out, this is how they did it. But no, when it came to what we did, the way Vince (Jr.) was doing it, it was strictly on ticket sales, it was ‘Hey, if you can get the job done, you're going to run with it.' And that was the whole thing with me, when they mentioned Butch Reed's not here and they were in a panic situation because Butch was going to get the belt from Steamboat and he wasn't there; he was AWOL that night. I just happened to walk by and Hogan and Vince were talking and Hogan said ‘What about this guy?' and Vince took a look and said ‘Alright, maybe so' and he pulled me off to the corner and mentioned to me about the belt. I said ‘Hey, you know Vince, I told you when I first came here if you give me a chance, and I do good, pay me. If I don't do good and I can't make it, fire me and I'll be gone. You won't have to fire me, I'll pack my bag and leave.' And that was our deal, our handshake deal and that was the way it was with the intercontinental belt. I said ‘Believe me, I don't want a day off.' He said, "Well, everyone needs a day off. You'll burn out and you need to see your family every now and then." And I said, "Listen, if you give me that belt, I will run with it as long as you want me to and as long as I can sell tickets.' He said, ‘Ok, I like that.' And that's how it happened."

On whether he ever had problems with people during the IC Title run: "Naw, I never had any problems with that until I won the Intercontinental Championship. I had put, even with the belt, when Jake was on his hiatus or when Steamboat left, they were left a void there for a couple months of bookings for Steamboat that had to be filled with substitutes and anytime they had a substitute, the substitute would win and made it a non-title match and the substitute would win clean, 1-2-3. I actually lost more matches than I really won if you go back and look at this thing. The only time I ever won matches was on TV, on the TV Tapings, other than that it was a DQ or Jimmy Hart got involved; we always kept the belt somehow. "Even Steamboat, he's gone on record saying the one match he's never liked was losing to an Elvis impersonator. Well, you know, I look at it like this; listen ‘Dragon', you could have lost it to a guy in a skirt blowing the bagpipes, or you could have lost it to a guy with a snake, or you could have lost it to Hulk Hogan, hey Brother with the 21-inch pythons, or you could have lost it to Brutus ‘The Barber' Beefcake and he could have shaved your head. You know, to say something like that, it struck a little chord with me and he was not the most professional that night. If people go back and watch this match, you'll see I gave him about 90, or maybe 95 percent of the match was all his and let him shine and do all his stuff and by fluke and however it went down; we threw Jimmy Hart in the mix and Jimmy got hit and boom and this and I grab the rope, 1-2-3. And it was one of those things where I did everything to make this guy look good and make him be happy about it. After it was over and he back and we had return matches a couple of time, he was fine. You know, there's been other guys; if Tito was here right now, I'd tell him, I hope he's listening. Tito Santana; Oh, you've got to pull my feet, Jimmy Hart's gotta hit me with a megaphone, we've got to knock the referee down. Oh, come on, I took that flying burrito elbow and never said a word about it, 1-2-3. But when it come time for those guys to do the favor, it was like, ‘Naw. Can we do this? Can we do that?' There was a couple of times that went on. Yeah, you know, I never ever said anything about any of it until that came up with the Macho Man thing, and it nothing to do with Randy; Randy and I talked about it. It was all about the television thing with 35 million people."

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