Headbanger Mosh appeared on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet for an interview this week.
The following are some of the highlights:
So where did the idea come from to make you guys The Headbangers? “That came from Jim Cornette. So we left, we packed up the car and I started in June of 93, we packed up the car in April of 94 and went to Memphis for USWA as The Spiders. So we worked as The Spiders there, and then we were in Ozark Mountain Wrestling with Burt Prentice in Arkansas for a little over a year, maybe a year and a half. And what happened was, at the end of that, Burt started bringing in Ricky and Robert, The Rock and Roll Express, Tracy Smothers was bringing them in for our big show we had every Monday night. And then it was just Ricky and Tracy coming and we were working them. And the good part is that Larry would bring guys in. So he brought Jerry Lawler in back in the day, and then Cornette was there. So Glenn knew them and they knew of Glenn, and from being around and with Tracy and Ricky coming, we were giving them tapes like, ‘Hey, can you give this to Cornette? Can you give this to Cornette?’ Because USWA had the gateway into WWE back then, and so did Smoky Mountain. USWA, we went there as The Spiders. We were there a few months, and then we were gone. We couldn’t get back in. And so we’re like, okay, so Smoky Mountain is another way for us to try to get in. So Cornette called us one day, and he goes, ‘Hey, I got this idea. I’d like to bring you in. The Gangstas are getting ready to finish up. I’d like to bring you guys in.’ We’re like, Yeah, because with Burt Prentice, at that time, we were making 4 or $5 a night. So when Cornette called us, he goes, ‘Hey, I had this idea. I want to bring you guys in, but I don’t like the masks. I don’t like masked wrestlers.’ Which is funny, because when he brought us in at Ring of Honor, what did he do? He put us under a mask first. But yeah, so he told us that, and you’re gonna laugh at this knowing Jim Cornette, he was at a Danzig concert in New York. He goes, ‘It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. These guys had earrings and their noses were pierced, and they had makeup on their face. They’re wearing dresses and they had tattoos.’ He goes, ‘With your guys’ attitude from the northeast, I think you could pull this idea I have off. I don’t really know what the idea is, other than you’d be Headbangers.’ He goes, ‘You would come out, listen to loud, obnoxious music. I want you to spit on people.’ I mean, the first TV we did, I walked down the ringside and I spit on every single person in the front row, right in their face. He didn’t care. He was like, if you find roadkill on the road, throw it in the back of the car, put it on a leash and drag it to the ring. We didn’t want to go that far. But I knew what he was talking about, the music he was talking about. I knew what he was talking about. I had been to the heavy metal concerts at The Bank, and I’ve been to them in The Spectrum in Philly with my buddies, so I knew exactly what he was talking about. I’d been in the mosh pits.”
How many matches did Beaver Cleavage have? “One match. Four vignettes, undefeated.”
You have one match, but it lives on forever. Here we are, 27 years later, still talking about it. “I have one of the worst gimmicks in the history of wrestling.”
Do you think it was one of the worst gimmicks? “Probably. I still to this day don’t know where it truly came from, how the idea came up. I mean, I think the vignettes could possibly be some of the best vignettes ever done. They’re hysterical. I mean, I’m sitting there, and I come out of a room, and I tell my mother that I can’t find the cat. I can’t find the cat anywhere. She turns around. She goes, ‘You can’t find pussy?’ I go, ‘No, I can’t find pussy anywhere.’ Meanwhile, she’s peeling a zucchini, and she goes, ‘Well, Pussy is probably under the bed. I know what would get pussy…’ I have a scrape on my knee, and she’s cleaning my knees, and I go, ‘When it comes to working on your knees, my mom knows best.’ I mean, they’re priceless. There were no rules back then. Do whatever you have to do to get over, to draw ratings.”
So you have no idea where this idea came from? “I have a general guess. First overseas tour we went to Kuwait. It’s the first overseas tour I was ever on. Jerry Brisco was the agent in charge of the trip. He gets my passport. He starts laughing. Now, my passport picture at that point was from when I was 20 years old. So he looks at it, and he starts laughing, and he goes, ‘Oh, look at you. You look just like Leave It to Beaver.’ I’m like, Okay? So on that trip I was called Beav, and then I found this out the other day. I didn’t know this. Bruce Prichard was a huge Leave It to Beaver fan. So everyone wants to blame it on Russo. I mean, Russo helped with the vignettes, and he was there when we did all the vignettes. But I don’t know who actually came up with the idea of, let’s have a Leave It to Beaver character, and we’re going to insinuate that he’s having sex with his mother. I don’t know who came up with it, but when it was presented to me, I was like, okay. I was home, Glenn was hurt. He was rehabbing his knee. I’m gonna get used, I’m gonna be on TV. If I’m on TV, then I go to house shows. I make money when I’m on house shows, because back then, we didn’t have a guaranteed contract. So I’m like, sure, whatever. I’d never done singles before, other than those three matches I had when I first started down at Monster Factory. I was like, Yeah, this will be cool. The vignettes were funny. Then for me, it was a character. So I was able to dive into this big kid wearing a propeller hat, burying my face in my mother’s boobs every time I went out to the TV, or staring at her boobs. Everything revolved around my head being in her boobs. So I was like, This is funny, it’s fun, I don’t know, we’ll see what happens.”
Weren’t you training with some pretty big names at The Monster Factory? “Yeah, D’Lo was down there. Boo Bradley [Balls Mahoney] was down there. Then when we had left, Big Show had come down, but this was months later. D’Lo actually was a huge part. So D’Lo kind of trained himself, did the backyard thing, and him and his friends would come down and rent the ring, and they put on a whole production. They were great. They had lights, they had ring music. They had their own matches. They videoed it all. It was great. Glenn and I would stay and watch, because they would rent the ring on a Saturday afternoon. So after we got done training, Glenn and I would sit there and watch. So when Larry convinced D’Lo to join the school. D’Lo is actually the one who helped us perfect the Stage Dive, our finisher. So he was a huge part of that.”
What a finisher! It’s one of the greatest tag team finishers in the history of wrestling. “It’s not one of, it is the greatest tag team finisher of all time, the most underrated finisher. And we say that, and Glenn’s way more passionate about than I am. He gets hot when it comes up. But what’s so great about it is the timing, nothing else. You need timing for the 3D, LODs finisher, really no timing. You just stand up and jump off. Matt and Jeff’s finishers, The Hart Foundation, there’s really no [timing required] because you’re just holding one up. Even Demolition, as much as I love them, it’s just across the knee with the elbow coming off. With ours, the timing is important. But what else is important is what you have to do. If I’m giving you the Power Bomb Leg Drop, there’s a way you have to land so you don’t get hurt, and Glenn doesn’t get hurt. You have to turn your head, you have to put your arm down. There’s a lot more to it, and it’s never been duplicated.”