Glacier Talks About Meeting Eric Bischoff, How Much Money WCW Spent On Creating His Character, More
Former WCW star Glacier spoke to the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast recently, speaking about his character and the money that went into creating it. You can check out highlights below, and the full podcast at this link.
How me met Eric Bischoff:
"Dallas (Page) and I had become good friends. We would work out together at Main Event which was a gym that everybody was working out at then. I had mentioned that I was going to start using martial arts in ring and he mentioned that (Eric) was into all of that stuff. So we scheduled a meeting and in January I had literally a three hour meeting with him and he grilled me up and down. At the end of that conversation he said I want to sign you to a contract and he asked if I was wrestling on the Independent scene and I had been wrestling there a lot. I remember him saying to cancel all my bookings on the Independent scene and totally disappear and I remember saying I can do that and just totally disappear."
Creating the gimmick and character:
"I got to know (Chris) Kanyon, Bryan Clarke and I were already friends and I got to know Ernest (Miller) and we quickly all kind of gelled together as a unit. Chris and I became very good friends all the way up until he passed away. For Chris and I this was it, we may only get this one shot so we didn't take it lightly at all and Page was assigned to oversee it all. We were at the Power Plant everyday, all day and then we would all meet up and watch the videos of the day and then be back at the Power Plant the next day and did that for months before we ever went on TV. We put a lot of hard work into that, just figuring out who the gimmicks were. Eric's whole thing was it's like a video game come to life but said I want you guys to play it very serious. At the end of the day did it become exactly what I thought it could be, no. But it was an unbelievable opportunity to break new ground in wrestling, the Glacier entrance broke new ground in wrestling, I was the first guy to wrestle with a colored contact and I was definitely the first guy to have arena snow when I came out."
How much WCW spent on the gimmick:
"I tell people all the time, that armor all together weighs over twenty pounds. For an entrance it's no big deal but for a three hour appearence it's a big deal to wear it. I actually became friends with the head of AFX Studios, he was a young and upcoming artist and really creative, I introduced him to Eric and they decided to go with him for the persona's of all four of the gimmicks and they spent a lot of money. I can confirm that I saw all the invoices he submitted to WCW and it was around $35,000 for the creation of the Glacier "look". Keith Mitchell has looked me right in the eye and said that my entrance was close to $400,000 and almost $10,000 every time I came on TV. I'm glad I didn't know all of that back then."
WWE Network helping his legacy:
"The costume, when I do appearances was built to be durable. Almost twenty years later I still have the full costume and when WCW folded they never asked for it back. I have one of the original masks that I got back then, one of the three I had originally got. Thank GOD I still look somewhat like I did on TV back in the day and am not the three-hundred pound Glacier. With the WWE Network and them replaying some of our stuff it's a huge thrill for me now to be able to go out and make appearances and still be Glacier because a lot of wrestlers never get that opportunity, there gimmick comes and goes and is forgotten. I am so fortunate that people remembered it and still appreciate it."
Glacier also discusses his feuds with Mortis and Wrath, facing Bill Goldberg, WCW being very political, mass chaos backstage, turning heel, Vince Russo, training wrestlers today and embracing the gimmick. You can hear the full podcast here.