Mosh On His WWE Smackdown Return, Talking With Vince, The Headbangers' Status For Superstar Shake-Up
Earlier this week The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling was joined by Headbanger Thrasher and now for episode #256 his partner Mosh slam-dances his way into his own show as we wrap up "Headbangers Week". Promoting The Headbangers upcoming appearance in Leesburg, VA for Primal Conflict Wrestling (www.primalconflictwrestling.com) and their Flashpoint event on April 8, 2017, Mosh stage-dives deep into The Headbangers return to the WWE in 2016 as part of the Smackdown Live tag team scene and what it meant to him personally as well as discuss how the late 1990s tag team scene in the WWF was affected by the creation of singles stars being packaged together as tag teams. The full episode can be downloaded at this link.
Making it back to WWE after sixteen years:
"Besides just being awesome and tremendous it was actually a dream come true for me. For the reason of my son (who will be 13 this month) has seen me do Indy shows since he was a little kid, so to him it is not a big deal and it's just Dad and he wrestles and he's silly and goofy. But the one thing I've wanted to do (because he never saw it) was to be in that WWE ring. For him to be able to see that, that to me is what made it so special. Being back in that ring and being back in that locker room was special and it was awesome. Everyone in the locker room was arms wide open. It was a pleasure, it was a treat and was awesome to be there."
The anticipation of their match and subtle changes to their entrance:
"As far as the ring music goes, I could give a sh*t less and to be totally honest I couldn't even tell. I couldn't hear the music, I couldn't tell you what the music was and I know some people focused on the music and other people focused on that we didn't have a video behind us. I thought it was cool how on the entire show they talked about our return and Bradshaw put it over like the professional and the great announcer that he is about us not being together in that ring for sixteen years. To come out and get the reaction we got and to be able to go out there and have a great little match with Heath (Slater) and Rhyno it was just awesome and to go out there and still show that we can hang with those guys and still do what we did sixteen years ago was even better."
Did they get to speak with Vince McMahon:
"Yeah Vince was there at his normal position in Gorilla with his headset on and he said hi to us when he saw us and said good luck and to go out there and do our thing. Shane was there too obviously. Shane said to go and be ourselves and have fun and when we came back they told us great job and thank you. Vince was great and Vince has always been great. He's business all the time and a lot of people don't understand that."
What is the current status for the Headbangers going into The Superstar Shake-Up:
"The status right now is that there is none. If they call and ask if we are available than we will see if we are available. There have been zero talks of any kind of permanent thing to come back."
"It was left as the door is wide open and that you guys did good business and helped out the younger talent. I had emailed Hunter about possibly doing some NXT stuff and he said that door is possibly open for down the road. I think Glenn and I can contribute in the ring and I think we have shown that but at the same time we have a lot of knowledge we can pass on to some of the younger talent as well. Outside of that I got to do what I wanted to do and have my son see me wrestle up there once and he got to see it three times. I only have one thing left on my bucket list to do and that is a trip to Japan."
The late 90s tag team division of the pre-Attitude Era not getting recognized:
"Yeah it doesn't and probably the biggest reason why is there wasn't a lot of established tag teams. They put a lot of guys together and that's when the whole thing started with putting Dude Love and Stone Cold together and make them tag champs to help build there angle. They took two guys as great as Road Dog and Billy (Gunn) were and put them together and let them run. They put the Boricuas together and put a lot of groups together like The Nation of Domination and basically were just taking guys and just kind of thrown them together. You even had the Hart Foundation where you can put Davey Boy with Owen and you can put Bret with someone because a lot of it was just kind of throwing guys together. There wasn't anyone really established. I think we were established, The Godwins were established, they brought Doug (Furnas) and Phil (Lafon) in but they just didn't adapt well to the WWF style compared to what they were used to in Japan. Even The New Blackjacks it was just throwing Barry (Windham) and Bradshaw together."
"I think that kind of hurt it because in the 80s you had The Midnight Express, Rock N Roll Express, The Andersons and all these great established tag teams that were established for so long that it meant more. In my opinion it kind of dropped as far as meaning wise when you put two belts (and nothing against Heath and Rhyno) but you put two belts on them because it is part of the story line. Again same thing back with Dude Love and Stone Cold, I think you lose the steam of having established teams constantly battling each other."
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