Perry Saturn on Major Regrets He Had In His Wrestling Career, His Infamous Squash Match Against Mike Bell in WWE and Punishment He Received From Vince McMahon Over It, & His 2004 Shooting Incident

A recent episode of the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast featured former WWE and WCW wrestler Perry Saturn as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Saturn’s thoughts about if he has any regrets about his wrestling career.

“Yeah, my career ended maybe a decade too soon because I couldn’t get off the drugs. Somewhere when we went to WWE, I rubbed somebody the wrong way too, because that’s why I did bullsh*t things. I got the reputation of roughing up the enhancement guys. What nobody hears is before every match, Jerry Briscoe would grab the guy and tell him, ‘Hey, Perry’s really old school. You got to go out there and make him work for it. No sell some of his stuff.’ They know I’m going to go berserk. I’d come through the back, and they’d be laughing their asses off. Well, now the boys are, like Paul London. He was when he had to work with me. He was worried because now I’m beating everyone up.”

Saturn also gave his thoughts about his infamous squash match against Mike Bell in 2001 in WWE and the backstage punishment he received from Vince McMahon leading to his infamous Moppy storyline in the company. This match was infamous for Saturn legitimately attacking Bell after a botched arm drag spot by Bell that resulted in Saturn landing awkwardly on his head.

“Pat Patterson thought I should marry a plunger, so that’s what he pitched, and somehow the plunger got turned into the mop. The whole idea was I did that because I got hit in the head, which is what happened with Mike Bell. This was my punishment, and I can prove it was a punishment because they never gave me any direction.

They were hot. Tom Prichard was the agent, and he babyfaced me with the heat. ‘Perry, are you okay? We need to make sure he’s okay. I didn’t know he landed on his head like that.’ The next day, my neck was f*cked up. I had to go to the doctor to get my neck looked at, but I wasn’t hurt, and that doesn’t give me the right to do what I did.

And Vince told me, ‘Okay, Perry, you have to tell me right now that you’re never going to do that again.’ I go, ‘Vince, I didn’t do it on purpose this time, so I can’t tell you that because I didn’t mean to do it.’ He was getting hot at me, and I’m just not going to tell him something that I don’t believe. If I tell him something, he’s going to know it’s what I believe. Otherwise, I’m not going to say it, because that’s important to me.” 

Saturn also gave her thoughts about his shooting incident in 2004 that involved him being shot in the neck after saving a woman who was being assaulted.

“There’s a strip club. I can’t remember the name of it, and right next door is the hotel, and the guy I get drugs from is there. So I’m going to the hotel to get high, and I hear somebody screaming. My dumbass, I think it’s two strippers fighting. So I figured I’m going to check this out, and I just stumbled on it, and it lasted a few seconds. I didn’t even know I got shot. I thought the guy hit me, not because I’m tough, but because I was in shock.

I got in the neck, and right here you can feel the hole. My collarbone’s gone because I got shot right here, and I didn’t realize it. The police actually had to argue with me to get me in the ambulance because I didn’t think I needed to go. Just because you go in shock. My memory’s very unclear, and I kind of remember. I know what happened, but it’s not a clear picture in my mind. Because, like I said, I remember telling the cops that I thought he punched me in the neck, and I kept going, no, I just got hit, because I got shot in the shoulder, and my body spun. I thought, oh, we’re fighting, and then I got shot in the neck, and my eyes watered and my legs buckled and I thought, oh f*ck, I’m going to get my ass kicked. I better get my sh*t together. Then the cops were there and there’s a big one. Guy ran and got away and never got caught. The other guy went to jail and while he was in jail got killed.

Now it made my life so much better. Then I thought it ruined it. I went from I had a nice house, a nice car, and was just getting ready to start wrestling again. I was just recovering from knee surgery, and I went from that to homeless. Hiding, didn’t want anybody to know who I was, it’s very embarrassing. It just happens so fast, and once it starts happening, you get to a point where you don’t care. F*ck it, this is it. This is my life.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1 & 2, F4WOnline.com