Andrew Lutzke
Presented by Sean Oliver and the Kayfabe Commentaries Crew
The Man (Part 2):
Upon entering WCW, Waltman was inducted into the nWo – being dubbed “Syxx” – as he was the 6th nWo member, as well as the fact that 1-2-3 added up to equal six. He spent his early months tangling with his fellow cruiser weights such as Chris Jericho and Eddy Gurrerro. Jericho lost a PPV bout to Syxx, but Eddy managed to win in fluky fashion over Syxx in a ladder match at Souled Out ’97. A month later Syxx would capture the Cruiserweight belt from Dean Malenko at Superbrawl and go on to hold it til Summer – when Chris Jericho bested him.
Syxx also focused on feuding with the Four Horsemen – at Slamboree that May, Syxx teamed with Hall and Nash to battle Ric Flair, Roddy Piper and NFL great Kevin Greene – with WCW scoring one of its few significant victories over the nWo since their inception. Shortly after the n.W.o. did a parody of the Horsemen to continue to add fuel to the fire – this led to Syxx teaming with Buff Bagwell, Konnan and Nash to face Flair, Chris Beniot, Steve McMicheals and Curt Hennig in a “War Games” match. With the nWo presenting largely its “B” Team, a WCW win seemed likely but the New World Order (as always) had a ace up its sleeve and Hennig turned on the Horsemen and joined the nWo, giving them the win.
Syxx’s next major angle was being named Nash’s replacement as WCW tag champ alongside Hall, as Nash was injured. A few weeks later this backfired as Syxx and Hall would lose the WCW tag belts to The Steiner Brothers. Waltman suffered an injured neck in October and left the active roster. Eric Bischoff then chose to fire the injured Waltman in real life, as a means to show Hall and Nash that he was in charge and their backstage behavior was not to be tolerated. Bischoff then buried Waltman as “a competent performer when sober” and also saying that Waltman was lucky to even have a job.
This move allowed Waltman to resign with the WWF, where he appeared the night after Wrestlemania 14 – cutting a “shoot” promo on Hulk Hogan and Bischoff, and joining DX alongside real life best buddy HHH. Later that evening the New Age Outlaws joined DX as well. Waltman then adopted the name “X-Pac”.
Waltman and company were supposed to be heels but then DX started to do a mock war with WCW in a series of vignettes and were turned face as a result. Owen Hart had long standing issue with DX and he turned heel and joined the Nation of Domination to aid him which led to a DX/Nation feud that lasted several months. X-Pac’s part in this feud had him participate in a series of matches with D-Lo Brown, trading the European title.
DX next battled the Vince McMahon backed “Corporation” and X-Pac lost his title to Shane McMahon – leading to a re-match at Wrestlemania 15 – Shane again emerged victorious after X-Pac’s best buddy HHH turned on him and joined up with McMahon.
The next few PPVs saw X-Pac lose to HHH and then Shane again before X-Pac rebounded by aligning with Kane, who was exiled from the Corporation. The two men captured the tag titles from Jeff Jarrett and Owen Hart and went on to form a surprisingly compelling team. X-Pac gave Kane the emotional support to get rid of his voice box synthesizer and use his real voice – and in turn Kane offered X-Pac physical dominance in the ring. The men partnered until the end of 1999 when X-Pac joined a reformed DX, and turned on Kane – even taking Kane’s woman, Tori in the process. It seems that this was around the point when fans started to grow tired of X-Pac, as he seemed to win frequently and rarely faced the comeuppance for his actions. In addition, injuries (and probably drugs) had slowed X-Pac’s work rate and yet he was still raking up titles and besting hot new comers like Chris Jericho.
In early 2001 X-Pac formed his own faction with Albert and Justin Credible known as “X-Factor”. They had terrible music and the fans shit on the group from the start. Once the WWF bought ECW and WCW, the roster was filled with even more fresh talent, and yet X-Pac kept on winning – including holding both the WWF Light Heavyweight title and WCW Cruiserweight title at the same time.
After missing time due to injury, X-Pac returned in mid-2002 and joined the WWF’s version of the New World Order and feuded with Booker T and GoldDust. In late August, the WWF and Waltman parted ways. Waltman joined TNA as “Syxx-Pac” and partnered up with old buddies Scott Hall and Road Dog. Pacc would win the TNA X Division title before leaving in November.
X-Pac bounced around the indies until November of 2004, when he rejoined TNA and partnered with Kevin Nash and DDP against Jeff Jarrett’s “Planet Jarrett” faction. Pacc would go on to battle old enemy Jerry Lynn and fellow high flyer AJ Styles as well. Waltman blew this opportunity by no showing a PPV tag title match and disappearing.
In late 2007, Waltman attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself. He was found by his girlfriend before the deed could be done. Nash made sure Waltman went to rehab after this.
In the next few years Waltman worked the indy circuit and Mexico, made a porno with Chyna, visited rehab and eventually in early 2010, Sean went back to TNA when Hulk Hogan obtained backstage influence. Hall, Nash and Syxx-Pacc invited Hogan to join their faction, but Hogan bowed out, saying times have changed. The storyline was that Hall and Syxx-Pacc didn’t actually have contracts and thus Hogan tried to get rid of them. Eventually they turned on Nash and faced Eric Young and Nash in a match with their contracts on the line. Nash turned on Young and gave Hall and Pacc their contracts. A few weeks later Waltman no showed a PPV – then was later found in a pool of his own blood at another event and TNA released him.
Waltman returned to his 1-2-3 Kid persona for Chikara and used the name for the 2011 and 2012 “King of Trios” tournaments that the company puts on. Waltman even teamed with Marty Jannetty once again as part of his Chikara run.
Waltman returned to the WWE in 2011 as part of the celebration of Shawn Michaels Hall of Fame induction. He also participated in a DX reunion on RAW 1000. Waltman now participates in training young talent for WWE’s NXT developmental group
The Shoot:
Marty Jannetty was a fantastic partner who taught the Kid a lot. He and Marty were given a 1 week reign as tag team champs to kick the year off.
Waltman credits the reign to Jerry Jarrett who was helping Vince with ideas while McMahon was distracted by his federal trial.
1-2-3 Kid hurt his MCL the same night he lost the title. He shared an ambulance with the also injured Ludvig Borga. There had been two ambulances at Madison Square Garden, but Ivan Putzki convinced the driver of one of them to use it to take him back to his hotel.
A lot of guys in the locker room felt Owen would fail during his big run with Bret that took him out of lower card purgatory and into the upper card.
Taker’s “death” at Royal Rumble ’94 wasn’t the most realistic angle possible, but Waltman thought Papa Shango’s voodoo spells were much worse.
Waltman says Luger was Vince’s personal choice to be the WWF’s next big thing, but despite slamming Yokozuna on an aircraft carrier, and driving around America on a tour bus – Luger just couldn’t get over and Vince was forced to listen to the fans and go with Bret as his champion.
Syxx says working with Diesel in 1993 was really hard as he was the shits, but he improved thanks to Shawn Michaels.
Waltman says he was one of the first guys to mention ratings in the locker room, most people didn’t care since competition wasn’t head to head and WCW was constantly in the shitter anyway.
Jannetty was fired for the fourth time from the WWF during a tour of Germany. Kid doesn’t remember why.
Marty was a natural worker, but got fucked up a lot – even improperly tying his boots fairly often.
Bob Holly was no stiffer than The Kid himself.
1-2-3 Kid was the barometer to judge whether a guy could work or not.
Lawler got acquitted on statutory rape and sodomy charges – the locker room was well aware of his preferred woman type.
Mabel was almost fired for back splashing Diesel – Mabel hurt a lot of people accidently because of his size.
Chief Jay Strongbow wasn’t liked by much of the locker room, but the Kliq were buddies with him. Good advice giver, but a hard ass.
Kid and others had to go to SMW and got paid indy level money, which annoyed the boys.
The WWF guys didn’t get paid to appear at Wrestlemania’s fanfest, but a lot of guys who were young didn’t mind it as they didn’t know any better and just liked the celebrity.
Shawn was the guy who the Kliq had talk to Vince to change angles, as Shawn had Vince’s ear.
Shawn and Razor had great ladder matches that were never taped.
1-2-3 Kid got paid for Wrestlemania X despite his match being canceled due to time running out.
Burt Reynolds was hammered when he went to the ring for his guest spot at that WM.
Howard Finkel was ribbed constantly. They would have Howard and Bruno Lauer (Harvey Whippleman) cut promos for Wrestlemanias and they wouldn’t even be taping the interview.
Finkel’s car was smashed up as part of a street fight because it was brand new and people wanted to mess with him.
Capt. Lou returned at this point – funny guy, a drunkard and sometimes pretty annoying.
Vince held a grudge against Jesse Ventura for beating him in court. “That’s MY fucking money!”
Nash winning the IC belt from Razor didn’t cause any jealously and the Kliq made sure he had the best run possible.
The Kid changed the finish of a match he had with Rick Martel in Japan – Martel was to lose via DQ, the Kid insisted on losing via the Boston crab, because Martel was a former AWA World Champ and a Japan vet so the fans would expect Martel to win.
JJ Dillon was the agent for the Japan tour and Kid and Owen made sure to keep him awake all night.
Earthquake quit the WWF after being asked to do a job for Yokozuna. Waltman makes fun of guys who hate jobbing… (His buddy Shawn has to be the elephant in the room here)
Volkoff was horrible in the ring and Waltman had to tour with him, wrestling him nightly. Volkoff wouldn’t even bump.
Waltman can’t believe Vince didn’t push more smaller talent. Guys like the Hardy Boys came in and suffered as jobbers for five years before a push came.
X-Pac defends James Dudley being in the HOF since he was the first black man who ran an arena.
Vince would send a car for Dudley whenever the WWF was in the area. Dudley was old and falling apart by this time, even pissing himself in the locker room.
After Hogan was signed by WCW, Vince called a meeting and said “NONE OF YOU ARE FUCKING GOING ANYWHERE!”
Agent Blackjack Lanza was banned from talking to long time friend Bobby Heenan, who was in WCW by this point.
Bret told Waltman that his five minute match with Owen at King of the Ring ’94 was the best short match the “Hitman” had ever seen.
A tag team called “The Cubans” had a brief run with Bill Alfonso as their manager. They were fired quickly after an undisclosed incident. (I have zero recollection of ever hearing about these guys).
WWF banned physical threats in promos during this time. Even Razor was banned from flicking his tooth pick. No foreign objects were to be used either. This led to a ladder match at Summerslam where Razor and Shawn couldn’t use the ladder as a weapon.
Joey Marella was a partier and his death in July of 94 really took the steam out of his father Gorilla Monsoon.
Vince partied the night he was acquitted. Vince was said to be greatly worried about his employees being fiscally hurt had Vince ended up in jail.
Waltman discusses the difficulty of meeting “Make a Wish” kids who were deathly ill.
Bob Backlund’s clunky ring work is discussed.
Backlund’s heel turn and main event run flabbergasted Waltman.
Bruce Hart was a bit crazy and would go into business for himself whenever the WWF gave him a live mic.
Lawler’s constant insults of Bret’s parents pissed Bret off legit.
Virgil would make guys getting try out matches look shitty, because Virgil knew his spot on the under card would/could be in jeopardy.
Shawn’s drugged up out bursts were tolerated because he brought it in the ring.
Waltman claims the Kliq only wanted a better product, not necessarily a push for the Kliq.
When Waltman returned in 1998, part of his contract ordered the WWF to buy new rings that weren’t so incredibly hard.
The British Bulldog came back in August of 1994 – jacked to the gills since he was away from the steroid testing, so he was able to take whatever he wanted. Bret was against the signing.
Faker Taker was doing drugs a bunch and that helped make sure his run was short.
Bret took as much time for his match with Owen at Summerslam that he wanted, because he was jaded about not being the last match on the PPV – that caused Undertaker vs. Undertaker to be cut down.
WWF wouldn’t give Waltman off to go visit his trainer who was on his death bed. Waltman told Dillon to fuck off after Sean heard of his trainer’s death, as Dillon was the head of talent relations and had denied the earlier request.
Every sport has drugs, steroids etc and wrestling seems to be shit on more than other “legit” sports for such things.
1-2-3 Kid subbed for Samu in full Islander garb at a house show.
King Kong Bundy was brutal in the ring and sort of an asshole in the locker room. Bundy refused to submit to the sharpshooter when facing Bret.
Kevin Dunn is put over by Waltman for his excellent directing and producing.
Razor would cover botches during tapings by flashing two fingers at the camera, and then repeat the spot for editing.
Jacques Rougeau was lazy on American house shows and busting out flying moves when in Canada.
Chris Kanyon was good at execution, but didn’t have psychology or mic skills.
Waltman says Razor was the best worker in the Kliq – even Shawn was only as good as he was because of what Scott Hall taught him.
Luna Vachon had a number of legit mental illnesses. She took pills to try and battle this. Nash took one of her pills and passed out quickly.
Randy Savage leaving pissed Vince off as Vince felt Savage was “The Babe Ruth of the WWF”. Vince almost cried when Savage’s departure was mentioned backstage.
Vince fell in love with Nash and put the rocket up his ass – no matter what anybody else thought.
Henry Godwin’s slop was usually filled with oatmeal – but nasty things could be added if the victim wasn’t well liked.
Luna Vachon had a higher “strength” rating on the WWF RAW video game than Waltman. Video game royalties wasn’t a big deal till the nWo gave wrestling a boost.
Sunny wasn’t hated right away – most of the guys just wanted to bang her.
Sunny received first class plane tickets and was able to sit in on production meetings that didn’t typically involve the workers.
Final Thoughts: This was an incredible 2 ½ hour shoot. Waltman has truly won me over with his down to earth personality and readily apparent love for the business. I can’t offer anything less than my highest praise for this DVD, which rectified the only flaw I saw in his “Breaking Kayfabe” shoot, which was its brevity. I will definitely be seeking out more of Waltman in the future as these 2 shoots were just the tip of the iceberg as far as covering his career.
