Kayfabe! YouShoot with Diamond Dallas Page

KAYFABE!
YOUSHOOT w/ DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE

This would be a YouShoot that I’d classify as “good.” DDP doesn’t really dish out a lot of dirt or bring out any revelations that anyone watching the DVD wouldn’t already know about, but he’s pretty clearly having a good time and he does tell some funny stories. The DVD starts off with a bang with DDP talking about being a big wrestling fan as a kid. Early ’20’s DDP went to the Meadowlands and saw Greg Valentine and yelled “Hammer! How do I become a wrestler?” and Greg replied “Fuck off!”

Naturally, Page’s infamous WWE run is brought up, and, he actually credits that with teaching him to stand his ground more instead of just going along with what others want him to do. He took a ridiculously low buyout on his Time Warner contract, did the stupid stalker angle, and which basically killed him off as a someone who could be a big time player. After suffering that, he’s never been afraid to stand his ground and walk away from negociations if he didn’t like the terms, and more often than not, he’s gotten everything he’s wanted out of them. DDP touches on the notion that one of the problems people in the WWE had with him was that he liked to lay out the match backstage. His take is that, it’s better to lay things out in advance if it’s someone he hasn’t worked together with a lot. Pairings like UT/Mankind, Flair/Steamboat, etc. had worked together tons of times before.

There’s really not a whole of discussion of his WCW time. The famous Goldberg match only comes up in passing, with the notion that there was serious talk of having DDP beat Goldberg. His Nitro match Sting where he lost the WCW title is only brought up beacuse of the notion that he’s the only person to lose and win a title in the same night. Even the Macho Man feud is only briefly discussed, on the basis of Savage being his favorite opponent, and DDP remembering a great promo exchange between them. The only thing from WCW that he really devotes a lot of discussion to is the angle where he turned down the nWo. Hall and Nash were both on board since he’d been friends with them for years, but Bischoff kept pushing it back, until it finally happened. Then, his match with Mark Starr and the angle got cut from twelve minutes, to eight, to six, and then four. Nash just told him “Just go have the match. It’s live, are they gonna cut you off if you go too long?” They had the match, he took the nWo shirt, layed out Hall with the Diamond Cutter, and DDP arrived with a BANG!

And, of course, DDP’s yoga is talked about. Kimberly suggested him doing yoga and Jersey tough guy in him didn’t want to do that, but he discovered how much it was helping him, so he tweaked it a bit and created Yoga for Regular Guys. His success stories have been a soldier who was injured and told he’d never walk again (Note from Mike: I actually saw the solider video at a 2CW show last summer when DDP did an appearance), Jake Roberts, and Scott Hall.

There’s also chapters dedicated to people who had a big role in DDP’s life like his ex wife Kimberly, and his good friend Chris Kanyon, but there really isn’t anything mind-blowing that comes out of those chapters. One question is how DDP felt seeing Kimberly’s breasts in the movie “The 40 year old virgin” and DDP’s response was “I’ve seen them everywhere.” When it comes to Kanyon, DDP didn’t know he was gay. He assumed he was like Disco Inferno, he just loved the business so much that nothing else mattered.

The 411: This is a case where you're mileage may vary. I enjoyed this because it was clear DDP was having a good time, and it came out in the interview. But, those who only want to hear about drugs, rats, and that sort of thing will be disappointed.
Final Score:  8.0   [ Very Good ]