Show: The Interactive Interview courtesy of http://www.WrestlingEpicenter.com
Guest(s): Scott Norton & Kevin Thorn
Date: 6/3/09
Your Hosts: Patrick Kelley, James Walsh, & Nick Noel
Special Contributors: Erik Clancy & Andres

Scott “Flash” Norton is a former nWo member and a former IWGP Heavyweight Champion. He saw the success of the nWo both here in the states and in Japan and has wrestled for the AWA, WCW, New Japan, and beyond over his 20+ year career. Now, for the first time ever, Scott Norton reveals the funny road stories including being held prisoner in North Korea that had Ric Flair believing they would not get out alive to hysterical stories about Chris Jericho, Goldberg, Scott Hall, and more!

Scott is selling his home on eBay. We ask that you check out his myspace at http://myspace.com/nortonsan to find out all the details! He wants to be with his father who is not in good health but has to sell his Atlanta home to be with him.

Also, tonight on The Interactive Interview, we have part one of our epic 2 part interview with the former Simon Dean, Nova! This one was an education for us! Plus, Al Snow joins us live on the air! Make your plans to join us live tonight at 10 p.m. E/T at http://www.WrestlingEpicenter.com for The Interactive Interview!

To listen to this great interview as well as any and all of our past interviews, visit http://www.WrestlingEpicenter.com. We ask that you also check out the store at our web site as we do our best to bring you this show free of charge every week with the biggest names in wrestling giving the hardest hitting interviews we know how to bring out of them. We have overhead and would love to keep the show free for all forever… We have no plans on stopping!

SCOTT “FLASH” NORTON:

– Former IWGP champion and member of the nWo, Scott Norton joins the program. The interview begins with Norton plugging that he is actually selling his house on Ebay. He wants to move to be closer to his dad who has been diagnosed with cancer. He has always had a lot of respect for his father & wants to spend more time with him. To find out more on Scott Norton’s home for sale, visit him on MySpace at http://myspace.com/nortonsan.

– Viscious & Delicious (Norton & Bagwell) got back together at a recent Indy show and Scott enjoyed it. He’s always enjoyed working with Buff and the fan response was very good. He doesn’t know why WCW didn’t really get behind the team initially, but says they got over in Japan and says the team works because they are so different from each other.

– Scott talks about some of his past tag team partners like Hercules Hernandez who he enjoyed working with because they just killed people, but with Buff it was more entertaining. But he credits Herc for helping him out when he first got into the business. James then tells the story about how Herc stopped Billy Jack Haynes from shooting Vince McMahon, and Scott says that Herc told him that same story. This then leads into a disccusion about Billy Jack Haynes and his past & current problems.

– The interview then shifts towards the “Rise & Fall of WCW” DVD that will be coming out later this year. He hopes that they give the company the respect it deserves and says there is a great video library for them to work with to make the DVD a hit. But they also talk about how Vince might let personal vendettas get in the way of making money, and Scott talks about how Vince bought WCW and then just got rid of it.

– This leads into a discussion about WWE 24/7 where alot of that great WCW footage is utilized and Erik specifically mentions a great match that Scott Norton had with Randy Savage. Norton also talks about how great that old footage is and even mentions ESPN doing their old AWA show nowadays.

– James then brings up a match that Norton had iwth Benoit, and Norton says he loved working with him because he was tough and could adapt to any style.

– In Chris Jericho’s book, Jericho said that he was good friends with Norton. We then hear a story about how Norton encouraged Jericho to stand up to Scott Hall. Norton says that he was getting tired of watching some guys push around the lower card guys which is why he pushed Jericho to do it.

– Norton was a member of the nWo, and he says that he can’t believe how big it got at one time. He says that the exposure of being on Nitro combined with the Hogan heel turn really put it on the map. He didn’t realize how big it was until he got to Japan where the nWo was huge. In a funny story, he says that it was actually Scott Hall who got him into the nWo, which came about at DDP’s Christmas party.

– Scott feels that the nWo probably could have kept going, but bad booking slowed it down. He specifically references the creation of The Wolfpac as being a bad idea that watered down the concept. He also didn’t like how everybody that remained in the White & Black nWo was considered the B-Team.

– To highlight the problems with WCW, Scott Norton was on a flight to the live Nitro with Bischoff who handed him the basic outlined plans for Nitro. Norton read through it and liked it, and Bischoff told him that none of that was going to happen as the whole shot had to be re-written because there were guys that didn’t like the direction. He specifcally mentions Hogan having a lot of power, even though he usually got along with Hogan.

– Scott was an IWGP Champion during his run in WCW and there were plans to showcase the belt more to enhance the relationship with New Japan, but Hogan & Sullivan didn’t like the idea of showing him off with the belt.

– He also talks about the large roster that WCW had, which was close around 130 guys or more, and Scott says the main reason it was so big is because nobody knew what they were going to do.

– The North Korean Wrestling Festival that Norton was a part of was a complete disaster. Norton says that they were the first plane to land in the airport in 10 years, and they were constantly observed by North Korean officials. He finally got a chance to call his wife and when he complained about how bad it was there, the phoneline got cut. He was then interrogated by military officals about his comments. After that incident, Ric Flair was scared to death & kissed the ground when they got back. Scott says that the only thing that made him feel safe was that they had Muhammed Ali with them.

– When talking about the really long promo segments that the nWo was a part of, Norton says that he never really had a problem with it, and says that you’d be amazed at some of the coversations going on in the ring between the guys that don’t have the mic.

– Norton says that it never bothered him that he never became a huge star in the States because he always did very well in Japan. He also had a lot of fun being in the nWo when he was going back & forth to Japan & the States. After leaving WCW in 1999, he says that he joined a group in Japan that was led by Chono called Team 2000 that did pretty well for a while.

– Back to the nWo, it is agreed that the nWo started the Anti-Hero “Its cool to be bad” phase that eventually led to the popularity of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Norton knew early on that Steve was a great wrestler and knew he had something, but never knew how big he’d end up becoming.

– He always thought that WCW would survive, and that wrestling in the states is suffering by not having them around. He says that the WWE being the only major game in town is what Vince Jr. always wanted. Scott says that Vince Sr. never wanted to step on any toes and leave the other territories alone. When Vince Jr. took over, he called Gagne and other promoters telling them that he was going to put them out of business, which of course eventually happened.

– He got one offer from the WWE back in the early 90s which he turned down.

Word Associations

Konnan = “Great guy…good dude…chicken shit”
Scott Steiner = “Not a chicken shit” he then recalls the famous story of when DDP & Steiner had a backstage fight.
Brian Adams = “What a great friend…one of the guys you could really call a friend”
Eric Bischoff = “Lot of people give him a bad rap, but he wanted us all to be successful…Eric’s a good man”
Bill Goldberg = “Big Star and he knows it” and then tells a funny story about how guys in the WCW locker room loved watching the Gillberg gimmick.