During a recent interview, Scott Garland (formerly Scotty 2 Hotty of the WWE) reminisced on the light heavyweight title bout he had with Dean Malenko at Backlash 2000. Malenko won back the strap after nailing Scotty with a DDT from the top rope, a move so dangerous that even Linda McMahon pulled him aside and asked that he please not do the move again. Garland responded, “You don’t have to worry about that!”
You can read some highlights and watch the full interview below:
On the dangerous-looking finish: “It was very dangerous and I could have easily broken my neck. It looks like I broke my neck on it.”
Malenko’s idea to use the move as the finish: “It was Dean’s idea. He told me had done it with [Chris] Jericho. I recently just saw it with Jericho taking it a month ago for the first time and I was like ‘oh, that’s what I was supposed to do.’ I was supposed to jump out further so I would land more on my stomach, and I didn’t jump out. I just kind of spiked myself right into the mat from the top rope.”
Speaking on his chemistry with Malenko: “I think the reason we worked so well is we were so different. Here’s Dean, who is very serious, a very good technical wrestler and the man of 1,000 holds. On the other hand, you have this goofball, who is just there to have fun and kind of make fun of Dean, his finishing move is The Worm, does the moonwalk, breakdances… That’s what, to me, makes wrestling so cool is when you have all these different characters and they come together to see what happens.”
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