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Ted DiBiase Reflects On Virgil’s Babyface Turn At WWE Royal Rumble 1991
On the latest episode of the Everybody’s Got a Pod, WWE Hall of Famer Ted DiBiase talked about Virigl turning on him at the 1991 Royal Rumble after being his valet. You can check out some highlights below:
On the intention of his angle with Virgil and it not being about race: “That’s why it’s so important, it really is. And I hope the fans understand that well, the intention was obviously — you know, the intention was to build enough animosity in this guy that he does haul off and hit me. I mean, the whole deal was was like, the people watching it every week, they’re thinking to themselves, ‘Virgil, knock his head off.’ And that’s what we wanted them to get excited about. Because he eventually does.”
On Virgil turning on him: “He really did that well [milking the facial expression]. Yeah, God bless him. I just wish that he had had just a little more — I don’t know, just in-ring talent, you know what I’m saying? But in terms of all of his facials and the timing of — I mean, you can see him just starting to brew. He did it extremely well.”
On wanting to get more out of the angle: “I just wished — you know, if he’d have been able to wrestle. I mean, it was just so hard to have a match with him. It just was. And we got what we cut out of it. And I just — again, for him, I wish that it could have gone on longer.
On when he realized Virgil knew wasn’t a good wrestler: “I pretty much knew it. I mean, I can remember — I can’t remember [who], a couple of the other guys who had been around him when he — because he had been in a couple of territories. And they told me they said he really didn’t have a good grip on on the skills of wrestling. But the interview he did there that night. And not even in an interview, just the whole thing was in his expression, and that’s what got the dang thing over. I sincerely wished that it could have gone on longer for him.”
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.