Spike Dudley sat down with Chris Van Vliet on the latest installment of his “INSIGHT” podcast for an interview.
While talking on the popular program, the former pro wrestling star spoke about his decision to retire, the most painful bump of his career and more.
The following are some of the highlights.
On his most painful bump: “I’ll be honest. That one bump that I was telling you about when Bubba and D-Von tossed me over in ECW. That was my idea. So the setup is it’s me and Balls against Bubba and D-Von in the ring. Bubba and D-Von are standing next to each other. Balls picks me up and tosses me at them and in theory, they’re supposed to take a bump, but I’m so small that they catch me. They catch me in their arms, cradled side by side, and they just back straight up to the ropes and blind chuck me over the top. This was my bump. I called this bump. But what happened was, when they tossed me, the guard rails were those metal things, my heel hit the top of the guard rail, and exploded. I didn’t think I got hurt. I certainly didn’t need X-rays, but I was like ow! That hurts, and I was kind of hobbled the rest of the time. But that was the one I remember as like, ah, can I go on? Am I able to finish the match? As the most painful I would say, yeah, definitely. I’d go with that one.”
On deciding to retire from wrestling: “My wife was pregnant and okay, so this is what happened. This is how I officially got out of the business. My wife was a few months pregnant with our first daughter, that’d be 2010. I was working for 2CW in Syracuse, New York, which is a great promotion. It’s no longer there, but at the time, it was an awesome promotion, just great, great guys, truly, aside from like ECW, this group is the group that’s closest to my heart in terms of the boys and all of that. They used me a lot at that company, but they booked me in a match against Sabu again, RIP. I drove up there, it’s about a five-hour drive. Drove up and I did the show, and I got my arm sliced. It wasn’t bleeding that bad. It was a slice, it was just from a gimmick. Honestly, going into it, I was like it’s gonna be my Sabu match, I’m gonna do my arm, so self-inflicted. So I saw it, I just taped it up, I got into my car and I drove home, and I got home at like, four or five in the morning. My wife, she’s like, ‘Are you okay? Everything all right?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ I fell asleep, and I woke up at like nine the next morning, and I start to peel the tape off, and blood just starts gushing. I was like, ‘Honey, I think we got to go to the emergency room.’ But then that was the moment where I realized, Okay, I’m gonna be a father. I can’t be doing this crazy stuff anymore, because physically, that’s what I did, was take bumps. And no matter how indestructible we all think we are, you hit a wall where you cannot do that anymore. So I was 40-41, something like that at the time, and that was the eye opener that okay, I can’t do this and be a responsible parent any longer. So I got my stitches and I called it quits. I had a couple of matches after but that was the signal that you’re done with the business.”
