Ted DiBiase On the Pros & Cons Of Wrestling On Christmas Night

On the latest episode of Everybody’s Got a Pod, WWE Hall of Famer Ted DiBiase talked about wrestling on Christmas night, payoffs under Bill Watts, and more. You can check out some highlights below:

On wrestling on Christmas night: “Yeah, I hated it but I did it. Here’s what the promoters found out: if you run a show on Christmas night, you’re gonna pack the house. You know why? Because all these families have gotten up that day. They’ve opened their presents, they’ve had their Christmas dinner. Now they want to go do something. We would pack the house. So I can’t tell you then how many times I had to — here in Jackson, Melanie and I would go to her mom and dad, where they were living at the time. And we would have Christmas, open presents with them and have our Christmas dinner. And about three o’clock that afternoon, I would get in my car and head for New Orleans. Because we would wrestle in New Orleans on Christmas night, and pack the house.

“And then, I’ll tell you what else I knew when that show was over… I would wrestle, and I would leave New Orleans. And brother — I want to say it’s 160 miles back to Jackson from New Orleans. Brother, on Christmas that there wasn’t anything on that highway but me. I would put my car in — I mean, I’m talking about the divider, the white lines? I would get right in the middle of the white lines, and I would just go, I can’t remember now, but I know there’s times that — you know, it’s kind of like, ‘Dang. If you had bought a ticket, got on an airplane and flown there and got off,’ you know. Maybe not as fast as an airplane, but with all the other stuff that you got to do to catch a plane — I was there, buddy.”

On making more money under Bill Watts than in Georgia: “I was definitely making better money. I mean again, when I started there, I was a rookie there so I knew what the bottom money was like, too. But yeah, you know, once — I was the top guy, I was the top heel. And I left, and I came back, and I was still that heel.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Everybody’s Got a Pod with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.