Sid Vicious Addresses Rumors Of Taking Time Off From Wrestling To Play Softball
Recently former WWE and WCW World Champion Sid Vicious spoke with Hannibal TV and addressed longstanding rumors that he would breach wrestling contracts to play softball. Below are some highlights:
How the softball rumors started in WCW:
"What happened on that was this ? started back a long time ago when I worked for WCW. I had my lung surgery where I had a hole in my lung, so they had to cut part of my lung away, so I lost a lot of weight. So, I was gaining my weight back and I flew in, they looked at me ? actually they had Terry Funk fly in one time to look at me. I didn't even know I could drive that day, but I was scared not to drive because I was afraid I was going to lose my job. So, I picked him up at the airport, made one loop around the airport and I dropped him off. And I don't know what Terry Funk said, but they didn't fire me or make a big deal about me being that skinny. So, I put my weight on, went to see them, they looked at me and said 'No, we won't you to put a little more weight on.'
"So, I go back home, and I'm just, you know, working out every day, eating 15 times a day, and working out 2 or 3 times a day. And so, during my time off I played a little softball. I'm only guessing at this point, but I think it was Jerry Lawler, of course he played a lot of softball, saw me out there all the time and suddenly, the office calls me and says, 'What the f–k are you doing playing softball?" I said, 'Well man, I wasn't told not to play softball, I was told to put on some weight.' Ole (Anderson) was the booker, he said for your punishment they're going to have you come in and you're going to put Lex Luger over in 5 seconds. Now you've got to realize, I was either out for 7 or 8 months. When somebody's paying me, you know, big money to sit at home, that 30 seconds I probably got paid $200,000 for that. You know, so I'm not going to worry about putting Lex over, I never worried about putting people over. So that's where it started."
How the rumors continued during his time in WWF:
"The next time it came about was when I'd had my fill of the WWF at the time, and I told Vince I wasn't going to be there anymore. And it took me about 3 or 4 months to get out of my contract where I could go back to WCW. And during that time, I played some softball. So, those are the two times I played softball when I wasn't wrestling. Any other time than that, it never happened. Now, I played when I came home on my days off, but it never affected the business. But that's the deal, it got blown out of proportion, and again, it probably started with someone stooging me off like Lawler, who? a little jealous, you know. And then, why somebody would worry about me playing softball, but they did. If you think about it, a lot of people said, 'Well Sid, you're an athlete, you could hurt yourself,' and I understand that. But I wasn't playing the field, I was only DH'ing, and you really don't get hurt doing that."
If he still plays softball in his spare time for fun:
"I did. I haven't played in the last couple of years, it's just been too busy. Last time I did play a couple of years ago, I tweaked my hamstring and I said as hard as I work out I'm not going to do that. This actually was more than just a couple of years ago, this was a couple of years after I broke my leg."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Hannibal TV with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.