Diamond Dallas Page
By: Liz Sanders on 01/05/04
The Voice of Wrestling radio show ended the year of 2003 with a bang as Diamond Dallas Page and Bill Apter, Senior Editor of Total Wrestling magazine, joined the program. Also, a tribute package for all of wrestling’s greats who have died over the past year was aired before they went live! The Voice of Wrestling is a wrestling radio broadcast that streams live via internet every Sunday night from 8-10 Eastern Time. A pre-recorded hour-version of the show also airs in the Conway/Little Rock, Arkansas area every Sunday night on 92.7 KASR. Interviews with many wrestling stars including Stone Cold Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, Ric Flair, RVD, Chris Jericho, Sable, Sid Vicious, Joanie Laurer, Rick Steiner, and many more can be heard in their entirety at www.voiceofwrestling.com.
After the tribute portion of the show, Diamond Dallas Page joined hosts Chris Chisum, Tim Stein, and Jeff Jackson to discuss all his latest happenings. Dallas claims first and foremost that he’s never had a bad day in his life, although he’s had a few sore ones. Things are good now that he’s out of the ring, his body his healed up, but his neck is still not where he would like it to be. “At least I’m not getting dropped on my head right now,” he states.
The hosts bring up the deaths over the past year and Dallas had to ask how many had passed away because at one point, it got so overwhelming, he just didn’t think about it. “What people don’t realize is the wear and tear that our bodies do go through,” he explains, “and add that to life style, the road, entertainment, and then factor in the fact that we are really no different than comedians who hit the road that live that life. That’s apart of it.” As DDP puts it, when wrestlers came to town, and like the guys still come to town, people expect the party to come with them. “Some guys live that life and other guys don’t,” he continued, “and some guys lose focus of living in an ‘attitude of gratitude’. These are some things Dallas talks about in his inspirational speeches.
Chris promotes the fact that Bill Apter, Wonderful Willie as DDP knows him, will be joining the show later on during the program and notes that while Bill was writing for the now-defunct WOW magazine, they held an annual award for “World’s Outstanding Wrestler”. In 1999, Bill wanted The Rock to get the award and at the last minute before that issue was to be published, the other magazine staff chose DDP for the award behind Bill’s back! DDP and Bill have talked about this incident in the past and doesn’t seem to be any hard feelings. “We’re both big fans of The Rock”. He then tells the hosts a fairly lengthy, yet funny, story about the first time he met The Rock.
Dallas is currently speaking publicly in various places in the L.A. area while his wife, Kimberly, is pursuing an acting career. He’s always been great in the ring while cutting his promos, as Chris mentioned, but it seems as if he is more fluent in speaking now after leaving the ring. “I’ll tell ya, coming out here, I wish I had the training of the Howard Fine Acting Studio before I even got into wrestling,” he says, “you see, a lot of the guys are expected to go out there, learn to act, and be believable. Well, I was fortunate; I applied a lot of views of living in the reality world, like especially in my feud with Savage, that was me. There was no acting. It was taking a reality and blurring the lines; what’s real here and what’s not?” This is the reason why people got behind DDP.
Because of the fact that he came into wrestling so late in his life, there were always critics and skeptics who told Dallas he couldn’t get it done. A few believers, however, that said he could and would make it were Dusty Rhodes as Dallas gives his best impression of “The American Dream”, Jake “The Snake” Roberts, and Hulk Hogan himself. “I figured if Dusty said it, if Jake said it, and if Hulk said it, it’s got to mean something. There’s three of the hugest names ever!” (And yes…he did say hugest).
Dallas stayed with the hosts through a commercial break and when they returned, Tim Stein brought up one time when WCW held a show at the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto - the fact that all the fans were going nuts and popping for all the heels (which on a side note, isn’t really all that out of the ordinary for Canadian fans, no offense). Dallas said that he was on the booking committee at that time, which after three weeks, the pressure was too much so he got out of that. At this time, he was feuding with Scott Steiner. “I wanted to get Scottie Steiner over. To me, I thought he was the next break-out star”. Dallas said he will never forget it because he was in a meeting with Hulk, Kevin Nash, about ten of them and they wanted to get Scott over. Dallas already had to do a movie and needed time off, so Hulk said to really put him over, he should let Scott break his back. “The big payoff when he broke my back,” he says, “that wasn’t the right time to do that. That was the big payoff the people were waiting to get and I had him break my back instead so I could go away. I’ll never forget that boy; the people were pissed!” Then, when they came to Toronto, DDP was wrestling Hogan. The fans didn’t forget, so just like Rock/Hogan at WM XIII, they booed Page out of the building. He feels that The Rock did better under the pressure.
They then take some questions from the live chat room and Dallas talks about the Undertaker and the Sara/stalking angle, his thoughts on the young, upcoming stars, Randy Orton using the Diamond Cutter, and a lot more! Bill Apter joined the program after Dallas and had a good time with the hosts as he gave his response to the 1999 WOW incident. Plus, listen to Bill challenge DDP to a “Voice Off”! What the hell is a Voice Off? A competition between two people where they do the most and best impersonations of various wrestlers. For example, Dusty Rhodes! Bill Apter definitely did a number of impressions during his time on the show and you can hear all of them plus more details on the “Voice Off” on the Voice of Wrestling!
To Listen to the Show visit voiceofwrestling.com
RingInsider Home
|
