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Bill Watts checks in on today?s wrestling business, accountibility and the lack thereof today, the UWF and more

Posted: Feb 12th 2006 By: oklastaff

On Wednesday night, February 8, Cowboy Bill Watts joined hosts Brian Fritz and Dickerman on Between The Ropes on Central Florida's Sports Radio 740 The Team to discuss his legendary career as one of wrestling?s most influential decision makers and talk about his brand new autobiography, The Cowboy And The Cross: The Bill Watts Story, which hits bookstore shelves this month. The interview was taped the previous week.

Watts began by talking about his current activities, including, of course, writing the book, a home-based business, and several investments. He?s enjoying this time of his life. He misses the creativity and excitement of the wrestling business, but not the high-speed pace night in and night out. He doesn't care for the lack of moral responsibility of modern wrestling. He said that while writing the book and reliving the memories of his career, he felt the excitement again, but not an interest of getting back in the business.

Asked what he thought of the general reputation he?s been given of being a difficult guy to deal with in wrestling, Bill responded, "No, I don?t think I was hard to deal with. It depends on who I was dealing with. I think everything is done based on respect. Yes, you had to earn the respect, but if you earned my respect, I think most of the people who ever earned it felt I was very, very fair. To me, I had high standards. I forced the wrestlers to be businessmen. I forced the wrestlers to be responsible. Personal accountability is something that our culture is losing. Our culture has gone in the direction where you want to have an excuse or a program that doesn?t create personal responsibility in a person and gives them a way to blame their choices on something else besides themselves. Whereas I?ve always believed you had to be personally responsible. All I asked of the people who worked for me was that your word was good, you gave one hundred percent in the ring, and people that did that very seldom had a problem with me. So I think that a lot of that comment has been exaggerated or skewed by people who felt they didn?t have a rapport with me. I know even Teddy DiBiase, who is someone I love, said in his book that I was a bully. If you take Teddy, Teddy is one of these guy who is a super nice. Teddy is not a Hacksaw Jim Duggan. He?s not a guy if you get on him, he?s going to be blow up in your face. Teddy has really a softer side to him and that?s what he may think. Whereas a Hacksaw Jim Duggan, he may say I was a man?s man and I talked to him like a man and related to him like a man and he and I never had a problem or a cross word. Or Dr. Death Steve Williams. When I say that, there wasn?t a doubt that I was going to make demands on you."

Watts told a story from his book of how Frank Goodish and Stan Hansen were not cutting it as a tag-team. He broke them up, which angered them and prompted them to give their notice. Before they left, he still forced them work as singles to finish up and both went on to become phenomenal singles stars.

Asked about getting into the promoting end of the business, Watts said he never saw himself becoming a promoter. He had no intention of getting into promoting. As a wrestler, he didn?t realize it, but he was learning lessons of how promoting should and shouldn?t be done from the people he worked for. However, he never set out initially to break into promoting.

Talk shifted to Watts as a promoter with the Mid-South/UWF territory. Bill said he was an independent, but still used the NWA World Champion, which was a boon for the Alliance. Regarding the WWF, "When Vince came in, we use to kick his ass every time he came in. Kicked his ass bad." Watts talked in general about all of the great talent he was fortunate enough to have wherever he was, going back even to Florida in 1974. He said the talent was drawn by all of the good things his promotions were able to do and they wanted to be a part of it.

Watts spoke about having to sell off the UWF. "I think I was ready to sell it off for some other reasons. I think my life, I was wanting to go a different direction. It?s very frustrating to go through the process of trying to sell a company. I was ready to get out and make a change in my life. I had a spiritual awakening and decided that I wanted more in my life than where it was and where it was going. That part of it, I was embracing. Unfortunately, at the same time, because of my life in wrestling, my personal life was going down the drain. If I could ever do life all over again, that?s one thing that I would die to keep from happening because that?s not fair. Where I am now, I realize that every child that you get is a blessing from God and I didn?t even respect my God enough to stay married and father and guide and mentor my child the way it?s intended. That?s the greatest loss to me. This business is extremely tough to families. Most families I?ve ever seen in this business are dysfunctional. Even though I thought mine wasn?t, it certainly was. Mine was tremendously dysfunctional. It?s extremely hard as a father to try to tell your kid what to do when your kid can see you're doing what you?re doing."

Asked about what happened to the UWF after the sale to Crockett, "The way Crockett structured the deal, I was a consultant, which made what he did a better tax situation. The pathetic thing was, and the thing I didn?t realize, was how he really didn?t know how to handle what he had. It was really painful to see what he was doing with it. I would try to call him and say, ?You don't have to take my advice, but you?re paying me a lot of money. Don?t you think you could take time to listen and I could bounce some things off of you?? But that wasn?t the way he wanted to go either. He was locked into a situation that was bigger than he was. He had no way of handling it and didn't know how to handle it. Instead, he just caved in and buried his head and what was a wonderful thing there, it was going down the tube. But there was nothing, by then, I could do about it because I had sold it. It was painful to watch it going down and to see what was happening to it."

Cowboy Bill then explained how he got back into wrestling with WCW several years later. He said Turner had made a significant investment and things had gotten so screwed up to where the company was losing over $8 million per year. Turner knew of wrestling?s value to his station and how it always exceeded the station average. Turner?s personal attorney knew Watts and suggested him to Turner as the guy the turn things around. Watts was brought in to work with Bob Dhue. Watts said a lot of upper level management didn?t want wrestling to succeed. He said the timing may not have been right for him to get back into the wrestling business, but he pointed out that the company still went from $8 million in losses down to $400,000 in losses under his watch. Yet, he still couldn?t get a letter of commendation from his bosses at Turner Broadcasting. Watts said he approached wrestling as any other business. You had to watch the bottom line and Watts said he specialized in trying to make money with any company he worked with.

Watts specifically discussed some of the people he worked with over the years. Regarding Jake Roberts during his WCW tenure under Watts, "I feel sorry for Jake Roberts. Jake Roberts is really a talented guy. The only thing I would say about Jake is he is very aptly named. Jake had substance abuse problems and he was unreliable and we couldn't support that." Regarding Jim Ross, "Without a doubt, Jim Ross is special....Jim became my right hand man. He did that by earning it. He had my full trust. I think Jim has so proven himself as to his ability in this business. He has survived and gone to the top of every organization he was at."

Asked about his tenure with the WWF in the mid-90s, Watts commented, "I was there three months. It came about because Vince wanted me to come up there and be part of his creative team. They were needing some new ideas. I think I was curious. Also I was really not fulfilled at life and thought I need to do something and this has been a vehicle I loved and a vehicle I had always been able to make a lot of money at. So I was really kind of curious about Vince. Without a doubt, he?s a talented guy. I decided to go up there to work for him. We did a three month thing. Vince is cute. He puts you through his little paces where you?ve got to do all of this little maneuvering when you come in there. I had to go through that, which I thought were like kids games, but that?s what he wanted and he was writing the checks. I spent the three months there and we did some great things together. And I?ll just say this, I was tremendously impressed with him personally. The guy really knows the wrestling business. He?s one of these guys who?s a far-reaching thinker. He?s driven. He?s a workaholic. Basically speaking, the booking meetings with him were great. They went just fine. He and I saw everything eye to eye. It was real easy to work with him because he was a long range vision person, which is the same way I was. You have to know where you?re going in order to know how to get there. The one problem I thought we had is that he wants to be everything to everybody. At the television shoots, he?d get himself cornered dealing with talent issues at a time when he?s supposed to be television talent. I finally went to him and said, ?Vince, we can?t operate like this. It?s too disruptive. When you?re at TV, we need you to be totally committed to the television and let these guys have times when they see you. But we need to have your total concentration on doing the production.? He saw it that way and we did it. I?ll never forget, we were driving back in Chicago that night, he pulled the car over and said, ?Come here and give me a big hug. I have never seen a television run that well. I have never in my history of the business seen a television run that well. That was fantastic.? We really had a certain rapport. Now the next step was that was something he couldn?t handle because he is the kind of guy that needs to be hands on about everything. At that time in my life, I was not going to be to where I would sit and wait for him to breathe before I make my next move. It just wasn?t worth it to me so we came to a parting."

Bill concluded by saying he doesn?t following the wrestling business anymore. He said he wasn?t even following it when he went to WWF. He said what drove him away was the lack of moral responsibility, such as the degradation of women, rebellion against everything, ridicule of God, and even a subtle promotion of drugs and steroids. He said he?d rather watch the Ultimate Fighting Championships, which he is a fan of more so than professional wrestling.

The Cowboy And The Cross: The Bill Watts Story, written by Bill Watts and Scott E. Williams, hits book stores this month from ECW Press.

To listen to the Cowboy Bill Watts interview, including additional comments on Eric Bischoff, Dusty Rhodes, today?s wrestling, and more stories from his legendary promoting career, as well as the entire February 8 edition of Between The Ropes in streaming audio, visit the show online at http://www.BetweenTheRopes.com. Join us for Between The Ropes for two hours every Wednesday night at 10:00pm ET on Central Florida?s Sports Radio 740 The Team and worldwide on BetweenTheRopes.com.