While The Rock isn’t returning to the wrestling ring, he’s making headlines with his next move — into psychological horror. According to a report from Deadline, Dwayne Johnson is set to co-star in Breakthrough, a new thriller being produced and financed by A24.
The film, written by Zeke Goodman, is currently in development with casting underway and no director yet attached. Breakthrough centers around an “alienated young man” who falls under the influence of a motivational guru, setting the stage for a dark and intense narrative.
During a recent edition of his “83 Weeks” podcast, Eric Bischoff recalled a story about Sabu attending a WCW match with Kevin Sullivan in 1995 as part of a tryout.
Sullivan was attempting to recruit Sabu, offering him a contract for $500. The plan was for Sabu to work one television match and one pay-per-view match each month for that amount.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On the specific contract story Sabu told: “It didn’t happen, with all due respect to Sabu. I hate to answer a question like this under these circumstances, but there’s no malice or anything on my part. I’m just going to lay it out. And it should be pretty easy to figure out why it didn’t happen without me even saying it if someone thought about this for more than 10 seconds. One, I’ve never made a deal with anybody, or would even contemplate doing a deal with anybody for any amount of money for one TV appearance a month and one pay-per-view? You’ve never heard of it because it’s the most insane thing in the world, nobody would consider it. And I certainly didn’t. So the very premise of that explanation crumbles under about 10 seconds worth of thought. Critical thought, I mean you got to have critical thought. But it’s flawed on its very face number one.
“As far as needing a contract, it’s not so much — I wouldn’t care. If somebody wants to work for $1 a day, I’ll pay them $1 a day. If that’s their goal and I got a extra buck in my pocket and they want to work for me for a buck a day? I’m in, no problem. It wasn’t about the money, it was about the contract. It was about legalities. It was about a national television release. It was about our ability to use that television and monetize that television, which includes having the rights for everybody in it. So it wasn’t so much about the money in terms of Kevin saying, ‘No, you need to sign a deal.’ That was part of getting the money. But the money wasn’t the issue, the contract was for a variety of legal reasons and promotional ones. So the whole — I hate to say it, I don’t know how Sabu interpreted things. I don’t know what was said on a phone call. I don’t know any of that, I just knew that on the face of that, it absolutely makes zero sense. No matter how many people out there hate my guts and think everything I say is bulls**t? Have at it. If you think about that for 10 seconds, even you would have to realize that there’s something wrong with that statement.”
On Sabu deserving to be in the every Hall of Fame there is: “Yes, because of the impact that he made. Above and beyond the impact of many great superstars, absolutely. He created a brand. He created a style, to some degree. Not the people didn’t do it before him, but he made it his own. And he built that brand, and built his brand in a way that no one else really has. So yeah, absolutely. It was a contribution to the industry, and that’s what should matter. I think.”
During a recent edition of his “Marking Out” podcast, MVP opined on his frustration when initially trying to get hired by WWE.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his frustrations before he was hired by WWE: “When I got hired by WWE, I invented MVP. As a matter of fact, I had a number of tryouts and got booked as an extra a number of times. One day, my frustration got to a point where I was like, ‘To hell with this.’ I went to the Vice President of Talent Relations, who was John Laurinaitis at that time. I went, ‘Johnny, you got a minute?’ ‘What is it, kid?’ ‘Can I get 30 seconds?’ ‘Okay, you got 30 seconds.’ I said, ‘Tell me what the f*** I gotta do to get hired. You tell me what you want. You tell me what you want for me and I’ll give it to you.’”
On how John Laurinaitis was initially taken aback by his comments: “Initially, he was taken aback like, ‘Who are you talking to?’ But he saw it was coming from a passionate place. He said, ‘Kid, we like characters. Give us a character that you can do that we don’t already have, and get back to me,’ and he walked off. I remember feeling like, ‘That wasn’t the answer I was looking for. Tell me specifically,’ but he gave me the answer.”
On working as a bodyguard at the time: “At the time, I was working at South Beach, doing bodyguard work. I used to see these professional athletes show up to the club, and I would see Hall of Fame legends like Shaq [Shaquille O’Neal], Dr. J [Julius Erving], and Barry Sanders. I would see these sports Gods show up and they were so humble and cool. Then, I would see these third-round draft picks show up with an entourage of people, ‘Do you know who I am?’ Sometimes, it was kind of embarrassing. There was no shortage of footage of athletes being extravagant and boisterous. Ron Artest going into the stands, Allen Iverson with ‘Practice?’ That had never been done in pro wrestling.”
On using those experiences to create his MVP character: “It was a relatively new phenomenon, and I took my experiences from South Beach and ESPN, and I crafted this character called MVP. I wrote up a treatment, chapters explaining who the character was and photos of me in a suit and how the character dressed. This came because, fortunately for me, Ricky Santana was a very good friend of mine, he worked at WCW, and he and John Laurinaitis were very good friends. I told Ricky, ‘I have this idea but I’m scared they’ll steal it from me.’ I pitched him the idea and he said, ‘That smells like money to me.’ He called Johnny, Johnny gave him his word, ‘We won’t put the kid off.’ Spoke to Johnny and he said, ‘Sounds great. Give me 20 storyline ideas.’ I literally wrote 20 vignettes and storylines. Within a week or two, I had this ready for him and they loved it.”
