Sid Shoots: Thoughts on the new Sid Vicious Shoot by Gene Jackson

I know it's getting to be that all my posts lately are shoot reviews but I've been watching a lot of these lately, one that I was particularly interested in was the newest one with Sid Vicious since I just recenty wrote an article about him on this site. I never saw his first one so I have to say I was quite shocked at how well he came off in this shoot. I'm not saying I thought Sid was a dumb guy, just not the most articulate guy in world (at least in some promos) but he came off very intelligent in this shoot and nothing like I may have percieved him. Although like every wrestler out there, he does make some outlandish statements during this shoot. Here are some of the highlights:

• When discussing Flair burying him on the recent WWE 4 Horsemen DVD, Sid said, "Flair can say what he wants but the fact is money wise I've outdrawn him 10 to 1 if you compare my career to his."

WHAT? There was no evidence of sarcasm or joking whatsoever, now I know Sid has drawn some money in his day, but outdrawn RIC FLAIR, 10 to 1??? Look at all the houses Flair drew in all the territories as NWA Champion and pay per views down through the years, that's an insane statement to make.

• He says that that he infamous promo from Nitro (the one I posted here w/Hall & Nash) was scripted that way on purpose by Russo, he said he questioned it and Bill Busch intervened and told him to read it as it was written.

Now this may or may not be true. Based on the reactions from Hall and Nash, I think he just blew the line cause they aren't that good of actors to put it over like that if it was written that way, plus why would they intentionally write something to make Sid look like a douchbag, of course this is Vince Russo so we may give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.

• Sid says he was promised the WCW World Title going into Halloween Havoc '90 in the match against Sting and was told no different going into the match. As far as he knew going in when he pinned Sting he was leaving the champion, then the real Sting showed up and the ref snatched the belt and told him "take the stinger splash and the 1-2-3" and next thing he knew the finish had been changed on him. He says he believes it was Flair that went behind his back and convinced Ole not to put the belt on him.

This may be true, but I just find it really hard to believe they tried to swerve a 6 foot 9inch, 300lb guy out of the title and he was ok with it, he even says it was "more exciting that way." Mighty risky proposition on a live broadcast had Sid not played along and went "psycho" on them. Hopefully someone will qualify his statement with someone in a future interview.

• Sid says he wants another run in the WWE as a new character, says he has drawn more money over his career and more consistantly than either the Rock or "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and could go there now and be there biggest draw if given the chance.

I would love to see Sid get the chance at one last run in the WWE either as Sid Vicious or a new character but I think again like the Flair statement he may be overstating the case that he drew more money over the course of his career than Rock or Austin. He even went as far as to say Austin's first run was so successful because he had the territory up and Austin just had to sustain it, and later when it went down Austin couldn't bring it back up again with no Sid around. He seems to only remember his time on top in WWE with no mention of the Sid/The Kid tag team or any of the lulls in between.


I won't spoil anymore of it, it's an interesting shoot with plenty of other topics covered ECW, the Arn Anderson stabbing incident, why he hasn't worked for TNA, and more. Check it out.