OVW Trainer Shares Outrageous Stories About Working With Lex Luger, Sid Vicious, Others

Please note: Some of the material below contains strong language.

Legendary OVW trainer "Hustler" Rip Rogers recently appeared on Episode #54 of Jim Cornette's MLW Radio podcast, "The Jim Cornette Experience" and discussed a number of topics, including his work as a behind the scenes for OVW as well as work as a wrestler in WCW. Cornette noted that Rogers was once banned by Turner Broadcasting shows at one point because his he looked "too good" in televised matches where he was supposed to be putting over other talent. Cornette particularly recalled a match in which Rip was extremely impressive against Brian Pillman, indicating that Rip's talent generally shined through in his matches and that WCW bookers just couldn't figure out how to use Rogers properly.

"I can't help it if they were stupid," Rip said of the people who booked him in WCW. Rogers said that he never developed any ego problems as a wrestler because wrestling is "phony when I win and phony when I lose."

Rogers recalled a match he had with Lex Luger in which Ole Anderson requested that they work together in the ring for about six minutes before Luger his his finisher which was, at that time, "The Rack."

"He says, 'I don't think I should have to pull six minutes with him,'" said Rogers of Luger's initial reaction to Anderson's request. "Ole rolled his eyes and said, 'Do what you want?I'm not going to watch this. I'm going to go out in the hallway.' I said, 'You ought to watch it; It'll be good!'" Rogers went on to describe the match, saying, "He (Luger) hit the ring and I did about 70 things to him before he knew what hit him. He couldn't breathe." Rogers said that he eventually let Luger make a comback and hit his finisher but the next time they worked together, Rip asked him what he wanted to do that night and Lex simply replied, "Whatever you want to do."

Rogers also shared a crazy story about working with Sid Vicious in WCW.

"Big Sid was?picking on somebody, just ribbing him," Rip recalled. "So I said, 'Come here you big, fat motherf***er!" and he was sorta scared of me.' So, remember those protein bars when the first came out?I can't remember the name of them?but they looked like Tootsie Rolls? You could smash them in your hand so it looked like a turd. So I had one in my hand, I palmed it, acted like I sh*t my f***ing hand. And I was chasing Sid?That motherf***er ran out of the place yelling, 'He's a f***ing crazy motherf***er!'"

You can listen to the entire podcast at this link. The podcast contains very strong language.