Dan Spivey Lists His Favorite Match, Recalls Working With Undertaker, More

– WWE and WCW alum Dan Spivey spoke with WrestlingInc for a new interview. Check out the highlights:

On being in the Skyscrapers with Sid Vicious: “I was working for WCW, and also in Japan. Kevin Sullivan was working in the office and they had a young talent, and they wanted him to work with me. I met Sid and he was very impressive looking with great offensive moves, but was very green. Of course I heard all the bullsh-t. Me and Sid were put together and they didn’t really do anything with us. Then Sid got hurt in a match with the Steiners. I started the match, went to tag Sid in and he punctured a lung getting into the ring with nobody touching him. I had to have the match with the Steiner Brothers, I probably got suplexed 80 times that night. I got put with Mark, and Mark could work but he was green. I was hoping they would do something with us, but they never did.”

On reports that he left WCW because of his feud with the the Road Warriors: “To be honest, I’d work with the Road Warriors. There was the time I beat them up with a chair. That was in Corpus Christi and I felt like they were beating Mark [Calaway, the future Undertaker] up, and they never did anything. Just as a person, I was pissed and I beat them up with a chair after the match. After the match we were in the back and Mark said ‘are we going to get in trouble for this?’ and I said ‘don’t worry about it, kid.’ He thought they were going to be pissed. We were taking off our boots and I hear them coming up the stairs cussing. They just said ‘great match, guys’ and that was the end of that.”

On Undertaker back in his “Mean Mark Callous” days: “He was very respectful. He never had much to say, but I could tell he had talent. It was refreshing, a young man like that so respectful of the business. He carried that on. I think Mark was one of the best to ever work in the business. He had a great gimmick and it worked well. He works hard. The guy’s awesome.”

On whether he was surprised with Undertaker’s turnaround when he signed with WWF: “(laughs) Yes, I was surprised. The time that we were together in WCW, we would never go to strip clubs or parties, he would go straight to bed. He had crew cut, short hair. Next time I see him he’s got tattoos, long hair, going to strip clubs. He did a complete 180 on me. He was such a great worker.”

On whether WWF wanted to repackage him when he returned: “They wanted me to come in and work with Diesel. That’s what they sold me on. I was all for it. Me, Vince and Gerry Brisco sat down and talked about the Waylon Mercy gimmick. Things started off really slow, they didn’t do much with me. I had a couple pretty good matches with Diesel. The last TV match I did was with him. I just got fed up, I wasn’t making any money. I did a PPV and I remember outside it was really cold, meanwhile in Tampa it was 85 and sunny. I came out of the hotel and the Montreal airport was across the road, and I told them I was flying to the Tampa airport and I was done. I flew home, and Vince called me and told me a bunch of stuff they were going to do, but I was done. They said they were going to do this, and I said they already told me that. Two weeks later I had my knee replaced, then six months later I had my hip replaced.”

On why WWF never did more with the Waylon Mercy gimmick: “I really can’t answer that, I don’t know. It was a little bit of a problem that people like Waylon Mercy. I remember on Raw, I’m in the first match with Doink the Clown and halfway through everyone chants ‘kill the clown.’ You have a bad ass heel in there with a clown.”

On if he felt the Kliq’s influence: “Yeah, I feel like they were definitely against me. I just thought it was a bad deal and bad for business. We did a tour in Europe and the Harris Brothers beat Shawn Michaels up. I thought that was pretty funny. I never heard the full story. There’s never been anything like that in wrestling before, the whole Kliq thing. I just didn’t like prima donnas.”

On if he considered coming back after his surgeries: “No, the first surgery was two weeks later, then the hip six months later. I had a neck fusion in 1986. I ended up being a drug addict and an alcoholic.”

On speaking out against Billy Jack Haynes’ lawsuit against WWE: “I knew it was going on after reading about it on Facebook. I just found it kind of interesting. I got a message from Billy Jack saying I qualified to be a part of the lawsuit and this is what they were suing for and Vince was this, and Vince was that. I kept the message and didn’t respond for two weeks. I told him privately that I didn’t agree and didn’t want to be involved with it. He goes publicly on Facebook and says that I’m a Vince McMahon suck ass, that I’m on Vince’s payroll. I took the high road on the whole deal ever since. He made it personal and said some stuff that was uncalled for. He says he’s clean and sober, but sober people don’t act the way that he does. I mean that shoot interview he did about the Benoit’s and Nancy, you don’t talk that way about people that are gone, you just don’t do that. The guy is still using in my opinion, as someone who works in the drug and alcohol field. Bryan Clark, I don’t know what his deal is. He criticized the Undertaker for his work, and as far as I know, Bryan never worked again after that. I don’t know. All I told him was that I was never forced to take drugs, never forced to drink and never forced to work. I did those things because I wanted to. None of the guys I ran with were forced to do it. I don’t know anybody that happened to. The guy is saying Vince forced him to do all that, and it just didn’t happen.”

On if it was hard for guys to stay clean in the 1980s: “It was never an issue. There were never people missing shots because they were messed up. Interviews were after TV was done and we’d stay until 4 in the morning for all that syndicated stuff. That was really hard. It’s nothing like it is today. We didn’t have issues with anyone except for Billy because a plane had to make an emergency landing because he was high, and he was let go after that. You were let go if you were screwed up and you didn’t do your job or responsibilities.”

On WWE helping him get sober: “Oh, they sent me to rehab three or four times. Anybody who has ever worked for them, all you have to do is call them and say ‘I need help’ and they’ll send you to rehab. I don’t know any other corporation in the world that does that. It saved my life. If they hadn’t have been there for me, I’d have been dead.”

On Lanny Poffo saying he was one of the few people who kept in touch with Randy Savage over the years: “Yes. Randy was one of my good friends. I busted a disc in my neck in 1986, and started to have paralysis in my arms and had a neck fusion done. There were probably 100 guys that worked for Vince, and Randy was the only guy that called to ask me how I was doing. I remember Randy being there for my after that. After the fight with Adrian, he pulled me out of the room and got me ice for both of my hands and said ‘no matter what you do, don’t miss the shot tomorrow in Allentown.’ I didn’t, and he was there for me. Randy was a good guy, and I have a lot of respect for him.”

On giving advice to Bray Wyatt about his character: “He was living in a little country town about 40 minutes outside of Tampa. So I told him to see how they act. When you can take from people in your life and take things from how they act and utilize them and make characters out of them. That’s what worked for me, and that’s what he’s doing and he’s doing a great job. I’m proud of him. I saw him a while back when Raw was in Tampa. I’d love to do something with him, that would be awesome. We put it out there, so maybe it’ll happen. We’ll see what the creative team does with it.”

On his favorite match: “I had a hell of a match with Lex Luger. It was in Arizona somewhere, only time I ever worked him, and I wish we could have more. We gelled together really well.”

On his favorite tag team partner: “Oh yeah, Stan Hansen. He’s probably the greatest American star in Japan. He’s a legend over there. We had classic matches Terry Gordy and Steve Williams. Four guys that really cared about each other. We respected each other and we could work. Really stiff and realistic. The first years going to Japan, when I turned the corner in being confident in my abilities. It was a big change in my career.”