Host Jack E. Jones welcomed former WCW wrestler Glacier to IYH Wrestling Radio.
Highlights included the following:
* Was it ever a consideration to keep the mask on when you wrestled as Glacier?
“That was actually one of the things that we considered early on, when they were still ironing out the last few bits of the character itself. I tried it, and because of the fact that the way the mask is made it made it really really hard to breathe in it. So yeah, it was kind of a nice idea in theory, but we ditched that pretty quick.”
* Did you wrestle a different style before becoming the Glacier character?
“I was in the wrestling business for nine years before I signed my deal with WCW and I was working hard at it…I got trained in a very traditional style of wrestling, and then when I went to Japan I got a chance to learn from Lou Thesz and work with Danny Hodge, with Billy Robinson, guys that were very very much trunks and boots traditional style wrestlers. I threw a little bit of the marshal arts in there because I’d studied since I was a kid but the challenge was being able to do things in the ring, as far as kicks and things like that, that didn’t freak out the other guy. It’s one thing to throw your hands around, but when you start throwing your feet around, other than just a basic pick your foot up and straight kick like everybody does, it gets a little scary. Especially when you’re wanting to spin around, so it wasn’t something that was ever really well received so I just didn’t put in my arsenal so to speak early on.
Dallas Page and I became good friends even before I was in WCW. He was already there, and this was like around the early 90’s when he and I first met…And I was doing good on the indy circuit, I had built a really good reputation, but I just never could really find anything that (worked)…Dallas pitched a couple of ideas to Eric (Bischoff), but he really didn’t bite on anything. And then I just said one day, “Hey, I’m thinking of adding some marshal arts to what I do in the ring.” And Page was like, “Well brother, that’d be great if you knew some of that stuff, but…”. I said, “Well, I do.” And he was like, “I never knew all that.” So I caught him up on all that and he said, “Well let me tell Eric about that.” So then he goes and tells Eric, and Eric was really big into all that stuff. So he scheduled a meeting right after the holidays…he grilled me for about two to three hours; and then when it was all said and done… I guess I made a good enough impression where he said “I want to sign you to a contract. I want you to disappear from the independent wrestling scene.” And I was like, “I can do that.” So that’s kind of how it started.”
Other topics discussed included:
* Does he still have the Glacier outfit?
* What was James Vandenberg (Jim Mitchell) like and did he get along with him?
* What was the story behind Rob Van Dam being part of the Blood Runs Cold angle and why did that fall through?
* The funny story about how he met Ernest “The Cat” Miller at an underground fight club.
Glacier will be appearing at New England Fan Fest 5 on Saturday, June 27, 2015 at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence, Rhode Island. For additional information, go to http://www.newenglandfanfest.com.