Honky Tonk Man Reflects On His WWE Intercontinental Title Reign

The Honky Tonk Man appeared on the latest episode of Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw with Gerald Brisco and John Layfield.

During it, the WWE Hall of Famer talked about how he became WWE Intercontinental Champion in 1987, which lasted 454 days.

“I just fell into that. People sometimes don’t want to understand or believe how it happened, but some things just happen in this business. I just happened to be walking down the hallway and Hulk and Vince were talking. I was coming from an interview or something. We were in Buffalo at the War Memorial. I was just walking down the hallway and Hulk said, ‘What about this guy?’ Vince said, ‘Well, maybe so. I’ll let you guys talk’, and he walked away. Then Vince told me that Ricky (Steamboat) was wanting to go away and take some time off, and Butch (Reed) wasn’t there. It was getting to be the 11th hour and they needed to put the show together and he said, ‘I need to put the belt on somebody. I need somebody to run with this thing. It’s got to be in the towns. It can’t be sitting in somebody’s house.’ I said, ‘Well Vince, if you give me that belt, I’ll run with it. That’s my deal with you. If I work, you pay me. If I don’t draw, you don’t have to fire me, I’ll go home.’ That was our deal. We went out that night and I got the belt from Ricky. Ricky did come back and work some return matches with me. They were really good. I enjoyed working with Ricky.”