Steve Carrier on May 23, 2018
X-Pac opens today’s show by discussing the tragic passing of Owen Hart. He notes that today, May 23rd marks the anniversary of Owen Hart’s death, and he points out that he’s been thinking about Owen and the Hart family all day. He recalls having a great tag team Title match with his partner, Kane that night, but like everything else on that show it was overshadowed by Hart’s untimely death.
X-Pac congratulates WWE on their new television deal with FOX, which will pay them over $1 Billion over the next five years. He informs that he was one of 12 WWE employees who were granted stock options when WWE first went public in 1999. He was granted 30,000 stocks at that time.
X-Pac is very happy for Cody Rhodes, The Young Bucks and everyone else who was involved in ALL IN, which sold out in under an hour several days ago. He points out that even if CM Punk is going to appear on the show as several rumours suggest, they don’t need to announce it now because the event is already sold out. He admits that they might announce it in an attempt to get PPV buys but he doesn’t think this show will be available on PPV.
He addresses the rumours that WWE might have renewed interest in signing the Young Bucks. He mentions that if the opportunity to go to WWE comes up and the deal is right, you have to take it. However, the deal has to be lucrative for them because if they go there and WWE books them like crap, in turn negatively affecting their value on the indies, they need to have financial security to ensure they can pay their bills.
X-Pac welcomes Hurricane Helms to the show.
X-Pac says it was great seeing Helms come out as a surprise entrant at this year’s Royal Rumble event. Helms says it was fun for him as well, adding that he only finalized the appearance with WWE a week before the show. The timing was finally right for him to return this year, adding that he thinks WWE wanted him to return as a surprise entrant in the Rumble several years prior. Unfortunately, contractual obligations and injuries prevented it from happening until this year.
X-Pac asks Helms how he’s feeling these days and Helms says he has no complaints. He will be 44 years old in July and he works out twice per day. He notes that his wife is the best trainer he’s ever had and he credits her for fixing a lot of his bad habits in terms of working out.
Helms talks about being pigeonholed into a comedy role in WWE. He mentions that the company forgot he could work as a heel for a long time after he hd success in comedic roles. He compares this to how Jerry Lawler was trapped in a commentary role with WWE because he was so good at it, even though he was a tremendous worker in the ring as well.
He thinks his heel run as Gregory Helms might have been the best body of work he put together in his career, even though his merchandise wasn’t really flying off the shelves.
X-Pac asks Helms if he prefers to work with big men or small men. Helms says he doesn’t really have a preference, adding that he likes big guys that work like big guys, and little guys who realize their limitations. He doesn’t like working with small guys who insist on doing power moves, when in reality they’d never be able to lift him off the ground if he didn’t let them.
X-Pac and Helms laugh while discussing the recent Bobby Lashley segment on RAW which featured Lashley’s three sisters. Helms says this is not the direction he thought WWE would go with Lashley and X-Pac notes that this segment reminded him of the late 90s. Helms points out that fans often say they want the attitude era back, so this segment was a taste of the stuff that was happening back then.
X-Pac and Helms both agree that having bad matches affects their mood negatively. Helms recalls one bad match he had with an inexperienced worker recently. He even had to punch his opponent in the mouth during the match as a receipt because the inexperienced performer continued to ‘stiff’ him.
He admits that he was shaken after the match because he felt that he could always get a good match out of anyone. Even Vince McMahon used to say, “If you can’t have a match with Hurricane we got a problem”. Helms adds that McMahon doesn’t just give compliments away.
Helms talks about the end of his TNA run. He informs that his contract was up and Jeff Jarrett came in and wanted to give his job to one of his friends. Helms loved his time there but the way everything was handled at the end was not very good and was not professional. He adds that Jarrett shook his hand and tried to talk to him since but he’s not going to forget what happened in TNA, even if he refuses to carry around grudges.
That sums up this week’s episode of X-Pac 1, 2, 360. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!
May 23, 2018 9:25 pm
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