Andrew Lutzke
Presented by RF Video
Filmed in late 2004.
Powers of Pain Shoot Interview
The Barbarian was a sumo wrestler before Red Bastien trained him for the pro wrestling game. Sumo matches ended in 10 seconds, so transitioning to pro wrestling was a bit difficult.
Jim Hellwig, the Ultimate Warrior, trained with Barbarian.
Barbarian was roughed up in his first match and he almost quit right there.
Memphis came calling and they gave Barbarian his first semblance of a push.
Next he went to Georgia where he faced off with the Road Warriors and Ron Garvin in stiff, rough matches.
Warlord was a gym rat in Minnesota, where the Road Warriors discovered him.
He was brought into the NWA but he was super green with only two months of training under Eddie Sharkey and he sucked big time.
The training wasn’t even done in a ring, but instead on gym mats. Brady Boone and Teijo Khan were in his class as well.
Warlord had hopes of playing in the NFL. Wrestling was never really in the plans.
Psychology had to be learned in the ring, and was the hardest thing to pick up.
Baby Doll was put with Warlord as a baby face combo. She was able to tell him to “calm down” when he was green and nervous before matches.
The NWA ended up shipping Warlord to Kansas City for nearly a year in order to train and get better before he would return with a push.
Working with Dusty Rhodes was nerve wracking since he was the booker and you didn’t want to hurt him or screw up. Rhodes was good at leading him along though.
Barbarian puts over Rhodes being a great businessman.
Warlord found the food to be the hardest thing about working in Japan. He lost a lot of weight during his first tour of the Orient.
New Japan used the Barbarian on top and he liked the stiff style.
Inoki paid well and they had no problems with him.
Rhodes paired them as the Powers of Pain. Road Warrior Animal came up with the name. The Road Warriors had no issues with their gimmick being so similar to the P.O.P.
The Road Warriors lost to the Powers of Pain at the Crockett Cup. The LOD was willing to lose if it was good for business.
The two teams had a famous weight lifting contest on TV that ended with Animal being injured. The fans were shocked to see the Warriors laid out.
The guys learned to respect barbed wire after facing the Warriors in some matches surrounded by it.
Dusty booked them to lose a series of scaffold matches to the Warriors. Not wanting to take that bump every night, they jumped to the WWF.
Warlord liked Lex Luger, but understood why a lot of people found him smug. Once Luger jumped to the WWF Davey Boy Smith ribbed him hard and that helped Lex change his attitude.
Ivan Koloff was a great mentor. He helped teach Warlord how to work better and lay out matches.
Paul Jones, the Powers of Pain and Koloff all traveled together.
They ask Barbarian about his rep for toughness and bar fights. He admits drinking lead to stupidity and he passes it off as youthful indiscretions.
The NWA had no contracts for them, so the Powers of Pain visited Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan on the set of “No Holds Barred” and worked out a deal.
Seeing Hogan, Andre and other stars sharing the locker room with the Powers of Pain made them realize they really had made it.
Mr. Fuji was very professional and had great ideas for match finishes. He was a vicious ribber though.
The WWF travel was brutal. Four shows in two days wasn’t uncommon. They flew around the country, tried to heal injuries, work out and keep sane while being on the road 270 days a year.
Drugs have killed their friends and co-workers. Warlord wasn’t a user.
Warlord freely admits to abusing steroids.
Working out was hard sometimes with the hectic travel. You had to keep your body up to standards though.
Bret Hart was among the five best workers they’ve seen. Jim Neidhart was stiff but fun to work with.
Hogan was great with the fans and pushed the WWF to the big money peaks in business.
The British Bulldogs put themselves in the role of locker room enforcers. If you messed up, they’d rib you.
The Rockers could bump and make you look fantastic while still getting themselves over. Behind the scenes the Rockers were hostile to each other at times and had several fist fights.
The Bushwackers’ gimmick made Warlord laugh.
Vince McMahon split the team in 1990 in hopes of building them as singles to face Hogan and the Warrior.
Warlord and Warrior were good friends.
Jake the Snake was great in the ring and coming up with angles. He just liked his drugs too much. Barbarian loved his promos.
Randy Savage being over protective of Elizabeth stories are gone over.
Savage went nuts at Jerry Saggs for farting when Liz was in the area. Macho Man bought a plane ticket and sent her home after that.
The Warrior wanted to get on Andre the Giant’s good side and made it a point to show up early, buy Andre a box full of wine bottles and play cards with him.
Rhodes came in and acted just like another one of the boys.
The Barbarian was fired up at one point at Rhodes but Dusty charmed his way out of the situation. Barbarian blames it on drinking.
Warlord talks about how much he enjoyed working with Davey Boy Smith. Smith was a great guy, but had a serious drug addiction.
Kerry Von Erich was another great guy who just took too many drugs. He tried to give Warlord a discus punch once, missed and stumbled to the cement floor.
They tell an odd little side tale about Barbarian having the habit of sitting alone in his hotel in his underwear staring and spitting into a cup. This made the other guys nervous for whatever reason.
Ricky Steamboat looked like a million dollars and had fabulous babyface fire.
Fatu worked a different style than Warlord, so Barbarian had to adjust a bit when they formed a team in 1994.
Top guys only worked with one another for so long in the WWF, so you had to leave or face being stuck in midcard purgatory.
Barbarian didn’t mind Bill Watts being in charge of WCW. The paycheck came and he got a push.
A guy looked at Haku the wrong way in a bar and so Haku walked over to him, grabbed his face and bit off his nose. The Warlord and others got him back to their hotel and a plethora of cops showed up. Warlord was able to convince them to wait 15 minutes and let Haku cool down, otherwise he’d fight every one of them and end up being shot.
Another time in St. Louis, a group of four men kept messing with Haku, calling him a “nigger” and such. Haku calmly explained that he was an islander and was just out having a good time. They pushed the issue and he laid all four out. A cop showed up who used to play in the NFL and Haku chucked him across the bar.
Tenryu was a good man and an easy to work with boss when the Powers of Pain worked for his SWS promotion.
Warlord also worked for John Adams’ UWF. That led to him wrestling in front of 100 fans in a 15,000 seat arena.
Both men preferred to play heel in the ring.
Warlord was hit by a car in 1996 and suffered four herniated disks. He never had surgery as he didn’t trust the medical science to be up to par.
After retiring, Warlord became a bouncer and even body guarded for 50 Cent.
As far as regrets go, Warlord wishes he had been more politically active in the WWF in order to get himself in feuds with the top guys.
Black Bart thought Barbarian had messed with his cowboy hat and he chased Barbarian across the locker room with a knife.
Mr. Fuji was once checking into a hotel when he wiped out his dick and pissed in a plant while talking to the front desk.
Fuji would also dig turds out of the toilet and shove them under guys’ noses.
Luger had a bad attitude in the WWF at first (as mentioned earlier). Fuji walked up to the Total Package and pissed on his boots right in front of him. Luger let him because he knew the next rib would only be worse if he fought back.
Arn Anderson is afraid of snakes, so the guys took Damien out of Jake’s bag and tossed him by The Enforcer’s feet while he was taking a shit. He freaked out and bailed.
A giant snake was brought in for Survivor Series 1989. Zeus found out he was going to be possibly chased with it and wondered aloud if he was being paid enough for this kind of thing. Then the giant snake got free and it was pissed off. His handler couldn’t contain it at first and the cops at the scene nearly shot it. They ended up finding a new snake to use.
The second snake was taken into the shower where the handler messed with it for like two hours, being bitten a few times even. Finally the snake was tired out and the guys could trust it to not attack them when they brought it out on the PPV.
Final thoughts: This clocked in at a brisk 80 minutes. The Warlord dominated the talking as Barbarian speaks less than perfect english. The Warlord spoke much better than I expected for a guy who barely cut a promo in his prime. If your a fan of the era, you might enjoy hearing from some different faces, but overall this was an average shoot offering.
Next time I plan on hearing from wrestling royalty….
