On a recent episode of his “Everybody’s Got A Pod” podcast, Ted DiBiase Sr. discussed working with Hercules in WWE, what stopped Hercules from being a bigger star, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On buying Hercules in storyline: “Oh, gosh. Just watching that, there’s no way there’s no way in hell that you could do that and get away with it today. I mean, just forget about it, and probably rightfully so. “Well, here’s the thing. It’s a matter of understanding. How things are overall. You got to look at the big picture now. By the time I got to being in a match with Hercules, and not in the main event or the semi-main event, you understand? How long was I there? How long have I been there? How long had they been pushing me? Oh, my gosh. They had been pushing me hard for a long time. Yeah. And to be honest with you, maybe a little bit longer than they do most as far as it’s kind of like a cycle. You’re on top. I guess the only one you would say would stay there would be whoever that guy is, the Hulk Hogan, he’s he’s he’s the guy. And until the people even at some point get tired of that and you have to create a new Hulk Hogan or superstar. Does that make sense? So it wasn’t like I didn’t feel like I was being demoted, at any rate. I mean, my gosh, they had done everything with me and, you know, and for over a year and, now I go and I’m still there. I’m still making money. And it’s but it’s somebody’s somebody else’s turn to go with Hogan.”
On working with Hercules: “Yeah, he was pretty good. I mean, you know, I don’t think that Herc had gotten to the point where he could be the guy calling it, but yeah, he was really good. There’s a lot of things that we do in a match that are just unspoken. In other words, you just catch on and like, I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. Like, it’s kind of like if somebody hit me and I turned and I staggered towards the corner, basically, it’s my way of saying, okay, now come from behind me and grab me by my hair and, run my head in the turnbuckle. And then and then if I stay there, well, we’ll do it again. And then if you do it again, then if I turn around and now. Now I’m in the corner. But I’m facing you. It’s kind of like, okay, grab my arm and turn the turnbuckle or and and we’re talking and, the people can’t hear us, but we’re talking and we’re calling stuff all the time. That’s the old school. Herc was that good and made us like, give us the finish. And I would like, for example, say, okay, based on, because we had a little program, I said based on what we, what we did last time, maybe we start this way tonight? And he’d say, Oh, yeah, that’s, that’s good. So we might do something like that. But we never sat down. The only thing we sat down and went over was how it’s going to end, because that’s, it’s kind of like watching a soap opera. You gotta you gotta what’s what’s the hook? You know, how you got to leave them hanging? You got to leave them hanging, wanting more. That’s the whole idea of what we were doing. And so the finish was the all-important thing.”
On what prevented Hercules from being a bigger star: “I guess just some of the demons in his life. Really? Yeah. it may have been both. Yeah. I’m really not sure. I remember that it was one of those things where, like, you know, gosh, man, you could be doing so much better.”
