Sean Waltman Comments On Being Used By WWE To Test New Hires In The 90s

In an interview with Fightful, Sean Waltman spoke about his role in the WWE during the 90s, in which he’d be used to test the skills of newly signed talent. Here are highlights:

On not being used for tryout matches: “Not like to that extent ‘cause honestly, I wouldn’t want that pressure ‘Hey, yeah, you’re the guy that fucking thumbs down the so-and-so and they didn’t get a job.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, geez.’ I appreciate them having that much faith in me, but that’s not the kind of pressure I want to have on me. I don’t want to be known as the guy to cause people not to get a job.”

On his take on being used to test new hires, like Dean Douglas in 1995: “I just knew I didn’t have chemistry and the match wasn’t good. I never thought about this as their tryout match. I was just trying to go out there and have a good match. The thing is, Sean, I always [had good matches] with everybody. I never tanked it in there with anybody. It was important to me to have a good match.”

On his match with Chris Hamrick in 1994 and Hamrick taking a wild bump for him: “I’m like, ‘Okay.’ I kind of laughed. I was like, ‘Yeah? Really? You serious? Okay.’ ‘Cause I did crazy shit, too, that seems crazy to other people. I’m like, ‘Okay, man. If you say you’ve done it a bunch of times.’ ‘Cause I also don’t want to be the guy where the guy goes out there and he gets hurt working with me, too, right? Man, you see that a lot right, in GIFs or whatever. That match, he gave me a really good match. Not just that one spot. I did some kind of cool shit in there that I didn’t remember doing. I hit an exploder suplex. Nobody even called it an exploder suplex at the time. Stretch muffler for the finish on the guy.”