Sgt. Slaughter recently spoke with The Baltimore Sun about a variety of wrestling topics. Check out the highlights:
On how WWE is treating Daniel Bryan: “I don’t think he’s being treated fairly. [The people at WWE] are making him work awfully hard to be successful and he’s not letting them down. He’s working harder than ever. He’s like a giant slayer. He takes on the biggest and the best. Kind of like Dolph Ziggler — he’s another talent I thought he wasn’t being used right, and I brought it up in several production meetings that they shouldn’t do his character as they were.”
On Randy Orton’s rise: “A guy like Randy Orton, there wasn’t much to teach him inside the ring. I wrestled his grandfather and his father. All the teaching for him was done outside the ring. He was a tough nut to crack. He had a mind of his own, and still does. He’s another talent that exceeds and has so much ability.”
On helping name the Undertaker: “We would have meetings after shows to talk about what happened and plan things out creatively. The topic turned to Mark [Calloway] and Vince [McMahon] said he had an idea for a character name and he brought up the name Paul Bearer. The next day I went to Vince and I said I didn’t really care for that name for Mark in particular. I thought he looked different than that, and Vince said ‘like an Undertaker?’ and I said yeah! Maybe we should do Paul Bearer as his manager.”