JR: When you got to Montreal, on the day of the event, had the plan been fully designed?
SM: No, no… I mean... that's the thing... there was no... I mean, there was no... you know, you meet the night before and it’s like, okay, we still haven’t convinced him to, you know, to…
BH: They weren’t standing on the grassy knoll yet.
SM: …to do business. Yeah, no, no. Well no, and that’s the thing. Well, and again, the thing is, he says… and I’ve always said it, it’s like… it is like a mob hit, and like you know, I’m Sammy the Bull. I’m Sammy the Bull Gravano, and you know, on one hand you’ve got this rivalry, but at the same time, you know, you know what you’re doing is not an endearing act. I mean, I already knew people didn’t like me. It’s one thing to say it, one thing to talk about it, it’s another thing to do it, and also, to be the guy… I can remember Vince, you know ‘don’t worry, I’ll take the heat’… it’s like dude, there, there’s like, you can take whatever you want, it’s going to go on me. You know. Uh, and it’s not all, I’m gonna take it… well you’re the boss, how mad can they possibly get… you know, the crap rolls downhill, it’s gonna go on me.
You know, I mean, and so… but, so the night before, it’s more of… it’s like okay, I got one last ditch effort tomorrow to try to convince him, but as of right now, this thing’s actually going to have to happen. You know, what are we going to do… it’s like I dunno… I mean… I’ve never done it, you know what I mean… and you know, and again, Gerry Brisco you know, was saying, ‘well if something goes awry, what if you guys get into a big fight’, you know, ‘do you want me to’ you know ‘teach you some moves’, it’s like, like no… I mean, jeez, and it’s just, you know, I mean this is a, this is, he got be…
Bret smirks
SM: For a while, it was just talked about, but the night before… and now it’s like… holy cow, this is really going to happen.
JR: Yeah, we’re really closer now to showtime.
SM: And that’s what I’m saying… and again… the only way I’m gonna know, you know, we have to sit down and discuss the match, and there obviously has to be… an opportunity has to present itself for something… you know, either a fast count, or a submission… or a whatever… you know, that the way… you know… I won’t, I won’t know until we’re together.
JR: You… you… the next day now, we’re on Sunday. You’re not going to compromise what you’d said. You’re sticking to your guns.
BH: I had a… yeah… I was sticking my guns (sic) and ummm…
JR: Well, did you suspect that…
BH: Oh yeah, I had a… I yeah… I was sure they well gonna pull something like that. But I was also sure that it wasn’t gonna happen. And I guess my… uh… Achilles tendon was… um… Earl Hebner, who I’d seen in Detroit.
JR: The referee.
BH: I pulled him aside in the bathroom and I said ‘Earl, they’re gonna ask you to screw me in the match’. And he’s tearing, he’s got tears in his eyes, and he looked at me, and he says ‘I swear, I swear to God, I swear on my kids I would never do it. I would never do it no matter what they said to me’. And I said ‘Earl, I mean, all you gotta do is tell me if it happens’, and he goes ‘it’ll never happen’, and he had this emotional moment, and I remember I walked out of there and I was like okay, I got Earl. I just hope I have Earl referee my match tomorrow, cause then I’m covered. Cause then whatever happens in the ring, I was prepared… I was capable… I was comfortable thinking that, you know, whatever happens in the ring with me and Shawn, you know, if it gets into a real fight, you know, I’ll be able to defend myself and take care of myself. But I didn’t think it would have to come to that, cause that’s not… it wouldn’t look very good and it’s not… I always thought, there’s no real reason for it to happen, but if it does, I got all my bases covered.
Earl was my loop… uh… my weakness. And um…
SM: Well that’s again… Earl is, to the best of my knowledge… he didn’t know anything yet.
BH: I don’t think he knew anything until he walked out, til the curtain. And they said, they grabbed him just before he went out… is what I was always told, but…
SM: Well… I mean, I know, I had to tell him. I mean, the way this always transpired was, you know, Shawn was a no good S.O.B at that time, but even still, you know, there was a… still a human being in there. We have yet another… our last final… you know, Bret calls me in and wants to talk, and we have, you know, another one of those…
JR: It’s gotta be late in the day on Sunday
SM: Oh yeah, no, no, I mean, he even came later, but we have another… you know, and again… I mean, the whole… you know… everything we’ve been through, and we’re talking about it, and it’s… and, and it IS real, and it IS emotional, you know, and you know what, I believe… to this day, I believe that was genuine, you know what I mean, and, and… and I know, you know, what was going to happen… it was not… and again, I mean that’s… you know, again, one of those things, and, you know, I’m, you know I don’t, I don’t need to be an actor… it’s one of those things to this day does get me emotional, because it isn’t… you know… it wasn’t fun, being that guy. You know? And honestly it was… and again… and, and then… and now we’re having this talk, and we’re trying to put all that behind us.
BH: We had the greatest conversation, about how we respected each other, and hoped… you know, I was, it was all I remember talking… we addressed everything that happened, and how it all… how we got to this point, and that we had respect… we ended up… I had a lot of respect for you, and you have a lot of respect for me and… that was really nice, like, I kind of… I just never… I was, I was very… umm… comfortable going into the ring. I thought uh… I didn’t think um, I didn’t even think from Vince’s perspective… I thought, you know … I never missed a day, you know, I worked so hard for the company… I didn’t want to go, you know, and I got pushed out… everything that happened to me, including the WCW offer and things like that, I never even set up a meeting with Bischoff. It was set up by somebody else… it was… it just happened. All these things just happened, and uh, you know I got offered so much money to, to switch, to go, and I was, I think I was 40 something years old at that time… it’s like, how many years have I got left. You know, and I remember saying, I gotta think of my family.
You know, but I had a lot of respect for Shawn, and I always wanted to… and I thought that we could’ve drawn a lot of money together and worked together, and uh… when I walked out that day, you know, I thought that, you know, it has to be this way… I could… I just wanted a little respect from Shawn, that uh, I didn’t think I was get… had come.
JR: It was a very close knit, close kept secret.
SM: You know, years later, you hear like this person saying well they knew and they knew and they knew… I mean, again, I don’t know… I mean, there’s my understanding that was just, there was 3 of us… well 4 I guess, including Hunter, you know, but then… you know…
BH: There’s a point in that match when Shawn’s going to put the Sharpshooter on me, and he crossed my legs the wrong way. And I was like the good… the good sacrificial lamb going to the slaughter… I yelled up to him, you know ‘switch them around, other way!’ and like, you can see Shawn switch… it’s like I’m helping him put me in the submission hold that’s going to be the…
JR: You’re loading the gun and handing him
BH: I’m handing him the bullets
SM: Well, you know, and I mean… and now it’s all, it’s ALL on my lap
JR: A lot of guilt
SM: Well, that, and… now it’s, you know, like this is what we need but done, but YOU’VE gotta make it happen. Kay. I mean, again, it’s that whole… and again… and, I’m just saying, you know like ‘I’ll take the heat, but you got’… you know… ‘you gotta DO everything’. I’m gonna be there for you when it’s over.
JR: Did you have a second… before the match, did you have second thoughts about calling it off, and calling an audible, or changing your mind, or going to Vince one more time, or anybody, and say, look, can we just not do this?
SM: No. I mean, I mean… there was a ton of guilt, but I felt like, honestly, I felt like a soldier, doing what I was told to do. And, and I’ve always told people, yeah, did it help… that make it easier, you know, to get over that… you know, to swallow that huge lump of guilt, but you know, that was somebody you know, that was leaving and you’d had trouble with? Yeah, I mean… you know… but it wasn’t… but it wasn’t… but it was by no means some… a moment in my life, in my career that I relished. But, again, I can… you know… I will look at people and tell them I’ve been a no good S.O.B and I’ve done it and all that, and… but there, there’s absolutely… you know… not one desirable thing about doing it.
JR: Lowest point in your career?
SM: Easy. Easy.
special thanks, to meanspirit
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