Written by Chris Siggia.

CHASING GLORY WITH LILLIAN GARCIA 04/27/20:  HEATH SLATER

Heath Slater talking about the end of his WWE run:  “Yes, I lost my job, but I was burnt out, like burned the hell out, fact.  I knew it, my family knew it, my coworkers knew it. Fourteen years, four years developmental, ten years on the road to where you can be promised, you can be told you didn’t even have it in your hand and ready and it changes on the drop of a dime.  Putting everyone over for 10 years takes a toll on somebody, your confidence, your drive, your fire.  I do everything you ask and I can’t get a bone.  I went through those a lot.  I wish I would have taken more control, walking in there and saying why is this happening?  Why are we doing this?  Why can’t we do it this way?  I have 15 great reasons why we can do it this way, but why are we going that way?

Slater on why he didn’t take control:  “I think what it was in my younger days was I did go in there and try and talk.  I heard, no, no.  I heard “no “too many times to where I said, you know what, shit, I’m not going to push no more shit because when I do, it goes nowhere.  If I do pitch something good, it goes to someone else.  When you get tired of hearing no, it’s not for you, you can’t do that, you kind of start believing it.  Getting fired, I do believe I needed this to get the fire, get the hunger, and focus.  Out of the last 4 or 5 years besides me and Terry winning the tag titles, which was an awesome little run, I’ve been so burned out and not even caring.”

SITTING RINGSIDE WITH DAVID PENZER 04/27/20:  MIKE JACKSON

Mike Jackson on booking wrestlers:  “I was one of the TV bookers in Atlanta from ’74-’84.  Nobody knew that because I was never known as that or seen as that.  J.J. would hand me a sheet, or Ronnie West would hand me a sheet…you put the guys with who you put them with…It made their job easier.  They didn’t have to make 25 calls on a Monday or Tuesday.  They would just call me.  I did the same thing with WWF with Terry Garvin.  He even came to me and said he loves the way I do this.  It is so organized and I don’t have to worry about anybody.  But, I was a very responsible person.  If somebody didn’t show up, I took the heat for it.  I was getting them a thing they couldn’t get themselves.  I wasn’t charging them a fortune; probably $25 a show and they were making $100 or $150 a show.  If I would rent the van, I would take care of all the hotel arrangements.  I would make sure they got their pay.  I took care of their food.  They didn’t have to worry about anything.  They didn’t have to pay a penny out.  All they had to do was do a job and got paid and they came back home.  They didn’t have anything to worry about.”