I did get to meet and talk with this behemoth of a dude named Glen. I was having lunch with my boss and his cousin and this guy walks in and sits down, he had to talk to my boss's cousin. So he ends up having lunch with us. Big, nice gentle guy, college graduate trying to break into big time wrestling and was working on this new dentist routine. I laughed, he looked at me. I told him that there wouldn't be a single person out there that would believe he was a dentist. I told him he was a monster of a man it would never work. Both guys smiled at me and said to let the pros handle it.
Glen was a real nice guy. Turns out I was right about the monster part. He now goes by the name Kane.
cool story! I've had the opportunity to meet a few guys, Crash Holly, The Rock, Bob Backlund, some locals too and one of my buddies was on tough enough so I got a little bit of an insider look from his stories
if anyone is looking to read good wrestling books, I think Pure Dynamite is one of the best out there - its the autobiography of the Dynamite Kid and just shows how wrestling has affected his life - the WWE produced books are generally good too - Mick Foley's first one was great, but I feel there's a bit of censorship in them...
What I thought was so cool about that whole experience was that I met them in their behind the scenes workplace that no one ever gets to see. They were real people doing real jobs. You meet people at the arena or on autograph signings and they are completely different.
I took my son to an autograph signing once at the Warwick Mall in RI and sure enough Kane is there. He remembered me but couldn't go out of character. For everyone else autogragh he just signed "Kane". When he signed my son's poster he signed "I make a better monster, Kane". He couldn't say anything though because at the time, Kane didn't speak, but I thank him and said hi just the same.
My brother in law worked security at the FleetCenter/TD Banknorth for years. He always said the Bruins were the nicest famous people he met. He said lots and lots of the wrestlers were real dicks. But Stone Cold always remembered his name and always treated with good and was without a doubt one of the funniest guys he ever met.
He tells this story of Austin leaving one day but his car was boxed in. So when my brother-in-law got the keys to move the car behind his Austin took the keys and said "I like that car better. Tell so and so(whoever was using the car I can't remember the other wrestler at the moment) Stone Cold has his car and tell them to not to dent or scratch it. It's a rental and Vince is paying for it and I have to break open a can if there's anything wrong with the car."
As he passed the boxed in rental he kicked a dent in the side of the door and keyed it. My brother-in-law nearly soiled himself he was laughing so hard. Or so he tells.