Duke ‘The Dumpster’ Droese joined Spencer Love on the Conversations With Love podcast to discuss the rumored pairing he was supposed to have with Ted DiBiase. Droese mentioned that the original plan back in his day called for a pairing with Ted DiBiase.
Droese said, “That was what Vince Russo came up with when he was the editor of the magazine. I won’t say he came up with that. The office came up with it, but Vince Russo, that was one of the first stories he kind of ran with and really got creative with in the magazine. It was a very large spread in the WWF magazine, it was a really good story, and it looked like they were going with it. Something just happened and they didn’t go with it. I don’t know if DiBiase didn’t want to do it or Vince just got turned off to the idea, but they just changed their mind. I just kind of went back to being a mid-card heel for the time being. That’s just kind of how it happened.”
Droese was essentially on his way out of WWF after the pairing did not happen. He said, “The heel turn with DiBiase was actually before the Hunter thing. It was
before my contract was up and it was before the hair. I still had long hair, actually, if you look at the article, I had my hair long and everything. They were talking about turning me heel even way back then. But, it didn’t happen. I remember after I refused to do the job for Steve Austin, I had a sit down with Vince McMahon and Jim Ross. I told them I wanted to change my appearance and turn heel still. They agreed to turn me heel again, this time just under different circumstances. I told him I wanted to be Duke Droese, I didn’t want to be a garbage man anymore. I wanted to start changing to a more realistic fighter or wrestler.”
It doesn’t appear like Vince and Jim liked the idea, but they ran with it anyway. Duke continued by saying, “They agreed with everything I said, but Jim Ross thought if we were gonna change my appearance, why don’t we cut my hair as part of the angle with Triple H because they had already offered up that angle for me to make me happy when I was angry, and get me to resign the new year deal. So I agreed to that, and all I said to Vince was, ‘I’ll be glad to do this as part of the angle and let him cut my hair as long as I get revenge somehow. I know I probably won’t win, and I definitely won’t cut his hair, but as long as somehow in the end, I come out strong.’ Vince absolutely agreed with all of it. You know, and it was one of those times where I learned that Vince McMahon would change his plans very, very frequently.”
Duke Droese was also interviewed by us here at Wrestlezone recently and you can listen to that interview below.
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