By Tim Brown on January 22, 2004 at 10:16 PM EST

Show: The Interactive Interview (Courtesy of ProWrestling.com)
Guest: 'The King of Old School' Steve Corino
Date: 23rd January 2004
Your Hosts: Daniel Edler & James Walsh
Recap by: James Walsh

[NOTE: You need the Real One Player to hear the show, which you can download by Clicking Here]

'The King of Old School' Steve Corino was this week's guest on The Interactive Interview, and following suit from our other interviews thus far in 2004, Corino held nothing back and spoke his mind while on a promotional poster-posting tour for World-1. One thing to note, for some reason the first 10 seconds or so of the interview are un-usually loud. For this, we apologise. To the interview…

Steve Corino

-- When we join Steve, he is putting up posters throughout town to promote Pro Wrestling WORLD-1 shows. Corino is doing booking work, legwork, and more.

-- Pro Wrestling WORLD-1 is an offshoot of Zero-1. Shows run February 6, 7, and 8. Spanky, Jerry Lynn, Jack Victory, CM Punk, and a whole lot of others will be part of this company. ZeroOneUSA.com is the web address for all the WORLD-1 news. It also, obviously has Zero-1 information.

-- "If you watch the tape from Friday and the tape from Saturday, you'd think you were watching two different shows," said Corino when asked about his recent MLW work. He felt there were a lot of glitches on the show on Friday but Saturday's was far better.

-- Of course Corino worked Terry Funk in a barbed wire match. Was he sore? "Anytime you wrestle Terry Funk, you're sore," said Corino. "Terry Funk has the hardest right hand I've ever felt in my entire life," he added. Corino says Terry blames it on his age but Dusty Rhodes told Corino the punches were even harder 30 years ago.

-- He isn't 't sure the Friday show ended as well as the Saturday show. He feels Saturday was just a far better show. He liked having his barbed wire match as the first match on the card, though. It surprised the people.

-- Corino became a wrestling fan when he was 8 years old. He originally watched the WWF but once he got cable TV, Georgia Championship Wrestling was it. Tommy Rich is who really captured his imagination.

-- Tully Blanchard, Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair, Eddie Gilbert, and "so many different personalities" were Corino's favorite. "There weren't that many guys I didn't like," he added.

-- "I always wanted to be a wrestler from the first time I saw it," said Corino. Corino was not a big kid, however. Years later he tried out expecting to be told "no" but he wasn't and he stuck with it.

-- Corino did indeed train in the WWE Dojo in 1998 as Teddy Hart said on our show. His other major trainer was Tom Brandi.

-- Being the NWA Heavyweight Champion was a huge thrill for Corino. It was the first belt he really saw on TV and to have held it 20 years later was a huge honor for him.

-- Winning as many titles as Corino has, and if you haven't seen his title history, you should look into it, he has never been numb to winning a title belt. He feels any time you win a championship belt, it's special. He does have his favorites such as the NWA, ECW, MLW, NWA Intercontinental Tag, and others are his favorites. But, he won a title in West Virginia in front of 50 people. He was honored to hold that belt. "The belts that I won still are in my house and on display. Those are championship belts and they're honors to hold."

-- "Of all people that brought me in, it was Nova," said Corino when asked about ECW. Paul {Heyman} wanted Reckless Youth, Nova suggested Corino to Paul and it all worked out.

-- The assessment that Dusty Rhodes put Corino map is one that Corino agrees with "100 percent!"

-- Dusty Rhodes is a "father figure" to Steve Corino. Dusty always treats him great and they still get along great including Corino recently going on tour with Dusty in Japan.

-- When asked how Dusty worked in the ring, Corino said, "Like a dream! It's just so easy because he has the crowd in the palm of his hand." He feels Dusty still loves the business very much.

-- The first time Corino saw his name next to Jerry Lynn's, he was nervous. "Jerry does not have it in his ability to have a bad match," said Corino. But, once he worked him he realized how fun it was to work him. He puts Jerry up there with Christopher Daniels and others as being some of the top workers in the business. He adds, "Jerry is 10 years older than me and he still wrestles like he's 21!"

-- "Looking back, Jerry should have held it longer because he deserved it," when asked about his ECW title victory. But, he looks back again and realizes if Corino didn't win it that night, he probably wouldn't have won it. He enjoyed the match and the "double jeopardy" concept. "I thought we put on something good."

-- Working with Jack Victory was an accident. Corino always got along with "Jacko" in ECW. One night Corino was feeding heels to Tazz to squash and one was Corino. They ended up having such great chemistry in Chicago that Paul Heyman came up to them after the show and told them, "I will never break you two guys up. You guys are together forever."

-- Steve tells his partner to put a poster up in Blockbuster. "Blockbuster hates when you put a professional wrestling poster up. Blockbuster does not support professional wrestling. You'll see WWE videos in there, but that's it." Daniel says, "They don't even have that in the UK." Corino chimes back with "Ah, you're better off. You're not missing anything." He then shushes us in a moment that made James pull away from the microphone as he laughed.

-- When asked about the closing of ECW, "Anybody that tells you they were surprised by it is also going to tell you they believe in Santa Claus." He feels the business was just going wrong and he wasn't being paid.

-- Corino was about to leave ECW before they closed the doors. Corino did the final pay per view but did not do the final two shows in Arkansas and Missouri.

-- Corino would not vacate the title without doing right by the belt and what guys like Shane Douglas, Tazz, Terry Funk, Justin Credible, Jerry Lynn, and others had done for it. He respected the title too much to not drop it properly.

-- The confrontation with Missy Hyatt stemmed from a radio interview Corino had done shortly after the close of ECW. Corino was "working" but said some things he can understand Missy getting angry about. Corino apologized and Missy yelled at him. Now they get along well and laugh about it.

-- Zero-1 is different. They have an American influence mixed in with Japanese strong style. It is Yoshi Nakamura's vision. He is very happy with the success they're receiving.

-- Corino was 185 pounds in 2001 when he went to Japan. They wanted to use him as a heavyweight but didn't feel he was heavy enough, so they asked him to put on weight, be it muscle or fat. Corino thought, " Man, I can just EAT!" Corino is now 235 and says it helps take kicks from Hashimoto. "It's like a big cushion!"

-- Spanky is X on the Zero-1 website. "You may break it before we do," said Corino.

-- "His leaving was pretty much something we negotiated because he wasn't happy and there was talk of him being released anyway," said Corino about Spanky. Spanky had a very big following in Japan and the office was very eager to get him back in the company. When the WWE was not releasing him yet but didn't have plans for him, Spanky said enough and quit. Spanky returns on January 30. Corino says, "The fans are just going nuts. It's like it was Hulk Hogan coming back!"

-- Other WWE talent that Zero-1 has their eye on are Rhyno and Paul London. If either are released, they'd love to have them on board.

-- Zero-1 will have Dustin Rhodes on the February tour. Dustin opted to go on vacation with his family first but will be with the company soon. "He wanted some vacation time, we wanted some time to promote him," added Corino.

-- "I'm not a Vince Russo fan so I wasn't going to listen to anything Vince Russo had to tell me," said Steve Corino about his stay with TNA. Another problem was his schedule. He goes to Japan often and can't be there every Wednesday. He also isn't fond of the idea of taking a day and a half away from his son by going there when he can work the weekend at independents and make more.

-- Corino loves MLW. It is a different style than Ring of Honor and Zero-1. He feels that MLW is a more classic NWA or Florida Championship Wrestling style. He feels the Florida fans are not going to appreciate a show that is not very good and the fans seem to respect the product. Corino adds that he likes working MLW because he can take his son to Florida.

-- Daniel puts over the selling job Corino did in War Games, in particular the fire shot, saying it looked "So damn real!" Corino replies saying, "It was real!" The fire really was "all over" Corino and he had burn marks the next day. But, he loved the War Games match. Guys like Terry Funk, Steve Williams, Sabu, Bill Alfonso, and having Barry Whindam on his team was just a dream come true. He feels almost everyone in that match, "except for Sandman," is a legend.

-- Corino then breaks to order McDonalds for his son. How real can you get?

-- "I've always been a believer that you don't get true emotion unless you're faced with it," said Corino about his promo skills.

-- His promo about Jerry Lawler the night of War Games was a shoot.

-- Corino feels Ring of Honor is an amazing product. He wishes he could do some of the things those guys can do. Corino watches the tapes of the show and after every third match he has to pause it and relax for a second because he gets so pumped up.

-- Corino's opinion on Teddy. "Phenomenal wrestler. He's a young kid that confuses reality. He's a kid that sometimes talks about things he doesn't know about. Up until the interview, which I guess you were the ones who broke it, up until that interview, I had no idea what went on that night. If Teddy pulls his head out of his ass, he's going to be a phenomenal performer and is going to make a lot of money. Until then, he's not. He's a kid and he doesn't get it. For him to challenge me to a shoot fight, he had a shot at MLW and he declined it. We had a sit down. It didn't work out. So, we'll exist in a locker room but I have no time for a kid that opens his mouth like that at such a young age," said Corino about Teddy Hart.

-- When asked about his sit down with Teddy Hart, "I listened to him. But, he had nothing good to say. I'm a lot older than him and I've been wrestling a lot longer. Just because he has a Hart name doesn't make him a star. He's got to pay his dues just like everyone else. I was going to go in there with an open mind, he pissed me off again. I threw up my hands and left it."

-- All the vital Steve Corino information, updated regularly, can be found at http://www.stevecorino.com. He can also be booked through that site.

-- Some of Corino's favorite matches would be matches against Hashimoto, Homicide, Shane Douglas, and Justin Credible from Queens.

-- When asked about Trinity, "Trinity knows how to get a job. She knows what she has to do to be where she's at."

-- Corino doesn't get along with Homicide, but, he is a phenomenal performer and it's proof that you don't have to get along with someone to have good matches.

Word Associations with Dusty Rhodes, Jeff Jarrett, Francine, JJ Dillon, Simon Diamond, CW Anderson, Samoa Joe, Simply Luscious, Bruno Sammartino, Terry Funk, Rob Feinstein, Gabe, Vince McMahon, and more!

***We at The Interactive Interview are very keen to know if readers enjoy the product we, and this website, provide you with in these regular interviews. We also like feedback on each individual interview and what bits you liked and didn't like or felt could've been added. Thus, please send through feedback (positive or negative) to us at daniel@theinteractiveinterview.com & tiikingofnoise@hotmail.com.