This interview was shot in November 2016, if you’re curious. These two guys have some camaraderie established from their days together in 1PW, which is where they say they first met. There’s some comedic overlays added by the editor at times in this interview, so that lightens the mood even more so than it already is with these two wacky characters featured. Meanie speaks more here, but that makes sense, given that he’s the guest of the show, and they do a decent job overall of balancing their talk time with one another.
At the start, there was some bathroom talk, and that’s probably the main flaw of this interview. I was afraid at that point that I had gotten myself into watching a “Best Friends – Poppin’ Dogs & Talkin’ Hogs” type of shoot interview full of that sort of chatter, so I was relieved when they fairly quickly moved onto wrestling and only really went back to the bathroom topics one other time later in the interview. That said, the fact that there was any toilet topics made me zone out at times.
I’ve seen a few Meanie shoots before and never heard some of the stories here, such as those about Buddy Rogers and “The RAW Boy,” while other stories such as Meanie’s fondness for Al Snow and Emilio Estevez are recycled from other interviews he’s done. I popped for Meanie’s stories about doing moonsaults into pools because I’ve certainly done that at hotels on many occasions, too. This interview comes full circle at the end, as Meanie had discussed the early days of The Monster Factory training school at the beginning and finishes off by touching on his current training duties there over 20 years later.
Meanie’s passion for wrestling really oozes through in this interview, and it’s refreshing. His silly pop culture references are goofy and charming, and ultimately one of the highlights. He self-deprecates at times and then at other times makes innocent jabs at other people, but all the while being humble. So, his sense of humor really shines in an informally formatted shoot interview like this, and you get an idea from his wit here why he was so successful as a comedy character during wrestling’s heyday. If you can tolerate the toilet humor, this is a decent shoot, but there are definitely superior ones, including better shoots specifically with Meanie.
WATCH: physical DVD – highspots.com/p/spud-meanie.html; digital – highspots.com/p/VD_imwspud_meanie.html, highspotswrestlingnetwork.com/media/im-with-spudblue-meanie/58673/feature
GRADE: C+
INDEX OF TOPICS DISCUSSED:
- penises
- The Monster Factory back in the day
- Hogan vs. Flair
- training at Al Snow’s wrestling school
- car rides
- growing up
- working at a casino
- Donald Trump
- other celebrities (Pete Rose, Mr. T., & Gene Hackman)
- “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers
- Tri-State Wrestling Alliance (TWA)/Eastern Championship Wrestling
- Christopher Daniels
- Philly crowds
- Emilio Estevez
- ECW’s unsung heroes
- wrestling money
- his grandma
- the idea for him to play “The RAW Boy” (in response to The Nitro Girls)
- Meanie’s penis slipping out on RAW
- porn
- 1PW stories
- Raven
- the Meaniesault
- the creation of the “Blue Meanie” character
- the bWo
- Tracy Smothers
- blading & blood
- taste tests
- Balls Mahoney
- today’s The Monster Factory trainers
- career reflections
RUN TIME: 1 hr. 40 min.
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