Sean Waltman (@realxpac) is a professional wrestler and a 2-time WWE Hall Of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Hollywood, CA to talk about how healthy he looks and feels these days, the potential to return to WWE at the Royal Rumble, the amazing entrance themes he had, how the Red Hot Chili Peppers almost did his theme song, the story behind Uncle Kracker doing his “X-Factor” theme, how he came up with the Bronco Buster, beating Razor Ramon on Raw, does he think he could get inducted into the WWE Hall Of Fame on his own?, the promo that he got sued for in WWE, getting kids in trouble with “Suck It”, his memories of invading WCW on a tank with DX, wrestling Shane McMahon, never winning the Intercontinental Championship and much more!
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Quote I’m thinking about:
I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened. – Mark Twain
On the possibility of there being one more match:
“Most definitely. Yeah, I’ve been training and feeling good. I’m not saying like, you know, another run or anything like that. But like if I needed to be in a match, like a six-man or, you know, something like that. I could kill it. I could do all the stuff I used to do.”
On the X Factor theme:
“I was the one, my God. You know, and I’ve already admitted this a bunch of times, but that was my idea. Not necessarily that song. Shane McMahon comes up to me and they’re trying, they’re trying with me. And he goes hey, we’re thinking about having Red Hot Chilli Peppers do your new theme music. I go no, I want Uncle Cracker.”
On being a big dog lover:
“And I didn’t have that [before]. I always liked animals. And I’ve had dogs and stuff. And like, I never had the connection I have now it’s just way different. Honestly, man, like, I think it has something to do with like, you know, like, all the shit that I went through, put myself through whatever, just those years of just really, like really rough stuff, you know, and just, I just think that, in general, overall, I’m more empathetic, you know, people, animals, everything coming out the other side of that.”
On turning his life around:
“Yeah, but I had you know, I had a lot of people that care about me. You know, people get tired of, like, you know, helping but like, there were other people that cared too. I didn’t run out of people that cared. You know, like, a lot of people got tired of trying to help me, and they should have you know, you don’t want to keep wasting your time on somebody if they’re not ready. But eventually, I was at a place man, right when I right before I came out here, you know, Maria Menounos, Keven Undergaro they were those people that cared, and they were willing to just help me you know.”
On the Razor Ramon match being his favorite:
“It’s beyond, there’s no close-second moment that was as important as that moment was in my career and, you know, really in my life to like, I mean, that was so huge, like, that was life-changing. Yeah. You know, not in my career, like my trajectory. My life changed because of that moment. And it was, it was huge. You know, it was it had so much impact. It was just, it was a unique way of, of introducing somebody besides just the Hey, like, Let’s do six weeks of vignettes and like some, you know, squash matches where he comes up and beats a guy.”
On the return to WWE after a run in WCW:
“It was rough. I mean, it was it was real, you know, it was authentic. And, you know, I was able to, I was able to deliver a couple of memorable you know, zingers. But I mean, it wasn’t the smoothest of promos, but it was real. He [Vince McMahon] sees me standing there getting ready to go and he goes, Hey, they’re expecting something big from you. Like, give it to him. Not like, you should say this, you know, like, here’s the script. None of that, he didn’t have the first clue what the f*ck I was going to say.”
On getting sued for the promo:
“It was in there. Yeah, it probably would have been a good idea if they would have asked me what I was gonna say. Right? Because part of it was why they sued. But some of it was like one of the things from my promo that was part of the lawsuit when I got deposed because I got deposed for that, which is a classic, that the deposition was classic. You would have loved it if you were there. The part where I said, Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall would be right here with me if they weren’t being held hostage by WCW. And so I’m sitting in the deposition, and WCW or the Turner or whatever lawyer, and I have my lawyer. That was also Jesse Ventura, his lawyer, David Bradley Olson, who’s there with me and in, you know, he goes, so why did you say, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall would be right there with you if they weren’t being held hostage by WCW? I said, Well, I was talking to Kevin the night before. And he told me it would be a good idea if I said that.”
On being arrested for the WCW invasion with a tank:
“We did. We didn’t get like, handcuffed and taken to like to get booked or anything. I mean, we had to go to the station, but they let us stay in our van. Because when we went to their offices, not to CNN tower, but their WCW offices. Vince had already paid off the local police and they were with us, then they called the police. And so then like, I don’t know if it was the sheriff or the police department or how that worked out. But we ended up having to go down and technically get booked.”
On being a smaller wrestler:
“Yeah, and well I mean, just I’m built you know, so that was a big part of it too. Because there were guys that had gotten the push before that was like, you know, five foot and change or whatever but they were just you know, like Ivan Putski on a few members of that course yeah, you know guys like that or whatever but yeah. I think I was able to learn how to like my I adjusted my style to where I was good at working with big guys. I just knew how to do it and knew how to keep everything at like you know as believable in the context of what we’re doing like you know, you never saw me shoot like a 300-pound guy into the ropes because I mean that’s just silly. Yeah, you know, I always had ways of getting movement without having to do sh*t like that or in just you know, fighting that you know, that’s that underdog you know, fighting from underneath. You know, I was really comfortable fighting from underneath like a lot of guys I just want to shine, shine shine. Yeah, dude, shut me down right away. I’m fine.”
On being paired with Kane:
“I don’t know [who’s idea it was], but I’m really grateful to whoever it was. I don’t know if Vince Russo was still there, I think he might have been. I don’t know. But I’ll say this. You know, we had just broken DX up, Paul [Triple H] had just turned on me at WrestleMania you know, and cost me to match with Shane. Like, that was a thing where originally I was supposed to beat Shane. And, you know, when Paul told me he was turning heel. In my mind, as you know, your heel turns not going to mean sh*t if you don’t turn on me. So we did that. And I got rewarded with a hell of a run as tag champs with Kane. I mean, we had a really good run together.”
On Shane McMahon:
“My match with Shane was his first. It wasn’t his first actual, like, match. But it was his first match, like big, you know? And a lot of those ideas, a lot of the things you saw out there in that match were his ideas. Because I told Vince I’m like Hey, okay, Vince tasked me to work with him. And I had these conditions. I’ve told this before, but, you know, I was like, I get to go over and he has to, you know, listen to me. And so, Shane came in with this whole list of ideas. And at first, I was kind of standoffish about it. I brought it to Vince and I’m like Vince look. And then Shane comes to me, okay, whatever. In the end, I actually just sat down after he said that and read it. Yeah. And we ended up doing like 3/4 of it. Like, they were all great ideas.”
On the conversation before the match:
“I told him before our match, I’m like, Dude if I don’t light you up there, and you know, people are gonna look at me, you know, he’s like, bring it, he wanted me to do it. I did. Yeah, like was, I made a beat. I made him hit me hard, you know, we had the weight belt. Yeah, yeah. I made him like, just tee off on me with it. Because when I got it, you know you know, he was, he was great to me.”
On the Bronco Buster:
“It came from, do you remember Hakushi? Yeah, he would do that. But like, he would just do the part where he landed on Yeah, that was not the extra stuff. And so like, you know, he wasn’t using it anymore. Like, I just decided to do it one day, because I remember him doing it to me. And he was gone. And it wasn’t something I think people really remembered him for. I don’t think it was one of his signature moves.”
What is X Pac grateful for:
“An incredible marriage, my family and my health.”
