RADICAN’S SHOOT INTERVIEW REVIEW SERIES
RF VIDEO SHOOT WITH HONKY TONK MAN 2011


RF Video recently sat down with Honky Tonk Man for another shoot interview that was filmed earlier this year. Honky always has an axe to grind and this time it’s with TNA, although most of Honky’s venom is directed towards Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff.

Before Honky discusses Bischoff and Hogan, he discusses some current events in wrestling, including WWE having a PG rating. Honky discusses how he believes the PG has hurt wrestling, as fans aren’t being given the product they want. That seems to be an easy cop-out for WWE given their current landscape when the larger issues are they haven’t built new stars are presented programming that captures viewers and drives them to spend money on PPVs, live events, and merchandise in large numbers.

Honky also discusses WWE announcing Rock vs. Cena for “WrestleMania 28” next year. His commentary is short-sighted in some ways, as he believes Rock would walk if he was offered a 30 million dollar movie to do, but even WWE isn’t stupid enough to announce something that big without having a contract in place to ensure it happens. Honky does make a lot of good points about WWE pushing older talent over young acts in recent years, as he specifically points out the build for Cole vs. Lawler at WM this year and all of the television time spent building up that feud as an example of WWE not having faith in the new crop of stars, which is sad when you think about it in hindsight.

It was interesting to see Honky talking about his issues with alcohol. Honky says he’s trying to get healthy and during the later stages of the shoot he discusses his regrets of the shoot he did with New Jack and Iron Sheik where they all got trashed and nearly tossed out of the hotel where RF Video was filming the shoot. Honky says you won’t see anything like that out of him again. He also points out that he’s no longer carrying his Gatorade bottle filled with liquor during the filming of this shoot.

Honky is mad at Hulk Hogan and he really goes after TNA during the course of this interview. The anger stems from Honky being tossed off of a tour with Hogan. Honky specifically blames Bubba The Love Sponge, who doesn’t seem to be making many friends these days. Honky explains why he’s angry at Bubba and Hogan. Then he gets into discussing TNA and he doesn’t have many good things to say about the product. Honky is really funny at times running down Hogan. At one point Honky hilariously discusses an interview where Hogan was asked about Jay Lethal and he didn’t know he had been fired from TNA.

Another favorite target of Honky’s is Ric Flair and he’s still mad at Ric. Honky makes fun of Flair’s “woooo” and talks about Flair’s incident while on tour with TNA overseas. Honky says Flair is a mess now and mentions that he’s always looked up to him. Honky discusses Flair’s problems with Highspots and ROH as well during this segment of the interview.

Jerry Lawler has been a favorite target of Honky in the past, but they’ve patched things up and he doesn’t have anything bad to say about Lawler at this point in time. He discusses how they patched things up. It was hilarious to hear Honky say he should have used instead of Brian Christopher during the built to Lawler vs. Cole at WM this year.

The interview also includes some fan questions, which was a nice change of pace from other shoots I’ve seen from RF Video. It was hilarious to hear Honky’s reaction to a fan question about him not bumping on independent shows. Honky gives a lengthy explanation and rebuttal to the question in only a way that he can.

It was sad to hear Honky talk about the list of wrestling deaths that have surprised him. Honky talked about Hawk, Big Bossman, Curt Henning, and several others that died. Honky called the deaths bizarre, but given the nature of the business and the prevalence of substance abuse, it seems that these deaths were more sad than shocking.

Overall, this was an interesting interview. You have to take some of the things that Honky says with a grain of sale, as it appears he has an axe to grind or is being entertaining. There are loads of funny stories on this shoot, which runs nearly 2 hours. I would recommend this shoot to anyone looking to listen to some entertaining stories, especially if you’re a fan of Honky Tonk Man.

You can purchase “Shoot With Honky Tonk Man 2011” at RFVideo.com.

Contact Sean at PWTorchSean@gmail.com

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