Andrew Lutzke
Presented by Kayfabe Commentaries
‘Kish says Too Cool and himself weren’t a planned pairing and sort of came together since Rikishi had a history of dancing in his youth.
The Big Bossman spontaneously came up with the “Stink Face” by calling the spot out of nowhere during a match at a house show.
The locker room became really nice to Phatu once the move became a regular part of his matches. He did have a stinky pair of shorts ready for people he didn’t like.
Rikishi got a test run on the upper card in early 2000 and earned a spot in the main event rotation.
The locker room didn’t know HHH and Stephanie were dating for real till Chyna freaked out backstage one night.
Smackdown was beating whatever FOX was airing in the ratings at the beginning of the year 2000.
WCW being bought was a surprise to most of the locker room – the guys were a little worried that they had lost a place to go earn a living.
Rikishi, JBL, Faarooq, Billy Gunn and others were miffed that they had stuck it out with the WWF during the lean years when WCW was winning the wrestling wars and then suddenly all the guys who had jumped to WCW were welcomed back by Vince and transplanted the push of many of the guys who had been loyal.
Vince McMahon could be laid back when functions like the opening of WWF NY was occurring – don’t mess around during RAW though.
Tazz’s aborted push is discussed – Rikishi couldn’t offer a reason why.
A writer came up and told Rikishi he was working on his angle – the guy had watched wrestling for 2 weeks.
Tony Garea’s continued employment baffles ‘Kish.
Benoit, Malenko, Saturn and Eddy were scared of how the locker room would accept them and stayed to themselves early on.
Harvey Whippleman’s employment also confuses Fatu.
The XFL led to the guys working more dates to bring in more cash flow to the company.
Rikishi, 2 Cool, Mick Foley and Kane vs. DX and the Radicals pop a huge rating and features one of the hottest crowds ever.
Dwayne Gill as “Gillberg” made Fatu happy since Gill was a nice guy and it was good to see him make some coin.
HHH buried Goldberg on a nationally syndicated radio show and the heat stayed until Bill came to WWE and made for an awkward locker room experience.
Fatu hated the 24/7 Hardcore Title rule.
Big Show says he spends 30 dollars on himself per trip to McDonald’s. He and Rikishi could eat about 5 Big Macs and a few shakes each.
WWE pays for a fancy hotel and food from Wednesday till Wrestlemania Sunday for their roster and their families.
Rikishi didn’t know he was going to stink face Pete Rose until he arrived that day.
Tazz went back to ECW to beat WCW newcomer Mike Awesome for the ECW title. A WWF vs WCW match in ECW was made possible thanks to Vince and Paul’s working agreement. WWE Champ HHH pinned ECW champ Tazz on the next TV taping.
HHH was over pushed and Rikishi thinks the fans grew tired of seeing HHH constantly winning in main events.
HHH and Stephanie appeared in a rap video for the 2000 WWF music CD – ‘Kish rips on their “street cred”.
Steve Regal was HHH’s buddy and Rikishi seems a bit annoyed that Regal benefited from the friendship.
Rikishi thought having himself win the IC title was a foolish move – he seems to think he was too heavy and should have been working higher up on the card.
Johnny Ace is a scumbag. Rikishi was injured and Ace called him and “fired” him – Rikishi wanted Vince to fire him himself. He threatens Ace with a beating someday.
“If the writers don’t have any stories for you – fire the writers, not the talent.”
Rikishi got over thanks to the fans and he believes he wasn’t meant to get over and thus the office didn’t have loyalty to him.
Kurt Angle beat Rikishi for the King of the Ring – Fatu worked 3 matches and was pissed he didn’t go over at the end. He feels that he shouldn’t have had to work all those matches at his size if he wasn’t going to win.
Pat Patterson faced Jerry Brisco in an “evening gown” match on that same PPV – Rikishi thought it was lame and suspects that since they were agents that it saved Vince from giving others a bigger payoff.
Fatu didn’t want to give Pat Patterson a stinkface since Pat was a homosexual.
The Godfather was every bit like his gimmick in real life and even owns a strip club in Las Vegas now.
Stevie Richards was a “yes man”. Ivory was a tough girl who spoke her mind.
A bunch of strippers would be brought into the arena and Godfather would pick the best of the best to be used on TV.
Victoria debuted as a “Ho” and Fatu led her to meet JR after she told him that she wanted to be a worker and not just a slut.
Rikishi wasn’t happy with losing the IC title so soon but he decided that he wanted to do a big splash from the top of the cage so that his big spot would be remembered and not the loss. Both guys survived the move injury free. (just over 15 minutes in:)
Fatu thinks Val Venis was way underutilized – he had all the tools and just never broke through.
Gordon Solie was nervous around the Samoan SWAT team in the NWA since they were a little wild.
The Rock spoke at the Republican National Convention. The WWE tried to take credit in part for Bush being elected due to their “Smackdown Your Vote” campaign.
Adrenaline covers up a lot of injuries. The locker room always gets nervous when they see one of the boys hurt legit.
Rikishi disagrees with the idea of Chyna being made IC champ – a woman shouldn’t be put in that role. Fatu is a fan and a friend of Chyna though.
Debra was a bit snobbish and the locker room thought Austin was making a big mistake by dating and eventually marrying her. Steve McMicheal warned everyone that she was a gold digger.
The locker room accepted the women doing Playboy and it didn’t cause any issues with the boys and the divas.
Rikishi didn’t want to turn heel and he was against the racist overtones that his heel turn involved. He had a script he had to memorize and he knew a heel turn would hurt his overness and thus his cash flow.
The fact that the heel turn would lead to matches with Austin and the Rock was the only reason Fatu was remotely okay with it. HHH of course took the “heat” off Rikishi and took credit for setting up Austin’s injury via Rikishi hitting him with a car.
They try and make sense of the Samoan family tree but even Rikishi is confused by how everybody is connected.
Yokozuna died at age 34 in late 2000 – Yoko made a lot of money in the business and he shared his wealth abundantly. Yoko loved to party and would eat at the nicest restaurants.
The Samoans would try and rib others by feeding them turkey ass – but it was so fat and juicy the guys never cared that it was “gross”.
Yoko would rap about his weight as a way to make fun of himself.
Yoko would take up four airlines seats.
The fans in the United Kingdom treated the WWE guys like rock stars and would be at the hotels by the thousands.
Brian “Grandmaster Sexay” Christopher was the funniest guy to travel with – boundless energy.
Rikishi is tossed off the “Hell in a Cell” cage onto a pile of saw dust on a truck. Rikishi was nervous that they wanted him to take the bump backwards. Shane McMahon ultimately climbed to the top of the cage and took the bump himself TWICE! When the live PPV came on, the WWE switched the truck they used and brought out a truck with rails. Once he took the bump, he was frozen in a pit of nerves. Fatu’s hip is still bugging him from the bump. (about 37 minutes in:)
Linda is very polite to the locker room during her rare appearances, but she always seemed very busy and on the go.
The WWE bought a Las Vegas Hotel and Casino with the plan to renovate it and open a WWE themed Casino – ultimately the WWE just re-sold the property. (According to the dirt sheets at the time, the original speculation was that the building would be mock decorated and Vince would hold a grand opening for the casino on a live RAW – only for Austin to appear and reveal he set dynamite up and we’d see the building imploded to Vince’s horror.)
Final Thoughts: Rikishi’s ego was a bit larger than I would have expected, but he was a pushed entity for the most part from 1987 till 2002-ish so I guess his feelings of self-worth are probably warranted. Fatu seems to not have the best of memory and/or he was just focused on his own business at this point and so he can’t go in depth on some of the questions offered up to him here. He seems like a genuinely nice guy and this was entertaining enough to watch, although it clocked in at only 90 minutes – which is a bit short compared to other Timeline releases.
