Diamond Dallas Page spoke with ESPN for a new interview, talking about his WWE Hall of Fame induction, his DDP Yoga program, and more. Some of the highlights are below:
On Triple H breaking the news of his induction to him: “They hand me the phone and say, ‘The boss wants to talk with you. I realized it’s Triple H [WWE executive Paul Levesque] and said, ‘Paulie, what’s up, man?’ I had called him a couple of weeks ago so I was expecting his call. He was down there with me at the Power Plant; he was Terra Rizin down in WCW. We rode together, we hung together. He’s talking about, ‘I never thought you could do it. This guy was like 35 and a half. What were you thinking? But you did it.’ He put me over to such a degree that I said, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Is it that call? I started getting choked up and I couldn’t even talk.”
On people treating him with the same regard that he saw Dusty Rhodes as someone who selflessly gave back to wrestling: “Wow, I never really thought about it like that. I know I helped guys and helped like 30 people get jobs [in WCW]. I was sort of like a scout for Eric Bischoff if I saw people who had the talent. Sometimes I wouldn’t bring people to him until they had the gimmick, like Raven. I’m grateful on a lot of levels. But when you compare me to Dusty in helping out, that’s a new job because I know I helped [in WWE] with what I’m doing today with DDP Yoga. It’s a whole new genre.”
On how much helping others means to him: “If I could have had the opportunity coming into [WWE] in 2001 doing what I did and maybe doing a people’s champion versus people’s champion angle [against The Rock] or choose what has happened to me over the last six years, I would take this run every single time. Every single time. It’s like being reborn at 60.”
