Kayfabe! - YouShoot with Tony Atlas

Posted by Mike Campbell on 01.11.2012

I learned more about face walking in one interview than I'll ever need to know in a lifetime.

KAYFABE!
YOUSHOOT w/ TONY ATLAS

Out of all the YouShoots I've seen and reviewed, this might be the most polarizing. As often as I was raising my eyebrows in general interest of what Tony had to say, I was also rolling my eyes and shaking my head in disbelief. For his part, Sean seemed to be having way too much fun giving this interview, especially when Tony told a story about getting a blowjob from a wrestler's wife, he refused to say who the wrestler was, while the wrestler was waiting for her in the car with the kids. Sean took a while guess on who the wrestler was . . . Pat Patterson!

When Tony talks about wrestling and experiences in the business, this is quite the interesting interview. He tells a couple of great stories about his time in Mid Atlantic, and how Wahoo McDaniel always went out of his way to help out young guys, it was Wahoo who gave Tony his first actual pair of actual tights. Flair would never be seen with young guys and midcarders. When Tony finally made it to the main event, Flair wanted to ride with him, but said he couldn't if Tony was also giving Don Kernodle a ride. So, Tony first had to arrange for another ride for Kernodle. He also talks a bit about his team with Rocky Johnson, and how they only had a few tag matches together, despite eight months as WWF Tag Champions, because they couldn't stand each other. Jay Strongbow had even told the office that they should have put Tony with SD Jones, since they were friends.

When asked about Saba Simba, Tony says he actually liked doing the gimmick because he was getting a paycheck. He thinks it's ridiculous how often the boys refuse to do things. He compares it to being a painter. If they tell you to paint a room white, it doesn't matter if you think it's an ugly color, you paint it white. I can see his point, but he forgets that a wrestler's paycheck can be directly correlated to how much he gets over. If he hates the gimmick, chances are he won't get over, and will probably make very little.

He also goes into detail about his famous confrontation with CM Punk at OVW, and admits that it was also his fault that it happened. Tony says that while he was right for calling out Punk for being disrespectful and not listening to what he was telling the class, he also should have listened to what Punk was saying to him, that what was good business and proper etiquette in 1980 wasn't the same in 2007. Tony's wife laughed about it because out of everyone for him to pick a fight with, he picked the ECW Champion and the perfect poster child for the company since he doesn't use drugs. He tells a funny story about when he was traveling with Mark Henry and trying to keep him in shape. He brought Mark some dinner, and Mark liked to eat chicken wings and meatball subs (note from Mike: My kinda diet!), and Tony brought him a grilled chicken Cesar salad. Mark asked if that was the appetizer and Tony told him that was dinner, he thought Mark was going to kill him with the salad.

It's when Tony talks about non-wrestling related things that I started losing interest fast. Especially when he goes on long-winded tangents, like Cornette only not as amusing. The question about his opinion of Dick Murdoch, who was a known Klan member turned into a long rant about why the Klan originally formed and about how race mixing will eventually make whites the minority race in the world. He also talks about how whites are discriminated against because blacks are always main eventers. Thunderbolt Patterson couldn't wrestle a lick, but was a top guy. Thunderbolt once accused Ole of only keeping him around because he was black, and Ole replied that if he was white, he'd have been fired long ago. This ties into why he didn't get along with Rocky, because minority wrestlers tried to keep others out of the territory to save their spot. Him and Rocky are good friends now though.

When he plays what's in the bag, he has no answer for pills or crack because "they weren't around in my day." Tony is fun with playing the Ho Bag and What A Dick. Here's a shock, John Laurinaitis (the executive VP of talent relations, and the interim GM of Monday Night RAW) goes in the dick bag. He puts Tiger Conway Jr in there twice, but leaves out Scar (as in Lion King). Missy Hyatt goes in the Ho bag, as do the Bella Twins. There's some discussion about rats, leading to the blowjob story, and Tony says he hates the term "rat' because it's so dismissive. He likes "Enthusiastic Female Fan."

The big highlights to his, according to KC, was the long discussion about Tony's foot fetish, particularly his love of having his face walked on. To each their own and all, but that's pretty creepy to me. There's even a video demonstration of it, and it's their full weight being put onto his face. This leads to a new game, "If the Shoe Fits" in which Sean shows Tony various pics of females in the business and Tony says whether or not he'd want them to talk on his face. The main reason most of them get rejected is that they wear high heels. High heels make Tony think of church, so he likes them to wear tennis shoes. Whatever floats your boat, dude.

The 411: Overall, this is a fun interview, but Tony's long winded rants, especially the racial ones, drag it down for me. It's still a good pickup, but there are better YouShoots out there.

Final Score:  8.0   [ Very Good ]