Raj Giri of WrestlingINC.com recently spoke with Shane Douglas about tonight's
Extreme Rising iPPV from the Golden Dome in Monaca, PA. You can purchase tickets for the event
by clicking here, or order the iPPV starting at just under $15 on
WWNLive.com.
All iPPV orders will receive a free iPPV download of the company's 6/30 Philadelphia event, which was headlined by Mat Hardy vs. Jerry Lynn vs. Homicide. Fans ordering the iPPV for 11/17 will receive an email code for downloading the 6/30 event within 24 hours.
Here is the second and final part of our interview, you can read the first part of the interview by clicking here.
WrestlingINC: When TNA decided to have their own ECW revival, I heard they had asked you to be a part of it. Why did you turn that down?
Shane Douglas: [Laughs.] Well, I turned it down because this was a company that was paying Ric Flair $35,000 a night. And Hulk Hogan $75,000 a night. And Sting, Kurt Angle and everybody else had this incredible contracts. When they contacted me, Terry Taylor called and said, 'Hey, we want you to two days worth of work. A meet-and-greet on the first day.' They wanted me to open the show up with a "cut the f--king music" scathing promos. Then, work the match which I was told was either going to be a tag team match or a six man match later in the program.
For all that, they'd be happy to give me air fair and of course they would, because I'm not going to just walk from Pittsburgh. A hotel room and of course you would because I'm not going to sleep on the street. And pay me $1,000 for that. And I laughed at them. That's so insulting to me and to us as a company. If you can pay these dinosaurs this kind of money, then -- most of the guys on that show were making $250. To me, that was just repulsive. You would ask us to go out and do what we do better than anybody else in the business and you're paying these sports entertainers an incredible amount of money. Then, you tell us, 'Well, you're only worth this.'
If that's what Dixie Carter thought of the product... And I knew it was what she thought of the product because she had been very disdainful of it when I worked for her. She said to me one time, 'Why would we want to copy ECW? After all, they failed.' Well, it seems odd to me that a few years later, she'd be trying to squeeze the legacy to make a few bucks out of it and did a very strong buy rate out of it. Yet, still doesn't to this day respect it. So, I was thankful for the fact that they offered me the kind of money that they did and that they didn't offer me the kind of money that I thought I was worth to go in there and do that. I probably would have taken it.
Not to be immodest or anything, but in the world of ECW/extreme, I was bigger than Hogan. I was bigger than Flair. if that's the kind of money they're paying those guys, I didn't think it was outside the realm of possibility that they would pay me at least a decent wage. Not $1,000.
WrestlingINC: Did you end up watching that show and what did you think with how that went through?
Douglas: Well, I didn't watch it but I still know people that were there. I still have people that are in the TNA office that I can talk to and find out where they stand financially and what's going on in the company and stuff. They're like moles of mine in the company.
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