Inside The Ropes Radio with Pete Gas
Show airs Thursday nights at 10:00 p.m.
Available at InsideTheRopes.podbean.com
On meeting Hulk Hogan for the first time, when he was a teen: Vince was renting a house near where the house he’s in now was being built. Vince was cool, he let us drink in the house. He let us drink beer but the one condition would be we gave him our keys and we weren’t allowed to leave. He knew kids would be kids and so he would go and get us some beer. So we’re swimming in the pool and we hear Vince’s car pull up and we hear a Harley Davidson coming up with it, so we go out and see Hulk Hogan get off the bike, coming towards the house and he’s carrying our beer. So at the 15th Anniversary of Raw, I had mentioned that to Hogan. I went over and introduced myself and fortunately he remembered me. I was honored. I told him, “The last time I saw you” and I’m telling him the story and he’s looking at me and he says, “so I was carrying your beer?” and I was like “Well, yeah I guess if you think about it you were.” And he said “So you owe me one? Go get me a f—ing beer!” I went up to the concession stand and got him a beer, I guess that was my payback.
How The Mean Street Posse was formed: It was the idea of a few people. Vince Russo, Ed Ferrara, and Chris Chambers who really ran with it. They wanted Shane to have some heat going into WrestleMania. One day Shane called us to come to his office, I’ll never forget it was a Friday. Rodney and I used to work out at the Titan building. He called us into his office. He says to us, “Sunday at 10 o clock can you go over to the studio, and dress really preppy. Here’s the script.” He then ripped it up and said “f— the script” and told us to tell stories about what we did as kids and he told us Chris Chambers would splice it and fix it and we’d be on Monday Night Raw. It was supposed to be a 2-3 week little stint. They brought us to Albany the week before WrestleMania for Raw. By the time we got to WrestleMania, I remember sitting in the front row, Isaac Hayes was in the row behind taking pictures of us. There were a bunch of signs with our name on it. We went and about ten days later, Shane handed us checks and he said, “Do you guys have any vacation time?” and he said, “We wanna take you on the road for a little while.”
On Bradshaw almost injuring him early in his career: We were facing Farooq and Bradshaw, The Acolytes. Bradshaw went to hit me with a steel chair and I took it, straight to the head. Now Shane had told us certain things about respect and that after the matches you shake hands and thank the other guy for the match. So I wasn’t going to let him know I was hurt, so I shook his hand afterwards and said thank you. He told me six months later that through doing that I earned his respect. The next day, two specific people approached me. Mick Foley checked if I was OK, and Chris Jericho, who told me that I’d proved I was tough and next time to put my hands up if I get hit with a chair shot.
Thoughts on Shane leaving the WWE and relationship with Vince: They’re very close. Vince was the best man at his wedding. There’s no animosity there. Shane keeps things very close to himself. Shane had something to prove to himself, he wanted to do something for himself and start his own business. As far as his relationship with his family, they’re so close. A couple of weeks ago, Shane’s company went public and he was in New York ringing the bell and I know his father was right by his side.
