SEAN MOONEY DISCUSSES WANTING TO TURN HEEL, HEAT BETWEEN WWF WRESTLERS AND WBF BODYBUILDERS, WWF’S STEROID TRIAL, THE STORY OF “IAN MOONEY,” AND MORE
By WorldWrestlingInsanity.com
The 111th edition of JG’s Radio Free Insanity is on the air and available right now at WorldWrestlingInsanity.com (Flash and MP3 download) This week’s show features the first ever interview with former WWF announcer Sean Mooney.
James Guttman welcomes listeners to the show and clues them in on just how big this week’s show is. Sean Mooney has been asked for interviews since he left the WWF back in 1993. He’s turned them all down…including WWE’s website. Now, for the first time ever, you can hear his story. As a huge part of the World Wrestling Federation from 1988 to 1993, Mooney worked with everyone from that time period and has a number of stories to tell about those days. It’s an interview that no old school fan can muss.
Sean’s full interview is up on ClubWWI.com and went on for 46 minutes. In it, Mooney speaks about a number of topics including why he didn’t go to WCW, his feelings for wrestling and Vince McMahon, how he hated news anchoring, his friendship with Lord Alfred Hayes, why Alfred wouldn’t take his phone calls at one point, what Sean did, Andre the Giant, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, all tapings of Event Center, the steroid scandal, doing Prime Time Wrestling live, whether he was pressured to wrestle, why fans mail him baseball cards, misconceptions about his feelings for wrestling, and more.
Remember, Sean Mooney is one of well over 100 stars spanning countless generations you can hear uncut on ClubWWI.com. Some of these names include: Jerry Lawler, Vince Russo, Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan, Kevin Nash, The Iron Sheik, Sid Vicious, Paul Bearer, Bruno Sammartino, Scott D’Amore, Tito Santana, Al Snow, Tod Gordon, Charlie Haas, Tom Prichard, Jacques Rougeau, Tammy Sytch, Too Cold Scorpio, Ole Anderson, Kid Kash, Ivan Koloff, Jackie Gayda, John Heidenreich, Jimmy Hart, Jimmy Valiant, Bad News Brown, Nick Bockwinkel, Dory Funk Jr, Diamond Dallas Page, Rob Conway, Sylvain Grenier, Buff Bagwell, Christian Cage, Jazz, Demolition Ax and Smash, Koko B. Ware, Ricky Morton, Dustin Rhodes, Damian Demento, Fred “Shockmaster” Ottman, Cpl. Kirchner, One Man Gang, Scott Steiner, Shawn Stasiak, Ted DiBiase, Ivory, Chris Masters, Elix Skipper, Kamala, Samoa Joe, Giant Bernard, Bill DeMott, Juvi “Juice” Guerrera, Nora “Molly Holly” Greenwald, Nick Dinsmore, Harley Race, Bull Buchanan, D-Lo Brown, Road Warrior Animal, Missing Link, Slick, Nidia, George Steele, Christy Hemme, Disco Inferno, Paul Ellering, Vito, Steve Blackman, AJ Styles, Chris Daniels, Dennis Stamp, Shawn Daivari, Kevin Sullivan, B.G. James, Ron Killings, Earl and Dave Hebner, Spike Dudley, Rodney Mack, Larry Zybszko, Rick Steiner, Mae Young, and more.
James says that interviews like this one are the main reason he started the site. For years, Mooney was subject to false rumors. Many people assumed he hated the wrestling business or tried to ignore it in his past. In his full interview, Sean addresses that and explains where the misconception started. Any wrestling fan of WWE’s true golden age will definitely want to check out this shoot.
…and the following one too. JG, without giving anything away, tells listeners to check back Wednesday for the next ClubWWI.com guest. He states once again that it’s going to be huge.
With that, Guttman cues up clips from Sean Mooney’s FIRST SHOOT INTERVIEW EVER…46 minutes on ClubWWI.com.
James Guttman welcomes Sean Mooney to the show. Sean says that the fans are all saying the same thing.
“That’s what they could come up with? Sean Mooney?”
JG laughs and says, “It’s Goony Mooney,” alluding to the nickname that Bobby Heenan gave him. Sean says that Bobby had a number of names and even after he left when his name was mentioned, Heenan would always say, “Who?”
James asks about wrestling and whether Sean was ever pressured to do it. Nowadays, every announcer wrestles, but back then they didn’t. Mooney answers:
“There was a period of time where they had an alter ego. Ian? Don’t know if you remember that.”
After a brief pause, James yells out “yes!”
“They had me, as somebody else, to host one of the shows with (Sensational) Sherri. So they said, ‘We want you to be another character and I’m like, ‘What?’ You know? But the mistake they made is that I said, ‘Well, then let me be a heel. We can have some fun with this.’ You know, you can have the bad brother. The bad twin who comes out of nowhere to do things to sabotage me and I’m here, this uncrackable personality and have him get to me. They never let me do that and I thought that would have been fun. But they never really gave me a chance to do it.”
James asks about WWF’s climate in 1992. The company was under fire for steroids and other scandals while Sean was there. Mooney responds:
“It really was. I think Vince was under a tremendous amount of pressure. The people who were pursuing him wanted to get him for everything.”
Sean addressed paranoia in the company at the time. However, that wasn’t the only debacle going on in the Federation…
“Vince decided that he could change the bodybuilding world and they did the WBF and they brought in these, you know, bodybuilders who have never gotten a scratch in their whole life and spend their lives making their bodies beautiful and you throw them into a world with these wrestlers who get beat up every night and their food on the table for their children is them showing up in a ring. Then you get these bodybuilder guys who are under contract to show up at an arena and travel around and do a couple of little posedowns between matches. I mean, that was not well thought out. (laughs) You can imagine. That was a terrible experiment…which ended badly.
Sean’s full interview is up on ClubWWI.com and went on for 46 minutes. Sean speaks about a number of topics including why he didn’t go to WCW, his feelings for wrestling and Vince McMahon, how he hated news anchoring, his friendship with Lord Alfred Hayes, why Alfred wouldn’t take his phone calls at one point, what Sean did, Andre the Giant, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, all tapings of Event Center, the steroid scandal, doing Prime Time Wrestling live, whether he was pressured to wrestle, why fans mail him baseball cards, misconceptions about his feelings for wrestling, and more.
Remember, Sean Mooney is one of well over 100 stars spanning countless generations you can hear uncut on ClubWWI.com. Some of these names include: Jerry Lawler, Vince Russo, Eric Bischoff, Bobby Heenan, Kevin Nash, The Iron Sheik, Sid Vicious, Paul Bearer, Bruno Sammartino, Scott D’Amore, Tito Santana, Al Snow, Tod Gordon, Charlie Haas, Tom Prichard, Jacques Rougeau, Tammy Sytch, Too Cold Scorpio, Ole Anderson, Kid Kash, Ivan Koloff, Jackie Gayda, John Heidenreich, Jimmy Hart, Jimmy Valiant, Bad News Brown, Nick Bockwinkel, Dory Funk Jr, Diamond Dallas Page, Rob Conway, Sylvain Grenier, Buff Bagwell, Christian Cage, Jazz, Demolition Ax and Smash, Koko B. Ware, Ricky Morton, Dustin Rhodes, Damian Demento, Fred “Shockmaster” Ottman, Cpl. Kirchner, One Man Gang, Scott Steiner, Shawn Stasiak, Ted DiBiase, Ivory, Chris Masters, Elix Skipper, Kamala, Samoa Joe, Giant Bernard, Bill DeMott, Juvi “Juice” Guerrera, Nora “Molly Holly” Greenwald, Nick Dinsmore, Harley Race, Bull Buchanan, D-Lo Brown, Road Warrior Animal, Missing Link, Slick, Nidia, George Steele, Christy Hemme, Disco Inferno, Paul Ellering, Vito, Steve Blackman, AJ Styles, Chris Daniels, Dennis Stamp, Shawn Daivari, Kevin Sullivan, B.G. James, Ron Killings, Earl and Dave Hebner, Spike Dudley, Rodney Mack, Larry Zybszko, Rick Steiner, Mae Young, and more.