Wrestling >> Interviews >>
Diamond Dallas Page
DDP discusses Steve Austin, his relationship with Eric Bischoff, Hall & Nash, WCW's sale and more!
2001-01-26
Norton: What are your feelings on WCW being sold?
Norton: How's Kimberly doing since leaving WCW?
By Blake Norton
Editor-In-Chief, IGN Wrestling
Diamond Dallas Page is one of the most unlikely success stories in the wrestling business; a longtime fan, he fought his way through the ranks of the business from a bar bouncer to the level of main event superstar. He's one of the most respected men in the business, for his attitude, his work ethic and his skill in the ring - and has indeed been rewarded for his efforts. He now stands a three-time former world champion. Page returned to the ring last fall amid a cloud of controversy. Most of it stems from the political unrest atop the company, which has recently been sold and underwent just the latest in a series of major management changes. Since his return, Page has already had his name in the headlines on account of a personal confrontation with Scott Steiner backstage, the firing of his noted enemy Mark Madden and, most of all, his controversial tag team with Kevin Nash. IGN Wrestling Editor-In-Chief sat down with Page for a 90-minute interview from his home on Friday night to cut through the rumors, get the bottom line and talk about all things wrestling.
Norton: Your book Positively Page has been out for a while now. Thanks for sending an autographed copy into the office (Page laughs). How did it work out for you, and in retrospect, would you have changed anything about how it happened?
Page: The feedback was phenomenal. Sales have been constant. It's never been a big boom like Mick's book, we didn't have a real publisher. That's where we screwed up. I should have went for a publisher after Mick did so well, but like most things in my life I decided to do it myself. There were so many buffers that came along, when I was in my highest point of promoting the book, it wasn't really out there in the stores. The main place to get it is DDPBang.com. The positive side is that the book is timeless. I believe I'll be selling it forever. My next step is motivational speaking after I'm done with this (wrestling). The sales are still steady. We're down to about 7,000 of the original copy sold per month now from 12,000 or 15,000. The one out there right now is leather bound, full color, it's a high-end book. It costs me like $7.50 a book. Jack's book, which is mass-produced, is probably about three bucks a book. It comes down to mass producing, who you know, knowing what you're doing (laughs)... the next one we're working on now is "Positive Affirmations for Kids: A to Z from DDP." My partner Diane Backler and I are doing that. But the next time, we're going to use a REAL publisher, to get it into syndication. That's what it comes down to. Maybe even Scholastic, who are the biggest seller of children's books. I've done a lot of work with them, like "Bang It Out For Books" (charity work) where if I pitched in a thousand, they pitched in a thousand books.
Norton: How did your tag team with Kevin Nash come about?
Page: Basically, me and Kev were both very disenchanted (laughs)... as far as our position and this point in our careers. I knew they wanted me to come back (to WCW), this was before the company was bought. I wanted to come back to work. I ran a show down in Birmingham Alabama.... I'm not sure, it was down South. I walked out and the arena popped so big it was crazy. I said to myself "Wow, how much longer can I do this?" Right now I'm in the best shape of my life, but I'm no kid, and there's only so many times I'm going to want to go out and bump around on that mat, the shape I'm in, the age I'm at. Nash called me just after that and said "listen, let's just tag together, let's have fun together." That was the whole mission. If I'm not having fun, I'm not doing it, no matter how much money is involved. Kevin is the same way. Yeah, we did have fun together, but they're splitting us up because they feel that two top guys together in a tag team is a match in itself. Now you have two if you split them up.
Norton: It's also the case with makeshift superstar tag teams that if you win a match, it was obvious all along, where if you lose it, nobody really believes it.
Page: (Laughs) And really, that's what wrestling comes down to. Believability. The element of doubt. That's what makes wrestling so neat.
Norton: On that topic, you've been working a lot with Jindrak, O'Haire, the Natural Born Thrillers. What is your take on these new guys out of the Power Plant?
Page: Those kids are really talented. They have a lot going on. It's going to take time for them to totally "get it," but the best thing to happen to them is have Nash and I work with them. Palumbo is going to be a huge star in this business. He's got it all. Next time you get the chance to talk to him, ask him the story about how he ended up in the Power Plant. O'Haire is an incredible specimen. I call him "Doc," because he goes from Dr. Jekyl to Mr. Hyde in a split second, probably more so out of the ring than in it (laughs). Jindrak is a kid, he's just twenty-three, and he's just having the time of his life. Stasiak is a little spacey at times, but a good character and.... he's a shoot wrestler. He was a heavyweight, won awards in college. He was much bigger at the time. Probably the best, but not the biggest, is Sanders. He has tremendous character. You can tell he grew up watching this stuff. If you look at the young guys in the WWF, and they have some phenomenal talent, these guys are all 6'5, 270 lbs. They'll never be the Hardy Boyz. Those guys are incredibly talented cats. They have so much young talent in the WWF. But the high flyers have to bounce around, and there's only so much time... it's yet to be seen if they'll be around in five years. There are only so many bumps you can take, this stuff is real! IT may be fixed, outlined, at times choreographed, but you can't fake the gravity. Some of the bumps these guys take I just... I've taken some serious bumps, but nothing like these guys do. You know from experience when you see these bumps what they would feel like... "Oh My God!" (laughs).It's the adrenaline, the age, the hype, from the people. There were times in my program with Savage that I was so beat up and run down that... TV shows, radio shows, charity, wrestling, by the time I got to the arena, after cutting a promo, I was dead. But the adrenaline from the people, back when we were doing 20, 30, 40,000 people, that's what keeps you going.
Norton: I remember the late great Kerry Von Erich saying that no matter how badly he got hurt, no matter how tired he was, when the spotlight hit him he'd always come alive.
Page: It's incredible, man. That's what I felt when I walked out there... it was in Amarillo Texas, in his hometown.
Norton: That house show before you came back?
Page: Yeah, you got it. It was a huge pop. It was like "oh my God, he's back!" Hey hadn't seen me in three months. It made me feel so good! I was already going to rock it with Booker, because Booker can really throw it down, but you don't feel the bumps as much... until after the match (laughs). That's when the ice packs come out. A friend of mine who writes in the Miami Herald, I'm sure you know, Alex Marvez?
Norton: Yeah, he also does work with the Wrestling Observer.
Page: Yeah, he said "Diamond, you are truly holding back the hands of time." People have no idea unless they read Positively Page, people rag on me for the ice bags, something else that would help me last a little longer. The key is looking as good while you last as long. I don't think anybody lasted as long as the Nature Boy. Natche really redefined our work rate in the ring. If you go back and watch tapes through the 90's, 80's and 70's, it was him doing the highspots, all the stuff. Think about his body. As time goes on, you have to constantly maintenance yourself. What I learned, I started icing myself all over. I still do. You'll see me walking around with one to three ice bags, my shoulder, my knee, my back, my hip, whatever... now I just trade them to Nash (laughs). I used to tape my matches all the time, now I just tape the TV stuff. Now I'm really into Yoga. My back is stronger than I've ever been. It's all about your center of strength. We never train our core, our center of strength. Since getting into this, it's helped my legs, my abs, through Yoga. My body is feeling better, I'm in the best shape I've ever felt. I'm also juicing too. I had a Yoga mat with me backstage one time and Lex walks in. He looks at Kev, he looks at me... it was one of those places with the tile floors. I was stretching. I'm bringing a mat, man! Lex looks at me and says "He's got a mat, my God!" that became the big rib. I'll bring it. I don't care. Then they see me bringing juices and stuff. Nash looks over and says "Hey, Dalli's always been a little... different." But Dalli is going to be 45 on April 5th, and I'm in the best shape of my life. A great man once said, if you want to be successful, don't follow the masses. If they go one way, run the other!
Norton: As a tag team, the perception is that you're the young and vital guy who runs most of the match, he's the old, beat up guy, even though you're the one three years older.
Page: (Laughs)... he has a real tough time with his knees, man. Guys who don't know him bust his balls, but out of all the big men, he's probably the best. I don't know if you saw some old matches with Andre The Giant back in his day. He was probably the best in his prime. He was unbelievable.
Norton: He could take several guys together and put them over his head...
Page: He'd do arm drags and s***!
Norton: Yeah, before his arms died down, his legs got chunky...
Page: Right, right. <
B>Norton: Back when he was in his 20s and 30s.
Page: Yeah, the first time I saw that stuff, I was like "Oh My God!"
Norton: If you watched WWF TV ten years ago you wouldn’t know it.
Page: Right. Nash is one of the best big men ever. He's almost seven feet. He's 320 pounds. It's not easy moving around like that, particularly with seventeen knee surgeries.
Norton: How would you contrast working tag team against singles, which is how you've worked the majority of your career?
Page: Physically, tag teaming is a lot easier. But mentally it's not. It's not just me and another guy. I could work with a broom. It might not be the best match, but it'll be semi-watchable. But when you have four guys, you're responsible for three other guys.
Norton: There's a lot more variables there.
Page: Oh God! If you've worked together a lot, it can be fun. But in singles I can tell more of a story. When it's you against someone else, it's easier. All you have to do is convince the other guy. Like I'll talk to Jeff Jarrett, lay out something, and he'll say "that's great, how about adding this..." and I'll say "That's great..." and we'll move on, and when we have a good idea of what we want to accomplish, we'll listen to the people for the rest. When you're working with someone who can listen to the people, it changes everything. I don't like having an A B C D E F G layout for the match. I like having a few ideas, and improv the rest, go with what the people are getting with. A lot of young guys have no idea how to do that.
Norton: Critics have said you plan your matches out more than anyone else.
Page: What's funny is that critics said that when I started out. I was working with guys who knew even less than I did! (laughs) When you don't know, neither one of you know what to do, you have to come up with a story, write it, and improv a little bit here and there. I didn't have Jake The Snake teaching me as we went along. That would have been a whole different world. There's some stuff written sometimes, "Diamond Dallas Page and Johnny B. Badd have been working together at the Power Plant, so their matches might not be as bad as you'd think." You know what? Those matches were pretty damn good! (laughs).
Norton: Back in '94? You guys had some of the best matches on the card.
Page: There you go. Today, the WWF will put two guys together and you work on your match. What's the difference working out your match at the Plant and doing it in front of people. You can give and take so much stuff. Have an idea of where you're going, then run improv. When I was doing Ready To Rumble, which is out on DVD now, man, people still mail me with "I loved that movie" or "That was stupid as hell" (that would probably be Chris Sabga – ed). Anyway, I was doing the press junket, and a reporter who knew nothing about wrestling and obviously didn't understand it asked me about wrestling. First, I said "wrestling is an American art form. We're the best improvisational actors and theatrical athletes." That's a canned quote you can hear from me in other places, but nobody ever really put it like that. There was the one guy, and you'll appreciate this Blake, who hates wrestling. I can tell he hates it, just by his tone, his mannerisms. He wants to know why this is such a biig hoopla, everybody knows it's fake. I said first of all, you can't fake gravity. Can you? Is there a barrier from stopping you hit the mat? Uhhhh.... So I say "do you ever go to any Broadway shows?" We're in New York City. I say "what's your favorite show?" He says "Phantom of the Opera." I loved that. I saw it three times. "You know, the guy never really gets burned with the acid."
Norton: That's fantastic.
Page: He laughed, but like "ooh, you bastard." I asked "you know how the play is going to end?" Of course you do. Does anybody care? Nobody. They're there to be taken on a ride of disbelief, that this might happen. And when I get in the ring, people think they know who's going to win; but nobody does. I've seen people crying, screaming so loud to see me come back, or booing me out of the building. The NBA, the NFL, the major leagues wish they could get their fans to react the way wrestling fans do.
Norton: You know, out of all the guys I've ever interviewed, you rationalize the legitimacy of pro-wrestling the best.
Page: Thanks bro. I'm an intelligent individual (laughs), and I want others to appreciate it too. Mick is working on another book that's really going to take the thing about wrestling being bad for kids... and it's pretty intense. When he gets his mind set on something... he'll ensure that people see the other side.
Norton: Last question on tag teams, Nash has been a booker and an ally of yours for years. When you won the (world) title for the first time a few years ago, Nash had the book, and critics said you only won the belt because Nash is your buddy. Is it difficult for you to team with a guy with the reputation of being a booker, having political clout?
Page: People are wrong! (laughs)
Norton: That's what you told me two years ago (laughs).You went through the story of how you walked into the booking meeting the day of the show. It was you, Hogan, Flair and Sting, with Randy Savage as the guest referee in the main event, and Nash said "we'll put the strap on Page... nobody will ever see it coming."
Page: The only place it got screwed up is that I should have run with it. If they ran me as a monster heel, I could have had a run like Hunter did. That's how it is. Things change. People say things about Nash as a booker, but while he was booking, we were between a 3.6 and a 3.8, and pay per views were a .6 to a .7, and there were a lot of guys hurt at that point. I'm not sticking up for him, just telling you the facts. You get my e-mails, and one of the things I stopped doing is commenting on stuff on the internet, because a lot of it is like writing in the bathroom walls. It's vindictive stuff against guys because people have personal views... I don't care anymore. The people I care about are the ones with character who do the right thing. To continually degrade someone or put them down for their own amusement... I have no time for those people. I have time for guys with a positive message. I don't have time for the other guys.
Page: I don't think you'll see a real difference until the company is actually bought. As of today, they're going through the procedure, but it's like buying a house. They want to make sure it's all intact. Right now it's much more peaceful because there's someone in charge, Eric Bischoff. But he's doing what he's doing right now... he hasn't told me the plan. The only people he's sharing it with are those who are involved in making it come together. I'm interested to see how it happens. The way it was explained to me, it's not the same car, different driver. This will be a whole different vehicle. I'm very positive about it. Nitro is a tremendous name brand. That whole thing we went through in '97 and '98 was incredible, and I think Bischoff is visionary enough to take his thoughts, the thoughts people are involved with and learn from his mistakes. He can take this as a foundation and when it's time to click "on," it could really jack wrestling again, which will make Vince get more jacked, and hopefully it will have the same effect it did in '96.
Norton: Where the whole industry grew.
Page: And who wins? The fans. Everybody wins, but the fans the most. Not stuff thrown together in matches and storylines that don't make sense, you get to see creative stuff. The wrestling fans are passionate, and even when they hate you they love you (laughs)... that's just the way it is. "I'll never watch this again!"... yeah, right! (laughs). It's always amazed me how the WWF always has their set fans and we have our set fans. When the WWF were strongest a few months ago, we were still doing 2.4 and 2.5, it didn't go to like a 1.3. The WCW fan that's out there, they want to believe, they want to care about the characters again. Those people weren't watching WWF. And back when we were kicking the WWF's ass and they were doing 2.0s, they weren't going to leave. They believed. If you're a Cowboys fan, or a Jets fan, that's your team. You stick with them.
Norton: With Bischoff back in the fold, you've been dogged your whole career... (Page laughs knowingly)... with people saying that you've only succeeded with Bischoff's help. No matter how well or how badly you do from now on, every win you get people are again going to say "that's because he's a friend of Bischoff."
Page: For starters, if there were a hundred people in the room, and they were the Q rating for people who had a clue on that, the ratio would be about seven people... that would be the everybody.
Norton: The internet, really.
Page: Yeah (laughs). Not even that much. There's some who say that. There's others who read the book, whatever, read Dusty Rhodes, Steve Austin, Jake Roberts, read what they said... the one time I was really starting to get over they still didn't do anything with me. Scott and Kev were both here. They said to Eric Bischoff, "if it's going to continue to hurt him to be your friend, you need to leave him go to New York (the WWF)." If I was one of those guys who only has a job because they know somebody... I'm not going to name names. But you don't walk out into an arena full of people popping and giving Diamond cutter signs, you can't make people do that because you're Eric Bischoff's friend. They're not liking me because I'm Eric Bischoff's friend – most people think he's a dick anyway! (laughs) They're not liking me because Eric likes me. I was trying to be a heel at that time! I was trying to be the bad guy.
Norton: You had a Steve Austin-like face turn.
Page: It was the same time, it happened at the same time. I can't remember the exact circumstances, but we were both heels, we'd both gotten angles with guys who were really over babyfaces. For me it was Macho, for him, Bret Hart. Who are the two most over working heels? Macho and Hart had to be two of the top babyfaces at the time, Macho just ran a heel turn, Austin was trying to be a heel. People got behind Steve because of his work ethic, it's the same with me. He does the Stunner; I do the Diamond Cutter. They're both almost the same move. They actually wanted Steve to do the Diamond Cutter, but Steve didn't want to because it was too like what I do, so Michael P.S. Hayes (a.k.a. Dok Hendrix) came up with the Stunner. So we both have a similar finisher, we're both in angles with top babyface type guys to make us heels, which makes us baby faces and THEM heels. They both hurt their legs! Macho tears his friggin' Achilles, Bret does something to his knee, so they're both on crutches. They beat us up with crutches, we beat them up with crutches, and one week Macho and I are going to do the whole deal with the ambulance, where it comes to the arena and I drive off with him in it, but we push it back a week. That Monday, they do the same spot on Raw! That's where I went "Woha!" We both get pictures on the cover of magazines in the same month. He's on the cover of a mag with Mike Tyson, I'm doing a shot with Muhammed Ali, and I'm told we shouldn't do the shot with Ali because it would be copying the other guys. This ain't about a cover, this is about me posing with a guy I admire more than anyone else in the world, Ali. Go stick the U.S. title in the garbage, putting me on the cover with Ali means more to me than anything! We had so many things going on at the same time, people asked me at autograph signings. That's what bothered me more than anything, not going North and working with Austin. I would have loved to have been a heel for him! (laughs).
Norton: Chris Daniels and Mike Modest...
Page: They did a great job.
Norton: They were signed after their match on Nitro last week. How important is it for WCW to bring in new faces at this point?
Page: More than ever. It is to me. I've always been a major pusher of young talent. I've always supported the cruiserweight division. I was talking about that on my UDC mailing list around Christmas. We've got a whole new system coming out on that right now.
Norton: What's the most important thing WCW needs to do to get back in the driver's seat?
Page: Re-establish the characters. Make people care about them. Re-establish the product and storylines. This all fits into the big picture. I'm looking forward to watching it unfold.
Norton: Hogan and Goldberg have been shooting on the company recently. Goldberg said he has a clause in his contract and wants, basically, to get out, if Hogan isn't in the company.
Page: Goldberg? He actually said that?
Norton: Yup.
Page: When?!? How long ago?
Norton: A few days ago...
Page: A few days ago?!?
Norton: You didn't hear?
Page: No I haven't (laughs). It's news to me.
Norton: Last week on radio, Bubba The Love Sponge. He said that if Hogan isn't given a high up position in the company, he's going to look into ways of getting out of his contract. If Hogan isn't on top of the show, he wants to look into his options.
Page: Oh, okay. If Hogan isn't brought in.
Norton: Yes, if he's not a top star. What's your take on guys doing stuff like this?
Page: I go to my own beat. If I don't have something nice to say about somebody, I don't say it. It's not in my makeup. Anything that comes out of me is positive. I try to turn stuff that doesn't work into something that does. There's no reason to worry about things you can't control.
Norton: Dirt aside, what are the biggest highs and biggest lows of working for WCW?
Page: Biggest low is the food, and I found a way around that. I bring my own food.
Norton: You pack your lunches (laughs)?
Page: I make the BEST free-range chicken, the healthiest chicken you can eat, with all organic vegetables, celery, scallions, grapes...
Norton: Man, you sound like my mother!
Page: Oh bro, this is the best. I bring about five pounds of it on the road with my juices and stuff. So when everybody says "this sucks!" I say "Bro, you have to bring your own food." The highs are when things work well. But this is entertainment. It's part of the business, part of the animal, it's full of highs and lows.
Norton: When WCW fired Scott Hall, you and Nash apparently weren't allowed to say his name. In one particular interview, you both said it several times, and the name was actually muted out.
Page: That's where there was a lot of misconception. They knew we were going to do that. I wouldn't have done that without them knowing. They even put in footage of the three of us together so that it made sense. In the long run, the legal department decided to bleep it. But it wasn't like we weren't supposed to do it, how do you think it got to that point in the first place? That's the ignorance of the internet, "they" take two words that were bleeped out and fill in twelve. The bottom line is that Eddie, the head writer, I say to him "this is what we're going to say." He says "fine, whatever tells the story."
Norton: Why did WCW even use Hall's name since he wasn't, and isn't, with the company?
Page: It made perfect sense for what we were doing.
Norton: To make you and Nash look like bad-asses?
Page: No, the story of me and Kevin. The Outsiders are without question the most over tag team in the last... The Road Warriors were at one time over. The Outsiders are the team of the 90's. If Scott came back with Kevin now, the roof would blow huge, but that ain't happening. The crowd wouldn't accept anybody but Scott as the second man in the Outsiders. When Kevin said on Nitro "I've got someone here to help me," I got a good pop, but nobody else would have. They'd have gotten buried. The main reason I could do it is because of our story. I literally did give Scott (Hall) that (Razor Ramon style) gimmick. It's all in Positively Page. Hall talks about me telling him to dye his hair jet black, take out the walrus mustache and grow the f***in' George Michael stubble.
Norton: And of course, that gimmick became Razor Ramon in WWF, which became Scott Hall back in WCW.
Page: Right. I managed him. My first tag team partner was Scott Hall. Then Kevin Nash, then when they came back, if I was over in 1996, I would have been the third man who started the NWO. But Hulk joining was huge. Nobody ever saw it coming. Then they did try to recruit me, and I didn't go, and we (WCW) own all that footage. The story made sense. I knew we'd get the "We Want Hall" chants. There were chants of "We Want Hall – DDP!" everywhere we've gone the last few months. At house shows, Nash would take his hair and curl it around the front, do the "Hey Yo!" and the survey, the whole deal. We did the whole thing, and we were keeping our buddy alive. Scott Hall is the most over guy not working right now.
Norton: Would you like to see him return?
Page: I'd like to see him do whatever works for him. Atop the WWF, Japan, a smart person will tell you I don't have an opinion about Scott either way.
Page: Great. I bought her a horse for Christmas, she just got back from the stables, you just heard her yell at me for dinner. We're having Salmon. She rides her horse a few times a week. His name's Jerry. You can see him at DDPBang.com!
Norton: I'll be sure to plug it (laughs).
Page: We put antlers on him! (Both laugh). He's a beautiful horse. She loves him. Kim's had a hell of a ride. She was never much of a wrestling fan. She's a masters student from North Western. She's from one of the highest rated schools in the country, so her working with WCW was a total oxymoron. I'm not sure if she'll ever come back, but right now she doesn't have to. We've got a phenomenal marriage, have had for eleven years.
Norton: Mark Madden.
Page: I'll put it like this. I feel bad that he was let go. I didn't have anything to do with him getting kicked off TV. I didn't say anything. I said something to Nash, because man, I was hot (about comments Madden made on TV). When it's all said and done... Mark and I were supposed to talk the last night he was there, but... circumstances came up, it didn't happen. Madden's said a lot of stuff for whatever reason that didn't come off as flattering. Whatever. I don't hold any grudges I feel bad he lost his job on the deal, but that's all I have to say on it.
Norton: You wanted to shake his hand, make amends. He didn't feel the same way.
Page: Well, I think he was confused at the time as far as... naturally, by the time Nash got involved... it just didn't work out. I'd hold my hand out to him today. That's just the kind of guy I am. Life is too short.
Norton: Kim was a centerfold. We better not see you in Playgirl like Shawn Michaels.
Page: (Laughs) nah. My wife's the centerfold not me.
Norton: The incident with Scott Steiner. (Note: Steiner and Page were involved in a fistfight backstage at Nitro a few weeks ago).
Page: As far as I'm concerned, we're good now. We now have the best relationship we've ever had.
Norton: In an interview I ran with you a few years ago, before you and he had any real trouble outside the ring, you described him – in a non-threatening way – as a "crazy motherf***er."
Page: He's his character. The bottom line is, our relationship is the best it's ever been. He's one of the figureheads of the company. We're in a good spot. That's all I can really say about it.
Norton: Shawn Michaels is returning to the ring in the next few months. He's been out for three years with a back injury. You were out a lot of last year with a back injury. Give us some insight.
Page: Mine, personally, I ruptured my L4 and L5, the lowest part of my back. It's like squeezing the gel out. It puts pressure on your nerve endings. When your back is out you're totally out. Your neck, your shoulder, you can still walk... your back is a killer. Scotty Steiner had his operated on. I called him "S-man" for a while because his back was like an S. For him to go in the ring, and work how hard he does, knowing how bad his back was, that's amazing to me. He wants to be in that spot so bad, he just goes through the pain. He has an incredible pain tolerance. I've been in that spot too that I've willed myself through it. Shawn, obviously, it was so bad.... he couldn't. Do you want to wrestle, or walk when you're fifty? Obviously he's found some way to take care of his back, rehab, Yoga, something. Because Shawn works at a different level. He'd never want to come back to the ring and not be all that. He's left such a legacy behind.
Norton: He set trends throughout the early 90s.
Page: Oh my God, yeah! There's a whole new generation trying to be Shawn Michaels, because he's done it all. If he comes back, I think he'll still do spectacular bumps, because you just don't need it. Less is more. When you see that sixteenth incredible crash, which was the best? You get numb to it.
Norton: And the less big bumps you do, the more each one means.
Page: I'll tell you, on Thunder two weeks ago we went to a sleeper hold. People on the internet think that holds are rest spots. That's if you don't know how to do the hold. The idea is that some guy is going so strong that you're trying to hold it down. On Thunder, we did a 2:21 hold, and the people went all the way through it. We were like the seventeenth match, people had been watching wrestling since seven and it was eleven fifteen, and people were chanting their ass off. You can do it down south and in the mid west. Some places you don't do it, you don't do it in San Francisco. The fans are used to different things. If you do it from Baltimore out to Chicago and Kansas City and south of that, you can get the people going. Jeff (Jarrett) and I had them going crazy. Let the people see what they've seen and get behind something.
Norton: Every great match is about ups and downs.
Page: Exactly, what is a match, a highlight reel? You don't see Rock's matches like that. You don't see Austin's matches like that. You don't see Taker's matches like that. You don't see mine like that (laughs). Sting. There's a trend.
Norton: What other projects are you working on outside wrestling?
Page: I'm preparing for my future. I'd love to stay involved in wrestling, if my body continues the way it is. I'll never take the shoulder bump, the hip bump... when I can't do it properly any more, I'm done. Id' love to believe it's three more years. But maybe it's two, maybe it's a year, God willing. From there I'd like to go back where I started, color commentating. That'd be great. Hopefully where I'm heading is out to Hollywood to do more movies. There's a new one coming out called "Rat Race" that Kim and I were both in. Six people in Las Vegas are given a gold coin and have to go a thousand miles away to put the coin in a slot machine and the winner wins two thousand dollars. So everybody takes off to the airport, and the airport closes down. Cannonball Run meets Airplane. The director is the guy who did Airplane and Naked Gun. It stars Kathie Najimy, Jon Lovitz, John Cleeves, Whoopi Goldberg, Tom Green and Cuba Gooding.
Norton: Unbelievable cast.
Page: And we've got two tremendous scenes. It's a world kind of movie where anything can happen. Jerry Zucker, the director, says "Diamond, that was great, but can you be MORE over the top?" I said "I'm making William Shatner look like a thesp!" The bottom line is that Cuba Gooding is in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he comes to meet Dallas Page. It's funny as hell. I love acting. My real drive and motivation is going to do motivational speaking, people changing their lives through the power of positive thinking. People are going to wonder who this guy is. I'll be selling my book until I die, because it's timeless. You know how many stories are in there. There are so many people who helped me and I helped, my goal is that Tony Robbins, who I believe, is the greatest communicator of our time... he's changed so many lives. Andre Agassi went to Robbins when he was like 136 in the world, because he wanted to become number-one. That's one of a million names. I want to be one of his stable, one of his guys, and have him mentor me. I used a lot of his teachings to get me where I am today. No matter who says I can't do it, I can. The biggest thing I will teach is "dare to be different," where I put icepacks on my knees, taping matches, Yoga, juicing, where guys say "you don't do that!" When you dare to be different, like Sam Walton was the second richest man in the world. When he opened up his first store, he went to the next store and did another, and another, and another. This guy didn't listen to anybody. He was totally different. He dared to be different. I believe there's nothing I can't do if I'm realistic with it, and do chunking. Take on a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time. It's like having a heart attack. To get yourself to that point, it takes years. It works the same way in reverse. It's all the positive things you do. I think it's going to happen in my life, with WCW, because Eric Bischoff has control of things he never had before, so he can control it around. I'm excited to watch what's happening in my life, and to see what's going to happen in World Championship Wrestling.
Norton: Thanks for talking to us.
Page: This has been a hell of a long interview!
Norton: The longer ones are more fun. We end up talking about more interesting stuff. But now I get to sit down and spend four hours transcribing the damn thing.
Page: (Laughing) Right man. Later.