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Tim Horner Interview Recap

Posted: Nov 12th 2006 By: CMBurnham

This week's edition of JG's Radio Free Insanity is on the air and available for download right now at WorldWrestlingInsanity.com. This week's guest is former World Wrestling Entertainment producer (formerly called agent) Tim Horner in his first post-release interview. After the interview, James will unveil this week's World Wrestling Insanity Moment of Inanity (MOI) as voted on by the WWI readers. Don';t forget the full 36 minute interview with Tim is available exclusively at Club WWI. James then cues up the interview with Tim Horner.
James welcomes Tim Horner to the show and mentions how it's becoming more and more common for the WWE to lose producers after a short period of time. JG asks Tim about his plans for the future. Right now, he's going to work on training some guys who have been asking him to train them for a couple years.
He also is hopeful that he'll be working with the WWE at beginning of New Year in their developmental territory. He's one of the few agents other than Fit Finlay who actually got into the ring with wrestlers in developmental. That was actually his goal at the WWE but he was offered producer's role and got into that first.

JG brings up how so many wrestlers-turned-agents are talking about how much the WWE has changed in the last few years. Horner says he knew it had changed thanks to his conversation with WWE agents such as Arm Anderson and Ricky Steamboat. However nothing could have prepared him for the full experience until he went there. TH recalls how the wrestling business used to be like. The Mafia guys would get beat up to see if they were tough enough to hack it. Now, the business is scripted and all about a person's look and their marketability. Back in his day, wrestlers played off of people's emotions in a match whereas today, everything is scripted (whether it works or not). JG asks what it is that the new crop of wrestlers isn't learning. Horner replies that today's wrestlers aren't learning science or ring psychology. If wrestlers are supposed to be (sports) entertainers, then who are they entertaining? The bottom line is that no matter what they are called (sports entertainers or wrestlers), they need to entertain the people in crowd; not themselves or the guys in the back. Tim says it's pretty simple-if you get a good reaction, you want to keep doing it. If you're not, you need to change up. As a producer, he was constantly reminding guys of this and giving the example that what worked for him in the south didn't always work in the north. A lot of a wrestler's work is about getting the crowd into it and giving them what they want. He tries to let the young guys know this. Even during his stint as a producer, he would encourage wrestlers to think on their own and to set up a match on their own. Once again, he relates to his own experience, recalling how he learned how to work back in the day with little to go on but who was going to win the match. Everything else was left up to him and his opponent.

JG talks about how matches are laid down and how promos are scripted to the point where promos are almost laid out word for word. James asks if this format hinders guys from learning how to work or developing into their own as characters. Horner likens this having your homework done for you and he says there were several times when he had to bite his lip adjusting to this style. He's told guys to say interview like they feel it. Sometimes he felt characters were scripted to say things they normally wouldn't say.

Guttman tells Tim that he feels like scripts are making wrestlers play a part rather than being themselves, reducing their edge. Tim talks about how the WWE owns the name rights and appearance rights to its wrestlers. This and the amount of scripted work means that if a wrestler is released they will have a hard time making it if they haven't learned to work during their time in the WWE. James asks Horner about what he thought of the WWE product prior to joining it Were there too many people using the same finisher, etc. What did you think you could correct. Tim says he really didn't watch the WWE a lot until he started talking with them. When asked about the business in general and how he would run his own promotion, he replies that he'd make it more family oriented; something that a grandfather could bring his grandsons to. Tim says it's pretty apparent that the WWE has lost an audience. They've gone from the height of their war with WCW where close to thirteen million people were watching to something like two million today. Where did the other 11 million people go? Why aren't they watching? Is it the product or wrestling in general that they're not interested in? Looking back to the days of WCW versus WWF, JG brings up how a wrestler who was stale in the WWF could go to WCW, got repackaged and spend some time there; then return new and refreshed to the WWF. That's no longer possible as there's no company that's on the same level as the WWE.

James asks Horner if he thinks the industry has suffered with there being no other company on level with the WWF? Tim says he tried to pitch the idea of a Triple A promotion to the WWF back when they had Smokey Mountain Wrestling (SMW), as a place where guys could learn the trade in small area. The problem today is that a lot of of times guys are brought up way too early. He hates to see this happen to young guys. The real problem is that all too often, the WWE doesn't think people can get better. JG talks about how wrestlers used to have to find their own work, get booked, etc. Now, a lot of people are coming out of wrestling school young and landing work with Ohio Valley Wrestling. They don't appreciate how difficult it used to be to break in. Tim agrees. When he got into the business 28 years ago, it was hard to get in. He remembers calling Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling (MACW) back in the early 1980&'s and being told that he needed 3 years worth of experience. Once he broke into the business, he went 12 years and missed 2 weeks of work. He'd leave one territory on a Saturday and go to work for a new territory on a Monday. While cable television was a good thing, it killed the territories. It wiped out the many places where people could go to learn the business. Someone could be awful in Texas and learn how to work in Florida. Nowadays, people have one shot to make it.
James recalls another thing that's changed in the business-the presence of managers. For a while, managers faded from wrestling. Has this affected guys who couldn't get over? Tim knows all about managers because he worked with Jim Cornette in SMW. Tim thinks there's a lot of guys in business who couldn't work but talk (he mentions "Freebird" Michael Hayes) and vice versa. Always thought that if you had a guy who could talk, utilize him. Tim thinks it's a waste that Arn Anderson isn't being used. At the very least, the WWE should let him have a class to teach guys about how to do interviews.

Guttman then asks if changes in the business have changed the motivations of people entering the business. Back in the proverbial day, people endured a lot to make it as wrestlers. He asks Tim if he thinks guys are getting into the business more to do things like break into Hollywood? TH says he definitely can see where some guys would see wrestling as more of a stepping-stone than an end to itself. He can't argue with people doing that, given the publicity wrestlers get nowadays.

After the interview ends, James Guttman reminds fans to check out the full-length interview over at Club WWI. In it, Tim Horner talks about working for Bill Watts, talks about wrestling Harley Race, and working in the WWF during 1989. Tim has seen so much in the industry and obviously that's why the WWF brought him in to produce shows. Despite the fact that he's left the company as a producer, he's still high on the company (in fact he'll probably be going back there at the beginning of 2007 to work with the developmental wrestlers) James talks about how some people say that the WorldWrestlingInsanity.com guests are all disgruntled with the WWE but if you listen to them, you'll see that this definitely is not the case (check out interviews with guys like Orlando Jordan and Aaron Aguilera on ClubWWI.com to name a few). Obviously, a lot of people still happy with the way WWE is going.
That's not to say WWE isn't without its insanity. This brings us to this week's MOI, voted on by you, the readers of WWI. Not only do the fans have some insane things to pick from on television but now WWE videogames seem to be offering their own moments of insanity. A WWI reader brings up the newly released videogame SmackDown vs. RAW 2007 which includes a storyline where Candace Michelle turns Kurt Angle into a woman with her magic wand. JG warns fans that apparently things could be a lot worse on TV given this videogame storyline. Guttman then closes us out with the reading of the weekly-voted Moment of Insanity - Hollyweird Style. After that, JG announces the creation of a forum over at Club WWI for readers to discuss the exclusive content at Club WWI. Also, he'll be appearing on Doc Young and Les Thatcher's Wrestling Weekly program as a monthly correspondent. James says that next week's show will be posted early and urges readers to check back for more information during the week.

JG's Radio Free Insanity is always free and always on the air each weekend at WorldWrestlingInsanity.com, with extended interviews and show archives available on ClubWWI.com. James Guttman's book, World Wrestling Insanity, is available at Amazon.com or wherever books are sold.