David Shoemaker Quotes & Sayings

What was emerging meanwhile in ECW was certainly revolutionary, even if the term is defined down within the context of play fighting. — David Shoemaker

Usually called by his guffaw-inducing initials, IRS, Schyster was the standout grappler Mike Rotunda functionally repackaged as Ted DiBiase's financial planner. Indisputably his best angle was the time he took issue with Native American wrestler Tatanka for failing to pay taxes on a ceremonial headdress. — David Shoemaker

But just as much as it was a sport, it was a sideshow - a carny act that eventually made it to Broadway. So the next time you hear somebody say, "You know wrestling is fake, right?" you can tell him that yes, you know. That's exactly the point. — David Shoemaker

The True Will is the will of the deepest inmost Self - the core of who you really are as a spiritual being. Also, and importantly, it is an expression of the universal will, as particularized and expressed in your individual life. This is why, when we are living in accordance with our True Will, we find that much of the time the universe seems to open up a path right in front of us, as if in sympathy with our aims. — David Shoemaker

We make our own gods for our own purposes. And we love them, and that's the whole point. — David Shoemaker

As a face and a heel, Savage saw wrestling the way so many of us viewers did. He saw that every wrestler had an ulterior motive, that everyone was out for himself - that conspiracy theory was the only reasonable lens through which to perceive WWF reality. — David Shoemaker

They were flying back from a big show in London, the whole roster on the plane. The story goes that much alcohol was consumed and things quickly got uncomfortable: Hennig and Scott Hall went wild with some shaving cream; Dustin Rhodes awkwardly serenaded his ex-wife, Terri; the legendary wrestler turned booker Michael "P.S." Hayes got punched out by JBL and later, after he had fallen asleep, had his ponytail chopped off by Sean Waltman; Ric Flair paraded in front of a flight attendant in nothing but his sequined ring robe; and, to top it all off, Hennig challenged collegiate wrestling star (and WWE golden boy) Brock Lesnar to a Greco-Roman wrestling match that ended when Lesnar tackled Hennig into the exit door, and they were pulled apart just before they jeopardized the flight. — David Shoemaker

What seemed to make Benoit and Guerrero great was the fact that they weren't given an easy path to stardom. They were both hired by WCW when, during the Monday Night Wars, WCW expanded its flagship show to three hours and needed talent to fill the time. — David Shoemaker

With the WWF's clout in the PPV arena already entrenched, McMahon saw an opening. He told cable providers that he was going to air his own show - the Survivor Series - that night, and if any of them showed Starrcade instead, he wouldn't let them show WrestleMania IV. (Some retellings say that McMahon threatened that they'd never do business with the WWF again at all.) The cable companies by and large assented to McMahon's power grab, and the NWA took a huge financial hit. — David Shoemaker

When Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant met in what is still considered the biggest wrestling match of all time, exaggeration was in the air. According to various contemporary reports, there were 95,000 people on hand at WrestleMania III to see the 7-foot-5, 525-pound Andre square off against Hulk Hogan, who stood 6-foot-8 and weighed 320 pounds and whose biceps measured twenty-four inches around. Probably the only number in that last sentence that's unimpeachable is the III. — David Shoemaker

Borrowing a line from Jim Croce's "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," Watts dubbed Ritter the Junkyard Dog - and, ever the literalist, gave him a dog collar and junk cart. — David Shoemaker

Here was a separate world, with different wrestlers and a wholly different concept of the wrestling enterprise. Where the NWA as a whole - and GCW in particular - had become increasingly gritty and realistic, the WWF was gaudy and cartoonish, a parade of outsize gimmickry. Where GCW was filled with angst, the WWF was all bombast. If GCW was a well-choreographed brawl in a bar parking lot, the WWF had the glittery sheen of a major boxing spectacle. They were in many ways similar, but to the Southern fan attuned to the traditional NWA sensibility, the WWF couldn't have been more alien. — David Shoemaker