Shane Douglas On Why He Doesn't Watch WWE, How ECW Could Have Been Saved, CM Punk Situation
WOIO-TV CBS-19 entertainment reporter Chris Van Vliet interviewed "The Franchise" Shane Douglas today, who was in Cleveland to promote the upcoming screening of "Pro Wrestlers Vs. Zombies" at the Captiol Theatre on March 31st. Douglas stars in the film along with "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, Kurt Angle and Matt Hardy.
During the interview, Douglas revealed that The Rock is the one wrestler he wished he could have worked with. He also talked about his favorite match and spoke briefly about launching a new promotion that will be a "game changer" for the wrestling industry. You can watch the full interview above, here are some highlights:
Why he doesn't watch the current WWE product:
"I don't watch very often. I do follow along with because of some of the other side projects I have going on. The heartbreaking thing to me is to see these young guys who are much better athletes than my generation was. My generation were much better athletes than Bruno's was. But to watch these kids being put out there: here's a teleprompter, here's exactly what you're going to say, do these moves and you only have four minutes to do them in. To me it's heartbreaking because these kids aren't being forced to learn their game. When I was a kid in the business, you always had in the back of your head this feeling that if I screw up I might be fired. So you went out every night and tore your rear end up to make sure that you gave the best performance you can and learning constantly because you never had that idea of 'I'm so great I'm never going to be fired'. It was just never that way. And today these kids get these contracts and they get put in this vehicle that takes them down some other version of wrestling. To me it looks like guys dancing today, not guys competing against each other."
What could have been done to save ECW:
"To be fair to Paul (Heyman), he was trying to pay the guys something that would be comparable to what they would have made in WWF or WCW at the time. The problem was we didn't have the resources to do that. He'd want to bring in a guy like Rob Van Dam and pay him $5,000 or $6,000 a week. It's admirable, because he's worth it but it doesn't work when you're playing in buildings that only have 2,000 seats, and you're not quite at that level with TV ratings and we didn't have that national television presence. He was really trying to put the cart before the horse or the chicken before the egg. I think it was by good intention, but unfortunately as a business plan it didn't work."
His take on the CM Punk situation:
"From what I've heard, and I know Punk but I haven't spoken to him in a couple of years, but he's a great talent and obviously a very talented kid. To be someplace for ten years or to work anywhere for ten years is a tough deal. But to work in the WWE for that long, knowing how their dressing room is run with this top heavy, condescending 'do this and nothing else' attitude it gets tiresome. Especially when you develop from being a young snot nosed kid to a talent that knows what he's doing that person doesn't like being lectured down to all the time. I have no idea that that's going on, that would be my guess. But certainly it seems to me that just based on things that are being said publicly right now that it doesn't seem like CM Punk is very happy in WWE."