I liked ECW, especially at that time. I liked the atmosphere and I think I would have done well there. The WCW had guaranteed money whereas the ECW didn't. That decision kind of made itself.

WrestlingINC: From there you went to WCW as a member of 3 Count. I thought that gimmick had potential with all the boy bands at that time but they had a hard time pushing smaller guys and they didn't push you to the full potential. What do you remember about signing with WCW?

Helms: Me and Shannon had done a gimmick kind of similar in Music City Wrestling leading up to that. The hard part of the gimmick was I don't like that kind of music. When you're coming out to that music… I'm not a boy band guy. I grew up on hip-hop and rap and sh-t like that. That was the hard part of the gimmick but I knew what makes those bands successful. Guys hate them because their girlfriends love them. Guys hate them because their sister loves them. I knew if we could get the girls to like us - and we did - that would make guys hate us even more. It was a heat getting gimmick. There were several times when we'd get more heat than anybody on that show no matter who was on that show.

WrestlingINC: Do you feel like you were pushed correctly?

Helms: No, we definitely could have been pushed a lot better. When you're generating that kind of heat, no matter what size you are or how new you are in the company, that's something you got to run with. Stuff like that doesn't come along all the time. Of course like you said, WCW at that time wasn't keen on pushing smaller guys in a heavy weight division. It could have worked in a tag team division. We could have done the Freebird role with all three of us somehow, winning the tag titles and interchanging. They definitely should have done a little more with it.

WrestlingINC: What do you remember about that time? It was a wild time in that organization's history.

Helms: Yeah, that's one way of putting it. [laughs] It was chaotic. I don't even know how many different bosses I had then. I wasn't there that long. I signed in '99 and they got bought out in 2001. It was just under two years and I can't remember how many bosses I had. It was pretty wild but I was in a position in the business where I couldn't really complain about anything. I was making good money; I was having a lot of fun, having good matches - especially toward the end. I know toward the end if there was a match of the night and WCW Sugar Shane was in it pretty much 9 times out of 10. That time of my life I was having a lot of fun. I can't really complain about anything.

WrestlingINC: I thought your feud with the Young Dragons was phenomenal and then your feud with Chavo Guerrero. Your matches were just insane.

Helms: Yeah, we had a lot of fun and Chavo taught me a lot, helped me out. I knew I had what they were looking for at the time, especially with that cruiserweight division. They were looking for an American that put it all together, all the different styles, the hybrids of styles - the Lucha, the Japanese and the American styles. I knew I had all that; it was just a matter of breaking away from the 3 Count thing to get involved.