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During the latest episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet, former WWE star and current producer for AEW – Scotty 2 Hotty (Scott Garland) talks on Too Cool, The Worm, Brian Christopher and Rikishi.
On how he learned he could do the worm:
“I started doing it, and I think it was fourth grade. It was when breakdancing was popular, and all those breakdancing movies, and everybody was trying to breakdance at the time. So we would bring the cardboard out on the playground, and we would do the backspin and try to do the windmill and the head spin, and the worm was part of it, and the moonwalk, and so it’s so crazy, like stuff I learned in fourth grade, I would implement into my act all these years later, and be what I’m remembered for.”
On the worm finding its place in wrestling for him:
“So I started doing it. I remember when Brian Christopher and I were together, just as Too Much. Just on the house shows, I would just drop down on our entrance when I got in the ring, and I would do it, just kind of messing around to make the other guys laugh in the match. But I was getting a reaction from it. I was like, there’s something to this. Then once we started the Too Cool thing, it felt like it fit the character. So I just started. I would hit the ropes, I would drop down, and I would worm across. I remember dropping elbows and headbutts and leg drops, and I knew I had something just from the buzz of the audience. Then one night on Raw, Jerry Lawler, as I’m hopping from one side to the other, Jerry Lawler says ‘W O R M.’ I heard the playback the next day, and I asked him, ‘Would you please keep doing that? I think if we can condition the audience to do that, they’ll do it.’ Sure enough, a month later, they’re doing it.”
How he and Brian Christopher got paired together:
“So we were just thrown together. I signed in February of ’97, and I’d been there a whole year, and then right before WrestleMania of ’98 in Boston, I was sitting home. So being a being a guy who grew up in Maine, being a northeastern guy, to have WrestleMania in Boston and be on the show. So I’m sitting home, and I think it was Wednesday before WrestleMania. I had been home for weeks or months, and they hadn’t done anything with me up to this point, so I’m ready to get released at any point. I get a call from Russo, and he said, ‘We need you in Boston on Friday to do this. They’re going to do this outdoor show,’ which ended up being the DX workout with Tyson. I wrestled Taka Michinoko on the show, we wrestled each other, and then they do the tag team battle royal, which I think was the first match on WrestleMania 14, and they just threw Brian and me in that match together, for no rhyme or reason. He was a heel, I was a babyface up to that point. We had wrestled each other a bunch of times, and all of a sudden we just thrown into this match as a tag team. It made no sense whatsoever.”
On Vince Russo wanting to change his character:
“I think it was about a year, about a year. I remember being in Nassau Coliseum, and Vince Russo came up to us, and he said, ‘Hey, we want to change your character up. We want you guys to kind of do what the Hardy Boys did, where they went from tights to street clothes, and we want you to dress like the kids are dressing in the malls.’ That was the only direction we got. So we were in next week. We’re in Springfield, Massachusetts. Brian and I go out. We walk outside the arena. We find these shops, and they’re hip-hop shops. Okay we can’t really wear tight jeans but they have these baggy jeans. We could wear those in the ring because you get knee pads and knee braces and all that good stuff underneath them, and still be able to wrestle in them. So that was what we ended up doing.”
Brian Christopher tears his ACL, Russo is gone to WCW and Rikishi ends up in Too Cool:
“So it was May of ’99. We did a backstage thing for Sunday Night Heat that was going to air the following Sunday. So we filmed this on Tuesday, saying, ‘Too much is no more. We’re now Too Cool.’ The next day, we’re in Portland, Maine, of all places, on a house show, wrestling D’Lo Brown and Mark Henry. Brian tears his ACL. Oh man, we were just starting this new character, we just filmed that thing last night that’s supposed to air this Sunday, and then I thought, sure enough, they’re not going to air it, or there’s no point airing it. Brian’s going to be out for at least six months. They aired it, still played. So now we’re Too Cool. The whole Too Cool thing is Vince Russo’s idea. While Brian’s out with the ACL injury, Russo goes to WCW. So I’m sitting home. I see Russo shows up on WCW. Oh no, the guy who pitched the idea to us is gone, but they bring us back in, I think it was October of 99. We show up on Raw as Too Cool. Either we jumped Edge and Christian or the Hardys. I don’t remember, but whatever team it wasn’t did a run-in, and the Hollys came in to set up for Survivor Series 99, where it was Too Cool, the Hollys against Edge Christian and the Hardys, and so that was October, and then Rikishi was put with us in December, and then here’s the crazy thing. So Rikishi Too Cool didn’t start till December, that iconic moment in the Royal Rumble where the three of us danced together was four weeks later.”
On why So why was Rikishi added to the group?
“I don’t know. I remember Michael Hayes coming up to us, because the last thing he had done on WWE television was the Sultan, and then he had been sent down to Memphis and he was wrestling there, and I think he was kind of doing the Rikishi gimmick a little bit there. I might be wrong, but I know they said he was going to come out and save us. And he’s got this thong on, and I’m like, this doesn’t make any sense. He doesn’t fit what Brian and I have been doing. I go, I don’t see this working. But that first night, man, it’s one of those things you can’t even describe it, or feel like you can come up with and go I know this is going to work. We did the dance, I always say it was magic.”
On his relationship with Brian Christopher – not being close behind the scenes, each had two different lifestyles:
“We really weren’t. Thankfully, towards the end of his life, we got closer, and literally one of the last texts he sent me was a picture of his son who was wrestling in school, like amateur-style wrestling at the time. So we had gotten to that point where we shared information about our kids because for a long time there were times we wouldn’t even barely talk before we went to the ring, but as soon as we went through that curtain, again it was magic...We just had different lifestyles. I think everybody knows, it’s not a secret Brian went down a bad road and fell into the drugs and the alcohol, going out and the clubs and that was never my [lifestyle]. I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. I was never a club guy. I feel like Brian, sadly, as it is to say, I feel like Brian liked Grandmaster Sexy better than he liked Brian Lawler. There’s people who fall into that. I see that, and that’s what I always try to tell people: don’t ever believe that you’re that character. It’s okay to embrace it. People are going to treat you better. They’re going to give you free meals when you go into restaurants, and they’re going to treat you better, which is cool. Don’t get me wrong, but it’s not real. Some people just get so caught up into it. It’s sad, and I think I was always able to separate the two. I always love Scotty 2 Hotty, but I’m Scott Garland, and I always try to remember that.”
All quotes are courtesy of Insight with Chris Van Vliet.
Scott 2 Hotty also talks on his son Keegan wrestling and more.
You can watch the full interview below.
The post Scotty 2 Hotty talks on Too Cool, The Worm, Brian Christopher and Rikishi appeared first on WWE News, WWE Results, AEW News, AEW Results.
Okumaya devam et...
On how he learned he could do the worm:
“I started doing it, and I think it was fourth grade. It was when breakdancing was popular, and all those breakdancing movies, and everybody was trying to breakdance at the time. So we would bring the cardboard out on the playground, and we would do the backspin and try to do the windmill and the head spin, and the worm was part of it, and the moonwalk, and so it’s so crazy, like stuff I learned in fourth grade, I would implement into my act all these years later, and be what I’m remembered for.”
On the worm finding its place in wrestling for him:
“So I started doing it. I remember when Brian Christopher and I were together, just as Too Much. Just on the house shows, I would just drop down on our entrance when I got in the ring, and I would do it, just kind of messing around to make the other guys laugh in the match. But I was getting a reaction from it. I was like, there’s something to this. Then once we started the Too Cool thing, it felt like it fit the character. So I just started. I would hit the ropes, I would drop down, and I would worm across. I remember dropping elbows and headbutts and leg drops, and I knew I had something just from the buzz of the audience. Then one night on Raw, Jerry Lawler, as I’m hopping from one side to the other, Jerry Lawler says ‘W O R M.’ I heard the playback the next day, and I asked him, ‘Would you please keep doing that? I think if we can condition the audience to do that, they’ll do it.’ Sure enough, a month later, they’re doing it.”
How he and Brian Christopher got paired together:
“So we were just thrown together. I signed in February of ’97, and I’d been there a whole year, and then right before WrestleMania of ’98 in Boston, I was sitting home. So being a being a guy who grew up in Maine, being a northeastern guy, to have WrestleMania in Boston and be on the show. So I’m sitting home, and I think it was Wednesday before WrestleMania. I had been home for weeks or months, and they hadn’t done anything with me up to this point, so I’m ready to get released at any point. I get a call from Russo, and he said, ‘We need you in Boston on Friday to do this. They’re going to do this outdoor show,’ which ended up being the DX workout with Tyson. I wrestled Taka Michinoko on the show, we wrestled each other, and then they do the tag team battle royal, which I think was the first match on WrestleMania 14, and they just threw Brian and me in that match together, for no rhyme or reason. He was a heel, I was a babyface up to that point. We had wrestled each other a bunch of times, and all of a sudden we just thrown into this match as a tag team. It made no sense whatsoever.”
On Vince Russo wanting to change his character:
“I think it was about a year, about a year. I remember being in Nassau Coliseum, and Vince Russo came up to us, and he said, ‘Hey, we want to change your character up. We want you guys to kind of do what the Hardy Boys did, where they went from tights to street clothes, and we want you to dress like the kids are dressing in the malls.’ That was the only direction we got. So we were in next week. We’re in Springfield, Massachusetts. Brian and I go out. We walk outside the arena. We find these shops, and they’re hip-hop shops. Okay we can’t really wear tight jeans but they have these baggy jeans. We could wear those in the ring because you get knee pads and knee braces and all that good stuff underneath them, and still be able to wrestle in them. So that was what we ended up doing.”
Brian Christopher tears his ACL, Russo is gone to WCW and Rikishi ends up in Too Cool:
“So it was May of ’99. We did a backstage thing for Sunday Night Heat that was going to air the following Sunday. So we filmed this on Tuesday, saying, ‘Too much is no more. We’re now Too Cool.’ The next day, we’re in Portland, Maine, of all places, on a house show, wrestling D’Lo Brown and Mark Henry. Brian tears his ACL. Oh man, we were just starting this new character, we just filmed that thing last night that’s supposed to air this Sunday, and then I thought, sure enough, they’re not going to air it, or there’s no point airing it. Brian’s going to be out for at least six months. They aired it, still played. So now we’re Too Cool. The whole Too Cool thing is Vince Russo’s idea. While Brian’s out with the ACL injury, Russo goes to WCW. So I’m sitting home. I see Russo shows up on WCW. Oh no, the guy who pitched the idea to us is gone, but they bring us back in, I think it was October of 99. We show up on Raw as Too Cool. Either we jumped Edge and Christian or the Hardys. I don’t remember, but whatever team it wasn’t did a run-in, and the Hollys came in to set up for Survivor Series 99, where it was Too Cool, the Hollys against Edge Christian and the Hardys, and so that was October, and then Rikishi was put with us in December, and then here’s the crazy thing. So Rikishi Too Cool didn’t start till December, that iconic moment in the Royal Rumble where the three of us danced together was four weeks later.”
On why So why was Rikishi added to the group?
“I don’t know. I remember Michael Hayes coming up to us, because the last thing he had done on WWE television was the Sultan, and then he had been sent down to Memphis and he was wrestling there, and I think he was kind of doing the Rikishi gimmick a little bit there. I might be wrong, but I know they said he was going to come out and save us. And he’s got this thong on, and I’m like, this doesn’t make any sense. He doesn’t fit what Brian and I have been doing. I go, I don’t see this working. But that first night, man, it’s one of those things you can’t even describe it, or feel like you can come up with and go I know this is going to work. We did the dance, I always say it was magic.”
On his relationship with Brian Christopher – not being close behind the scenes, each had two different lifestyles:
“We really weren’t. Thankfully, towards the end of his life, we got closer, and literally one of the last texts he sent me was a picture of his son who was wrestling in school, like amateur-style wrestling at the time. So we had gotten to that point where we shared information about our kids because for a long time there were times we wouldn’t even barely talk before we went to the ring, but as soon as we went through that curtain, again it was magic...We just had different lifestyles. I think everybody knows, it’s not a secret Brian went down a bad road and fell into the drugs and the alcohol, going out and the clubs and that was never my [lifestyle]. I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. I was never a club guy. I feel like Brian, sadly, as it is to say, I feel like Brian liked Grandmaster Sexy better than he liked Brian Lawler. There’s people who fall into that. I see that, and that’s what I always try to tell people: don’t ever believe that you’re that character. It’s okay to embrace it. People are going to treat you better. They’re going to give you free meals when you go into restaurants, and they’re going to treat you better, which is cool. Don’t get me wrong, but it’s not real. Some people just get so caught up into it. It’s sad, and I think I was always able to separate the two. I always love Scotty 2 Hotty, but I’m Scott Garland, and I always try to remember that.”
All quotes are courtesy of Insight with Chris Van Vliet.
Scott 2 Hotty also talks on his son Keegan wrestling and more.
You can watch the full interview below.
The post Scotty 2 Hotty talks on Too Cool, The Worm, Brian Christopher and Rikishi appeared first on WWE News, WWE Results, AEW News, AEW Results.
Okumaya devam et...
