Oh You Didnt Know Road Dogg

via WWE.com

"Oh you lot didn't know? Your a$@ better call somebody!"

It'due south funny how the little things can pay huge dividends in the wrestling manufacture. Before the catchphrase that would change his life, Brian "Road Dogg" James was merely another wrestler, the son of a southern wrestling legend who was trying to make his way in the WWE.

But with those nine words, a star was born. A midcard act became an allure. A wrestler became a rock star. Somewhere on that ladder to stardom, however, he lost his path, and most his life, falling into a pit of pain killers, parties and eventually despair. It's a pit he's crawled out of, making Road Dogg a perfect cautionary tale for the young wrestlers he now mentors for the WWE.

Mon nighttime, that mentoring takes on a more than active function. Alongside tag squad partner Billy Gunn, Road Dogg joins a motley cast of former stars returning, for ane night but, on WWE's Quondam School Raw.

Bleacher Study'due south Jonathan Snowden had a run a risk to talk with Road Dogg just hours before he returned to national idiot box, discussing family, demons and how he adult his iconic catchphrase.

Bleacher Report: Information technology'due south good to see you back in WWE. After everything that happened when you left, everything that was said, I would have never guessed we'd ever see you again. I guess, in the wrestling business, no door is every truly airtight?

Road Dogg: That'southward very true for me. I don't recall Hunter and Vince tuned in to the other evidence on that other channel. So I think I was good to go.

But thank God and heaven above that no door is ever truly closed and I've gotten another opportunity here. And I hope I'm giving dorsum to the product every bit much equally it gave to me over the years. Fifty-fifty if I wasn't appreciative of it at the fourth dimension, I'k sure beholden of it now.

B/R: Wrestling has been your family'due south career path of choice for a long fourth dimension. And, if you follow in your dad'southward footprints, y'all've got a while to go. I had the pleasure of going to "Bullet" Bob Armstrong's retirement prove in Dothan, Alabama, and even in his 70s, he's still going potent now and again beyond the due south. He's a hell of a man, isn't he?

Road Dogg: I capeesh you lot saying that. And you're right. I look at him in the same low-cal. 70-iii years old and he still does independent shows on the weekends. He'due south a heck of a dude. A heck of a function model for me, that'south for sure.

B/R: How can he go on chugging along after all these years?

Road Dogg: He's the first i in the gym every day. I believe that has something to practice with information technology. Information technology'south his lifestyle, man. Maybe he'll die in the ring. That's probably how he wants to go. I hope it'south no time soon (laughs). But I hope he gets what he wants.

B/R: It's interesting, because you lot're in your early 40s. Bullet Bob was just getting started! I had a chance to get down to the WWE Performance Center and saw Billy Gunn at that place and he looks like he's in great shape. Even though you retired, is there a small role of you that thinks, "Man, we could yet exist out there in the ring?"

Road Dogg: I honestly call back we could practice it over again right now. I don't think we could do it again in 30 years (laughs). You know what I hateful? Not at this level anyhow.

But I do call back the New Age Outlaws can and will ride over again tonight. I don't know what they've got planned for us, but we'll be ready. Similar you said, Billy'due south in not bad shape and it is that point in our lives nosotros still tin.

Thank God we've been able to continue our foot in the door, notwithstanding keep our heads involved in the product anyway, if not our bodies. Nosotros didn't have to retire per se, simply we did take to exit of the ring. Daggum, when y'all run across some of these guys today, I'm kind of glad I stepped out of the ring.

B/R: No kidding! And you did your time. I remember you and your brothers working the undercard matches on WCW Worldwide and some of the smaller promotions. Did it arrive sweeter for you lot when New Age Outlaws broke big? Because you had spent that fourth dimension struggling?

Road Dogg: Y'all know, it did. It was a long time coming, and the ladder of success is a tall one. You just pray y'all don't autumn off of information technology.

I didn't appreciate it similar I should have, though. It'south pretty cool now when I look back on it. I wish I could have appreciated it a fiddling more at the time.

...There are a few regrets that I exercise have. That was toiling with alcohol and drugs. I had some demons. While we're on that field of study, I would advise you if you're taking drugs, end. If you're not taking drugs, don't start.

I appreciate it even more now, now that I'grand a trivial older and wiser and a little more clear-eyed. I can look back and see the prominent role nosotros played in the Attitude era or, dare I say, the WWE every bit a whole. Nosotros had a practiced run, and it seems our run own't over. Because on Former School Raw, the Outlaws will ride again.

B/R: You talked a little about the pitfalls of the wrestler's life—the pain killers and the parties. It seems to me, from the outside, that all that has kind of faded from the business. Do you lot retrieve that's true?

Route Dogg: For sure it has. It used to be a stone-and-roll-party lifestyle. It's not like that any more. It's more like a sports organization. And if you want to brand it here? Yous certainly tin can't be on drugs. That's all there is to it.

If you're a starving artist of a professional person wrestler, and you lot're on drugs and want to brand it, y'all aren't going to make it here. They've weened that out of the lifestyle. And it was a lifestyle. It was just similar a rock band. Every night a different town, different people and different things to do. It was easy to lose your way.

I'm non afraid to share my story with the young guys coming up. Don't lose your head, considering you'll lose your job (laughs). And that's nowhere to exist.

B/R: One of the near important things in wrestling is finding the right persona. Y'all made that work perfectly for you lot. Your brother Brad, i of the greats in the band, never quite figured out how to take his backstage sense of humour and bring it out in front of the photographic camera.

Route Dogg:The affair near it is, some guys are characters and some guys are just extensions of themselves. That's what I was. That'southward what Stone Cold was. That's what the Rock was.

You accept to be yourself but not afraid to go out on a limb when doing so. That's how you brand an bear upon.

Then start you lot have to decipher what a guy is trying to do. Is he playing a grapheme, or is he trying to be an exaggerated version of himself? But some of the communication is the same either way. I tell them non to be scared or embarrassed.

The Road Dogg would scream when Kane grabbed him. People would say, "Why do you exercise that? You sound like a girl." Because information technology's funny. It's self-deprecating, and it lets the people get shut to you know that you're human.

B/R: You talk well-nigh your impact—you guys were at your elevation 15 years ago, just that catchphrase is still potent. That's how I know you lot made it big. How many times in your life, conservatively, has somebody come up up to you lot and said, "Oh, yous didn't know?"

Road Dogg: (Laughs). A hundred thousand? Every time one of the SportsCenter guys says it or someone says it during a basketball game, I still get tweets out the ying yang. And it's just words that were in the Rolodex of lodge anyway; I just put them together and put them in a sing-song way.

So I don't know if I get all the credit for information technology, only it's pretty cool. It does mean that something I did in this world stuck.

B/R: Is it true that Brian Lee, the wrestler who played Chainz at the time, used to get around saying that?

Road Dogg: That'due south where it came from. Me and him used to become back and forth. Texting hadn't become prominent and faxing was however prominent. So we would say, "Y'all better fax somebody." Information technology derived from "you meliorate ask somebody" and eventually turned into "you ameliorate call somebody."

We were just messing around in the back and I told him one dark backstage: "I'll just say that during my entrance." He said "no, you won't."  And then, later in the dark, I did information technology. It fit in our music during the guitar riffs and just worked out, homo. It was fate I judge.

Route Dogg joins a cast of legends Monday night on WWE's Old School Raw. Jonathan Snowden is Bleacher Report'southward lead gainsay sports writer and the author of Shooters: The Toughest Men in Professional person Wrestling.

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Source: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1912756-wwe-old-school-raw-road-dogg-on-the-fast-life-and-the-birth-of-a-catchphrase

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