David Penzer Looks Back On XWF’s Launch, Vince McMahon ‘Purging’ Talent From Company

David Penzer recently looked back at the short run of the XWF, noting that Vince McMahon tried to make sure they couldn’t get a TV deal. The X Wrestling Federation launched in 2001 after WCW folded and folded less than a year later, initially featuring big-name stars like Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Jerry Lawler and others. Penzer looked back at the promotion in an interview with Jeremy Lambert & Stephen Jensen on Fightful’s The Spotlight and you can see highlights below:

On the initial launch of the promotion: “A lot of guys flirted with the promotion [XWF]. The ones who went all-in, I’ll tell you from the very get-go, were Roddy Piper, Tony Schiavone, and Jerry Lawler, which is a whole different side-story. Although he did do the tapings [Lawler], a little inside baseball, Lawler had gotten offered his job back in WWF (WWE) the day before the tapings were scheduled. He took the job but he said he’d do the tapings because he was contractually obligated, which he was. That was the beginning of Vince [McMahon] just saying, ‘Alright, how many people can I purge from this promotion before they can get it on TV, and screw their chances of getting a deal?’ It’s not all Vince’s fault by the way, or WWE’s fault.”

On some of the big WCW names who ‘flirted with’ joining: “Guys like Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan were a little bit more hesitant. Even [Scott] Hall and [Kevin] Nash came by a couple of times to the office. They were a little bit more hesitant to risk their name and their legacy on this promotion since nobody knew if it had a chance. I know before I was brought in Randy Savage flirted around with it. He stepped away right before I was brought in and before they decided that they were going to hire full-time staff and all that. Hulk flirted back-and-forth. You know, it was funny. In the boardroom there was a whiteboard, and I was the one who would write down people’s ideas, matches, and storylines. There was always one side for ‘If Hulk decides to do it’ and the other side for ‘If Hulk doesn’t decide to do it.’ One day, Knobbs would come in and say, ‘Hey man, I hung out with Hulk last night, I think I convinced him to do it,’ and then a couple days later he’d be like, ‘It doesn’t look good.'”