Rip Rogers on Reality Booking, OVW and Old-School Wrestling

Fred: I am joined by a wrestling legend, a man who has wrestled all over the world, beaten some of the very best and trained some of the very best, past and future: Rip Rogers. Rip, thanks so much for joining us. I understand you just had hip surgery. How’s that going?

Rip Rogers: I got a total hip replacement on the left side. I got rid of the walker, and I’m on a cane now. I was supposed to have OVW practice on Saturday and Sunday, so I’m texting my guys what to do so they can have practice without me yelling and screaming at them.

Fred: I understand you caught Monday Night Raw for the first time in a long time the other night. What did you think?

Rip Rogers: I shouldn’t knock anything on the air, but I will anyway. I hadn’t watched WWE on TV since 2003. The last few weeks I watched SmackDown and most of Raw, and when you’re the only show in town, nothing matters. When I put on the NFL, I’m watching the greatest football players. Major League Baseball, the greatest baseball players. The NBA, the greatest basketball players. Now I put on wrestling, and old-timers just shake their heads, because guys who are Single-A and Double-A players are on TV as major leaguers. But if there’s Pepsi and there ain’t no Coke, it doesn’t matter. The lack of fundamentals and the unwritten rules is unbelievable to old-timers, but pretty soon all the old-timers will be dead and nobody will know anyway.

Fred: Daniel Bryan is definitely one of the best wrestlers in the world right now, compared to a lot of guys who don’t even cover the shoulder when they go for a pin. To me, he and Randy Orton have a grasp on what makes a good worker.

Rip Rogers: I’d never even seen Daniel until last night. I saw him trading blows at the end with Randy Orton. I was there in Lexington when Randy was born, and I worked with his dad and his grandpa. But I see Daniel, and he looks like an indie guy who weighs about 175 pounds. If you’re going to push a guy as a technical wrestler, you don’t have him outstriking a bigger opponent. You use finesse, and when the opening is there, you get on top. Yeah, I know wrestling’s phony, and Vince exposed the business. But I still think it’s real, and it should be treated as such. When I’m overly critical, it’s like Bobby Knight watching NBA basketball. He can’t take it, because everybody’s traveling and nobody can create off the dribble. As a coach in any sport, you break stuff down on tape, so I just shake my head.

Vince is a marketing genius, so he knows if he really wants to, he can work old school all of a sudden and business will double. In the meantime, he can sell dolls and lunch boxes. You can’t get mad at the young guys for making all this money and living their dream. They’re just doing what they’re told. And every agent there is an old guy like me, scared of getting fired, so if Vince likes three clotheslines, bump, feed for no reason, that’s what they give him, even though the babyface is outstriking the heel and it makes no sense. A comeback is supposed to be retribution. Watch any movie.

Fred: Do you feel the guys in NXT, and previously FCW, get a bad rap for coming up green? Their trainers include guys like Norman Smiley and Ricky Steamboat, who know how to work. Are their hands tied by Vince and the powers that be?

Rip Rogers: Yes. Here’s Ricky Steamboat, the world’s greatest babyface in my time. Not a character babyface, a real babyface. He looked great, moved like a cat, was an outstanding technical wrestler and had that selling and fire on the comeback. But if he’s told, “We don’t want any chain wrestling or real competitive tie-ups in the Performance Center,” they’re giving guys shortcuts, 8,000 moves for no reason and 122 kickouts off big moves. I watched Dolph Ziggler with Del Rio and said, “What a performer.” But what are you going to do on a pay-per-view? It used to be you’d have matches on TV to get people over so they’d pay to see them at the house show, and you’d work your angles to get them to buy a pay-per-view. Now they’re giving away pay-per-view matches on television, scared people are going to change the channel. But I can’t knock them for success. They’re showing a profit every quarter. Just think, with MMA what it is, if Vince came out and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, from now on, all the contests in World Wrestling Entertainment are real.” I can’t wait to see Cena against Brock. I want to buy that.

Fred: You worked with Dolph Ziggler at OVW. Did you see the talent in him, or was he too green to tell?

Rip Rogers: Just a little bit, when he came in during one of the many times I got fired by WWE. He was an amateur wrestler, looked great and was very athletic, but he knew nothing. What you’re going to see is there aren’t any naturals in this business. Everybody starts out as a kindergartner. An old-timer can look at a guy in 30 seconds and say, “He’s got the basics,” or, “You’re wasting your time.”

Fred: To me, Ziggler is a glaring example of questionable booking. He cashed in Money in the Bank, won the world title and got a crazy reaction, and ever since that double turn with Del Rio, he’s been losing left and right. Why do they build a guy up, break him down, build him up and break him down again?

Rip Rogers: You’re human. Look at Colin Kaepernick. He was a star. The first game this year he throws for 400 yards, and since then he can’t do anything. It’s a sport. You’re in a slump. Check the sports pages. The Texas Rangers slide, then they go on a win streak. That’s reality booking. Everybody in the company shouldn’t be on a win streak, or it’s phony. Bruno had the belt for seven years, and when Bruno got beat in the middle of the ring, there was complete silence: “I never thought I’d see it.” You act like it’s real.

Fred: With the Daniel Bryan storyline, I feel like they’ve buried a lot of their babyfaces, like that 11-on-3 handicap match with The Shield, who are heels, against 11 babyfaces. If somebody came to you as a booker and suggested an 11-on-3 handicap match, what would your reaction be?

Rip Rogers: I’d laugh and say, “That’s why you’re not the booker.” But you’ve got to remember, Vince oversees everything, so what he says is gospel. He knows he’s the only show in town, so he can do everything backward from traditional wrestling because he said so. He can do the XFL because he said so, and the bodybuilding federation because he said so. He can change all the rules of wrestling because he can.

Fred: Bryan won the title, Orton cashed in after Triple H Pedigreed him, and for the next seven or eight shows all you saw was Bryan getting laid out. He wins the title at Night of Champions, gets stripped, and he never really gets revenge. When do you draw the line between how much a heel gets and how much a face gets in a feud?

Rip Rogers: First of all, you’ve got to look at what’s at the end of the rainbow. When I was booking, I had everything in my book a year in advance. I knew what I wanted at the end, and when it’s payoff time, it all makes sense. You had to do that then. Now, with the only show in town and all those hours of worldwide television, it doesn’t matter, because they can’t draw a house. Their last house show in Atlanta did 3,000 people, and Ole Anderson used to sell out the Omni two weeks in a row with a weekly show. Here we’ve got a big company with worldwide stars doing 3,000 people at a house show, but at the end of the quarter, they’re still showing a profit.

Fred: When Bryan beat John Cena clean in August, that was an improbable win. And babyfaces don’t tap anymore. There’s no shame in tapping. If you don’t tap, a guy’s going to snap your arm.

Rip Rogers: Look at MMA. Remember when Brock first started, and he was beating the heck out of Frank Mir, and Mir got the leg lock on him and it was over? Because it’s real. Why can’t John Cena give up? Why can’t Bruno give up? Why can’t Buddy Rogers, Steve Austin, Dusty or Hulk Hogan give up? It’s reality booking. The one thing I would do, which doesn’t matter because I ain’t there anyway, is make every world title match two out of three falls. Let’s say it’s Daniel Bryan against Randy Orton. First fall, Randy beats him clean with the RKO. Second fall, the Yes Lock beats Randy clean. Now you’ve legitimized both finishes, and in the third fall, you work your finish like you usually would. And never in my life, when I had a finish hold, did anybody kick out of it. Now they kick out of each other’s finishes.

Fred: Looking at your old photos, you had a great physique. Why did you decide to go into pro wrestling in the first place?

Rip Rogers: I was a fat kid growing up in Seymour, Indiana. I started training when I was 14, after I saw Sergio Oliva on a magazine cover. I got my Sears weights, and by the time I graduated from Seymour High School at 18, I had 18-inch biceps. There were no wrestling schools, so I was struggling to figure out how to get into the business. I went to the University of Indianapolis and played football with Tom Zupancic, who was later with the Colts for 28 years and was an alternate on the 1980 Olympic team in Greco-Roman. My nickname was Scary. He told me about a guy who had a ring up at an old VFW club in Indianapolis, so I went up there, met about eight guys, and we ended up having pro matches. We were just copying the stars of the day we saw on TV, Dick the Bruiser and Wilbur Snyder, doing moves for no reason. I was writing stuff down in my notebook.

Fred: WWE has signed a lot of independent talent, but do you feel they hold it against guys who got their start on the indies?

Rip Rogers: No, they want to make money. Here’s the thing: It’s easier for me to train a guy off the street than a lot of independent guys. Independent guys have a hitch in their swing. They already have bad habits. If I take a guy who’s never been in a ring, I can teach him proper fundamentals and a proper attitude. Once guys start doing indies, they take shortcuts, they copy stuff on TV, their positioning’s wrong, and they do dangerous stuff because they only get two matches a month. It’s like playing slow-pitch softball and acting like you’re in the major leagues, or playing city league basketball acting like you’re LeBron James.

Fred: When WCW guys came into WWE, they’d have a stink on them. Did you ever feel hostility traveling from territory to territory?

Rip Rogers: Every territory had its guys, so when I come in, that means one of your buddies is getting fired. If I’m coming in with a bleach-blond gimmick, the bleach blond there will be gone. It was supposed to be like a circus. You’ve got a giant, a fat man, the bully, the Russian, the one guy with the manager. You give them one of everything. In WWE, they all look the same.

Fred: Some fans asked if Matt Morgan would be a great fit in WWE. No disrespect to Matt, but look how many big guys they already have.

Rip Rogers: Years ago, when Vince Jr. would interview Andre, Andre would be standing on a box and didn’t know it, so he looked 8 feet tall. Now we kill our own business. I had Matt Morgan at OVW, and I was teaching him how to work like a giant. A giant could put a hammerlock on you and you’d give up, because he’s a giant. When you’re a giant, you do less, because it makes you unique. And look at Ronnie Garvin. He was 5-foot-7, didn’t take any bumps and beat everybody, because he knew how to project. You’d think he was 10 feet tall in that ring. Everything is an illusion. In the old days, the referee was ideally 120 pounds and the announcer was small, like Gordon Solie, to make the wrestlers bigger than life.

Fred: How has OVW maintained its longevity? When WWE went to Deep South and then FCW, people asked how long OVW would last, and here we are going into 2014.

Rip Rogers: When I partnered with Danny Davis, and it’s been probably 13 or 14 years, we knew that when you signed up with WWE, you’d sold your soul to the devil. You took it for as long as it was there, and then it would be gone. They had developmental in Memphis, and it was gone. Cincinnati, gone. Deep South, gone. Louisville, gone. Then they wanted it in Tampa. In minor league baseball, you put teams in places like Medford, Oregon, and Kingsport, Tennessee, because you want no distractions for the young guys. Here we were in Louisville with our own TV shows and spot shows, and we put them through class every day.

Fred: Did you have any say in the creative process back when OVW worked with WWE?

Rip Rogers: No. Danny was CEO, and I was the trainer. Nobody ever told me what to do in my class. They knew I could do it. WWE would tell us a guy was going to be a babyface, so we’d train him as a babyface, and then they’d bring him up as a heel. Guys had to earn their stripes to be on the OVW TV show, but WWE would bring up guys who weren’t even good enough to be on the OVW show. But if I’m Vince McMahon, I don’t care what happens in Louisville. I’m looking at the big picture. He’s giving you money to keep the roof open and helping buy your cameras and editing equipment. When you’re the boss and you’re paying people, you can’t be wrong. If George Steinbrenner says he wants a kid out of A-ball in center field for the Yankees tomorrow, that’s what happens. You play the poker hand you’re dealt.

I tell everybody I’ve made every stupid mistake there is 100 times over, because I didn’t go to a wrestling school. I learned in the ring and was mentored by old-timers. So when I’m telling you something, it’s not to make you look stupid. I’m giving you Colonel Sanders’ secret recipe, because I failed 100 times. You can go off and try to reinvent the wheel, and 10 years from now you’re going to say, “That old guy was right.” No matter what generation you’re in, people are basically the same. You’ve got good versus evil, and tweeners have killed the business. In the old days, after they’d seen my act as a heel for a year, I never turned babyface. I’d just leave and go somewhere else. When Hogan turned in WCW, the place erupted, because he’d been a good guy for so many years. Now in WWE you have no idea what anybody is.

Fred: Santino Marella, I heard, is legit one of the toughest guys on the roster, given his judo background.

Rip Rogers: Santino is a legitimate badass. He’s got the big Battle Arts Academy up around Toronto. I told him comedy was going to give him longevity. Badasses don’t last very long. What happened when Mike Tyson’s invincibility wore off? He was done. I always tell the boys the average career in WWE is 3.2 years, like an NFL running back, and that includes the Undertaker and the Heartbreak Kid, so it’s actually shorter. With comedy, all they’ve got to do is have somebody hit him with a gimmick and knock him out, and he’s a killer for a year, and then he’s Santino again. Eddie Graham, one of the greatest promoters, wanted legitimate wrestling in Tampa, but he’d also throw in the girls, the fat man and somebody doing comedy, because you can’t have steak at every meal. No matter how good it is, you get sick of it. In the old WWF, before Hogan went on last, Les Thornton, a great wrestler, would bore them to death in a 30-minute match, so when Hogan’s music hit, they were ready. If everybody’s running, then going fast means nothing.

Fred: Why don’t you think the old way of learning the business exists anymore?

Rip Rogers: Once Vince went big time, the territories died: Hawaii, L.A., San Antonio, the Bruiser’s territory, Knoxville. In the old days I’d tell people, go out and learn your craft, work 3,000 matches over 10 years, and you’ll start to have a clue. By the ’90s there was nowhere to learn. You’d go around to different territories and learn to work underneath as a babyface, underneath as a heel, tag situations and different gimmicks. It was like the old Hollywood studio system, where they taught actors comedy, drama and how to dance. Now we take guys off the street because they’re a wrestler’s son or related to somebody or a freak. The easiest thing in the world is Goldberg and Ryback. You just beat people. But look at Ryback. They fired him twice, and he was working at a barbecue restaurant trying to make it back. Damien Sandow went to Puerto Rico and kept working. He never gave up.

Fred: I’m guessing you’re not an ECW fan. But Paul Heyman was good at hiding guys’ weaknesses. Guys who looked huge on ECW TV looked like miniature wrestlers when they came to WWE.

Rip Rogers: In my opinion, ECW helped kill the business. They had guys who didn’t have a job willing to blade themselves, hit each other with light bulbs and go through tables. You can’t get on anybody for loving wrestling and wanting to be a star, but they changed the rules. If there are no rules, you can’t cheat, and you can’t have good guy versus bad guy. It’s like doing all cage matches. On paper it draws, and after two matches, it’s the same old thing. But everything is an illusion and a perception. Paul could take Mike Awesome, who was a big guy, but if everybody’s big, nobody’s big, so he works with shorter guys and looks like a giant. Paul can make chicken salad out of chicken scraps. He’s a genius in this business. But in the long run, without talent and a good television slot, you can’t do everything with smoke and mirrors.

Fred: Do you think wrestling needs more squash matches?

Rip Rogers: Look at the territories. You had one hour of television a week, and every wrestling fan had his alarm clock set so he didn’t miss it. You’d see the stars win enhancement matches, and then you’d pay to see the house show. Dusty Rhodes didn’t ever wrestle on TV. You’d see what happened at the Omni, and then he’d be working Superstar Billy Graham at the armory in Tampa. It was a tease to pay for the house show, and at the house show you’d work your angle, and they couldn’t wait for the rematch. Now they’re selling dolls, lunch boxes, songs and movies. It’s an infomercial. And nothing’s worse, no matter who it is, than opening a show with 20 minutes of talking. I tell all my guys at OVW not to watch WWE TV, because it ain’t right. I’ll teach them to work the right way, and if they get a job, they can forget it all.

Fred: You’ve seen a lot of talented guys come through. Why do some get passed over?

Rip Rogers: I tell everybody that wrestling is prearranged, and if you have average hand-eye coordination, average athletic ability and average IQ, you can get there. But one time at OVW we had 60 guys in my class, they signed two or three, and everybody in class knew the ones they signed were rotten, so a lot of guys quit. The way to get in is to be related to somebody, be a wrestler’s son, have some notoriety as a football player or from a reality show, be somebody’s buddy or be a giant. And a lot of times, the guys who are really good, you don’t want them in there, because they make somebody else look bad. That’s the way any job is.

Fred: Zack Ryder got himself over with his YouTube show and Twitter. If a guy can make you money, why not roll with him?

Rip Rogers: When Steve Austin was over, they’d announce he was coming to Louisville to the big building, and four hours later there wouldn’t be any more tickets. That’s what over is. Now they come to Louisville twice a year hoping to draw 5,000 people. Anybody can get a reaction. I remember coming in to work for Ron Fuller. I was the smallest guy in the territory, and they brought me in as junior heavyweight champion. Ron said, “I don’t know what to do with you. You’re getting all the reaction.” I said, “I’m not doing any shortcuts to get it.” He said, “I know. They hate your guts.” So we shot an angle where they brought the scale out and called me fat, because I was overweight for the junior heavyweight title, and all of a sudden I’m elevated, and the last eight to 10 weeks I’m working with Austin Idol. When I worked for Bill Watts, he said, “Your job here is to work the first four matches and get my underneath babyfaces over.” The product was wrestling.

Fred: Nick Dinsmore and Rob Conway were awesome in the ring, but it took a while for them to get called up. Why?

Rip Rogers: If the Seahawks sign Matt Flynn for millions, and then Russell Wilson, a third-round pick, makes him look bad in practice, the general manager looks foolish, doesn’t he? Here we had Nick Dinsmore, who lived five miles from the old wrestling school, Rob Conway, six miles, the Damaja from Seymour and Doug Basham, Danny’s nephew, all local guys trained old style with regular jobs to get by. WWE was paying other guys $800 a week to learn, and these guys were better than them. That makes you look stupid for paying the other guy. I had all these great guys who learned to work, paid their dues and were humble, and they got it eventually. Nick Dinsmore worked with Benoit, and you couldn’t tell who was the better wrestler. But Nick couldn’t get a job for eight or nine years as a wrestler, and then they came up with Eugene, and all of a sudden he’s got a job. When Brock was there, he was a superhuman athlete, a freak, and he and John Cena would put the rings up the first night, laughing, with a great attitude, happy to be there. But once some guys start getting paid to learn, they get a bad attitude: “They signed me. Why ain’t I up there?” JTG came to Louisville on a Greyhound bus with a suitcase and worked at a gym babysitting kids to get by, and now he’s still with WWE, living the life. I used to work all night at a Circle K and then come in for a special class.

Fred: CM Punk came through OVW. What was it like working with him?

Rip Rogers: When Punk came in, I’d been fired. I got fired because I wanted more money. I had to have a regular job besides teaching at OVW to pay for my own insurance. Punk and I didn’t hit it off right away at all, because I hated that internet stuff, and I looked at him as disrespectful, cussing on the message boards. And his look was different. He wasn’t a muscle guy. But if everybody’s got muscles, don’t have muscles. If everybody’s got bleach-blond hair, have dark hair. Whatever everybody else is doing, don’t do it. They’re not looking for another Undertaker, another HBK or another Austin. They had those. Be something different. I’ve never seen him wrestle on TV. At the time I had my own class, Derby City Wrestling, with 60 guys and my own TV show in Louisville. I gave them nothing but wrestling. There was never a count-out and never a disqualification, like Baba did when he drew big money, because people want to see a winner and a loser.

Fred: Why should people train with the great Rip Rogers as opposed to Bob the bum?

Rip Rogers: It used to be there were no wrestling schools, and now there’s one on every block, and most of the teachers don’t know any better. If you’re a mark going in, you don’t know the difference. All I know is I’ve had 56 or 57 guys get jobs with TNA and WWE who walked in off the street: Nick Dinsmore, the Damaja, Rob Conway, Doug Basham, JTG, Santino, Armando Estrada, Serena, Mike Mondo. That’s not bragging. That’s just the way it is. I was taught old school. I was mentored by the Poffos. I lived with Randy for four years. I learned the business from the ground floor, worked with guys who were better than me, shut up and listened. Now guys work independent shows for two years and think they understand it. I’ve had WWE Superstars come in for rehab who couldn’t have a three-minute match without talking it over, and I’d have a guy and a girl from my class work an hour.

Fred: What’s one thing you want young guys watching this to take away from this interview?

Rip Rogers: Never give up, and attitude is everything. Don’t walk into a wrestling school as a non-athlete, because wrestling is cosmetic. And remember who the boss is. When Vince made megastars, look at Jake the Snake. He had to carry a snake everywhere. The British Bulldogs had to carry the dog around, and Koko B. Ware had the bird. He’s going to make you a legend and a lot of money, but you’re going to know who’s the boss.

Fred: Triple H was reportedly one of the people opposed to OVW as a developmental territory because it was taught by people who didn’t draw. Now he’s spearheading NXT and the Performance Center. Do you look back and think WWE would have had even more talent?

Rip Rogers: That’s hindsight. That’s 20/20. Taught by people who didn’t draw? Excuse me. I’ve worked the first match, and I’ve headlined main events in territories. I wrote television, I was a booker and I was an owner, and I have no ego. When I was working in Montgomery, Alabama, Bob Armstrong told me, “You and Austin Idol just outdrew Andre and Flair in the title match.” Whether I’m working the first match or the main event, I’m doing the role. When I was booking in Kansas City, I never had a belt, and I drew money working with Ox Baker. When I went to Tampa, Wahoo McDaniel wanted to give me a belt, and I said, “I don’t need a belt.” In every territory, you had to prove yourself and start out very humble. I went up to Calgary, and they hated me because I was an American taking a Canadian’s job. The guys could go to the boss and bury you, and you’d be out of there. That’s the way it was.

Fred: Rip, we’ve talked for over two hours, and it’s been an absolute pleasure. You’re never at a loss for words, and more often than not, you make sense. We’d love to have you on again.

Rip Rogers: All right, Fred. Have a good day.