Kayfabe! – YouShoot with Honky Tonk Man Vol. 2

KAYFABE!
YOUSHOOT WITH HONKY TONK MAN VOL. 2

Honky Tonk Man is somewhat of a legendary shoot interviewee, like Sheiky and Cornette, so I went into this one expecting something along the lines of the New Jack YouShoot where it’d probably be a lot of fun, but not so much on the informative side. Once again, I wound up being wrong. Yes, this edition of YouShoot was a lot of fun, but it was also very informative.

The pace s set for the interview as soon as they start rolling. Honky is telling Sean a story about being in a hotel and his son taking a big shit in the bathroom. Honky got pissed and told him to go to the lobby and “shit with the marks.” Sean follows that up, not with the usual intro he gives the guest, but for playing a video of two twins singing his theme song. Then it’s time to start the interview proper. The first question is about his jumpsuits, specifically who made them, how much they cost, and did he foot the bill or did the WWF. The red and blue one each cost about $6,000 and the black was less because he had them use cheaper material. He had to foot the bill, and when he left the ‘E tried telling him he couldn’t wear them, and they owned them. He sent them back his receipt and told them that if they reimbursed them, the jumpsuits were theirs.

That’s the first of several good stories told during the interview. There’s a great story form his time in Alabama when he was the Alabama Champion and was riding with a few other big heels from the territory. They were riding in HTM’s car and found the front and back windshield smashed and broken. Luckily, there was a fan who was smart to the business who liked him, and her boyfriend ran an auto glass shop and opened it up at 11:00 pm to repair the damage. He couldn’t do the back one, so they drove 250 miles at night, in the winter, with no back windshield and all damn near froze to death. He also talks about the craziness of life on the road during his years with the fed, where he’d be gone for three weeks, have two days off, and then be gone for another month. He just mailed his paychecks home to his wife so she could pay the bills. He also mailed home his dirty laundry and she’d fed-ex clean clothes to the hotel he’d be staying at. He stops to ponder how single guys managed their lives that way, being gone so often meant that car bills, light bills, water bills, etc were always paid late. There’s a question about HTM working with Dynamite Kid, but it’s prefaced by a story of HTM and the Hart Foundation working six man tags with the Bulldogs and Santana and Bret shitting his pants during the match and fans being on his case, and Honky trying to get heat, but laughing his ass off as the same time.

There’s plenty of talk about HTM having heat with guys, or guys having heat with him. He’s simple about it, if someone doesn’t like him, then they don’t like him. There’s a ridiculous question from “Jim Ross” (some jabroni dressed in the OU shirt and hat, with a mask and a voice like Freddy Kruger) yelling and screaming. HTM says he ran into JR and they were fine. One thing that I wasn’t aware of was how hated Chief Jay Strongbow was as an agent. HTM gives a few examples of that too. When the lineup was posted, if he found out that someone’s family was at the arena, he’d make sure they went on last, so they couldn’t leave after the match and spend time together. He’d also tell jobbers (in three minute squashes) to make sure they fought back, to make the superstar “earn” his win.

HTM goes on a rather funny rant concerning not putting young guys over and turning down an offer to work a WWE show against Randy Orton. He turned out the ‘E because they offered him $500 and the show was the same day a promoter who’d already booked him offered him $750, and the promoter uses him at least ten times a year. He doesn’t put over young guys because he doesn’t think they deserve it, and he knows that when he does, they’ll go and post the match on Youtube to show everyone they beat HTM. My thoughts on that: The first one makes perfect sense, the second makes no sense.

It’s YouShoot, so they’ve got the play the games. In addition to the usual ones like what’s in the bag, the ho bag, and what a dick (which featured HTM putting Justin Bieber in there because “he looks like a punk”), there’s a couple of new ones. First, there’s medicine man, which is Sheiky’s type of medicine. He has a list of names, and decides who he thinks likes the medicine and who doesn’t. HTM says most of them do, but he doesn’t think that Demolition, the Fink, and George Steel partake. There’s also the tournament of legit bad asses in the business. The elite eight are Brody, Smothers, Meng, Bradshaw, Race, Barbarian, Andre and Undertaker. No Finlay and Doctor Death though. In the end, Brody wins the whole thing. There’s also the mugshot game, where HTM looks at various mugshots and ranks the top five worst. Dick Slater’s is #1 and gets bonus points for his “promo” He’d (allegedly) attempted to murder his ex girlfriend and cut her a few times and told her that he was going to watch her bleed.

The show ends with HTM pondering the question of why he’s consistently stayed over and somewhat relevant after all these years. He thinks it’s a combination of him having a successful gimmick, and his sporadic WWE returns like working with Santino when Santino had the Honk-O-Meter and claimed that *he* was the greatest IC Champion, and the fact that he’s got a big mouth and isn’t afraid to speak his mind.

The 411: What a fun YouShoot! The 140 minutes just flies right by. Between the good stories and his overall funny demeanor, this rates as one of the better editions of the series.
Final Score:  9.0   [  Amazing ]