During a recent appearance on the Pancakes and Powerslams Show, WWE alumni Ken Doane discussed Dolph Ziggler’s upcoming shot at the WWE title, the Spirit Squad and more. Here are some highlights:
On Dolph Ziggler getting a title shot at SummerSlam: “I wish it happened a lot sooner. I think he has the most talent out of everybody there, and I wish that they would utilize him more often. Sometimes he’s there to put guys over. They kind of balance between midcard and somewhat main event. It’s just like pick or choose, which one is it gonna be? And the crowd knows he has the capability of it. He has the talent to do whatever they ask him to do. When I was working with him, he was always willing to learn.”
On keeping his age a secret: “The only one who knew was Dr. Tom. It was WrestleMania XX, I was a druid in Madison Square Garden. After the show, John Laurinaitis was like, ‘Hey. Would you be willing to move to Louisville?’ I was like yeah, sure! ‘Can you go there next week?’ [said Laurinaitis]. I was like, I need to finish school. He was like, ‘What do you mean finish school? What are you going to school for? How old are you?’ I said I just turned 18. He said, ‘You JUST turned 18?’ I said yeah. ‘You’ve been working for me for two years, what do you mean you just turned 18?!’ I said, well I’m legal now. I graduate in June, how about I move there after I graduate. He said ‘Well. I’ll think about it. I don’t know if I want to hire you.’ I said, you just wanted to hire me right now! He’s like, ‘We’ll talk about it.’ So then he never said much about it. He just called me halfway through May, I was still in school, and sent me a contract. So I actually got my contract at the end of May, before I even graduated. I graduated June 4th, and then June 7th I moved to Louisville.”
On being a druid at WrestleMania 16: “I got a phone call, and my mom said somebody called from Stamford. So I looked, and it was Dr. Tom [Prichard] on the voicemail. I called back, and he was like, ‘Ken Doane. I got one of your videotapes. Next week we’ll be in Philadelphia and Tuesday we’re going to be in Baltimore. Where are you gonna be?’ I said, ‘I’ll probably be at school, honestly.’ He’s like, ‘How old are ya?’ I said ‘I’m 16 and a half.’ He said, ‘Are you good at math?’ I said ‘yeah.’ He said, ‘Subtract two on your date of birth, that way you’re 18 now.’ I said, ‘alright, I’ll be there!’ So I get to Philadelphia, and they said, ‘you’re doing the White Boy Challenge with Rodney Mack’, and I said ‘okay! Cool!’ The next night I think I wrestled Ultimo Dragon, and then I drove back Tuesday night and went back to school for Wednesday.”
On the Spirit Squad gimmick: “The Spirit Squad thing came about when I was on the road and there was no set direction or anything. So I was doing house shows for like a month, two months. And then we were in Cincinnati and they called up a bunch of the other guys [from OVW]. It was me, Nick (Dolph Ziggler), [Nick] Mitchell, Elijah Burke they called up, and they called up Johnny Jeter. They were like, you’re gonna have a meeting with Vince. So we were in there with Vince, and Taz was in the back, and Vince was like I want to have five male cheerleaders. Taz looked at us like what’d he just say? I didn’t really care, but I thought it was a joke at first, so I was like okay, sure. Then, he was like, ‘Yeah. That’s it. Get outta here.’ And we were like, okay? Is he being serious? He wants us to be male cheerleaders? I went back to Massachusetts for the holiday, and I found these green Adidas basketball jump suits, and they had five of them. So we really picked out our own outfits and everything. [Then] we started doing vignettes.
On Elijah Burke backing out of the gimmick: “I guess Elijah Burke called them and said he couldn’t do the gimmick. He said, I can’t do it. I just won’t be able to do it, I wouldn’t be able to pull it off, and I’ll hold everybody down. Which, granted, they say in the world of wrestling to never say you can’t do something, but in all honesty, if he really thought he couldn’t do it, then that’s good that he was honest because it could have held us down. It could have held him down in the end. You never know what direction it could have went.”
