Today The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling welcomes one half of possibly the most decorated and premiere tag teams of the 1990s and in the history of WCW as Harlem Heat’s Stevie Ray joins us for Episode #301.
Discussing his podcast “Stand Up For Greatness with Stevie Ray, Stevie takes us on a journey that began as an unlikely tag team partner of his brother (now WWE Hall of Famer) Booker T while in the GWF and how they became the backbone of WCW’s tag team division for nearly a decade.
We also learn about Stevie’s desire to cross over into sports broadcasting and how since retiring from wrestling he has nestled quite nicely into the hosting chair. This is a fun and sometimes very deep chat, so strap in or feel the whack of the slap-jack….sucka.
The full episode is available for download HERE
Related: Gallows & Anderson’s ‘Too Sweet’ Encounter w/ Stevie Ray (Video)
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On his podcast Stand Up For Greatness with Stevie Ray:
“How many wrestling stories can you tell? People out there that are fans and are really wanting to know what you are thinking about and there are people that are not fans that want to know what is really going on in this guy’s mind about certain things. I can do that. I can be truthful if a question comes up or a topic comes up I’m going to give it to you the only way I can give it to you and that is how I feel. That is the only way I know how to be.”
“I know that I am just not one to want to hear the same stories over and over again and the same conversations over and over. How many times can you tell a story, a behind the scenes story that is pretty “run of the mill”? I told a story on my podcast how Rick Rude when me and my brother first came into WCW and we were on the road, Rick Rude was on the same towns as us and early in the afternoon he would gather us around and tell us stories and we always remembered that. I always remembered that he always had a punchline at the end of it and it was always funny, so I figured that is how I want to tell stories just like how Rick Rude used to do with us.”
His time as a color commentator preparing him for post wrestling broadcasting:
“Tony Schiavone and Mike Tenay kind of gave me and would sit me down and make me more comfortable at what I was doing and so on and so forth. I tell those guys every time I see them that I owe them a lot and a lot of people don’t realize that actually I was going to go to school for that and I wanted to go into radio. As I got older I had lost interest in it because I used to DJ in clubs back in my younger days but I kind of grew out of that and never thought that it would all come back around years later. When WCW came to me and asked me to start broadcasting, I used to do the play by play in the dressing room sometimes with my brother and I. We would do play by play in the dressing room and someone got light of it and next thing you know I am out there doing it in front of the people.”.
His immediate reaction to the botched “N” word promo by Booker T on Hulk Hogan:
“I really don’t care about that question because that’s got nothing to do with me. That is more of my brother’s thing. That is more of a question he might have gotten tired of. When people ask me about and ask what was I thinking? I wasn’t really thinking about it because I am getting ready to do my lines. It doesn’t really bother me that much and it’s funny (man) but people ask me what was I thinking? I wasn’t even listening. I am waiting to do my lines so in essence I’m not sitting there and listening to him like a fan at home is listening to him, I am listening to him subconsciously because I am waiting to do my lines for when Mean Gene comes to me. I am not sitting there listening to him word for word and I didn’t even realize that he had did it for a minute because with the clip on YouTube it cuts off before Mean Gene gets to me but if you watch the show I had a little soliloquy of what I was saying but I know we had to say something about Hulk Hogan and it is right before we had to go out and work so that is probably why it got so messed up because I think my brother was thinking about two different things entirely. But that is more of my brothers shtick, not mine.”
The clip’s circulation all over social media:
“In all actuality, I had actually forgotten about that until it came out on YouTube several years later. People started telling me about it but it was just a night. I swear to God, I was just doing a story last night on my podcast and somebody sent in a question that made me remember a story that I didn’t remember until I read it. It triggered something in my head. That is just me. I’ve told people a thousand times that I have never taken pro wrestling home with me and it is just the job that I go to and when I am there I am all in and when I am not I am all out.”
Inducting his brother Booker T into the WWE Hall of Fame:
“We had a great time. It was just electric. Everyone kept asking me am I nervous? How do I feel? This was all before the show and it is such a big production and I said NO! I’ve been in front of so many big audiences that it doesn’t bother me. I was prepared and I am looking at guys in the back going over their speeches with their reading glasses on and people were asking me where were my notes? I said they are in my head. When I came out and everybody gave me the ovation and started rooting “STEVIE RAY” I almost forgot everything that I was prepared for. I wasn’t expecting that and it threw me off. I looked in the audience and I see all these guys that I used to work with staring at me and that moment I was not ready for so I just put my head down (not looking at them) and everything kind of came back to me and I started everything up. I’ll never forget that and it threw me off because I was so ready until I walked out there. It was a very cool night.”
Being the eventual leader of the nWo Black and White:
“I had a lot of fun. It was really cool and different than what I had been doing. It was cool to me and I really loved being in the nWo. People say to me that I was the leader at one time and I told this one day on my podcast, I felt like Fonzie with Richie and Ralph Malph and all the guys down at Al’s Diner (on Happy Days) with Potsie and Chachi that is what it was kind of like that being in the nWo. Me and Virgil, Scott Norton, Horace Hogan, Bryan Adams that was our gang. We hung together too so it was kind of cool and we had a good time.”
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