WWE Hall of Famer Diamond Dallas Page (DDP) appeared on an episode of Six Feet Under, where he discussed various topics, including his meeting with Vince McMahon and the stalker storyline with Undertaker.
DDP said, “I said, ‘Honestly? No, why would I think I would heat?’ ‘Oh, because you’re the brand. You’re the guy…’ This is what Vince’s ego to me, as we went through this, and I didn’t realize — let me go back to this meeting here. So I’m here, Shane’s there, Vince is here, Kim’s there. And we talk a little bit, and then we get into what they wanted me to do and who they wanted me to be. They wanted me to be the stalker to Taker, and blah, blah. ‘No one knows it.’ Now if I’m in WCW, now remember I’m gonna be a team player here, because I didn’t think I had any heat. It wasn’t me personally, which took me a while to get to. It was the character and WCW. So I get it was business to a certain degree, and I learned a lot from it. If someone in WCW — and I just came in there, or if I was keeping my same mindset in WWE that I was already using? If he would have said, ‘We want you to stalk Undertaker’s wife,’ I’d have looked at him, I’d have looked at her, and I’d have looked at him. I’d say, ‘Are you f***ing looking at my wife? She’s the most beautiful chick ever, and you want me to stalk of all people, Undertaker’s wife?’ That’s what I would have said. I would have went, ‘Listen, when you want to do People’s Champion versus People’s Champion, give me a call.’ What I learned — I didn’t say that. I did pitch the idea of doing it. And the pitch, which I’ll give you in a second, is really good. Friggin’ — I didn’t say that, and what I had to go through in my head over time. Because our s**t didn’t — I would have killed to work with you a year earlier, when I didn’t come in with that friggin’ heat, and I was being booked differently. And that’s what people don’t understand, like you didn’t do it. You were booked that way.”
On what he learned in that meeting:
“I learned, and the only reason I’m building this beautiful place on the beach at Panama City Beach? I have no mortgages on anything. The only reason I can do that, is I learned a very valuable lesson from Vince McMahon that day: You can’t be afraid to get up and walk away from the table. And if I could have done People’s Champion versus People’s Champion? Knowing what I know now, I would have done exactly the same s**t to get me here. Because bro, you know, now me and you are super tight, you know. And I love that. And it took a while for some of that to go away. But, man, I love where we’re at. Yeah, it was so important for me to have learned that lesson. Every time it looks like the worst thing happened to me, it’s turned out to be the best in every damn phase… That was the first time I let someone talk me out of my gut instinct, and I learned a big lesson from it.”
On being bummed about it:
“Yeah, dude, it bummed me out that we didn’t get to have our run the way it should have been. And then I tore my meniscus, and then I came back in four weeks after that. And then I started doing the thing with Christian, which was great. I mean, that gave me that saving grace. And I really wanted to keep going. But when I almost broke my neck with Bob, I thought it’s time for me to powder out.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
