Andrew Lutzke
Presented by Sean Oliver and the Kayfabe Commentary Crew
D-Von Dudley was hilarious backstage. Many wrestlers are very funny guys but D-Von stands out. Bubba Ray was mean, but could play piano beautifully. She suspects Bubba is insecure and thus had to act out to cover for that.
Sean and Ivory joke about Chyna’s penis. Ivory was excited to work with Chyna because she finally was part of a lengthy angle that paid off.
Chyna was insecure and mean to others, as well. She could be kind and let her talents show through, but was abrasive towards the other ladies.
The Divas had to bond since there were only 6 or so women on the road and you might as well get along. Chyna failed in that regard.
The guys were generally far more experienced than the girls in the WWF since the women had to be flushed out due to age and beauty being a much bigger deal to women workers than men. Ivory had to try and get novices up to speed ASAP.
Chyna’s attitude cost her in many different ways in the long run.
Kurt Angle was a great guy in his early days but the road turned him into a worse person.
Kurt’s drive to be the best was his undoing because he pushed himself to the brink at all times.
Pure talent wouldn’t win out in the WWF like in the Olympics and a real athlete like Angle had to deal with politics and bookings and thus he couldn’t control his own fate no matter how hard he pushed himself.
The writers who came in were young and didn’t have the experience to write real life stories for the WWF workers.
Chyna was crushed by HHH leaving her for Steph. Ivory tried to convince her and others that leaving the WWF in the early 2000’s wasn’t the worst thing in the world, as the big money period was over and now HHH and Steph were politicking like crazy at the top of the card.
HHH was visibly seething when he would see the success that The Rock and Steve Austin had once they left the WWF.
Undertaker was always the “judge” in the locker room’s kangaroo courts, but HHH insisted he be judge and broke the locker room tradition.
The locker room was upset that the “wrestling divas” lost a dodge ball game to the “pretty face divas”. This is the shit that the billion dollar company does behind the scenes. Sigh.
WWF/E ordered the talent to dress business casual, even to the gym.
Ivory kicked Jonathan Coachman out of the “court room” for not being a real wrestler.
She presented HHH with a gift package to a low rent hotel room as a rib since he had stayed at Hiltons for years and years.
The WWF books tended to suck. The guys tend to fib and are scared to bury anybody they still work with.
Road Dogg was released in January 2001 and Ivory felt the WWF should have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for drugs since everybody is injured and they have to cope, somehow.
The XFL was fun and the WWF talent got a ton of free merchandise to be walking billboards with.
The WWF talent did the math and they figured the XFL was costing them a 10% cut of what they would have otherwise been making.
Ivory mocks The Kat for having no talents other than taking her clothes off.
The Kat was tossed into Ivory’s Right to Censor angle mainly because she sucked on Lawler’s wang.
Lawler and The Kat leave the WWF in the spring of 2001. The Kat was fired and Jerry quit in protest.
The Kat had been openly cheating on Lawler with an OVW worker and Jerry didn’t care until the affair turned to “love”.
Ivory never wanted to be a “diva” and didn’t have the body to be displayed in that manner. Ivory could bring it in the ring and the stick figure bimbos had to be carried in order to not be an in ring embarrassment on TV.
The Kat seemed to also be cheating on Lawler with a cameraman during the diva photoshoots.
JR was a great commentator but had a darker political side.
Vince had Trish Stratus strip to her bra and panties and bark like a dog in the middle of the ring on RAW. Trish hated it and felt offended, but did it because she knew it would pay off down the road via a push and more money coming her way.
Strippers would be put on TV and not given any prep so they could be embarrassed for the agent’s amusement. The “Ho Train” girls wore much dirtier outfits on house shows.
The wrestlers were able to buy WWE stock at the special initial price and if you were smart enough to sell it right away, you made a nice profit.
WCW was bought by Vince and the locker room was worried that they had lost another avenue to make money if the WWF train goes off the rails. The locker room knew very little of any details since they just worry about gossiping and rumormongering amongst themselves.
The WWF wanted Ivory to teach Stacy Kiebler and Torrie Wilson how to work, but the agents forgot about that quickly. Ivory was very upset to be saddled with no talent bikini models again.
Ivory went against the script (with agent Fit Finley’s permission) and tore into some of the bikini model divas on TV. She had to go to Johnny Ace for a scolding and Fit didn’t defend her.
She was asked to do lots of traveling for promoting, since Ivory was such a good talker. Rather than pay her for her promoting, the WWF just put her up in a really nice hotel in the area.
Ivory’s WrestleMania payoff wasn’t very impressive in 2001 despite being part of a big angle with Chyna.
Chyna insulted Ivory at the beginning of their feud by asking her if she knew how to work.
If the WWF figured out you were about to hit your yearly guaranteed salary, you tended to disappear from the house shows.
Undertaker and Ivory were able to bond a bit as Ivory trained Taker’s wife to work with DDP.
Undertaker was against Steve Austin walking out of the WWE. He felt Steve should have showed up for work, if only for strictly professional reasons.
Bradshaw would rough up the young jabronis, but if he knew the WWF was going to push you hard, he’d suck up to you. Brock was a prime example.
Kurt Angle was pissed at Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 18 because Angle was supposed to call the match since he was the vet and the heel, but Brock kept vetoing all the spots Kurt called.
Chyna left the WWF in the spring and the women’s title was eliminated.
Ivory would get pissed off if popular people were given things by the fans – only for them to just turn around and throw the gifts into the trash.
Brian Christopher was caught with drugs at the Canadian border and was fired. This wrecked things for his co-workers as the border patrol would always dig thru the WWF gang’s bags from them on.
Ivory avoids the business now because of the depressing news (the deaths) that come up so often.
Brock came onto Ivory, but she had a boyfriend.
Since she was older than much of the roster, she was able to be friends with many of them since she was too busy competing to fuck around.
She bitches about Lita having one move and Lita being lucky to have ties to the Hardy Boyz.
Road Dogg would ask kids for their autographs while giving out his own. Stacy Kiebler would ignore people.
Final Thoughts: This DVD sat on my shelves for quite a few months since I wasn’t sure 2001 was “old school” enough to have unreported “dirt” to expound on since it was in the heart of the internet era. Thankfully I was pleasantly surprised by Ivory’s takes and her gift of gab certainly carried the shoot nicely. Lots of fun to be had here!
