Larry Zbyszko was good friends with Scott Hall and knew that “The Bad Guy” was in a very unique class.

Larry was a special substitute co-host on “The Snake Pit” and was covering his 1997 WCW Starrcade match against Eric Bischoff, but touched upon a lot of other topics in his career, including his feud with Scott Hall. Zbyskzo became a big babyface in the the battle, becoming one of the top “soldiers” in the WCW army against the NWO.

While forever a historical figure in the world of pro wrestling Scott Hall never happened to win a World Title for a major wrestling promotion. He was slated to become the AWA World Champion, but happened to see the writing on the wall  for the company and decided to leap to WCW. Zbyszko was asked by host Marcus DeAngelo why The Lone Wolf never held “big gold.”

“If you’re over like Scott was, it doesn’t matter if you’re the world champion or not, in terms of drawing money and being of value,” Zbysko said. “Scott did a great job. God, it was such a sad thing. He had some problems, but he had the ability to come walking out with the toothpick and made [being a bad guy] cool.”

Zbyszko goes on to say that it broke his heart that Scott Hall was going through substance abuse issues, noting how Hall made a night of wrestling easy for him.

March 14 marked two years since Hall passed away, but his impact on the business will always carry on. Just recently at Elimination Chamber, Becky Lynch paid homage by wearing “blood drip”-themed ring gear.

Please credit “The Snake Pit” and h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.

Larry Zbyszko’s contributions to the wrestling world earned him a WWE Hall of Fame induction in 2015, but the ‘living legend’ was reportedly high throughout the ceremony.

On the night before WrestleMania 31, Zbyszko was inducted by his good friend Bruno Sammartino, who had been inducted two years earlier.

Zbyszko’s induction was part of a stacked class, which included the late ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage, Rikishi, Alundra Blayze, The Bushwhackers, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Stoned

That year’s WWE Hall of Fame also saw the singles induction of Kevin Nash for his work in WWE as Big Daddy Cool Diesel.

Speaking on his Kliq This podcast, Nash recalled Zbyszko mellowing out for his induction speech.

“I went into the Hall of Fame. So it’s 2015 and [Mean] Gene’s next to me, and Zbyszko had gotten stoned before [the show began.] Larry had gotten stoned before he went out and did the Hall of Fame. Of course, you think in your mind ‘I’ll get stoned and I’ll be really entertaining.'”

While Zbyszko believed that being high would help, Nash gave Mean Gene’s scathing review when the three were on a plane to leave San Francisco.

“I’m in [Row] C. Gene is D and Larry is on the other side of Gene in the aisle. And he says ‘how did I do Gene?’ And he replies ‘it was the absolute drizzling sh*ts. The worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life Larry.’ And Larry was waiting [for Gene to say something good about the speech] and he just turned back to me and was talking.”

“It was the absolute drizzling sh*ts!”

Mean Gene Okerlund’s review of Larry Zybszko’s WWE Hall of Fame induction.

WWE and Marijuana

WWE has always had an interesting relationship with marijuana and has both allowed and banned the substance multiple times.

Speaking about his own experiences, Nash recalled being able to use it during his first run, and not being allowed when he returned in 2002.

“The first three years we could smoke. The three years after that we couldn’t smoke. WWE had the ‘no steroid, no marijuana’ policy.”

Kevin Nash.

Nash also named his favorite person to smoke with, and picked someone fans wouldn’t have expected.

“One of my favorite people to hang out with on the road that I never got a chance to do much with is Chris Masters. The Masterlock. We were at a signing somewhere in Jersey. He made a pipe out of an apple and he and I got whacked! We ended up in lookers drinking Coronas. It was a good signing, a couple of hours. We went up the room and got baked.”

In April 20, of this year, it was reported that WWE would no longer be penalizing talent for the use of marijuana.

– Today’s wrestling birthdays include WWE Hall of Famer Larry Zbyszko (65) and former WWE Tag Team Champion The Dynamite Kid (58).

– Former WWE Champion Batista appears as Drax the Destroyer in this new trailer for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy 2, which hits theaters on May 7, 2017.

– According to correspondents at WWE TLC last night, AJ Styles may have suffered a right foot injury while retaining the WWE World Championship over Dean Ambrose in the main event. After the show went off the air, AJ fell to the mat and a trainer rushed down to the ring to check on him. AJ was seen clutching his right foot and trying to move it around. He left on his own but was limping. Ambrose was then rushed to the back by a few trainers.

WWE has not announced injuries to either Superstar, but Dave Meltzer of f4wonline.com says Styles did in fact suffer a “minor ankle injury.” He’s scheduled to face James Ellsworth on Tuesday’s SmackDown Live.

https://twitter.com/sloomzo/status/805626779520135168

https://twitter.com/reignssempire/status/805796352655499264

– Thursday’s episode of John Cena’s “American Grit” on FOX set a new record low for the show – 1.730 million viewers, down from last week’s 1.878 million viewers. The episode was the 2nd least-viewed show in the 9pm timeslot on all major networks, next to The Flash on CW, which averaged 1.098 million viewers.

– As seen below, WWE Hall of Famer Larry Zbyszko was backstage for Friday’s NXT house show in Cocoa:

#NXTCocoa will be graced tonight with the presence of the Living Legend! pic.twitter.com/Jq3t8MozxN

— Adam Pearce (@ScrapDaddyAP) May 27, 2016

– Titus O’Neil talks about how he benefited from The Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranches program in this new video:

At a couple different points tonight, the official WWE Games Twitter account tweeted these animated GIFs to hype Tuesday’s release of the Hall of Fame downloadable content pack for WWE 2K16, which is out this Tuesday:

Tatsumi Fujinami battles @RicFlairNatrBoy in the #WWE2K16 HOF DLC on 2/23! Details: https://t.co/jp2yakMZRp pic.twitter.com/MraHdecC2r

— #WWE2K25 (@WWEgames) February 19, 2016

Tatsumi Fujinami vs. @RicFlairNatrBoy in the #WWE2K16 HOF DLC! Drops 2/23! Details: https://t.co/jp2yakMZRp pic.twitter.com/KHlWWxZmho

— #WWE2K25 (@WWEgames) February 19, 2016

It was already known that 1991 versions of Ric Flair and Tatsumi Fujinami plus a relevant match replay mode were in the Hall of Fame pack, but they had two matches that year. It seemed like it made more sense for 2K to base it off their match from Superbrawl in St. Petersburg, Florida, but from the above footage, it looks like they didn’t. Instead, 2K picked the OTHER Flair-Fujinami match, from the NJPW Tokyo Dome show that year, which is known as both WCW Japan Supershow and NJPW Starrcade ’91 In The Tokyo Dome. So that means that the arena that comes in the pack is an ersatz Tokyo Dome, faithfully recreated by 2K Sports. They can’t call it that (and I don’t believe WWE games ever name real venues), but 2K does a great job with the presentation of the arenas and this should be no exception.

Here’s the full lineup for the DLC pack, which, if this is any indication, should also include at least two more WCW arenas and some early ’90s WWF arenas along with period appropriate versions of the wrestlers:

• “Macho Man” Randy Savage vs. Jake “The Snake” Roberts
• Rikishi vs. The Rock
• Alundra Blayze vs. Paige
• Larry Zbyszko and Arn Anderson vs. Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat and Dustin Rhodes
• Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Ric Flair
• The Bushwhackers (Butch Miller and Luke Williams) vs. The Natural Disasters (Typhoon and Earthquake)
• The Outsiders (Kevin Nash and Scott Hall) vs. Harlem Heat (Booker T and Stevie Ray)

WWE Hall Of Famer Larry Zbyszko recently appeared as a guest on The Two Man Power Trip Of Wrestling Podcast and spoke about his recent time at the WWE Performance Center, his memories of the late Dusty Rhodes and more. Below are some of the highlights from the interview.

On the transition from wrestling to commentary: “For me it worked out great. I had a good twenty year career. By about 1992 I was thinking I’d start settling into the broadcasting thing. It was a good time, I was lucky with the body that I didn’t get hurt and didn’t have any artificial parts, didn’t have any major surgeries, none of that stuff. It kept me alive with the new generation and gave me more publicity because I was on Monday Nitro, then I was on some of the syndicated shows so I had a lot of publicity with the new generation and it was a great job. I worked out and kept myself in good shape and would golf a bunch, I was home so much the wife would get sick of me. It was kind of like the perfect ending to a good twenty year career. Anybody who does that it’s almost like you’ve got this special gift of gab or you are full of bullshit because either you can do a good interview for a couple of minuets and weren’t good color guy but for some reason I felt right at home. I had to soften my character up because for twenty years I was a big asshole and people believed I was an asshole and I softened up the character to where everybody loved me and then I was too old to hate and then I was a legend when I went against the New World Order.”

On memories of Dusty Rhodes and Dusty’s turn to join the NWO: “They came to me and it was up to me whether it went that way or not. I knew it would make Dusty happy and me and Bischoff and me and Hall were the two biggest buy rates that they ever did and definitely was the cherry on the cake with everything else. It was a one time deal but I remember Dusty dropped an elbow on me and landed all his weight with that elbow he dropped in the Scott Hall match, the bastard (laughs). Me and Dusty had a good relationship. Especially when I would come down and do stuff for the Crockets and TBS and Dusty always treated me right. He always recognized the talent. The last time I saw Dusty the poor guy, he didn’t look too good. He looked pretty grey. The last time I saw Dusty right before he died I had got the weird feeling that something was going to happen and I would wind up like him. I realized after he died that since Dusty was so involved with the Performance Center that now unfortunately that Performance Center lost a lot of knowledge when Dusty passed and I think there is a void left that I can fill.”

On his recent work at the WWE Performance Center: “You get emotionally involved whether you want to or not. I go there and I look at the faces of these young men and women and they will come to me and ask can you watch my match and you end up getting involved emotionally. I’m old school and what’s in me is you do what is good for the business otherwise no one makes money. Some of these guys and chicks at the school are great and are going to be good and have great potential. It breaks your heart because with others you want to say; did you ever think about getting a job? You get kind of emotionally involved with it and I can’t help it and I kind of steer myself to people I know are going to be good for the business.”

On getting to see old friends and his reaction to the passing of Rowdy Roddy Piper and The Ultimate Warrior: “You don’t get to see the guys too often and even though you spent so much of your life working with them and especially at the point we are at now when I go to Mania I’ll see a bunch of the guys and that will be cool but it’s amazing that they are dropping. Like with Piper, that shocked me and I never expected him to go. The Ultimate Warrior. That was wild. At 54 he looked like he was 80. I didn’t recognize the guy when I first saw him in the hotel, he looked like some old guy who was just shuffling by and I thought that’s the Warrior? Something wasn’t right and I’m surprised he didn’t keel over on stage.”

On the Dangerous Alliance: “The fans seemed to really like it and it was a cool group of guys. Me and Arn as the Enforcers, we were really over. Rude and Bobby Eaton fit right in and a young “Stunning” Steve with Paul E. so it was a good group of guys but the only thing with a group fortunately for me and Arn at 40 years old we clicked and it was great but it should have gone on a little longer. To be in a group you really couldn’t stick out, you were just part of a group and I had come from a school where it was better to stick out and be a single. But I was over 40 and Bill (Watts) came in at that time of the Dangerous Alliance so that’s when I kind of pulled myself out, got my knee fixed and wound up doing the broadcasting thing.”

• Video: UFC Star Miesha Tate Chokes Out 4 Guys Who Crashed Her MMA Gym!

WWE Diva and Total Divas star Natalya is scheduled to induct former WWE Women’s Champion Alundra Blayze (Madusa) into the WWE Hall Of Fame on Saturday night.

With that now known, below is the complete list of inductees and inductors for tonight’s 2015 WWE Hall Of Fame induction ceremony, which airs live on the WWE Network at 7pm EST.

– Warrior Award: Connor Michalek, inducted by Daniel Bryan and Dana Warrior

– Larry Zbyszko, inducted by Bruno Sammartino

– Tatsumi Fujinami, inducted by Ric Flair

– The Bushwhackers, inducted by John Laurinaitis

– Alundra Blayze, inducted by Natalya

– Rikishi, inducted by The Usos

– Arnold Schwarzenegger, inducted by Triple H

– Randy Savage, inducted by Hulk Hogan

– Kevin Nash, inducted by Shawn Michaels

– Alundra Blayze, inducted by Natalya

• PHOTOS: UFC Star RONDA ROUSEY Interviews ROMAN REIGNS For WRESTLEMANIA 31!!

– During a taped interview on Raw offering his thoughts on Roman Reigns, WWE World Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar mentioned beating The Rock as a rookie—at the 2002 SummerSlam to capture the WWE Championship—and sending him to Hollywood. It was stated in this week’s issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that this line was scripted to push a match between both wrestlers as a possibility for next year’s WrestleMania.

WrestleMania 32 is scheduled to take place on April 3, 2016, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

– After realizing Renee Young is his perfect co-host on The JBL & Renee Show, JBL celebrates by singing with other WWE Superstars on this week’s episode.

– It was announced on Monday that Larry Zbyszko will become enshrined in the WWE Hall of Fame the night before WrestleMania 31. To celebrate the induction, five clips of “classic moments” from his career have been added to the WWE Hall of Fame section on the WWE Network.

• Fan sits next to Sting after RAW

Jim Ross updated the blog on his official website on Tuesday, writing about the Samoa Joe to WWE rumors, Sting’s performance on Monday’s RAW and some of the inductees in this year’s WWE Hall Of Fame class.

Below are some highlights from JR’s latest blog:

On Samoa Joe: “I had a great conversation Monday night with @SamoaJoe for a future podcast. Joe is one of the most intelligent and perceptive athletes that I’ve spoken with on our podcast and I certainly hope that WWE signs him as he could be invaluable in multiple areas for the wrestling side of the company IMO. It was the first time that we had talked in over a decade when I told him that, at that time, he wasn’t ready to be signed to a WWE contract to which Joe said motivated him and that he respected my honesty. Over the years I’ve become a big fan of his physical style but him getting trained in the Japanese style of wrestling helped him a great deal to become the star that he is today.”

On Sting: “Great seeing Sting on WWE TV which, for the longest time, I thought would likely never occur. Steve Borden is one of the best men in the biz and has always been a class act and one of my favorite people to work with over the years including his early days working in Mid South for Cowboy Bill Watts. I am beyond thrilled to see Sting finally get his ‘WrestleMania Moment’ this year as it is well earned and will be a moment that I will personally celebrate with The Stinger. Good things do often times happen to good people even in the wacky world of ‘rasslin.”

On Larry Zbyszko and Kevin Nash in the WWE Hall Of Fame: “Happy for Larry Zybszko going into the WWE HOF with Bruno Sammartino set to induct him. We all have our mentors and Bruno was Larry’s and the two Pittsburghers made money and had excellent matches together including the much ballyhooed Shea Stadium event back in the day. Larry was one of the more underrated broadcasters to work in the wrestling biz, too.”

“Sounds as if Kevin Nash will be the final inductee into the 2015 WWE HOF class and for that I’m happy. When Kevin couldn’t get the time of day when he first started in WCW, I used him my WSB Sunday night radio show and everyone soon found out that the former Tennessee Vol could talk and talk well. We’ve been friends ever since.”

Check out the complete blog at JRsBarBQ.com.

• VIDEO: Steve Austin Talks CM Punk’s UFC Debut, Undertaker Doing MMA & MORE!

– News.com.au is reporting that WWE has signed Australian bodybuilder Chris Atkins. Atkins, a 26-year-old aspiring pro wrestler, moved to Los Angeles about six months ago to start training for a WWE tryout, which he was finally invited to several weeks ago.

– Additionally, Canadian female wrestler Jasmin Areebi, who was trained by former WWE and TNA performer Taylor Wilde, has also signed a developmental deal with WWE.

– As seen on Monday’s edition of WWE RAW, wrestling legend “The Living Legend” Larry Zbyszko was announced as the newest inductee for the 2015 class of the WWE Hall Of Fame. Below is Zbyszko’s Hall Of Fame announcement video.

• BACKSTAGE UPDATE: Samoa Joe Is Signing With WWE SOONER THAN YOU THINK!!

UPDATE: WWE has now confirmed the fact that Larry Zbyszko is this week’s inductee announcement for the 2015 class of the WWE Hall Of Fame. You can read their official article on the subject by clicking here.

RollingStone.com is reporting that “The Living Legend” Larry Zbyszko will be the WWE Hall Of Fame inductee announcement on tonight’s edition of WWE RAW. Zbyszko will be inducted by Bruno Sammartino at the WWE Hall Of Fame ceremony during WrestleMania 31 weekend later this month.

Zbyszko stated the following about his WWE Hall Of Fame induction:

“My gut feeling over the years was that probably someday, sooner or later, I’d be getting in – and not just because of the long career I had. I’m a fan at heart; I love this business, and the Hall of Fame is an awesome part of the business. This has been my life, and if I had to do it again, I’d do it all the same – except maybe not get married so many times.”

“I already have a speech in my head; it kind of just popped in there, because it’s the story of my dream – to become like my hero Bruno Sammartino. And I’ll also thank the people who helped me along the way. I’ve always considered myself one of the boys – everyone calls me ‘Sir’ these days, but I’m not that old!”

• CM PUNK Reveals What Advice BROCK LESNAR Gave To Him About Fighting In The UFC!

The following are highlights of a new In Your Head Wrestling Radio interview with Larry Zbyszko

What is your involvement with NXT? “Well you know, I’ve been a big fan of NXT…they film it five miles down the road from me. I’ve been going down, and that was a big mistake because now I’m emotionally involved and entangled in all these new guys, talent that’s training there. They have the same dream I had; you can see it in their face, they want to learn. It’s really a cool place. It’s kind of like an omen to me that they would just happen to build this thing five miles down from my house. There’s really not too many people left in the business that know what I know, so it’s working out good where I’m going to be involved. When I go down there I get a chance to pass down the hidden secrets of wrestling’s illuminati to a new era; so it’s really cool…There’s a trick to it. You’ve got a whole bunch of big tough guys, but unless you figure out a way to be different …With wrestling, like any other sport, the fans get emotionally involved with their favorites…you get into their emotions. That’s the secret that they have to be taught, because they’re great athletes and have a great training facility, and they’re learning moves and becoming wrestlers, and that’s great, but to attach to the fans you have to be a personality, and you have to be able to grab that microphone and talk to people, and let your character loose and be creative. It’s a different story. Any idiot can pick someone up and throw them, but drawing money is a different animal.”

In Chris Jericho’s book, he actually said you were the worst commentator he ever heard. What are your thoughts on that? “Here’s the story on that. At the time, Chris was a young guy and he didn’t know what he was doing, along with a bunch of other guys; there was a whole group of them. There was Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn, Dean Malenko, and maybe even someone else, and these were the newer guys coming in to WCW trying to get a break. They were getting upset at the promotion, and a couple of times at me but it wasn’t my fault…These guys were all good athletes, but they were all 5’8”, 5’10”, 180 pounds, 190 pounds, and at that time in WCW who were the big stars that they were pushing? Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Sid Vicious; these guys that were 6’8”, 6’6”, 300 pounds. So when they were wrestling these guys, every once in a while I’d be getting a message over the voice on the headsets about ‘Hey, mention how much Sid Vicious towers over Dean Malenko’ or ‘How much bigger Kevin Nash makes Jericho look like an ant’. I didn’t want anybody telling me what to say and I ignored them anyway, but I got the drift. And in that time, what could you say; Jericho’s as big as Sid Vicious? So I think the guys let some steam off on me, but it really wasn’t me talking; the office wanted those points made to push their big stars who were giants compared to this new generation of smaller, high-flying guys that were trying to get in. So I don’t blame him for saying it; if everybody liked everybody it would be a pretty boring world.”

Check out the complete interview above.