Teddy Long still watches WWE but hopes the product “gets a little better.”
During a recent appearance on the “Inside the Ring” podcast, the WWE Hall of Famer said some things turn him off since it is nothing like the Attitude Era.
Teddy also thanked Vince McMahon for personally telling him he was wasted earlier in his career.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On the current product: “Well, I still have a deal with them. You know, I have the Legends deal. So, I still watch their product. I’ll go to TV every — if they call me and they want me to do something, but I don’t think that’ll be happening. But anyway like I said, I’m still part of that company, and I’m just hoping and praying that it gets a little better than what it is.
I got to tell you — I don’t watch a lot of it now, but I do watch it. And sometimes I see things that kind of turn me off. I’m like, ‘Well, that’s good.’ And then I look up and they’re done with it, so you didn’t accomplish anything. So, it’s just not like the Attitude Era, you know, and that’s a part of that’s what I came up in.”
On working with Vince McMahon: “Like I said, I’ve been in this over 40-some years. I started with the people that invented this. So I had a chance, and I was blessed by God to work closely with Vince. When Vince McMahon discovered me, he told me to my face. He said, ‘Teddy Long, they wasted you down south.’ And the next thing he told me to my face was, ‘Teddy Long, I can’t believe I’ve had you right here under my nose all this time.’ Those were words that came out of his mouth.”
Former WWE star Heidenreich went viral earlier this year after a photo of him working at Walmart spread online.
During a recent appearance on the “Insight” podcast, Heidenreich said he puts out freight at night and loved the fan support, adding that a lot of his coworkers did not even know his wrestling past.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On how he got teamed with Animal in WWE: “Well, I remember that they came and told me about it, and then we started that progression of me doing the hair, and then I think the spikes or the face paint, I’m not sure how it went on, but I was progressing with Animal. But my first paint job was the butterfly effect, which Animal came up with, which I don’t think they like too much. But the skull thing was actually given to me by Triple H. He got me and asked me to come into the back room. So I go into this locker room and he sits there, it’s bizarre. He’s putting that skull on my face in real time.”
On Triple H painting the skull face on: “It was his idea. But he puts it on me, and he tells me to look at it, it’s cool, that skull face. But then we had to go ask the Undertaker, because he had those things on his tights at the time, or his pants, that was a skull-type deal, and he approved it. He said it’s okay, I like it. I went with that, which I thought that paint job was way better. I got the spikes. But that was surreal, because in college, we were LOD fans, or marks. I guess it’s okay to say mark, I don’t mean anything bad by it.
“But I had photos of me and the guy I played college ball with at Mardi Gras, we made up our homemade LOD spikes and painted our faces, and it was Mardi Gras day. We went out dressed up like that, and I had pictures, so I brought one to Animal, this is no b******, man. We were LOD, we wanted to be LOD. But now I’m in LOD, so that was huge.”
On the photo of him working in Walmart: “No, I didn’t really. I didn’t see it when it happened. These kids, I call them kids, kids that I’ve known from working the indies, they started messaging me and calling me about it. ‘Have you seen the internet?’ So I don’t really do that. Then I found out from them, and then the guy who posted it, Wade, he handed me a piece of paper, I think [it was] your contact. Then someone was saying, ‘Man, he’s been saying he wanted to interview you for a while now. He wondered what happened to you, like, where is he at? Is he lost or MIA or something?’”
On how it came about: “Yeah, he’s actually on the renovation team that travels around, but he was there for a couple of months. He’s coming back. He’s from Ohio… I saw he was from Ohio, and asked him if he knew about Ohio Valley Wrestling, and he says yeah. He was a wrestling fan, and I told him some stuff I did, and he left that night, and I think he said he didn’t really believe me that I was saying I did all this stuff, but he looked it up, and then he was like, this dude’s Heidenreich!? I remember you! He said, ‘I got an action figure, you gonna sign it for me?’ I was like, yeah, of course, that’s cool. He’s like, why don’t you tell me? I’m like, well I don’t unless wrestling comes up. Then a bunch of his buddies found out, they were telling him, why didn’t you tell us that he was a wrestler, man? They all have action figures, too. When my coworkers found out, one of the guys, Larry, found out at Walmart, he was shouting at everybody, ‘You know who this guy is? You’re like a legend, man!’ I guess so. They’re always messing with us, ‘That’s our superstar wrestler!’ But they’re cool. A lot of people like wrestling, man.”
On what he does at Walmart: “I put out freight at night.”
On the support he received: “I love it. Yeah, people were like, I thought, they were bashing me because I’m at a Walmart now. They said no, this dude is cool. I think Snitsky said some good stuff, because he’s a cool dude.”