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Rick Styles interviewed by CM Burnham

Posted: Nov 30th 2003 By: oklastaff

(Editor?s note: This interview takes an extreme behind the scenes look at Oklahoma wrestling. A "shoot" interview is one that is done from the standpoint of the "real" world and not the wrestling world. If you don?t wish to read inside information, then do NOT read this.)

CMBurnham: Thank you for being here and doing this. I guess the place that I always start is the beginnings. Were you a wrestling fan growing up?

Rick Styles: Oh, yeah. I grew up watching....it started out as Georgia Championship and then it became NWA. Then Mid-South. That was back in 5th grade, so that was....I dunno, ?84? When Bill Watts started getting really big here in Tulsa.

CM: Who were some of the guys you enjoyed watching?

RS: "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert, Missing Link. I really loved Dick Slater. Dick Murdoch was fun. I had an art project in 5th grade of "Dr. Death" (Steve Williams) and Ted DiBiase vs Dick Murdoch and Dick Slater for the tag belts. And then, of course, it was the Sheepherders? feud with them. I saw Sting?s first ever match live with Mid-South. I used to have a big crush on Dark Journey and Missy Hyatt. I remember "Pistol" Pez Whatley. The Four Horsemen are idols. I got my nephew the Four Horsemen collectors? set of wrestling dolls. They?re the only ones he can?t play with. The Anderson brothers. My brother & I used to pretend like we were them. Dusty Rhodes, because he was a normal guy. And the Road Warriors. Oh, and "Wildfire" Tommy Rich.

CM: So how did you get started in the business? Did you wrestle in high school?

RS: I wrestled one year in high school and one year in elementary school. I sucked. I think I got 4th place in one tournament. I just was always a small kid until high school when I blew up. I was working out at MCI Worldcom and a bodybuilder out there had met Pete Maguire and told me about it. I e-mailed Pete and he talked me into coming out and checking out their introductory class. I showed up and that?s where I met Luc LaPointe, (Cousin) Cooter, Jean Paul, Joey Casanova, Heather Savage...and somebody else. Oh, Misty Lynn. We all trained together. Oh, and my best friend, "Killer" Karl Davis.

CM: Who was responsible for giving you most of your training at that time?

RS: Rocco (Valentino), the Great Bolo and Chief Red Eagle. Bolo handled all the psychology, Chief Red Eagle did selling and Rocco taught us wrestling.

CM: My records indicate you had your first match on April 8, 2000 and you wrestled Luc LaPointe. What do you remember about that?

RS: That is actually inaccurate.

CM: It is? That?s the first one I have down.

RS: I actually wrestled against Joey Casanova as "Rick Mason" in November of ?99. I was supposed to wrestle Jimmy Kane. He gave me a break. He was going psycho. He didn?t want to hurt me, I guess. I wrestled Joey Casanova. That was his second match. I lost to Joey. Joey was on the beginning of a big run. Then I wrestled with Karl as my tag team partner in January for the Starbird shows. We wrestled 2 matches.

CM: Was it your desire to be part of the Casualties of War or was that always sort of the programme?

RS: They were the best at the time. They had just turned face, unfortunately. But there was not a spot for just another guy. (OPW) had Snap, they had Sweet D, they had the Sin City Assassins. They had the normal guys they needed. They had "Top Gun" Tommy West. They didn't need more plain guys. Major Powers came up, offered me the opportunity, I jumped on it. I?d be stupid not to. Oh, and I gotta say this: Splash Jackson?s wife is the one who recommended me to Major Powers to join the Casualties of War.

CM: And while you were with the Casualities, as I was looking over my notes, it seems that on and off again, while you personally never had a big feud with any component of Northern Threat, they would drop you in every once in a while for 6-man matches or the occassional one-on-one. Were you wanting to have more of a push with the main programme of the Casualties vs Northern Threat?

RS: Well, like you said, the 6-mans were the way it worked out. I was the light heavyweight. I replaced Grunt. In fact, Rocco used to call me "Grunt-nade". But my feud at the time was with Ichiban so they just mixed me in and out. Luc and I were very good friends. Jean Paul and I were very good friends. And so it was always fun to wrestle. I mean, we trained together. There was no pressure. We could just go out there and cut loose. It didn?t matter. Did I care? No. I went out there and the crowd was so anxious to see another face light heavyweight besides Tarantula. They didn?t care.

CM: Tell us about that early feud with Ichiban.

RS: That was awesome, he and I....well, hold on. We have to go way back here. Before I was even Rick Mason, I was Ichiban. In the light heavyweight tournament. That was my very first match ever. Kenny was not licensed and he did not have his physical completed, so the state would not let him wrestle. I had my license, because Rocco had tagged Karl and I to be brought in. I had to fill in for Ichiban. And I was the one who brought back the Ichiban dance, at the original Ichiban?s request. That was my first match. I lost to Tarantula with a fisherman?s suplex in the first round of the Light Heavyweight Tournament. So it was fun for me, especially in the back, to joke around with the boys, because I had been Ichiban and he & I were very good friends. You probably remember our Hardcore match? All the toys? The pumpkin and the cowbell and the cowboy boot?

CM: Yes, yes.

RS: Man, we spent 6 hours out there shopping for the crap in our match. And we used to have a ball. He & I used to come up with stuff that no one else was doing. Tarantula wanted to do the high-flying stuff. I was a fat light heavyweight. I was the only guy on the roster that the booker had to list at less than his actual weight. He announced me as 199 lbs and I weighed in at 205 lbs at the time. So I couldn?t jump around like those guys. My big off-the-top was the splash or I would do the sunset filp. I could run all day. I had quit smoking. I was in good shape. Not a problem. So Ichiban was able to bounce all over me. We did matches that, in my mind, were some of the best light heayweight matches, until Tarantula was able to wrestle the other light heayweights. Because him and Bud Studley...well, as you remember, Bud Studley was nothing. But I loved it. Ichiban & I had a different match every time. And we did everything. We brought back the Tree of Woe, which hadn?t been done in Oklahoma since....well, probably Dick Slater. We did the Booker T roll-up in the corner. Stuff like that. Ichiban headbutt to the crotch. All that. And it was just awesome. That was my favourite feud, because he & I were such good friends in real life that it made it work.

CM: You were responsible for getting OPW onto the Daryl Starbird shows. Tell us a little about how that happened.

RS: I was just a green rookie, begging for time, because they had all those superstars, as you remember. Guys with 10 years in the business. And a very good friend of mine, Mark Thompson and his business partner, Debbie Grun, formed Productions Plus. It?s an entertainment business company here and they own the rights to the Bobcats and the Tops and the Platters here in Oklahoma. And they did all the booking for the Starbird shows at the time. All the entertainment. Any time you saw the Eagles at the show, that was who brought them in. They were looking for something different. They had the monster trucks, but Daryl Starbird was getting tired of that. Mark, being a good friend of mine, he came down and I told him what we could do and he talked to the owners at the time, Rocco and Pete. Got a base price for what it would take for a 3-day run with 4 shows and then took it and sold it to Starbird. Starbird ate it up. He?s kind of an egomaniac. Wanted us to be something different. We came in and made the deal. But my friend Mark, being a true friend, made it so that he would not allow the contract to be signed unless I was guaranteed to wrestle on the shows. And that?s how I got my break. Mark wanted to help us grow, but he also...he flat out told him. "Y'know, Rocco, I just want this kid to have a chance." And Rocco said "No Problem. I got a spot for him." And he did. And that?s when Karl & I first tagged. And that?s how it happened.

CM: Memories of your first Light Heavyweight Title victory over Ichiban.

RS: That?s when I learned the importance of psychology. Ian St. James was back at the time and you know how good he was at psychology. He told me. "They?re not going to care if you go in there and dominate the champion." I don?t remember getting any offence until the last 2 minutes of the match. And it was a minor comeback, he broke me off and then a double underhook suplex and then the splash off the top to win the belt. And that was all the offence I got. But he had beaten me down, jumped me from the bell, and the crowd was so tired of him and Steve Hartley...Hartley mainly...that when I got jumped, they thought, "Oh well. Here?s another guy losing to Ichiban." Well, Ian had told me, "The crowd will eat it up." Well, sure as heck, they went wild. And it was the simplest match I ever had because all I had to do was get beat up.

CM: You held that title for about 2 months and then you lost it to Joey Casanova. Any memories of that?

RS: Yeah, well, Joey & I were very good friends too, at the time. It was fun putting him back over. And I remember, I?d been wrestling for a while now and things started slowing down in the ring. You could notice things. I was learning how to work the crowd. And I remember, as he was pinning me, you remember those teenage girls that used to sit up in the back row behind you?

CM: Yes.

RS: I remember one. It was Sweet D?s niece. You could hear her as the ref was counting, "2!" "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!" And that?s all I remember, besides the fact that everybody hated Joey. The fans really cared enough that me losing was important to them. I remember that. That was my main memory.

CM: The light heavyweight division at that time was basically you 4 people, you, Tarantula, Joey, Ichiban and sometimes the Shadows of Death. Was it ever frustrating to you that you were wrestling the same people over and over again?

RS: No, because they always mixed me in and out. As a COW, I could go against Northern Threat. I wrestled Luc probably as many times as I wrestled Ichiban or Joey. It wasn?t frustrating at all because we got to practice together. As the light heavyweight division, and the booker was really trying to get it over, we got our own practice time. We could go in there and the 4 of us could work on matches and we could really put on a show. And it got to the point that we were good enough that he used us to open every show because we got the crowd into it and we were that good as the light heavyweight division.

CM: From February 10 to April 21, I?ve got no matches listed for you in my records. Were you out injured or did they just not have anything for you at that time?

RS: What year?

CM: 2001. This is after you lost the Light Heavyweight Title to Joey.

RS: Combination of things. I think I took some time off. I was moving. Mark, the guy who hooked us up with the Starbird shows, died, complications from a previous illness. Stuff like that. Rocco was kind enough to give me some time off. I been fortunate not to get hurt much. I got hurt a lot during training. Spent 6 weeks in a cast on my leg and 2 weeks in a sling for my shoulder. Stuff like that. But in 2001, I think it was just a combination of the booking, storylines, stuff like that.

CM: When you returned, you had your first, and as far as I can tell from my records, at least in Tulsa, your only singles match with Vinnie Valentino, now OVW star Brent Albright. What do you remember about wrestling him?

RS: The dude was so strong. He had so many moves that he knows how to do that he has to pick 3 or 4 to do a match with. The thing I remember: the choke-slam suplex. The dude grabbed me by a chokehold, grabbed my waistband and suplexed me over the top of his body. And it was all him. I mean, he just did it. WE had a great match, nobody got lost. We brought back some old school stuff: the headlock off the turnbuckle, he?d try to run me, I just held on. Good little man/big man psychology. That was right in the beginning of his big push. Grenade was a COW and a face. It worked good. He took care of me. He gave me my props backstage. My understanding was that he asked to work with me because I would listen. At the time, he came back from California. He was wrestling a totally different style from everyone else and I would listen to him. As did Joey, as did Luc, etc. My biggest memory of that match is the chokeslam suplex. I?ve got it in tape and I watch it because it?s one of my favourite matches. It?s not that I liked Vinnie, as a person. I couldn?t care less. As a wrestler, the dude?s got talent and that was fun.

CM: You regained the Light Heavyweight Title on June 23 in what amounted to a miniature Oklahoma Stampede with the entire light heavyweight division that I already mentioned.

RS: Minus Joey Casanova.

CM: Minus him, yes.

RS: People have drama. People have problems. People make bad decisions and OPW needed a way to put it back on someone could care about it and then allow a heel to put heat on it. And it worked. And it was fun. And I?m glad he trusted me enough to do it. But by that point, you?ve already learned the game. You?ve learned what a belt is. It?s not an accomplishment. It?s a gimmick. So it was fun and by that point, I?d learned how to work it and it didn?t matter. It was just fun at that point.

CM: Was that your first time in a match that wasn?t structured one-on-one or two-on-two?

RS: No, I?d wrestled in other Stampedes. Because I practiced, because I was always there 3 nights a week practicing. Rocco asked me to work with SOD a lot. Noone else would. I didn?t care. If he hit me, I hit him back. He choked me, I choked him back. He wanted to learn. I did a lot. And I?ve been eliminated in every stampede I?ve been in by the Shadows of Death. And that?s fine with me.

CM: On one of the hardcore nights, a match that I remember very well, was your "Cowbell on the Ceiling" match with Beau Dalton.

RS: Pete Maguire did a poor job of explaining the rules of the match. Anyone who remembers old-school wrestling, anytime there was something on a pole or on the ceiling, in the case of the OPW Arena, it?s not like whenever they hang a belt in the ladder matches. You get that, you win. The point of a weapon on a pole match is, you get the weapon, you get to use it. Face always gets it, face never gets to use it. And that?s what happened. They thought I won by getting the bell, being Grenade, I tried to use it in the top -rope splash, I missed, Beau Dalton choked the hell out of me with it, slapped me with it, pinned me. It was a great match. I thought we used good psychology. They didn?t explain the match well. Pete didn?t. The booker knew what we were doing, we knew what we were doing, some of you fans knew what we were doing, but Pete didn?t make it so that the rest of the fans knew what we were doing. But that match was fun. I love wrestling Beau.

CM: Around the beginning of August, you entered into a feud with probably one of the most controversial people in Oklahoma wrestling and that?s Dexter Hardaway, who you?d eventually drop the Light Heayweight Title to. What do you remember about working with Dexter?

RS: Dexter had bad press. The kid had left when the roster split the first time, before all of us joined. When I say "Us", I mean that group: Luc, Heather, Karl, Joey. That happened about 6 months before we joined and he left and he went on to what he thought was bigger and better things in Missouri with Malice. Gained a lot of experience. The guy is an awesome worker. He just has personal demons that he can?t get away from. I love working with Dexter. He?s fun to wrestle with. He?s strong for a little guy. I never had a problem working with him. I?m one of those guys who would do whatever the booker asked. I knew it was a work.

CM: On September 15, I find you had your last match for OPW. It would shut down a couple of months after that. You take another long time off after that. I don?t have a record of you wrestling again until the Fun Fair shows in March in 2002. Again, were you injured?

RS: Yeah, yeah I was. Approximately a week after that match, if you?ll remember, I was wrestling Dexter, ICF had been coming around, they jumped us, hit both of us. Dexter crawled over, made the pin. Whatever. That?s fine. 3 days later, on the way home from work, getting ready to go to practice, I was involved in a severe car accident. I T-Boned a lady. They had to cut her out with the jaws of life. I hurt my shoulder very badly. Luckily didn?t have a torn ligament. But I was out until March. It was a 6 month lay off. I had just met the woman who?s now my wife. Rocco asked me if I was ready to come back. My license was still good. They needed me for the Fun Fair Shows. They?d been building a new brand with new stars and they?d sold the company. We were living out in Oolagah at the time and it was snowing. We got something like 18 inches of snow. Loaded them up in my 4-wheel drive and came into town. I wanted my step-son to see me wrestle. That was the week before we got married. We got married the following Saturday. But that was fun. I came back. And it also, helped some of the young guys, I think. I came in, noone remembered me, except some of the fans. And here?s your soon-to-be new Light Heavyweight Champion Outcast (Kenny Campbell) and he?s booked to put me over and he just did not understand it. But he did it. Why? Because the booker is loyal to those who have been loyal to him. Always has been. And before Grenade got hurt, he was higher in the order than Outcast. And he and Justin (Lee) just didn?t understand it. They, of course, got over it. But that was fun. The next day I put over Luc and that was awesome. Getting to wrestle old friends.

CM: Again, after those Fun Fair shows, you didn?t make another in-ring appearance until almost the end of July.

RS: Yeah, I really didn?t give a sh*t about John Crow. That?s why. I had just gotten married. I had a lot going on. My wife did not like wrestling. She didn?t know wrestling. Didn?t want me to wrestle. Never said I couldn?t, just didn?t want me to. Being a newlywed, I chose not to wrestle. Then the bug hit me again and when I came back, I talked to Rocco & John and they had a spot and I decided I wanted to start doing it again. Also, after those Fun Fair shows, I was still hurting real bad in my shoulder.

CM: Backing up just a bit, during the time that you were involved with OPW, I know that periodicaly some other members from OPW would work with other federations. For instance, there seemed to be an agreement with Harley Race for AWOL and Heather to go work for him. Did you ever any other federations?

RS: Yeah, I worked for Underground Hardcore Wrestling a few times. Malice & I, Karl & Splash went down to Weatherford, OK. Got paid $13. Wrestled in front of 13 people. Literally. And then sat at the bar and proceeded to get sh*t-face drunk afterwards. And then drove home. After UHW, I wrestled to WOW in Arkansas, the World of Wrestling. And I wrestled up in Pittsburgh, KS for Central States Championship Wrestling. This jerkoff out of Topeka, KS, where my family is all from, started a federation. He was just a chump. They had me come in, because I went to school in Pittsburgh, KS, they had me come in and put over one of their big guys. You might remember him, a guy called Jammer?

CM: Vaguely.

RS: He went on and got this new crappy gimmick. It was like a blue Superman and he was called Kryptonite. That was fine because I had all my friends from college in the audience, my old boss, stuff like that. And then Joey, Luc Vinnie & I went up to Topeka to work for this guy on a card with Barry Horowitz and Donovan Morgan, 2 of the lowest forms of scum in this wrestling business. Went up there. Set the ring up. Promoter handed me the cash for the ring, he had rented the ring from Rocco, handed me the cash for the ring. Morgan was a good friend of Vinnie?s. None of the rest of us trusted him. I asked the promoter to hold onto the money for me until after the show because I didn?t want to leave it in the bag in the back. Me & Luc are wrestling. Joey & Vinnie are putting together their match. I wasn?t about to leave that much money just laying around. The crowd, unfortunately, wasn?t what it was supposed to be. Horowitz and Morgan cornered the promoter, took all the cash and split without even wrestling. We confronted him in the back. We had the chance to shank both of them and we should have. Luc LaPoint had a stick in his hand and we should have clobbered both of them, but we didn?t. They told us that?s the business, they deserved the money because they were veterans, even though they didn?t wrestle. Donovan Morgan can kiss my @ss and if he ever wants to look me up, I will gladly shoot him in the face. And you can print that.

CM: When you came back to OCW, a lot of your matches tended to be 4-corners matches and triple threat matches. You were working Outcast again. You were working Ryan Styles. You were working Tyler Bateman and Justin Lee. Was this different for you to handle, working this new style?

RS: No. Just that those guys couldn?t control themselves. Tyler had a habit of kicking people in the head really hard. He never kicked me. I don?t know if it was respect, if he liked me or if he just never made the mistake with me. Ryan Styles was an awesome kid. I liked working with him. And I liked working with Outcast & Justin. Justin had to learn how to control his kicks as well. I had a problem one time with him in a 3-corner match kicking me in the face. But I had fun with it. It was cool, easy to book, easy to do. I was still the biggest light heavyweight. I was able to turn sky-high hurricanranas into power bombs. And I was the older guy. I let these guys do all their stupid stuff. And I was able to get over by them. They did all the work. I just set back and let them.

CM: Talk about how the angle was set up for you to start tagging up with Jeff Pebbles.

RS: Yeah, we?ll just say that John Crow is an idiot. It was all his idea. John Crow had these students who paid him way too much money to be trained. And they were being trained by kids who didn?t know what they were doing. They had Vinnie, but Justin & Outcast, at that time, had no business training anyone. They never go taught psychology. They never got taught how to sell. Jeff Pebbles. Nice kid. Didn?t have a gimmick. Crow had all these stupid ideas. Jeff wanted to make a name for himself and Crow let him do it. And it worked. We didn?t care. AWOL and I knew what it was. i just did it. We were having fun. I was wrestling. I was making nothing. So I put about that much back into it. But I never let the crowd down. I always gave my full show. But that was my gimmick. I always did what they asked me. And that?s what it was. He was a good kid. He got the short end of that stick. Crow was messing with stuff he shouldn?t have. The Casualties of War. Who wants to see a kid in pink camouflage be a Casualty of War? If they had put him under a mask and given him a name, it would have worked great. That was John Crow.

CM: What do you remember about your feud with the Forsaken?

RS: Awesome man, I love those guys. They are so big and so strong. That?s about it. I love those guys. I love Faith. I love Halo. They?re just 2 of the best guys. Yeah, I loved it. Those guys were so big and so strong and yet, they weren?t stiff. They took care of you. I never got hurt. I could run at them full speed, and they preferred that. That couldn?t hurt them, and yet they took care of me. It was awesome. And we had AWOL, who was strong enough to wrestle them. And it worked. That was one of my favorite tag team feuds.

CM: When you came back to OCW, there was a bit of a tease that there might be a programme between you and AWOL. He had been billed for a long time as the last Casualty of War, after everyone else left. I remember one time there was kind of a staredown between you 2. Was there ever supposed to be a series of matches between you 2?

RS: Were you there the time he attacked me?

CM: Yeah.

RS: He attacked me and started to set that up. And then it just kind of disappeared. They were switching bookers at the time and I think that was part of it. I would have loved to wrestle AWOL. It would have been a classic big guy/little guy match. I think it was reversed, because I was the little guy, I didn?t have anything for him to want. I think that?s why the true booker probably put an end to it because for that to work, the little guy has to be the bad guy and AWOL has to be the physically superior athlete. And I think that?s part of why it happened. I don?t know for sure. I would have loved to wrestle AWOL more.

CM: What do you remember about the most controversial Oklahoma Stampede? The one that took place in December of 2002 and came down to Brandon & Vinnie?

RS: Can you say "Roid Rage"? You?ve got 2 of the most physically gifted athletes in the state of Oklahoma and a major storyline involving Rocco and the spike. That dumbass Brandon. I still like him, to this day. I no longer respect him, because of that, because he started believing his own hype. And he refused to do it. I sat in the back. I didn?t care. I?m not an enforcer. I wasn?t about to be one. But Butch went out there and Lakewood went out there and Karl went out there and Butch clobbered the snot out of him. Brandon?s so damn tough, though, that it didn?t even phase him. I remember it was chaos. I remember Brandon made a complete ass out of himself. And then trying to turn it around and trying to preach and say Rocco?s gonna go to hell and this and that? I think it was just a combination of too many hits to the head. Too many Roids. Whatever. Maybe his version of the Holy Spirit came over him and made him go crazy. Whatever. But it didn?t make any sense. In my opinion, the person in the wrong was Brandon Groom.

CM: On January 4, 2003, you made your debut as Rick Styles, replacing Ryan. Was this only supposed to be a one-time thing?

RS: Well at the time, you had Butch, myself, Karl, Lakewood, Tony & Vinnnie. You had 6 veterans in a locker room of 20 guys. That?s not very many. Ryan Styles? ride didn?t make it. He couldn?t make it to the show. Ron Mac had a big tag team match against Justin & Outcast, which turned into a 6-man with Rocco & Vinnie. Ryan didn?t make it. I volunteered. I?d already wrestled as Grenade. I was tired as hell. It was awesome. A light switch totally went off. And I was a very emphatic heel. And I was good at it. And it just felt natural. And I had a ball. Justin Lee, in that 6-man, ended up kicking me in the nuts and that?s the only time I?ve ever lost my temper in a match. I went back in. Vinnie turned on them. I actually pushed Vinnie out of the way and proceded to kick Justin as hard as I could in the ribs about 3 times. And it was over at that point. My nuts were swollen up. My wife still hates Justin for that. She likes Justin as a guy, but she hates Justin "the Loose Cannon" Lee.

CM: So for a couple of months, you were in 2 major programmes at once. You were tagging with AWOL and in the tag team tournament for the titles after they took them off the Forsaken. And you were also working a programme against Sonny C for the TV Title.

RS: Yeah. That was because Sonny was so green. Sonny & I worked together. I brought Sonny into the company. He started training. Sonny?s still one of my best friends to this day. They needed someone to get him over. I?m not saying I got him over. Sonny C, as the big pretty boy, was over. But so far as wrestling, the kid was green. And he only had to take 3 bumps in our match. And yet, by having me come down and doing the cheek pull and stuff like that, it worked and I?m glad I was able to be a part of that. It was fun. He learned from that. Because before he was Superman. He had just beaten Butch Dalton. Who does that? I never beat Butch Dalton. But that?s one of my favorite times because I was the true veteran at the time, compared to him. And he listened and he did what you asked every time. And I remember, that?s when Sonny became a worker.

CM: Were you told that you and AWOL would take the tag team straps?

RS: Yeah. We were supposed to.

CM: It seemed to be the only logical way to play out to me. But of course, it never happened.

RS: Yes. We were supposed to beat the Forsaken in the finals. They were cool with it. It was exciting for AWOL. AWOL had never had a belt. Probably the best big man since Splash Jackson retired. Faith?s a "Large-ador" as he would put it. There?s noone in Oklahoma wrestling stronger than AWOL. The guy always did his own thing, that may be part of why he never got his own shot. He could have wrestled Vinnie for the Heavyweight Title, instead he chose to go work for Harley Race. AWOL used to really want to go somewhere with it, until his wife really tightened the screws. Nice woman, by the way. Yeah, we were supposed to win them, so we really started working as a tag team.

CM: Yeah, I wasn?t going to bring that up, but I remember very clearly perceiving that there was, to borrow a well known phrase, an "A" team and a "B" team.

RS: Well, we were. Even on the match board. There?s COW 1 and COW 2. And when there were multiple tag team matches, COW one was Malice & Schrapnel, one of the best tag teams going and then there was AWOL and Grenade. We were 2 singles wrestlers and 2 singles wrestlers don?beat tag teams. But in OCW, they finally started booking us as a tag team. And we had fun. It gave AWOL something to really shoot for. And myself as well. And it worked, because we had the light guy and the big guy. And it worked. I took a helluva lot of bumps tagging with AWOL, though.

CM: What do you recall about the end of OCW? John Crow and his announcement?

RS: Oh yeah, Big John Crow and his big announcement. It?s just not the way you do things. You can?t do things like that. He didn?t own anything. He was in debt. He had liens against his company. He had liens against his property. And he goes and tries to sell it? No. You can?t do that. It?s stupid. Had he come and talked to anyone who was involved in that mess...I was just a worker. He didn?t have to explain anything to me. But the people he owed money to. The people working for him as a booker and putting their hearts and bodies into it, that was ridiculous. That was the culmination of the pile of crow that was OCW. The guy was just a mark. He had a wonderful family. It almost cost him his family and he didn?t realize that. My memories of that night are ridiculous. We all still went out there and wrestled our butts off and didn?t know what was going on. But that crowd had all paid their $7 and we all still gave them the same show. What John Crow was thinking I still, to this day, have no idea.

CM: You worked the first SRPW show in Tulsa, which was a benefit show for Keebler.

RS: Yes, very good friends of mine. I don?t have heat with anyone at SRPW except for Cade (Sydal). But I can?t say I have it, because I don?t know Cade.

CM: Because you were out while he was working for TPW.

RS: Right. I told the booker at TPW, "Hey. I?m gonna go work for SRPW because of Keebler." And that?s what I did. Went over there. Put over one of my good friends. Had a good time. That?s it.

CM: Did you ever consider working for them more often?

RS: No. I went to their meeting because I wanted to know what was going on. I still, to this day, am friends with all of them. We don?t hang out. But, no. I had always wrestled for Rocco Valentino. Rocco Valentino had never done me wrong. The people who left had their own reason for leaving. That reason I did not share. I was on their website. I had thought I was going to wrestle for both companies. And I even told the TPW booker, "Hey. As long as it?s not competing directly, I?m gonna wrestle for them." Then, things started changing. The poison darts. The shots. And I pulled myself out. I was happy where I was at. All of a sudden, because I had been gone, I come back, these people leave, and all of a sudden, I?m one of the top guys. I was happy with that. I would much rather wrestle here than there. It?s not that I didn?t want to wrestle for those guys, it?s that I was happy where I was at. Simple as that.

CM: When TPW started up, the first programme you were put into was a brief feud with Romero Contreras.

RS: Yes, they were trying to build him. They had this angle going with the Tornado Lucha Libre. And that?s fine. Good kid. Kid tried forever to get into the show. And finally did with his alter-ego, poor guy. But that shows you what kind of guy he was. The guy would listen. The guy had some personal problems at the time. He?d had some infections and his feet stank really bad, but the kid worked and the kid listened and we had fun. And that?s all that mattered.

CM: You made your last appearance as Grenade in the tag team tournament which was restarted in TPW. You and AWOL lost to Romero and Anthony Jackson. Was it an intentional decision to shut down Grenade?

RS: Yeah, I asked the booker to do that. I was having too much fun as Rick Styles. AWOL was going in a separate direction. We could have won, but they needed to put over the Mexicans, the Mexican Combo Platter. So I asked them if we could kill off Grenade for a while. And that?s what happened. And he said, "How?" and I said, "Well, how about AWOL?". And that allowed AWOL to begin his monster heel run. So I asked for that and he granted it.

CM: Did you request to be put back with Karl Davis?

RS: Yes.

CM: I know there was a lot of movement in the Heatseekers and that the people who end up as the Heatseekers are not the ones who started off there.

RS: The Heatseekers were originally Justin Lee & Ron Mac & Ryan Styles. Justin went his own way. Justin has always had too much pull on the booker?s ear, except when Justin was the booker and then noone had his ear. The kid's good. He?s a good worker and a great guy. They had this great little storyline working and all of a sudden he changed his mind. He didn?t want to be associated with it anymore. That?s when I got involved with Ron Mac. Ryan started wrestling more for Mid-South. He couldn?t make it to Tulsa and so it?s just me & Ron. We had a good time being the...not the comedic heels, because you have Splash for that...But we were the vicious heels. And Karl was out there wrestling with some dude picking his nose. Karl?s probably my best friend in this business, hands down, to this day. And I?ve been there through his ups and his downs and as we know, he?s had some big lows. He?s my best friend in the business and I asked the booker, " Can we incorporate Karl?" That's the only time, other than killing off Grenade, that I?ve tried to influence the storyline. And we took Karl, who NEVER showed any personality in the ring...outside the ring, Karl?s awesome. Karl?s got personality, Karl?s got a sense of humour, but he?ll tell you, "Rick Styles is really Rick drunk." But it?s not. But that is Karl and Rick hanging out together. We were put in positions where we could be Billy Bad@sses and he ran with it. Finally, he ran with it. And I?m so glad to this day. We never had to communicate. I never had to tell Karl what to do. Our first matches were as tag team partners. We trained together. We wrestled together. There was a big show for OPW during the day for a thing that Riverlanes had going on. And I wrestled Karl. We go back so far. We used to get out of practice and him and Joey and I would split a 12-pack and go to my house and work on holds. We?d work on locking up. We?d work on walking. We?d work on the basics. The stuff that noone learns these days. And finally, to have that and to have Karl go where we did, was just awesome. I never had to talk. I could tag Karl in and grab a guy and he, somehow, knew what doubleteam move we were fixing to do. And it always worked out. Spike piledrivers. Karl ate it up. Karl & I & Joey, originally, when we were students, asked Rocco to be Freebirds 2000. We wanted to do that. And that?s where Karl and I got our gimmick. He was Terry "Bamm Bamm" Gordy. I wanted to be Michael Hayes. And it worked. It truly worked. It?s one of my greatest achievements. Grenade got over because of the COWs. Rick Styles & Karl Davis wrote our own thing. I wouldn?t trade it. I?m just glad my best friend was part of it.

CM: What do you remember about working the Cinco de Mayo shows?

RS: You had these people who didn?t know us and they ate it up. Festival shows are always fun because you don?t have to be anything except what they need you to be. We had too many green guys. We had Cade...No, it wasn?t Cade.

CM: Cade wasn?t there yet.

RS: Who did we depants? Tony & I...this kid was flapping his gums and being a dumbass rookie and we depantsed him and threw him over the top. Those are the festival shows and we had fun. That?s when Karl and I started working on double team moves.

CM: What led to the decision for you to lose the tag team titles to Lakeood & Dalton?

RS: That was the booker?s decision. They needed to bring Butch & Lakewood back to a level. Butch had gone on and furthered his personal career and had taken time off. Lakewood had to deal with his personal...not problems, just his personal life and he took some time off. They needed to bring them back in.

CM: But did it coincide in any way with you taking another month off? Because it was about a week after that that they did the suspension angle. Rocco suspended you so that you could have time off...

RS: ...to have my kid. Yeah. That was exactly it. That?s right. And that was kind of the beginning of the end. I came back. I was having fun wrestling, but I was away from my family and I had a brand new baby girl. And I couldn?t be there. It was just hard.

CM: Something that I was involved in, because I set up the polls for it. At the end of 2003, you won 3 fan awards on the internet for TPW. You and Karl were the tag team of the year. You were tied with Anthony for the most hated wrestler of the year and I felt that, because this was a brand new character, even though you had been around for years as a character, I put Rick Styles in as newcomer and you won newcomer of the year.

RS: Yeah, I barely beat Deuce (Rodriguez), right? It was almost a tie.

CM: Yeah.

RS: I think the reason I beat him was because I logged in and voted for myself. I?m serious. But it?s fun. It?s fun for the fans to acknowledge that. Because it is a work. It?s fun for them to recognize. Just like everyone recognizes that Ric Flair is the greatest heel in the business. But it is all a work. It?s fine. I wouldn?t have cared one way or another.

CM: When you set up the programme between you and Deuce, which would culminate in the Loser Leaves TPW match, did you know at the time that he was also planning to leave?

RS: It was just set up as me vs. Deuce. It was supposed to be the Heatseekers vs the Latin Apostles. Deuce had to move away, so that set up that. Through the culmination of that, I found out why he was leaving, took a look at my own life and and made a similar decision. I?m glad that Deuce wanted me to do it. I helped train him. I?m glad that worked. I?m sorry to see him go. And I feel that I stole some of his thunder. Because looking at his decision, I made my own decision, based loosely on his own reasons. I liked the reasons. They made sense to me. And I?m afraid, to this day, that I stole his thunder. I should have stuck it out a few more weeks. I?m one of those guys who, when I decide to do something, I?m gonna do it. And I , unfortunately, stole his thunder, by needing to leave as well. And it worked out. The reason I took him out was because I was the top heel. The reason Romero took me out was because he was the top face. And that?s the way it works. You go out putting over the guy. And that?s fine. I love that. One of the things I always did was follow the rules. Never complained that AWOL & I never won a tag team match, because it didn?t make sense. But this made sense. And that?s what I think other people don?t understand. The new guys and other companies don?t understand true booking. And there?s really only one guy right now who does. But I loved it. It was awesome to wrestle Deuce. We?d been friends for 2 1/2 years. He wanted to bleed. He bled. I bled. Romero tried to bleed. I had my mom, I had my grandmom, all my friend?s and family, Karl?s wife, in the crowd.

CM: One of the biggest crowds TPW drew at the Park.

RS: I really did a number on my forehead and it worked out good. It told the story as well. It wasn?t like Kitty slapped me and I was bleeding. It fit the storyline. And it worked out. And it was something I always wanted to do. It was a good match. It had a story. It had a meaning. And I was glad the way the booking worked. The special ref and the stuff going on. I loved it and that was a favour, I believe, to me, from the booker. He did that. He put me over on my way out, which is strange. But, as a favour from a longtime friend, I wouldn?t change it.

CM: Was there anybody you never got to wrestle that you would have liked to?

RS: I wrestled Ian. (Long pause) Because of the fear factor, I never wanted to wrestle Rocco. I wanted to wrestle Bolo more, but I was a light heavyweight. I got to wrestle against Chief. Renegade was awesome. I never wrestled Brandon. I?m not complaining about that. Because I was a junior face, back in OPW, I wrestled against all of them, pretty much. I never got to wrestle Malice. I would have liked to have wrestled Malice. Who else? I finally got to wrestle AWOL. I don?t know, man. There?s all kinds of people I?d love to wrestle, but none of them are around here. I wish I could have wrestled Luc more. Or Jean Paul. I wish he would have come back. I never got to wrestle Cooter, ever. Because we were both faces. I wish Ichiban hadn?t gotten hurt. But no, I did everything I wanted to do in the wrestling ring.

CM: Given that you had this retirement match, although you just did a show a few days ago for Rocco?s church, is there any likelihood that you will take a show or 2...

RS: I will never wrestle again. I made that promise to my wife and to my baby child and I will never wrestle again.

CM: Do you have any final things you?d like to say to the fans at this point?

RS: To the fans: Thank you. Thank you very much. Because you?re the only reason I did it. I did it for myself, but I didn?t get anything out of it but them. Never got paid any money to care about. Thank you to Rocco for being as loyal to me as I was to him. Thanks to anyone who ever put me over. And I wish some people hadn?t made the choices they had made. And I wish anyone who wants to be a wrestler the wisdom to do it right.

CM: Thank you for your time.