Andrew Lutzke
Presented by Hannibal TV
Sid loved sports and participated in track, football, basketball and so on in high school.
The USFL’s Memphis Showboats had open tryouts and Sid made it all the way to the final cut.
“Macho Man” Randy Savage helped him break into wrestling after seeing his potential.
Hillbilly Jim told him early on that winning and losing doesn’t matter, so he should just follow the booker’s plans in order to earn trust and a push.
Lanny Poffo’s ability to fellate himself is discussed. Sid never saw Poffo do it, but Virgil fellated himself in front of Sid and others on a different occasion. Jerry Jarrett ended up seeing Virgil doing his “trick” and fired him in Memphis.
Jarrett was notorious for his poor payoffs. Jarrett did teach him the importance of histrionics while performing. That is why Sid was always so animated and over the top while in the ring.
Jerry Lawler gave him the “Lord Humongous” gimmick in Memphis in order to replace a worker who had a side gig as a football strength coach. Sid debuted in the main events and worked against Nick Bockwinkel and Lawler in a tag matches with Austin Idol as a partner.
New Japan brought Sid in to try and create a new “Bruiser Brody” type of gimmick with him.
Kevin Von Erich was quiet while in the locker room. Kerry was so zonked the first time he met Sid that he kept asking him over and over where the locker room was.
A benefit show was held for Kerry’s family after his suicide. The wrestlers all volunteered their time for free, except his brother Kevin, who demanded 2 grand to perform.
Jerry Jarrett got wind of some false rumors that Sid was jumping to WCW in 1989 so he cut his money. Sid then quit because he couldn’t afford to live off of such meager earnings. Eddie Gilbert contacted him for a role in WCW soon after. Gilbert knew Sid due to them working together in Continental a year earlier.
Teddy Long served as Sid’s manager in WCW. Vicious needed him for promos since he had never done them himself.
The Rock and Roll Express’s WWE Hall of Fame speech came off poorly as they looked like two coked out guys who could barely read or talk.
The Road Warriors were not great workers, but they had presence.
Hawk’s demons were not evident in the late 80’s when Sid was around him.
The Steiners are tough guys, but they could be intimidated. Kevin Sullivan ordered them to make Sid look good when they clashed in 89/90.
Sid and the Steiners had a competition to see who could hurt the most jobbers during a TV taping. They were all very stiff workers. (Author’s note – I happened to watch a Sid squash after this shoot and he delivered a sloppy powerbomb, dumping the poor jabroni on his shoulder.)
The first time Sid executed a power bomb a fan screamed “That guy’s dead!” Sid realized right then he’d found his move.
Barry Windham and Ric Flair did not help Sid out when he was a Horsemen with them. Arn Anderson would help Sid with promos and give him spots to shine with.
Sid suffered a collapsed lung in 1989 and lost a lot of weight. WCW sent him home. Sid trained hard with weights, ran and also played softball on the side. When booker Ole Anderson found out about the softball, he called and chewed Sid out. Sid told him the office sent him home and that he was only playing designated hitter. Ole ordered him back to TV and had him do a 30-second job to Lex Luger as punishment. Sid told Anderson he didn’t care because WCW was paying him tons of money and he’d do what was asked.
Luger wasn’t friendly at all backstage. He was aloof.
Sting and Sid had good matches and got along well. The Steiners tried to get in Sting’s head and told him Sid was burying him during their matches. Sid told Sting he shouldn’t listen to rabble rousers in the locker room.
Sid claims he did not know what the finish was at Halloween Havoc 1990 when Barry Windham ran into the ring dressed as Sting and had Sid pin “Sting” for the World title. The ref then told Sid to get ready to be “Stinger” splashed and rolled up once the real Sting ran back in the ring.
Ric Flair told Sid he was too big to do much with in the ring, and he really wasn’t a fan of working with him. Sid used Flair’s words against him and dominated Flair during their match since he was “so big”. Flair tried to talk Sid out of eating him up, but Sid kept at him.
Dusty Rhodes came in to book WCW in 1991. Rhodes wanted Sid to sign a big contract for WCW. The WWF offered him a potential major push. WCW offered huge money gaurenteed. Sid was going to sign for the big money but Vince McMahon told him a WWF offer may not be there next time. Sid took the chance and ended up regretting it.
The infamous squeegee incident with Brian Pillman came about while Sid had recovering from a torn bicep. Pillman was talking smack, so Sid grabbed the squeegee and threatened him to fight him with it since his arm was injured.
Sid tore his bicep another time during a match with Jake Roberts in the WWF. When he came back from recovering, Vince tried to take away Sid’s first class airline ticket perks. Sid refused to lose any benefits or he’d quit. McMahon doesn’t like hard headed talent.
The intitail plan for Sid in the WWF was for him only to work TVs and PPVs. After the Ultimate Warrior was fired after Summerslam ’91 Sid was ordered to take his place on house shows, so Vince’s promises failed to come through very early on.
The Warrior “squashed” Sid during some matches after Mania 8. Sid didn’t like the match layout. He told the agents to have it changed or he was quitting. They didn’t, so Sid left.
At Royal Rumble ’92, the fans cheered Sid over Hulk Hogan after Sid dumped the Hulkster from behind. Hogan went in the back and whined to Vince that McMahon had set him up to be booed. Sid couldn’t believe a “man” would act like such a pansyass and Sid didn’t want to deal with the drama. He tried to quit that night, but Vince convinced him to stay on through Wrestlemania.
The Wrestlemania match is largely a blur, so Sid doesn’t have much to say about it.
Hogan was nice to Sid, but he figures Hogan politicked him behind his back.
Harvey Wippleman was Sid’s manager in the territories, and Sid promised to get him a gig with the big leagues if and when Sid got his break. Vicious ultimately told Vince to hire Wippleman to be his WWF manager.
Sid didn’t want to do a heel run, but the WWF gave him a bigger percentage of the gate to try and make up for the merchandise money that a heel turn would cost Sid. It failed to prove to be fruitful.
Bill Watts tried to sign Sid back to WCW in 1993, but Watts ended up fired before Vicious could return. Ole Anderson took over as a backstage power, which made Sid happy.
The Shockmaster debut is discussed. Sid noticed a 2×4 was poorly placed on the “Flair for the Gold” set earlier in the day and suggested the carpenter cut it down to prevent the Shockmaster from tripping on it. And the rest is history.
Sid and Arn Anderson got into a verbal altercation at a bar over pushes and paydays, leading to Anderson smashing Sid’s head with a beer bottle. The fight restarted in their hotel rooms and a scissors got involved. Both men ended up stabbed and seriously bleeding. Anderson eventually tried to sue Sid, but Sid never had to pay him a dime.
WCW renegotiated with Sid before they put the World title on him in late 1993. This gave Sid a nice raise. However, Arn was hot about the contract and it lead to the stabbing incident. WCW tried to make Sid return to his old contract but he refused, so they fired him.
Vicious returned to Memphis and worked for the USWA off and on until the WWF came calling in 1995.
The Kliq never bothered Sid. Kevin Nash was a crappy worker and had no psychology.
Shawn Michaels, Sid and Bret Hart had a series of 3-way matches. Hart tried to lay out the matches and both Shawn and Sid didn’t like his ideas and went and did there own thing. Sid points out that Hart was an egomaniac who couldn’t draw.
In early 1996 Sid suffered a neck injury and sat out for several months. He convinced the WWF to pay him $1,000 a week even when he was out of action. Sid found a job and was fine with not wrestling. The WWF came calling in July to replace the Ultimate Warrior who had once again been fired. Sid didn’t want to be on the road making peanuts, so he was able to make the WWF sign him to a guaranteed money deal.
Sid was given the World title after Michaels decided he didn’t want to work with Vader due to his stiff style. Sid drew very well as champ, which lead to him pitching to Vince to keep the title on him since HBK wasn’t drawing. It was decided Shawn would win the title back at Rumble ’97, then lose the title back to Sid at Raw a few weeks later. Shawn ended up “losing his smile” and Sid had to beat Bret Hart for the title instead.
That WWF run ended when Sid was involved in a car wreck which re-injured his neck.
ECW came calling and Sid worked some shows there. Eric Bischoff eventually brought Sid in to WCW.
Randy Savage and Sid were taping a late night vignette that dragged on and on. Sid just wanted to leave and go home, but Savage was causing issues with his valet, Gorgeous George, accusing her of having the hots for Kevin Nash.
Goldberg was great to work with since the fans were so behind him it was easy to get heat.
Nakamura, Kevin Owens and other current talent don’t impress Sid. He suspects business is down because the current crop of talent lack money drawing ability due to their stature and looks.
Chris Benoit is discussed. Sid thinks since Benoit was moved to the ECW brand that the WWE was preparing to fire him. The pressure of losing the big money gig, along with having marital issues at home, may have driven Benoit over the edge.
Jeff Jarrett is “horrible”. He lacked psychology and he and Sid did not have good matches together.
Scott Steiner wasn’t very good in the ring. Steiner lacked the psychology necessary to put together matches.
Sid’s contract paid him out for a while after WCW went out of business. He never sued WCW over the injury he suffered when leaping off the turnbuckles shattered his leg on live PPV.
The WWE tried to get Sid to come in after the WCW days were done. Sid had his lawyer contact them and they told the lawyer they only wanted to talk to Sid. Sid told them he was only going to argue with them if he did the talking and then they’d have heat. This went back and forth and a solution was never formulated.
Sid owns and operates his own business now, but would do some WWE appearances for the fan’s sake. He has a big money angle idea but wants a contract before he’ll share it with the WWE.
Final thoughts: It’s SID, he has amazing big dumb jock charisma that is fun to listen to! A lot of good tidbits from the big man are provided.
