Rico Constantino is a professional wrestler best known for his time in WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Arizona to discuss the many jobs he’s had on top of being a pro wrestler, winning American Gladiators, starting wrestling in his late 30s, wrestling John Cena and Brock Lesnar in OVW, how he became Billy and Chuck’s manager and The Stylist, why he was released from WWE, his appearance in AEW, if he is open to one more match, and more!

You might be the most interesting man in the world. When you think of all the different careers that you’ve had before wrestling. Then wrestling is kind of like this window of time for seven years or so, and then a whole other life after that. So it’s police officer, paramedic, American Gladiators.

“That was fun. Then I went to France, and I did their version called Conquer Fort Boyard with a team, and I won $25,000.”

Also bail bondsman, bodyguard, pro wrestler, of course.

“I was in the Conan show at Universal Studios. I was in the Conan the Barbarian show. I played a bad guy named Missoura, and then I was the Michael Keaton Batman for Six Flags in Valencia. Yeah, I was a stunt man.”

How’s your health doing? Because I know for a while you had some complications.

“When I was an officer, 2014-2015, I caught blood clots. I had three of them in my femoral artery, and I tried to overcome them. They put me on blood thinners. When it came time for the state to make a decision, I was a liability because I was on blood thinners. So I was forced to medically retire. I went vegan. I did juicing every day, did everything, and then I got rid of the blood clots. My health came back. I went back to working out, and in July 2019, took me six months. I went back into work, I got a job as a security officer, and then I got back into what I really love, investigations, detective work. But I couldn’t be an officer, so I became an investigator for a commercial insurance company called Bell United. We did limousines for a number of hotels, insured them, did accidents. I did the same thing I did as a cop, except I didn’t arrest anybody or give anybody a ticket. I wrote reports, and higher-ups would decide what was going on. The insurance company, you know, you take photos of the accident or a passenger gets injured, or stuff like that. So I did all that, I did that as a police officer too. I wrote a report, and I passed it to the detectives, and who passed it on a district attorney or city attorney, and they decided to proceed or not proceed with the case. But I never took anybody into physical custody or wrote him a ticket as an insurance investigator.”

Has your health recently been?

“It was great, but last March [2025], I was doing great in the gym, everything. Joe Matthews, a promoter, brought me to New York, and my fiance has never been to New York, and I did a Friday, Saturday morning, Saturday night signing, and Sunday, when I was leaving, the promoter, out of his good graces, took Julie and I to New York and gave us a tour of Times Square and everything, and took pictures with Julie and everything. It was great. He dropped us off at the airport three hours delay, and so by the time I hit my seat, I was exhausted, and it’s five and a half hours to get back to Phoenix, and I didn’t get up once, so I developed DVT [Deep vein thrombosis]. That’s a blood clot in the legs. So I got one more in my femoral but what other one that’s more dangerous is I got one in my popliteal artery, which is harder to get rid of, and it was causing me pain behind the leg and stuff like that. Since then, I’ve been on a new blood thinner and the pain behind the legs has gone away. I go for an ultrasound next month to see if all of it’s gone away. And in that, within that, I was getting my physicals and stuff like that, they found a small blockage on the left side of my heart. So I’m going through that now. And my sleep apnea returned, so now I do a CPAP machine at night.”

We recently saw you in the ring with AEW. You look like you could go again.

“I could, and I wanted to. But I was a manager, and things didn’t happen. I told you off-camera what I thought of, and it was shot down.”

Because what a wonderful surprise. When people think of you, they think of Billy and Chuck. For you to be in a segment in a match with Billy Gunn in there, it just seemed perfect.

“Oh yeah. I just wish we could have told a story in the in a pre-tape, because people weren’t really getting it, because the crowd had changed over 20 years, and Billy just off the cuff, went down, and he cut a promo off top of his head, saying, ‘You’re the guy that almost made me marry Chuck.’ So then maybe brought some stuff back, and we did the match, and Billy got his revenge at the end. I interfered with the match and stuff like that. Then Billy snuck up behind me, and all of a sudden, you saw the match, and oh, I know this face. I know that ass, turn around, ‘No Billy, No!'”

Do you consider yourself retired? I don’t just mean from the ring. Are you retired now? 

“Well, right now, as I’m going through the blood clots and the blockage right now, I am retired, but if they can clear the blockage, either with a stent or remove it, and these go away, I’ll return to part-time work. I’ll go and work again. Maybe, you know, if somebody wants me to make a special appearance, I’ll get right back into ring shape.”

Would you wrestle another match?

“I would. As soon as I get into ring shape, I would, and it won’t take me long. I’d love to in one of the bigger promotions and stuff like that. I’d love to do a tag match. Not ready to do singles yet. I would love a tag match.”

So at 38 you’re looking at wrestling. You’re going maybe for your first wrestling training. Were you thinking this is going to be a career, or was this just something fun you were going to do with your brother? 

“I was going to do it with my brother and eventually tag with him and stuff like that. We went down to school of hard knocks, Empire Wrestling Federation with Jesse Hernandez. So I go there, and Jesse starts giving me hints. I’m listening, and he asked me to come back. So once or twice a week, my brother and I would drive to San Bernardino, work all day at the bail bonds, three-and-a-half-hour drive, work out three hours, three-and-a-half hours back, and then go to work the next day. I ended up being the heavyweight champion. I took it from The Ice Man, and while I was champion, I got to wrestle Honky Tonk Man in a title defense, and Jesse told me, you won’t go over clean. There’ll be a disqualification this and that. I said, I’m fine with that. I’m getting to wrestle one of the guys I saw on TV. And we go on the match, and I give him a headlock takeover, and at the end he tells me to pin him 123, in the ring. Then he tells me, as I go over to him, he goes, ‘Go smash my guitar.’ So I get his guitar, and I smash it on a ring post and everything like that. And Jesse’s like, ‘What are you doing?!’ I get to the back, and Jesse goes, ‘What did you do?’ I said I did exactly what he said. You’re kidding. Let’s go see him right now. Yes, sir. We saw him, and Wayne gave me a great compliment. And Jesse goes, Why? He goes, ‘When he gave me that first headlock takeover, I knew this kid knew what he was doing.’ Kid? I’m over 38.”

If this is your brother’s dream, how does he feel when you get signed to OVW, eventually signed to WWE you’re the one living his dream when you’re just along for the ride, at first:

“Very supportive, because the developmental contract is not that lucrative. Very, very, very small. I had a wife and two stepchildren at the time, and he would help make ends meet. I went through OVW, and I only wrestled eight months and was in 12 matches, and Finkel calls me at the bail bonds office going, ‘Hey, kid. You want to try out in Connecticut? 10-day tryout?’ Yes! ‘Okay, give me your information.'”

Had someone sent you a tape in or something?

“I don’t know who did. I’m assuming it was Jesse, but they gave me a tryout, and that was the last Dory Funk dojo, and Mark Henry was part of that. Nicole Bass was part of that. Dory and his wife were interviewing people, and they did about three or four and then he gets to me, and they spent about three or four minutes with everybody, and he gets to me, ‘What’s your name? Where you from?’ I said, Las Vegas. ‘How long you been in the business?’ I said, eight months. They all stood up and walked away. Oh, that is not good.”

Before you had the stylist character that everybody knows from WWE, what was your gimmick in OVW?

“The American gladiator champion. That was it red, white and blue, all American hero. And then I was having a match with Flash Flanagan, he was supposed to give me hip toss, and I was supposed to flip out of it and hip toss him. Well, my leg hit the ring and my quad snapped right in the middle of the title fight. So I was down. I mean, from the knee below, it was just like this. So Nick Dinsmore did a run-in on those two and then they got me out, and I was gone, and the doctor said, You’ll never wrestle again. I said, Oh, okay. He goes, ‘So you might want to think…’ I said, Wait, wait, tell me that part again. He goes, what? ‘You will never wrestle again?’ I said, Yeah, that one. Say it again. ‘You’ll never wrestle again.’ I said, keep telling me, keep telling me. He put me back together. I went to rehab, and the rehab was where famous people went. I mean, Andre Agassi and his wife went there. Every day I was on the bike, I was sitting next to Tiger Woods, who was a wrestling fan. I was a golf fan from my father, and I’m sitting next to Tiger Woods. This is before he married his girlfriend. So we’d sit there, and I’d tell him about wrestling, and he’d tell me about golf, and who was the heel in golf? Vijay Singh was the heel. We were talking, and he’s wearing Nikes all the time. He looked at me, and he goes, ‘You got the wrong shoes on.’ Because I was wearing Reeboks or something. And then one day during therapy, he comes in, he’s not wearing Nikes. And I said, what happened? He goes, ‘All those shoes gave me blisters on my heel.’ I said, ‘Yeah, you’re wearing the wrong shoe.'”

So when you’re in OVW, did you ever think you’d get a call to go on the main roster?

“I was hoping for the call, but my age played something on it. I was too old. I’d get the reports, you know, they’re saying you’re too old. So here I am trying to do everything and just get a shot. It finally came down to you’re going to be cut in 90 days. [Well] there it goes. Well, Cornette was upset at it. So Cornette, Danny Davis, JR, because I was always in the JR report, and I got to do a spot with Stone Cold at Christmas Chaos in Louisville, they stood up for me. So when SmackDown and Raw came to Louisville, Cornette had a meeting with Stephanie and said, ‘You’re going to cut him anyway. Just call him up to be on the road do dark matches, maybe you’ll think of something.'”

You had dark matches with some legends. There’s one. It’s you and John Cena versus Shelton Benjamin and Brock Lesnar. 

“Benjamin and Brock were the Minnesota stretching crew. Cena and I were the Southern Tag Team Champions. I was the role model. He was my prototype. So we’re going to go out there and titles are going to switch. So we go out there and do this big bang match, really good match, and they win, and we go to the back and they say, Good job, good job. And then Kenny [Bolin] comes up. He goes, ‘We’re going to have to gonna have to go back out.’ I said, What? ‘We’re gonna have to go back out, do another match and switch titles again.’ And I go, why? He goes, because the first match isn’t ready. And I went, oh no. So we got together and start talking, and we were in gorilla 30 seconds ready to go out of the curtain and do a rematch, and then the first match pops up. This is in a WWE ring.”

So how did you eventually get the call that you were going to be the stylist?

“I’m doing a dark match. I’m wrestling Raven, so now I’m a face, and I’m stretching and stuff like that. Stephanie is at this house show, and she’s talking to Jacqueline, and they’re laughing and stuff like that. They’re looking at me and then giggling. I’m like, Is my zipper down? I look down, I’m going, I’m in tights. There’s no zipper. So they’re laughing and stuff like that. So I got wrestled, and I get Jacqueline later, because I’m not going to confront Stephanie. And I said, what was going on? ‘Nothing.’ You know how women say that, nothing. But she said, ‘I do have one question, would you be willing to dye your hair blonde?’ I said, Yeah, why not? ‘Oh, okay, thanks.’ And left it at that. Few weeks later, I’m at home. I’m on an off week, I get a call saying they want you in Ottawa. For what? You’ll know when you get here. So I just pack things, and I don’t know what I’m doing. So I get to Ottawa, I go in, and I meet with Vince, and he goes, ‘You’re going to be Billy and Chuck’s stylist.’ I said, Okay, hair stylist, foot stylist, what kind of stylist? He goes, ‘Flesh it out.’ And he turned around and walked away on me.”

When you think about this being almost 25 years ago, what Billy and Chuck were doing was miles ahead of their time at that time.

“But when we agreed to do that, when I got there, we had a meeting with Vince and said, Listen, as long as we don’t embarrass that lifestyle or show it in a bad light, we’ll keep going. I also did the same thing with Vince when I turned into the Adrian Street flamboyant character. I said, I will not degrade these people. I will not embarrass these people. So I said, So how far do you want me to go? Quote from Vince, ‘Strap a rocket to your ass and take off. I’ll tell you when to stop’.”

Is it true that during that time with the Billy and Chuck gimmick that there were wrestlers that didn’t want to work with you guys? 

“No, it wasn’t the Billy and Chuck gimmick. It was my flamboyant [gimmick].”

There were wrestlers that didn’t want to work with that gimmick?

“No, they thought it would hurt their character. I don’t know, Charlie was trying to explain it to them, and he said, ‘Listen, this is the easiest it’s going to get. All you have to do is have facial expressions, no bumps, longevity, just react to what Rico does.’ And everybody took it. There was a lot of people, Dreamer, Richards, Spike, Val Venis, I could keep going on even now. You know how hard Bob Holly is. He wanted to keep that character, but he did it the right way. Charlie and I were Tag Team Champions going into Judgment Day. So Bob Holly and I had a one-on-one prior to Judgment Day. So I did my flamboyant stuff in there, and Bob would look at me and go and mouth the words, I’m not doing that. I’m not playing that. And of course, I continue with it. And then I go behind him, then he goes behind me, and then I bend over. So I get my stuff over, and he pushes, and he’s pointing. And then I go prance to the corner, and then I come back to go do something flamboyant, and he clotheslines me. And then he gets to sit there as his character, Bob Holly. I told you I don’t play that. I want you to wrestle, and you can read his lips. I want you to wrestle. And then we get into a hell of a match.”

There was an issue with Bubba Ray Dudley. He didn’t want to do this, right?

“Well, yeah, there were a couple of things. We’re in Chicago at the Allstate Arena, and we’re going to do the match, and Dudley’s are going to be the 18th tag team champions. So we go there, and we’re doing the match, and Bubba has to throw me out of the ring. So he throws me out of the ring, and my leg bounces, top rope, bottom rope slingshots, and I tear my hamstring. I hit the floor, and I know I heard a pop. So D-Von grabs me to slam my head into the steel steps, and I told him, ‘I’m hurt. I’m hurt.’ So he throws me back in the ring to give me back to Bubba. And then as Bubba’s picking me up, I say, I’m hurt, I’m hurt, and I’m in a suplex so he can hear me. I’m right next to his ear. Well, he suplexes me, and I hear it go pop again. And then they sling shot me from one side to the other, and I’m limping because my legs not working. Then I tried to do a little fire back, and I threw the punch, stomped my left leg, and I couldn’t stand up. I fell down again. So when it’s time to pin me, Bubba knows I’m hurt. He pulls me to the corner, steps on the second turn buckle, and bends my left leg over by my shoulders. I hear it again. So they win and go off and I just lay there. There’s no way I’m getting up three, three pops, one match. I never got an apology. I never got an apology. 

Before that, there was No Mercy. It was Jackie Gayda, me and Charlie against Dawn Marie, D-Von and Bubba. I forgot who the agent was, but we’re discussing what we want to do. Bubba, ‘I ain’t doing that. I’m not doing that. I’m not doing that.’ And I go, Well, I guess I’ll just stay in the corner, always giving respect. So I think it was Pat Patterson, as a matter of fact, all of a sudden, Pat says, I got to go. And he walks away. A few minutes later, over the loudspeaker, ‘Bubba Dudley, meet in the green room.’ Well, you know what that means? That means Vince is in there. So he comes back, and he has a totally different attitude. So from not wanting to do my little ride on cowboy, pinch the butt, pitch the cheek, kiss on the cheek, or whatever, he comes up with a spot he does where Jackie’s in the ring and he’s not supposed to be touching the girl, so he gets her by the hair, gets her on her knees, and says, kiss me, baby. Kiss me, baby. And he closes his eyes and puckers his lips, and he puts both hands behind his back, and Jackie rolls over, tags me in. I tiptoe in, and then I kneel down next to Bubba, and I stroke his head. He’s going, Oh yeah, baby, oh yeah, oh yeah. And then I go and give a big kiss. He looks and he’s like home alone. He runs out and he’s guggling water, and he walks out of the arena, just walks up the platform. And then now I’m around there with D-Von and I’m doing the small packages and try to get quick pins and stuff like that, and we continue to match. But for somebody who didn’t want to go through any of that, thought of one of the best spots.”

So you debuted in WWE in March 2001, got released in November 2004 

“Well, I wasn’t going on any shows. My final release was 90 days later. So I was under contract until February 2005.”

Were you surprised when you got released?

“Yeah, and I went and asked Vince for a raise because I had already fulfilled my three-year rookie contract. I’ve held the tag titles twice, once with Rikishi, once with Haas. I was going to almost every show and on TV. I said I want $1,000 a week.”

What were you making before?

“Minimum, which was $75,000 a year.”

But $1,000 a week is less than that?

“No, I wanted a $52,000 raise on top of the $75k. I thought I was worth it, and Charlie and I and Jackie were about to come out on the SmackDown magazine front cover, and he told me I wasn’t popular.”

So that’s what led to you being released?

“Yeah. Vince didn’t like me because of my age in the beginning, he was forced to put me there. And if anybody out there looks at my background, I’m an Action Man. I’m a straight to law enforcement. I’ve been to two police academies, graduated number one in both of them, I’ve got life-saving awards. I was voted one of the officers of the year by Crime Stoppers for catching a person who was escaping her parole, who led me to a person who was wanted for murder, and I caught a homicide suspect and shipped them back to LA. So I’m that type of guy. EMT, paramedic, people running this way, I’m running to trouble. I want to help people. So here Vince gives me this style in some feminine character, they may be hoping I fail. Well, I turned it around.”

One spot I need to ask you about is the way that Rikishi gave you the stink face.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve talked to Rikishi since then. He says, that’s gone viral. What happened is, the week before I made my debut on SmackDown, and I kissed Charlie Haas right in the mouth, I’m talking a pucker, and he couldn’t get back in the ring, so he was counted out. Well, the next week, he was in line for the Tag Team Championship, and it was Rikishi and Scotty. Now I’m a face, those two are faces, and he’s a heel. So I relied a lot on Rikishi to figure this out, and we wanted to get the flamboyant over. So one part before the stink face, Rikishi got tired of me fooling around, and he shot me off for a clothesline. I did a sunset flip on him. You know when he smacks his butt to sit on you. He smacked his butt. I reached up and I smacked his butt. He went, Oh! He sold it like a million bucks, and went and tagged in Scotty. So now they’ve had enough. They don’t want me in the ring, and they’re beating up on Charlie Haas and Rikishi is going through his finish, and he puts Charlie in the corner, gives him the squash. Charlie starts to do this, and everybody knows. Rikishi walks to the center. Charlie falls. And I’m like, oh no, I can’t have him take a stink face. I jump down, and he gives us the turn, and I get Charlie by the leg, and I drag him out of the ring, and all of a sudden, a loud boo. I went, Wait a minute to Jackie, and I jump in the ring, and I get into position, and then everybody went from boo to falling out of their seat. So then I stick my hand out to Jackie. She pulls some Chapstick out of her bra. I put it on, throw it up, and I go, come on! He goes, okay, and he gives me the stink face. I’m like woo! Give me a cigarette or something.”

You still have this like excitement for life, even to this day:

“I do. I thank God every day that I open my eyes. Not to bring a downer, when I was sick, I had the blood clots, one in each lung that made me medically retire. But I didn’t get better. I was getting sicker. I got peripheral neuropathy in the legs because of my spine, my neck, two joints were degenerating, ligaments in there, and then I got vertigo, where I couldn’t even get out of bed. I was crawling down to get to the bathroom, crawling up and down the stairs. Then I got migraines, and they were giving me Botox shots in the head to get rid of the migraines, plus medication. So for three years, I was down, and after about the second year, trying to fight, I think it worked through me, and I had sleep apnea, so I was on a CPAP machine on top of all that. I just finally came to terms with my condition because of everything I’ve done. Like I said, it wasn’t my age, it was the mileage, all the mileage I put on my body is traveling around the world twice, all over the United States, being part of the Power Team with John Jacobs, breaking bricks, ripping phone books, snapping bats, and being an ordained minister, doing programs and stuff like that, Gladiators, stunt man work. I’ve run my life in the red my whole life, until now. Now I’m driving around like a Prius. I just motor along. I’m not a NASCAR. But came one time where I just finally look up to God, and I went, Okay, God, going to bed. If I wake up in the morning, I’ll take my medicine, and if not, I’ll be next to you.” 

Did you really not think you were going to wake up?

“Yeah, after that, the last year. I really thought it was over, because I kept getting worse, stuck in a house for two years.”

But look at this new chapter of life. It’s brought you to reconnecting with your sweetheart from when you were 18-19 years old, living here in this beautiful house on this acreage with your animals. 

“Cowboy mountain shooting, got my aquarium over there and got the best woman in the world. We’re having a blast. And I surprised her on July 4, I drove out, and when I saw her, and I asked her the same thing when I saw her, in that moment when she walked out with these three huge dogs, there was another dog before Odin. But once I saw her, it’s like we were never apart.”

What is Rico grateful for?

“Through God I was cured, I’m still here, and that I am still useful in this life.”

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