Interview available at WorldWrestlingInsanity.com via ClubWWI.
Stevie Richards has had the distinction of wrestling in every major wrestling company. WWE, WCW, TNA, and ECW have all been home to Richards and he’s created memories wherever he’s worked. His most recent run with TNA as Dr. Stevie just came to an end recently. Richards, who left with no hard feelings but rather decided to depart for business reasons, tells James Guttman on ClubWWI.com about that decision. Initially, he was excited about working as a new character and the opportunities it presented.
“Here’s Dr. Stevie with the promise of, ‘If you work hard, get over, you establish yourself, and mesh into the locker room, then you’ll be rewarded. We’ll renegotiate your deal and all this stuff will happen.’ Then (TNA) turned around and says, ‘Oh. You’re lucky to be getting what you’re getting.’ Then (they have me) never come to work, never get booked, sat at home, and it’s all these things. Like I said, it comes right down to it being a business decision.”
When the final day of his TNA run came about, Richards made sure to leave respectfully. He showed up in person to inform the office about his departure. ?”I walked in on January 11th and a lot of people don’t do this. They wait for that call in wrestling – whether it’s to wait for that call to get a job or to wait for that call to lose a job. What I did was, I prayed about it, I thought about it, and I said to myself, ‘You know what? Today I’m going to make something happen. I’m going to control my destiny rather than waiting for something to happen.’
“So I went in that day and I told (the office). Terry Taylor wasn’t shocked because I talk to him all the time. But everybody else seemed shocked. And I said, ‘Well, you guys booked me and then you sent me home for five months.’ We don’t get paid if we don’t work, at the level I was at. So what am I supposed to do? In reality, with a business or a job, you don’t go into Best Buy and they say, ‘We don’t have anything for you’ every single day for five months. What are you gonna do? You find another job, right?”
Stevie spoke about his thoughts on TNA’s product, direction, pros, and cons throughout his one hour ClubWWI interview. He also spoke about moments from his entire career. Perhaps one of his most memorable times in wrestling came during his stint as the tie-wearing Right To Censor leader. Guttman mentions other former RTC members Bull Buchanan and Ivory having hosted shows on ClubWWI and the questions many fans had always had about why the stable never reunited. As one of WWE’s most hated heel groups, fans expected some sort of resurrection, but it never materialized. Richards reveals what he felt was behind the choice to keep the group dead and buried. As always, it’s politics…
“What I hear, and what I kind of guessed, is that Jamie Mars used to write and he wrote a lot of material. He and Brian Gewirtz, who is still a head writer at WWE, I don’t think they got along too well. And it wasn’t Brian Gewirtz’s project to write the promos or anything and it seemed like when Jamie Mars left, it spelled the end for Right To Censor.”
Stevie continued throughout the interview to discuss everything in his wrestling career from Raven to apprehension about the debut of RTC to Stevie Night Heat. But he also urged ClubWWI.com members to check out his T4 Tech Show online. At T4show.com, Richards (under his real name of Michael Manna) looks at all the latest technology on the market and gives some expert views on what’s worth purchasing.
“We cover everything in technology. I know there’s a big gaming audience that you have here. We’re big video game fans. We do a lot of recording, stream video games, and also review them. The brand new redesigned T4show.com has a lot of video game reviews with a three point rating system and I invite everyone to come look at it if you’re a fan of fitness, if you’re a fan of tech, Apple – especially Apple, we’re big Apple Fanboys – and video games.”
Remember Stevie’s 62 minute shoot is just one of thousands of hours of audio featuring hundreds of wrestling stars available the moment you sign up to ClubWWI.com. From Paul Roma to Jerry Lawler to Mae Young to Sean Mooney, you can hear them all right now!