Zach Gowen Talks How Vince McMahon Treated Him, WWE Flying Him In To Get Fired, What He Was Told
AfterBuzz TV this week presented a supersized episode of Sean Waltman's X-Pac 1,2,360, which you can watch in the video above. The show featured Portland wrestling legend "The Grappler" Len Denton and the first one-legged competitor in pro wrestling history, Zach Gowen. They sent us these highlights from Zach's interview:
Being fired by WWE in person, instead of on the phone:
"So they flew me in, and then I didn't even see Johnny Ace or Vince, I saw Jim Ross. He sat me down for about thirty-forty five minutes, explained why they were letting me go, gave me some advice on to what to do in the future and said the door's always open for a return. Then I got back in the town car, they sent me to the air port and I flew home. So essentially they flew me out to the WWE headquarters to fire me, then they flew me home."
What Jim Ross told him when he was let go:
"He told me to go back to the indies to develop my body more, and to basically figure out who I am and how to put it all together. Try to work heel at some promotions, try to work babyface at others, hit the road, travel, just get more seasoning."
People trying to goad him into trashing WWE or Vince on social media:
"I will never, ever, ever say anything bad about them, because there's three different phases of my life that they've impacted that impact everything around me. One, when I was a kid and I felt left out and I felt ugly and I felt defective I could escape into WWE and not feel that way. The magic of professional wrestling. Two, when I was eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old they gave me a career that from that I've been able to launch off and do amazing things around the world, carry a message to help a lot of people . Number three, they literally saved my life by paying for my treatment when I was at the lowest point in my life."
How Vince McMahon treated him:
"When I was in WWE he bought me two prosthetic legs, which total came to thirty thousand dollars. One was to keep on the road, in case my leg broke when we were on the road. The other one we were going to have Brock Lesnar break it on live TV or something but it never happened."
You can check out the full X-Pac 1,2,360 episode in the video above, or download the podcast version on iTunes at this link.