12/8/02: This interview was conducted last April ... it remains on of my favorites ... It was truly a pleasure speaking with Maxx, whose candor and honesty regarding all questions was truly appreciated. Below, in three parts, Maxx talks about everything from his upcoming film, "The Thing That Should Not Be," his time in WCW, the controversial injury to Brian Knobbs, his view on hard-core matches, the sale of WCW to the WWF and so much more.

Pinfalls: Starting with the basics ... how did you get into the wrestling business?

Maxx: Well, that goes back to a very young age for me ... actually it started with amateur wrestling in grade school. When I was a kid, I started growing up and getting bigger and all the coaches of course told me I was going to be a wrestler and I said ‘no way, I’m just playing football,’ and they all said, ‘If you’re playing football, you’re wrestling.’ And the irony of all that is that in high school I ended up wrestling and not playing football because they changed coaches and I didn’t like the new football coach so I ended up being a wrestler and not playing football at all.

And then my junior year of high school, I was coming back from a very debilitating motorcycle crash and I destroyed my left knee. I came back my senior year and really came back with a vengeance because I realized how much I enjoyed amateur wrestling ... and a movie presented itself when I was a junior in high school called Take Down (which was the predecessor to a movie called Vision Quest) which was an amateur wrestling movie that was shot locally here in the state of Utah. I ended up getting a pretty major role in that movie. So ... I actually dropped out of high school, ended up getting married the year I did this movie and just turned 17 when my first child was born. I realized after working a couple of years of construction that it wasn’t the thing I wanted to do the rest of my life so I went back to the amateur wrestling world.

I wrestled for a junior college in Idaho for two years and then I wrestled for Iowa State University for three years ... and I really did the wrestling thing primarily to get myself through college because I loved the film world which was always my goal. I wrestling all the way through college and put myself through college on wrestling scholarships. I moved to Los Angeles to seek fame and fortune after college and one of the first jobs I got in L.A. was a job as a security guard. I ran into people I had worked with in the NCAA wrestling world--television world--and they introduced me to owner of the security company who ended up being a big fan of amateur and professional wrestling and he introduced me to Red Bastien and the rest is history.

I started off working for the WWF, building a ring and cage back in March of 1986 ... when I built the cage for Bundy and Hogan [Wrestlemania 2] in the Sports Arena in L.A. And then I went to Japan and the rest of my career started after that.

Pinfalls: So who trained you as a professional wrestler?

Maxx: Red Bastien. He’s the same guy who trained Sting, The Ultimate Warrior, “The Angel of Death” ... I was in the camp directly after them in L.A.

Pinfalls: You spent some time in the New Japan wrestling promotion ... can you tell us a little bit about your time there?

Maxx: The New Japan thing for me was, I got to tell you, the hardest moments of my life. Uncategorically--the hardest, most physically and mentally taxing moments of my life. Because I was in L.A. at the time ... my wife had just moved down there and shortly afterwards, her mother died. I had to move my family back to Utah and in the interim of this, I was training and getting ready to go to Japan. And my wife was pregnant at the time with my only daughter and I knew what was going to happen would happen--and the scenario was that they booked me to leave exactly one month before her due date and I wouldn’t be home until three or four months after she had delivered.

But I knew it was something I had to do and honestly I didn’t even know why because I wasn’t a mark. I was never a mark for the business because I was one of those guys who grew-up from the amateur wrestling world who had to follow the professional wrestling business and I actually spent my whole life trying to prove to people that I wasn’t a professional wrestler.

But I left for Japan not knowing anything ... and basically moved into the New Japan Dojo and met my new roommate for the first time in L.A. when I was flying to Japan and my roommate happened to be Chris Benoit. We didn’t realize the magnitude of what we were about to embark on which was not a little different but a lot different from anyone else who has gone over there with the exception of Bad News [Allen/Brown] and Pat Tanaka. And that was to live in the New Japan Dojo and to be a part of one of the New Japan boys. And instead of traveling on the other side with the Americans and staying in American hotels, we slept in Japanese style hotels which means on the floor with no heat and no toiletries in your room. We ate their food ... and really just lived the Japanese lifestyle rather than being there as an American and being accommodated as an American.

So, the first two months was incredibly brutal because not only was there culture shock to deal with ... they just did just everything they could do to physically break us. I remember [they had us] run temple stairs ... and for the next three days, Chris and I used to toss a coin to see who would go up and down the stairs to get us a bottle of water because our legs just felt like someone had run bamboo shoots into them. The work-out level was so intense on top of the fact that no one else around spoke English with no hope of anyone who spoke English ... and for the first two months in the Dojo, they didn’t take us on tour with them ... we were kind of like outcasts in the Dojo. And that was kind of how they indoctrinate you into their system.

And then we started to get into the flow of things ... I look back in retrospect and God, how fortunate I was. How luck of a guy I was to have the opportunity to live in Japan and train with the Japanese and then get paid. It was a phenomenal experience and a phenomenal place ... and then I met lots of great people along the way ... Dickie Murdoch, Demolition Ax Bill Eadie, Jushin Liger, Chono, Funaki and all the guys who were in the Dojo at the time Chris and I were there. The list was pretty big. Brody came through I think at Inoki Live 2 and he did an hour long match with Inoki at the Sumo Palace at Osaka ... they fought all the way through the stand and up into the bleachers ... it was just phenomenal.

Pinfalls: The Japanese culture treats wrestling quite different than American fans. What were the major fan-based differences you found in Japan?

Maxx: I think that the Japanese fans, because of what Tiger Mask did 20 years ago--and really it’s something that America hasn’t done yet to be quite honest with you--and what he did was to completely expose the business. So, the wrestling fans were very educated fans ... and they were at a point in wrestling where they would cheer for the expertise of the high spot or rather if it were executed correctly rather than the emotional sense of the Americana ideal. I found Japanese fans to be very educated and it was almost insulting to them.

The people we had who were friends--in their limited grasp of the English language--they would try and ask you a question about wrestling ... but they would assume that you were going to try and cover the business so they would talk to you on different levels. I always appreciated that because from the beginning of my life in the business, I always thought that kayfabe was ridiculous and an insult to anyone with an intelligence. And so I thought that the Japanese were extremely refreshing and it wasn’t until I came to the United States and I went to Memphis and Nashville that I saw a completely different spectrum of wrestling fans ... with just complete blind faith. Not that that’s not a good thing, God Bless those fans but the Japanese fans were a little bit different ... I don’t want to say more educated I just think they are a few years ahead of the game due to the events that have happened there.

Pinfalls: The news media here in the States has always looked down upon wrestling ... with wrestling viewed differently in Japan, did the media depict the industry in a more favorable light?

Maxx: The answer to that is yes of course, and I think the reason for that is because the education level. They have discussed it, it has been exposed, the scandals have passed ... now they are onto a different level in Japan where it is a little bit like ballet. I mean, you know that ‘Swan Lake’ is choreographed from beginning to end but that doesn’t make the people who do it any less talented. And so I think that the Japanese fans are functioning on that kind of a plane ... which is really refreshing because then, which is the way I feel, the sky is the limit.

The fan level over there is just phenomenal ... their loyalty and devotion ... and a little bit different level of thinking and a little different mentality on the terms of how they feel about professional wrestling. And the media treats it a little differently ... it is not as nearly tongue-and-cheekish as it is in the United States. Partly because the guys have to go through a Dojo which is the Japanese indoctrination into professional wrestling business which is no different than the sumo, karate, kung-fu or judo guys. All of those guys go through a Dojo. And when you go through a Dojo, there is no B.S. ... kayfabe doesn’t exist because they are just there to kick your ass and make you tough. So with that in mind, there is a whole different mentality ... the Japanese kids used to call them ‘Dojo run-a-ways’ ... you’d have 40 guys show-up and want to be professional wrestlers and after the first day, there wouldn’t be any of them left--they’d all leave because they were so beat up. So, that’s a big issue on the terms of how the people and the media respect the business.

Pinfalls: How did the name ‘Maxx Payne’ originate?

Maxx: Actually, it started back in the Max Headroom days, who was the spokes-person for Coca-Cola in the mid-80s. I loved Max Headroom ... I though the show was great. Prior to that, I had done a show called ‘Bob Uekker’s Wacky World of Sports,’ and it was an out-take show like ‘America’s Funniest Home Videos’ ... and [they] were always looking for funny little anecdotal things to do on top of the funny video they had. One particular time, [they] came to me and wanted to do something for the next week’s show where I was a wrestler ... and there was the littlest character [as my opponent]. He asked what I wanted to use for a name and I said, ‘How about Lucifer Payne?’ and his response was, ‘Wow, that’s pretty intense.’

At it was supposed to be a character--a fun thing--so I started thinking about Lucifer Payne and thought it was a little bit too extreme. And at the time I was thinking about my name, a commercial with Max Headroom came on. And I went ... ‘Max Payne!’ Ah, There it is right there ... ‘Maximum Pain.’ So, I did the Max Payne thing and a friend on the road said, ‘Why don’t you change it to two Xs?’ and the rest is history so-to-speak.

Pinfalls: After you returned from Japan, did you go straight to WCW?

Maxx: No, I did not actually. I came back from Japan and as you know, in the mid-80s, Vince had done a good job in eliminating the small territories. There was still a territory in Montreal, there was still a Calgary territory ... a small one Vancouver, of course there was Portland, Bill Watts was running the UWF and then there was Memphis. I got booked into the UWF with Bill Watts and it folded ... I got booked in Montreal and it folded ... then I sat around for about six months trying to figure out what I was going to do.

Stu Hart called me on the phone and at the same time, so did Memphis. I had heard from Chris about Canada, the road trips and the money and I knew Memphis wasn’t much better but at least I was in America. So, I opted to go to Memphis so I fixed up an old beater truck I had and it barely got me to Memphis and then the motor blew-up. I stayed in Memphis for almost a year and came home ... once again, I couldn’t find work so I started my own little territory out here in Utah.

We had a great time with that--we had some great guys out here; one of my favorite guys by the name of Louie Spicolli. He came in and main evented with me a lot. We had a really good little territory going on ... a nice thing going on here ... we started doing good business and I got a call from Chris Benoit and he asked ‘What are you doing?’ and I said, ‘Running my own territory but things are starting to fall apart right this second ... guys are starting to move away and I don’t know what I’m going to do.’

He said he was booked for Germany and asked if I wanted to go ... I was almost sure that I had a job with Word Perfect [Microsoft] which was starting in Utah. I said, ‘I tell you what Chris--I’m going to take whatever comes first and chalk it up to fate.’ And I got the ticket to go to Germany literally a half an hour before Word Perfect called to give me a job. So, I went to Germany and was there for two seasons. There I did the Buffalo Patterson character--it was funny, no territory I went to with the exception of Lawler (who took it way over the other edge) would let me be Maxx Payne! I remember New Japan got mad at me because I told them I wanted to be Maxx Payne and he goes, ‘No you’re Beater!’ They wouldn’t let me do Maxx Payne. I went to Memphis and Lawler just painted ‘666’ on my forehead and turned me into Satan ... But Germany wouldn’t let me do Maxx Payne and then came back from there and Bill Watts was running the WCW at the time and he loved guys with amateur, shooting backgrounds. He saw my gimmick and a couple of my matches in Germany--the guitar playing thing and flew me down.

Pinfalls: Speaking of Watts, we have heard, mainly from Mick Foley and Jake Roberts, that Watts was some-what of a ‘tyrant.’ Did you share these views on ‘The Cowboy?’

Maxx: Well, you know, in fairness, I can’t say a bad thing about Bill Watts because he gave me my job in WCW. And shortly after I got my job, he left. He got me a good contract from WCW then he walked out the door ... it didn’t really do me any good with the future bookers in WCW because I was in no-way-shape-or-form the part of any clique in the WCW. I just didn’t fit in with any of those guys because they all viewed me as this psycho freak who wore black, had long black hair, a black beard, had black T-shirts and wanted to play the guitar and do the wrestling thing at the same time. I wanted to do interviews different from the old-style of interviews--I wanted to be a little more intellectual in the interview process ... and so on ... I just didn’t fit in. But Bill Watts allowed me to do that but once Bill left, the clique didn’t see any value to what I did.

From there I went to the WWF and Bill showed up there for a while too and he left there before I could do anything! So, I can’t say a bad thing about Bill Watts because everything he ever did for me was good. All I can say is thanks to Bill Watts...

Pinfalls: I believe your first WCW pay-per-view appearance was against Dustin Rhodes ... is that right?

Maxx: Yeah it was.

Pinfalls: How did it feel being on a PPV for the first time versus regular television?

Maxx: Oh, I was overwhelmed. I really was ... I wasn’t prepared. I’ve watched that match in the interim since ... and I have to say, partly because of my movie coming out, I want to make it clear to people that from the time I got into the wrestling business--while I loved and hated the physicality of the wrestling thing at the same time--that I had already been an amateur wrestler for 13 years and I was beat-up then. Because amateur wrestling is the toughest sport in the world and the only one tougher is professional wrestling, I really believe that. So by the time I got to the pro wrestling world, I was tired, I had a big family ... I really wanted to get into the wrestling business and quickly move to behind the scenes or to a Jesse [Ventura] style position. You know, no one ever remembered Jesse for being a world class wrestler--everyone remembers Jesse because what a phenomenal announcer and behind-the-scenes and in-front-of-the-camera guy he was. When you think of Vince McMahon, you don’t think of him as his wrestling prowess ... he made his mark as an owner and innovator. Pat Patterson, as a great a wrestler as he was, he is still known for his incredible virtuosity as a wrestling thinker. And I always believed that’s where my strongest suit was in the wrestling ... so I wanted to gravitate towards that as quickly as I possibly could.

My focus always was--how to get out of the ring and get behind-the-scenes and in-front of the camera and not be taking bumps. I wanted to move into the background. So, from a wrestling stand point, my goal and motives were always towards that direction.

So, therefore, when I get into my first ppv match, on top of the fact that I didn’t know anybody ... And on top of the fact that WCW put me in the worst situation they could put me in that night. They put me in front of the crowd and I played the National Anthem and you can watch the people that night--actually watch the looks on their faces as the camera passes them, going, ‘Oh my God, this guy is really playing!’ And by the end of it, everyone was on their feet cheering ... [and later on that night] they run me out as a heel against Dustin and the crowd didn’t know what to do. I mean, here’s the guy who just played the national anthem and they cheered for him, then they put me in the ring with a babyface ... that was the worst scenario possible.

That was really the problem all the way through my wrestling career ... people wanted to run me as a heel and fans always took me as a babyface. I remember one time, Bill Dundee asked me, ‘How can you ever believe that the people of the world would like a fat, ugly bastard like you?’ And I said, ‘You know what Bill, the Twinkie eaters of the world need somebody to identify with.’ I think I’m the guy who doesn’t eat, breathe and sleep the gym and who is just a big bad ass. Who, in this situation, is a musician as well. So, I was kind of in that category from the beginning and I was fighting an uphill battle with my gimmick. In retrospect, it’s almost comical now ... that what I was doing just happened to be seven years ahead of what would become the most popular mentality of professional wrestling ever ... I remember Marcus Bagwell wearing pink tights. Marcus would never dawn any pink tights now. Everybody has sort of a grunge, heavy metal look now ... everybody does black T-shirts, everybody does black hair. I was doing that eons and eons before the others ... that happened to me quite a bit with wrestling with the crowd and the promotion didn’t see it because of what was going on behind-the-scenes.

After that point, WCW wouldn’t do anything with my character. They did a little bit ... but they would never let me play. And the times they did let me play ... there is a PPV, a Slamboree where they let me play and when all the people in the audience stood up, they cut me off. So, no one was willing to let that thing go very far.

Pinfalls: At the time, you wore Maxx Payne T-shirts, all of which I really liked. We never really saw WCW market your shirts--were they specially made?

Maxx: They were. Here’s a funny story for you ... I don’t know the connection but I bet money that it’s still a strong one. The company I got my T-shirts from was a company called ‘Fashion Victim,’ and the way I got their name in without anyone knowing their name was on the shirts was ... it would say, ‘Fashion Victim Maxx Payne,’ because I obviously was. My fashion was far different from anyone in the ring at the time ... Right when I was leaving the WCW, I thought I was going to have a good connection with them and start rolling out the black shirts, they moved [from Chicago] to Atlanta. I was just getting ready to meet the owner of the company and I had just got let go from Atlanta, so I left just as ‘Fashion Victim’ came there.

But I still have all my T-shirts, incidentally. Maybe we’ll auction them off someday for charity or something ... but the whole T-shirt thing, the whole dark-side, the skulls, the cross-bones ... it’s almost ironic to what Stone Cold wears. I guarantee Stone Cold has a ton of my T-shirts ... I used to give him shirts all the time. But he wasn’t wearing that stuff in WCW ...

Pinfalls: One of your shirts in particular, I remember had a white image against black of you playing the guitar ... WCW would later do similar designs with their shirts...

Maxx: Right ... yeah ... see that kind of stuff, man, I’m proud of. I have no animosity. I look at the nWo shirts ... and there is no question where those ideas came from. If I pulled out my Fashion Victim shirts and the ones that say ‘Maxx Payne’ on them, you’d be flabbergasted. If I pulled out my original Maxx Payne shirt that I helped design with ‘Damage Ink’ on the front with the over-the pocket emblem with skull-and-crossbones with an evil looking skull-thing with wings on the back of it ... it’s amazing how much the Stone Cold stuff looks like that. I had a shirt and in fact, I know I gave Stone Cold one of these--that was just a great big skull face on the front of it ... and I’ve seen Stone Cold shirts! And that’s OK ... and they would go, ‘Yeah, right ... shut up Maxx, you’re a no-body,’ but I don’t care. The reality of it is, they all know and they would say, ‘That’s not where I came up with the idea ...’ but that’s alright. The reality of it is that Stone Cold wasn’t doing any of that stuff when he was with WCW and then went straight to the WWF and did it.

Pinfalls: The time you happened to be on the Federation roster is considered by the many to be the "dark age" of whether or not wrestling had much of a future, when attendance and ratings were down, etc. What was the attitude in the locker room like?

Maxx: It was horrible ... it really was. The dressing room was atrocious ... it was just horrible. No one was making money. In fact, I have a check from the WCW from my tour of Canada. I got one of the most horrible infectious, food poisoning intestinal flues you can ever get ... I didn’t even know I had it for two weeks ... I almost died. I got it on this tour and I got a check in the mail for $0.75 Canadian. I still didn’t cash it, I put it in a frame. I thought, ‘Why did they bother sending me this? What the...?’ In order to cash Canadian money, I’d have to drive 30 miles south of my home because the town I was in was small and at the time didn’t deal in foreign currency ... so I’d have to drive to a bank in Provo to cash a $0.75 Canadian check. You know, that really summarizes how atrocious the business was at the time.

We were all trying desperately to make good times out of that ... but from the moment I went to the WWF, I was plagued, I really was. And now, looking back in retrospect, I'm really glad I was. When I first went there, the original plan was to bring Brian James [The Roadie/ Road Dogg] in and Brian was going to start with Jeff [Jarrett] to set up the liaison between them. I wanted Brian to get things started because ... we had a band, my own band called ‘Living Insanity,’ that I had written all the music for ... we were going to have a CD, everything was going great, Brian was going to go there, then I was going to follow behind him--then we were going to show the connection and eventually we were going to hook-up, the band was going to happen and we were going to perform on PPV’s, start our own record company and Vince was on board...

But from the time I got to the WWF, I was plagued with one thing after another. The first thing that happened was that I went to Mississippi, where we were wrestling in a casino. I hit the ropes and the top rope broke, I flipped upside down and outside the ring and tore a hernia. I already had kind of a mild hernia ... and had to have a double hernia surgery shortly after that. I came back at Wrestlemania, I started trying to get back into shape and get back in the ring-mode and all along guys, I was telling Vince, to use me as an announcer ... and he said, ‘No, you’ve got to be a wrestler.’ [At the time] I was addicted to pain pills and all the downers and everything else that goes with it ... Brian got busted for pot three times, I got busted for pot once...

When they fired Brian the first time, they cut him loose, I was on the road doing promos. Literally, that morning I was doing an hour long radio promo for the WWF putting the card over ... you know, they used me all the time to do that stuff. J.J. [Dillon] called me and said, ‘Just so you know, we let Brian go this morning and we don’t know what that means for your future.’ You tell me that while I’m in the middle of a 20 day run on the road? What kind of human beings are you? Aren’t I busting my ass for you? And you’re going to fire me because the other guy got busted smoking weed--what the hell is going on here?

And that was towards the end ... I think the only reason I went on this last tour was because a couple of people ended up canceling out. That’s why I went on the tour of Europe--the ‘Heavy Metal Tour’--and because I was a film-maker, I had the insight to take my camera with me and that’s when all of this happened.

Pinfalls: You mentioned being sort of the ‘outsider’ and not in any definite cliques. You had the opportunity of being with both companies ... who were the locker room leaders or were there any specific wrestlers that everyone looked up to?

Maxx: In WCW, it was a given to be a part of a clique, you had to be part of the Flair world. And the Dusty world ... because Dusty the booker, the one with the pen, the one with the stroke and ‘baby it was you!’ So, in WCW you also had to be a part of the Dusty realm in some fashion or another. And in the WWF, there was ... the Shawn camp and all the people in there with him, Diesel [Kevin Nash], Scott Hall, Triple H and all the people who were underneath that umbrella. ‘Taker always had his own clique but it was a very exclusive clique--it usually just included Charles--so ‘Taker was always off in a world by himself and did little to foster the careers of other people. And then there was the Bret Hart camp. And then the solid old-timers who would go along with the cliques just to go along for the ride, guys like Davey Boy and Lex.

To read the second half of the Pinfalls interview with Maxx Payne, click here!


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