Terry
Taylor On ...
How
the end of Goldberg’s winning streak in 1998 led him to quit the WCW booking
committee:
"I quit the
booking committee when I found out he was going to lose. In August of ’98,
I quit. Yeah, I got off the committee because I had been working really
hard and they told me the direction they were going to go and I didn’t
believe in it. I said, ‘Instead of me fighting you tooth and nail,’ they
had a new group of guys come in with ideas, I just said, ‘You guys go ahead
and do that and I’ll just be an agent at the TVs and kind of decompress
for a while.’ I philosophically disagreed with it. It’s like a virgin.
(laughs) He just never had to be beaten. It could have been one of those
deals where he worked just three or four times a year. It would have paid
for his own salary because of personal appearances and video footage and
pay-per-view buy rates. People would have been eager to watch him work."
Why
he quit WCW shortly thereafter:
"I didn’t care.
I was disgusted and fed-up and hurt. It was my fault.With Eric’s treatment.
I don’t want to go into detail, but Eric can be…He was burnt out. This
isn’t anything I haven’t said before and he’d say it. I allowed him to
make me his whipping boy. I allowed him to say things to me and belittle
me and call me stupid and stuff in front of my peers and I never said anything
about it. I didn’t know I could go to human resources and file a complaint.
In the wrestling business, you either fight somebody when I came in or
you left. If I had an argument with somebody, we’d go into the back and
hash it out. If it got physical, it did. But when you came out, you were
on the same team."
Mick
Foley:
"I hurt like
hell now. I’m 46. I’m 10 years older than Mick. He probably hurts as bad
as I do now. Arthritis. I love him. He and I have had philosophical differences
and it’s been documented. Like I saw one time, I told him, ‘Try something
different. Grab a hold.’ Somebody heard it and it was all over the Internet
like he and I had this heated discussion. The whole story is, I’m laughing
and I said, Why don’t you try something different? Grab a hold.’ He laughed
and said, ‘I don’t know any.’ You see, that part doesn’t get on the Internet.
It’s just me as an office guy going Terry Taylor telling Mick Foley, our
hero, to change his style. I didn’t tell him to change his style. We were
laughing and having a good time. Mick’s a wonderful human being, smart.
He did what he thought he had to do and he was right. He was one of the
elite in our business and he’s going to pay for it. Everybody decides what
price they’re willing to pay. I’m getting my 10th and 11th knee surgeries.
Nobody comes out of the dance unscathed."
Bill
Watts:
"I called Watts
for two years, once a month, and said, "Come to WCW. If anyone can turn
it around, it's you." So he finally does come in and says, "Everybody starts
with a clean slate. Terry, you're fired." He did what he had to do. I don't
begrudge a guy. Personally, it hurt my feelings because I was part of the
package that helped make him money. But that was 10 years ago. Business
and life goes on. If he's the coach and he thinks I have no value or my
value is limited at that time and he wants to bring someone else in at
that time, that's his prerogative. He doesn't owe me. That's what's wrong
with the business. I've come to the realization now that Vince McMahon
doesn't owe me a job, the WWF doesn't owe me a job and the business doesn't
owe me. Every time I got paid, the slate started over. Nobody owed me anything
and I think that's why I'm so at peace with all of this. I had a great
run. If I'm out of the business, I'm out, but it doesn't owe me. The WWF
doesn't owe me a severance. They don't owe me a paycheck. They don't owe
me shit and I think that's part of the problem with the talent or the guys
in it. 'I hurt myself working for this guy and he owes me.' Well, it was
your choice."
That's
not all. Taylor has much more to say and the only way to read it is to
order Issue 93.
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