You can check out the first part of the interview here, where Holly discussed his early career, working as a job guy with Ricky Steamboat in WWF, working with Ric Flair in WCW, signing with WWF, being given the "Sparky Plugg" gimmick and much more. Make sure to check back tomorrow for the rest of our interview, where Holly discussed ending CM Punk's streak, working with Punk, hypocrisy with the WWE Wellness Policy, Ted Dibiase's release and much more. You can also follow him on Twitter @TheBobHolly.
You can also purchase his book, The Hardcore Truth: The Bob Holly Story, at Amazon.com by clicking here.
Wrestling INC: Business started to change again and you had the Attitude Era being pushed in. Was that kind of a slow change, or was that something that they told the talent, that they were going to be changing direction and there were going to be changes on the creative front?
Holly: It just evolved. It wasn't a matter of hey, we're going to change and go this direction. It just happened to evolve that way when the whole Steve Austin and Rock thing took off. It just happened. It wasn't something that was planned. It was just one of those things where these guys just became mega stars and people were paying good money to see these guys and it just happened. Plus, the economy was good back then too and that helped a lot. It was just one of those things that evolved, it just happened. I don't think you could force something like that.
Wrestling INC: WCW started to catch fire. A lot of guys were jumping during that time. What was the locker room atmosphere like when all these guys started jumping and did you ever think about leaving?
Holly: I was approached and my loyalty was with Vince [McMahon]. That's another thing I talk about in my book. I had a lot of time invested in my company and they had a lot of money invested in me. To me, money's not everything. My happiness is what's important. Me being comfortable with my work environment, I know everybody where I was at, yeah, they offered me more money, they offered me like twice the amount of money that I was going to make, but that's not what drives me. Happiness is what drives me and I was very happy where I was at. So that's why I stayed. I think the people that jumped ship, it's more about money to them then anything else. To me, it was my happiness what kept me where I was at.
Wrestling INC: The locker room atmosphere when WWF did start winning the Monday night wars and the tide shifted, did that change how things were in the locker room
Holly: The thing is, the whole thing with the Monday night wars was, here you had two companies that were rivaling each other, competing for ratings on a weekly basis. That is what is great for business. That is what's best for the boys. The atmosphere in the locker room, everybody was… It was fun to be around. Everybody was happy. Everybody was making good money. It was fun because we were wanting to beat the other guy. You're doing everything you can do [so] we can get the ratings to beat those guys. But, I think what hurt us is because we were doing one live show and then taping a show for the following week and they were doing the live every week. I think that's what hurt us and that's why they ended up beating us, but we ended up beating them in the long run. But I just think, everybody in the locker room, it was just a whole different atmosphere. It was a good time for everybody. It was fun. Everybody was in story lines too. That was the main thing. You didn't have guys sitting around that weren't in a story line. It makes a big difference too, when you're in a story line. That's the thing to, it's like even though guys were jumping ship and stuff like that, you never knew they were going to leave. It was just like oh, all of a sudden they're gone. Which was fine, because then it just opened the door for somebody else to step up and take their spot. I thought the Monday night wars were great for everybody, despite us losing in the rating for a little while. It's just good for everybody because the whole thing is, it's like TNA now. I would like to see TNA succeed, but they're going to have a hard time doing it because it's just good for the industry. Competition is good. Back then, it was just unbelievable the business we were doing.
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