Scott D’Amore Discusses His Time in TNA, Working With Dutch Mantell, The Canadian Destroyer, More

– Scott D’Amore was recently on VOCNation’s Pandemonium Hour. Here are the highlights…

On his favorite promotion to work for, WCW, & TNA: “I mean, if you’re talking about as far as for the professional fulfillment, it would have to be TNA. Because, obviously, I was pretty deeply involved there, having headed the creative team & been pretty deeply involved for the better part of wrestling for about 8 years. So certainly professionally & financially, that was by far the best run of my career. Everyone says they want to be a booker. That’s when I learned I really enjoyed the TV aspect of it. I had Jody Hamilton. He kind of the first person to really help teach me something as far as what goes on & into producing a wrestling TV show.”

On the Canadian Destroyer [flip piledriver]’s origin & his student, Petey Williams: “Well, it’s kind of funny in the wrestling business. There’s all this talk about how everybody steals things & everybody takes credit for this or that. It always seems it’s never the guy that gets the credit. Personally, I did not ‘invent’ the Canadian Destroyer. From my understanding of things, it was basically created because Chris Sabin, who’s another one of our graduates, used to take like a Frankenstein-er but backwards. The guy would actually jump off the rope backwards & basically backflip moonsault into taking a hurricanrana. So, then the thought process was, from there, they came up with it on a road trip. It was a move that basically anybody could do to Chris Sabin because he liked taking that backflip bump. When we got Petey Williams to TV, the guys were talking about different things as far as how to get Petey stand out. If i deserve any credit for creating the Canadian Destroyer because I wanted people to look at Petey & have people give a “holy sh*’ reaction, have him do the flip piledriver.”

On trust & today’s wrestlers in wrestling industry: “There’s a lot of things in wrestling that are trust-based. You’re giving your body to your opponent & trusting that he’s not going to knock you out or really hurt you or injure you. Certainly, a move like the Canadian Destroyer, there’s a lot of faith. That’s basically what our business is built on. You give somebody your body & they give you theirs & when you do it right, you put on a fantastic athletic demonstration & entertain the Hell out of people. It’s amazing when you think about the unbelievable athletic feats that wrestlers pull off on a nightly basis. A lot of trust to have to go out there & perform. It’s amazing the wrestlers don’t get hurt. It’s a testament to the business. The guys right now are such phenomenal athletes. I think there are guys out there performing in the top level now are as good as an athlete as there’s ever been in wrestling. Much better than in some years past. I think as good as other athletes in different sports. Great caliber athletes right now.”

On creating TNA’s Knockout Division and working with Dutch Mantell: “We had a terrific group of girls who formed the Knockout Division. I really enjoyed working hand-in-hand with Dutch Mantel [WWE’s Zeb Colter] on the creative & producing side & helping structure & created that division from scratch. That was an amazing experience. I wasn’t in TNA from Day 1 so I didn’t get to experience that. I was there when we launched on Fox. I was the director of Creative when we went on Spike. That was awesome. Creative there to me was me & Dutch taking something that some people laughed at, which was saying we were going to present Women’s Wrestling in a serious tone… & it was going to be well-received. 97% of the credit goes to the girls & then probably 2.8% goes to it Dutch, & I’ll take the other .2%. I had a blast doing it. I enjoyed it. I worked my butt off trying to work for those girls & make sure we presented quality matches because some of them weren’t overly experienced so we really had to work. Learn everyone’s strengths & work really hard to hide their weaknesses. I think that me & Dutch & the whole group there did a fantastic job at doing that there for a couple of years when we first launched. “

On Edge: “Adam [Edge] was very gracious in his DVD to even think of my name, that’s the kind of guy he is. Edge & Christian. Edge is a TV star now. He’s not going to be in the wrestling school teaching hip tosses but he’s always been supportive. He’s supporting wrestling & the community. I mean I remember Edge when he was at the height of WWE, calling a boy here in Windsor who went through some pretty heinous stuff & Edge couldn’t make it here to see the kid… That would have been fantastic but he couldn’t do it. He sent stuff to the kid & then, more importantly, spent time on the phone & talked to him”