Scotty 2 Hotty took a lot of moves throughout his WWE career, but there’s one that he only took once, thanks to Linda McMahon.
Scotty, real-name Scott Garland, signed with WWE in 1997 and was with the company until resigning as a trainer in 2021.
The Move
Appearing this week on the Wrestling with Johnners podcast, Scotty was asked about his match with Dean Malenko at the Backlash 2000 Pay Per View.
The match for the Light Heavyweight Championship ended with Malenko countering Scotty’s attempted Superplex from the top-rope into a Cradle-DDT that spiked Scotty’s head into the mat.
The finish earned a loud response from fans, but it wasn’t Scotty’s idea, as he explained on the podcast (via Wrestling Inc.)
“It was Dean’s idea. He told me had done it with (Chris) Jericho; I recently just saw it with Jericho taking it a month ago for the first time and I was like ‘oh, that’s what I was supposed to do.’
“IÂ was supposed to jump out further so I would land more on my stomach and I didn’t jump out. I just kind of spiked myself right into the mat from the top-rope.”
Scotty went on to say that it was “very dangerous” and he could have easily broken his neck.
Linda McMahon
The move, if done incorrectly, could have resulted in severe neck problems for Scotty, with the match taking place less than a year after Darren Drosdov had been paralysed during a match.
Speaking about the reaction backstage, Scotty recalled being confronted by then-WWE CEO Linda McMahon.
“don’t ever do that again!”
Linda McMahon’s words of warning to Scotty 2 Hotty
Scotty told Linda that she didn’t need to worry about him taking the move again, as he wasn’t planning on it.
