A long time ago I was writing for NWA Ringside, the official website of the National Wrestling Alliance back when it was owned by Bruce Tharpe. I had done a number of interviews with NWA stars between that website and http://www.alliance-wrestling.com. Jeff Jarrett, Dan Severn, Jax Dane, Santana Garrett, Chase Owens and a few others. I had done an interview with Kevin Sullivan and hadn’t published it, yet, when Billy Corgan bought the promotion and shut down the website. I decided to start a blog of my own and that I would publish the interview there. The first half of the interview was published and then…
I really did intend to start a blog that came out on a schedule. But, that’s not how things happened. I bought the domain name. I had the second half of the interview written out (Mr. Sullivan and I spoke on the phone) and had edited it. I just needed to type it up and publish it. But, life happened. I had suffered a pretty bad brain injury in a back alley fight a couple years before Mr. Corgan bought the National Wrestling Alliance. I was still doing physical rehab for that injury when I blew out a disk in my back, tore the muscles off the top of my foot, tore two tendons in three places in my ankle and needed two chunks of bone removed from my foot. I’d like to tell you the entire story about how, in cape and cowl, I had done battle with a gang of criminals before falling to their mutant leader. But, I can’t. I was sleep walking and woke up back in bed needing back surgery, ankle surgery and years of physical rehab. There may have been another stumble or two in there, too. I don’t recall. Brain damage. The interview never was completely published.
This past fall since I had nothing going on except teaching my two young sons through distance learning due to COVID I decided to go back to college to pursue a degree in media studies. I was on roughly my twentieth year of red shirting my sophomore year due to poor life choices throughout most of the 90s and 00s (hell, let’s throw in the first half of the 2000teens for good measure.) The injuries qualified me for a vocational rehab program that is paying most of my way through college. Spring semester of this year I needed to do an interview and convinced my professor to let me use my old Kevin Sullivan interview. So, after a couple/few years, here it is! Part 2 of the Kevin Sullivan interview!! In all it’s glory as a creative non-fiction college cource assignment for an audience that knew nothing of the world of professional wrestling. Let’s get to it!
PART 2 of THE KEVIN SULLIVAN INTERVIEW
Kevin Sullivan is a man in his 70s, but despite his age he is in very good shape. He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and you can tell that his formative years were spent in and around Boston by his accent. He went on to book (booking wrestling means you are the one writing the story) for one of the two largest promotions in the United States and was featured heavily on cable TV for 10 to 15 years. He started wrestling professionally sometime back in the seventies when kayfabe was king. Kayfabe is an old circus word that means that you lived your gimmick. You didn’t want the public to know that you were an actor, acting a part. You wanted them to believe that you were the same man outside of the ring as you were inside the ring. Having said that, growing up I believed that Kevin Sullivan was the leader of a Satanic cult. I remember pictures of him in magazines where a pentagram was painted on his forehead and his eyes were rolled back in his head. He was holding a chalice of blood. I knew nothing about who he was outside of the ring or even where he got his start in the ring.
SCOTT BROWN: Can you tell me about your time in Gulf Coast Championship Wrestling when you were known as Johnny West?
Gulf Coast Championship Wrestling was the “Granddaddy of all the Southern promotions.” Back in the 70s anyone that was anyone in Southern pro wrestling put in their time in this promotion.
KEVIN SULLIVAN: I was known as Johnny West because there was a wrestler there wrestling by the name of Eddie Sullivan. And, they didn’t want to confuse the issue with me, so they changed my name.
SCOTT BROWN: After that you went to Florida and were tagging with Mike Graham. The Graham family was pretty big in Florida, can you tell us about them?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Well they were huge, actually. They got Florida Championship Wrestling off the ground. Eddie had a business with Cowboy Latrell. Cowboy Latrell was a very well known wrestler. In the 40s he actually boxed Jack Dempsey and got knocked out. Mike was second generation, he had a great mind and he was probably the most prepared mind in the history of the business. Just ran a well organized company that most companies, like Bill Watts and other companies later on, tried to emulate.
Championship Wrestling From Florida was such an influence on the industry that one of the bigger independent companies in America today is called Championship Wrestling From Hollywood and has affiliates in other states that use the “Championship Wrestling From…” moniker in a show of respect for the old Florida company.
SCOTT BROWN: I don’t ever recall a face Kevin Sullivan, but, you were one back in Georgia, San Francisco and WWWF. What was that like?
“Face” is wrestling lingo for the good guy. It’s actually short for “babyface”. The bad guy is called a heel.
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Well, it was great. I was young and starting out. And, it was good because I was learning what a villain should do. So, no, it was good for me and I have a lot of fond memories, especially the San Fransisco area, but the way you said, the San Francisco area, the New York area and the Gulf Coast.
Back at that time the pro wrestling world consisted of an alliance of promotions each being assigned a territory that they did business in. If anyone else tried doing business in an assigned territory, they were branded an outlaw promotion and often were violently run out of town, gangster style. This is how business was done for decades. San Francisco, New York and the Gulf Coast were territories of the time.
SCOTT BROWN: Another place you wrestled in the 80s was Memphis, when you teamed with Wayne Ferris, the Honkytonk Man, and Jimmy Hart to battle Jerry Lawler. What was 80s Memphis wrestling like?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: It was great. We came in and ran roughshod over Lawler and Dundee and the territory went crazy. So, it was the right time at the right place.
This is where you can tell that Mr. Sullivan is very modest for a professional wrestler. Memphis wrestling was featured at the Mid-South Coliseum and weekly would sell out the 11,000+ seat arena. Lawler was a god to Memphis fans and was big enough nationally that despite not working for one of the big two companies at the time (World Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Federation, both of which were nationally televised on cable television) he was featured on Late Night with David Letterman where he started a famous feud with comedian Andy Kauffman, who was Latka Gravas on the hit TV show “Taxi”. Mr. Sullivan helped fill that arena many times.
SCOTT BROWN: Can you tell me how your Army of Darkness angle in Championship Wrestling from Florida came about?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: It evolved from the time of MTV and horror movies, you know, that period of Michael Jackson. It kind of evolved from what was going on in the world as we knew it.
SCOTT BROWN: Some of the big names in Florida at that time were Windham and Rhodes. Can you tell us about them?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Two of the greatest performers of all time, along with Blackjack Mulligan. They were just terrific. Great talkers. Great performers. Barry Windham was the premier babyface. We did nothing but draw money, along with Dusty. I had a great run, for three years I wrestled one of the three that we mentioned in a single or a tag team match or a six man tag. So, I had a wonderful time.
The Army of Darkness was the reason that I as a child thought that Mr. Sullivan ran a cult. ProWrestlingStories.com explained Mr. Sullivan at this time of his life as, “Kevin Sullivan attacked the psyche and would leave you uncomfortable and bewildered.” He was known as the “Prince of Darkness” and used society’s fear of the occult to terrorize arenas across the Bible Belt. For decades before this time the occult had brought fear to the masses from the pulp fiction of the 30s and 40s to the establishment of the Church of Satan by Anton LaVey in the 60s to the heavy metal music and serial killers of the 70s and all of this influenced Mr. Sullivan’s character in the 80s.
SCOTT BROWN: There was a lot of talent with you, when you got to WCW, in the Varsity Club. Can you tell me about that group?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Yeah, the Varsity Club was a great group of guys. Mike Rotunda, Dr. Death and Rick Steiner. Legitimate tough guys. Legitimate athletes. National wrestling champions and I was proud to be part of that group.
Mr. Rotunda was a five time letterman at the University of Syracuse in football and wrestling. Mr. Williams (Dr. Death) played football for the University of Oklahoma where he achieved All Big Eight first team status, was a four time All American in amature wrestling and played professional football in the USFL. Mr. Steiner wrestled for the University of Michigan where he established the record for quickest pin in school history and qualified for the NCAA championship tournament. Both Mr. Rotunda and Mr. Steiner have sons under contract currently to the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment, the biggest wrestling company in the world.)
SCOTT BROWN: One of the more interesting groups you were part of was Slaughterhouse. What was it like being on the road with Mick Foley and Buzz Sawyer?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Oh, it was crazy. They were diametrically opposed outside of the ring, so, it was great. I went from the sublime to the ridiculous. It was great. I enjoyed that run, too.
SCOTT BROWN: That’s what I thought was great. Inside the ring you all had similar characters, but outside the ring Foley and Sawyer seemed to be opposites in every possible way.
KEVIN SULLIVAN: It worked out well for me.
Sawyer was nicknamed “Mad Dog”. Foley wrestled as Cactus Jack Manson. Outside the ring Sawyer was known for his drug use and scams where he would offer to train young wrestlers, take their money, beat them down and skip town. Foley is known as a great family man, taking his kids to amusement parks every chance he got and ended up a best selling children’s book author.
SCOTT BROWN: Can you tell us about your time in Japan?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: I went for three years and really enjoyed it. I have a soft spot in my heart for Japanese wrestling. It’s more like the wrestling I grew up on. I think it’s the best in the world. If you make it in Japan you have really made it.
In Japan pro wrestling is often featured on the sports page of newspapers and is well known for its “strong” style where the blows often leave bruises or lacerations on the opponent receiving the move.
SCOTT BROWN: After Japan you went to Smoky Mountain Wrestling. What was it like working with Jim Cornette?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: He was great. I didn’t work there full-time. I would come in for the week-end. I’d come in, in between my trips to Japan for a week. Rarely did I go out for more than a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, maybe a Sunday. But, Jimmy was a real pleasure. Jimmy and I were good friends. Jimmy and I would take pictures at Memphis Coliseum. Jimmy and I were on different booking committees, together. I think Jimmy is one of the brightest guys in the wrestling business and I love Jimmy Cornette’s sense of humor.
“The only man I know that could strap a bucket of fried chicken to his back and ride across Ethiopia.” That’s the quote that got Mr. Cornette fired from his job as an announcer on NWA Powerrr. A lot of southern wrestling fans and talent didn’t understand why that was worthy of being fired for.
SCOTT BROWN: You also wrestled for ECW. What were Paul Heyman and Todd Gordon like?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Paul Heyman started with me. I actually started Paul in his first job. I gave him the phone he started with and Todd Gordon was a great visionary cuz he got Paul and Paul was a young guy and all Paul did was take Championship Wrestling From Florida and juiced it up a little bit and was very successful.
ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling) was best known for it’s hardcore style. Being hit with bamboo canes, steel folding chairs and trash can lids or being put through a folding table or slammed onto a pile of thumbtacks were all normal occurrences in this promotion.
SCOTT BROWN: When you returned to WCW your two biggest feuds were with Ric Flair and the Horsemen and then with Hulk Hogan. That’s two of the biggest names in wrestling. What was working with them like?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: It was wonderful. At that time Hulk was one of the biggest names in the history of pro wrestling. Then I got entwined with Ric. I enjoyed working with the Horsemen, everyone, you know? I lucked out in a lot of different ways.
SCOTT BROWN: What was it like towards the end of WCW when you were working with Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff?
Vince Russo was the writer often given credit for the success of the Attitude Era in WWE when they often were the number one show on cable TV. He wrote the story for Beaver Cleavage, a wrestler based off of “Leave It To Beaver” but with sexual innuendo caked on it and another story where a Japanese wrestler chops off a porn star’s penis with a samurai sword. The new Peacock streaming service from NBC has acquired the rights to this time period of wrestling but is upsetting some fans with heavy amounts of editing. Mr. Bischoff was executive vice-president of WCW when it was beating WWE in the TV ratings war and owns a Hollywood production company.
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Going against completely everything I knew and was trained to do as a wrestler. Horrible.
SCOTT BROWN: You had pushed a lot of the smaller guys, Benoit, Guerrero, Saturn, Malenko and you received a lot of grief from a lot of people for it. In hindsight, with all the time between then and now it looks like you were ahead of the curve. How do you feel about that?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Well, I was way ahead of the curve because I also brought the luchadores in. I knew that guys had been kept down because of their size, but if you can work and you are aggressive people don’t really know how big you are. I worked with Andre quite a bit in singles matches, so if you perform and you’re aggressive there isn’t any reason you should be kept back.
SCOTT BROWN: I see that you spent a little bit of time in TNA, too. Did you deal with Jeff Jarrett and Dixie Carter?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: No. I only worked one time for the Jarretts. It was a one time deal.
SCOTT BROWN: Would you have changed anything at the end of your time with World Championship Wrestling?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Yeah, I could have had control. But it was headed toward disaster, because AOL, when the merger came, didn’t want professional wrestling, no matter how much it drew.
SCOTT BROWN: I saw that you did the “Ross Report” and you had said on it that the only two people that reached out to you during the incident with Chris Benoit were Jim Ross and Teddy Long. Can you tell us about those two?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Oh, Jim Ross is one of the greatest minds in the wrestling business and I had the pleasure of taking Teddy from a referee to a manager. Two wonderful human beings and I wish both of them well.
SCOTT BROWN: How do the conspiracy theories with the Benoit deaths affect you?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: I mean, I don’t like morons, I mean, that is so blatantly bullshit, you know?
SCOTT BROWN: One of the unnecessary horrible things that surrounded that situation that just blew my mind…
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Yeah, especially because her parents were actually both caught. You know, people don’t like to see their heroes screw up. And, they reached out for conspiracy theories, so I can understand some people. The horror they don’t want to believe, but that’s just life. It was ten years after we had been divorced.
Mr. Sullivan was married to a woman named Nancy Toffoloni who worked as a valet for him, accompanying him to ringside. She also was his wife. Mr. Sullivan, who was booking the stories at the time, had her turn on him and join forces with his rival, Chris Benoit. Art imitates life here and she left Mr. Sullivan, ended up marrying Chris Benoit and having a son with him. Benoit, who was extremely popular on TV, eventually murdered her and their 7-year-old son before committing suicide. Many fans to this day, 14 years later believe Mr. Sullivan actually had his Satanic followers murder all three for revenge. Mr. Sullivan had NOTHING to do with this sad situation and was hurt by the entire thing. We discussed the pain of losing a friend that your cared about sharing personal stories. Those stories will never be written about.
SCOTT BROWN: Let’s move on… Can you tell me about Ron Von Hess?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Yeah, he’s a guy that wrestles up here in the Northwest. He’s the hardest working man in show business… Hopefully, he’ll hit it big some day.
SCOTT BROWN: Another thing you’ve done recently, you were in the very beginning of “Pro Wrestlers vs. Zombies”. What was that like?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: It was just a crew filming me wrestling. That’s all. It was amazing. A big thing. Yeah.
SCOTT BROWN: Are you a fan of wrestling, now?
KEVIN SULLIVAN:Uh… Yeah, I am. The guys get better. Stronger. Faster. I think the direction is not the right way, but the boat will eventually right itself back up.
SCOTT BROWN: Who do you like that is out there, right now? Who is Kevin Sullivan a fan of?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Bray Wyatt. I think he’s great. Dolph Ziggler. Strowman. Seth. I mean there’s some good… Undertaker, of course, before he retired. Brock. Paul. There’s some great, great talent that’s not being utilized.
SCOTT BROWN: How would you use talent differently?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Well, that would take a month to scrape it down and start anew.
SCOTT BROWN: Would you ever want to be in that position, again? You worked on a lot of booking committees. Would you ever jump back into that?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: If the money was right. I’m pretty content where I live. I have a pretty nice life.
SCOTT BROWN: Can you tell us about Kevin Sullivan, NOW? What are you doing now a days?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Well, I split my time between… I live in the San Juan Islands and I work, usually in Florida.
Mr. Sullivan was driving to his gym in the San Juan Islands when I first contacted him. I explained to him that my real life job (that’s a term in wrestling circles) was bill collecting at one time and I am very good at skip tracing. At first you could tell he was apprehensive about us talking but when I told him this he seemed impressed and less guarded about his privacy.
SCOTT BROWN: Are you doing anything with indies, conventions? I know you used to have a podcast. Are you doing that anymore?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Yeah. I’m doing podcasts with MLW. 2 podcasts with him. We do one every week on the radio network. Friday morning. So tune in and give it a listen.
Since the time that the interview took place Mr. Sullivan has taken a job with Southern Wrestling Entertainment that operates out of Texas and is one of their play by play announcers on their TV show that streams on FITE weekly.
SCOTT BROWN: Excellent! One last question. Just picking your mind a little bit here. If you had one piece of advice to give a brand new promoter to succeed, what would it be?
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Turn off the wrestling channel and do it on your own.
SCOTT BROWN: Excellent. I appreciate your time Mr. Sullivan. If there is ever anything that I can push for you, you have my number and if you ever end up in Montana I’d happily buy you a beer.
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Alright. I’d love to come out there. Montana is one of my favorite places. A lot of fond memories.
SCOTT BROWN: I appreciate your time, sir.
KEVIN SULLIVAN: Thank you and I’ll talk to you soon.
SCOTT BROWN: Alright. Take care!
I originally did this interview for NWA Ringside, the official website of the National Wrestling Alliance which is the organization that used to regulate the wrestling territories that I mentioned in the interview. I usually averaged about 75,000 readers a week from about 27 countries when I wrote for the NWA and expected this interview to draw in a much higher number than that. This man is a superstar. Before I ever got a chance to publish it the NWA was sold to the frontman of the rock band Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan, who quickly fired the entire crew of the promotion, including me. The first half of the interview was published on a blog that I have been developing and I have been editing and tweaking the second half to publish as the second part of what was meant to be a two part interview. Instead, I decided to apply what I have learned in class and use it for this assignment. I hated that it was lying on my desk unpublished. Mr. Sullivan deserves better than that. And now, part two of the interview may actually see the light of day on the blog. As I used to say at the end of my NWA articles (in honor of NHL and pro wrestling all time great announcer, Ed Whalen), that’s it for now. I hope that we can do this again, real soon, but in the meantime and in between time, take care of yourself. Until next time!
Well, there you have it. Finally. I’m on summer break from college and have decided to take another shot at this blog. Check back next week for my next interview featuring the promoter of Texoma Pro Wrestling, Robert Langdon! That’s it for this edition of Mark Out With Your Smark Out. Before you go, please visit The Ashley Trautwein Memorial Fund at https://afsp.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.personalCampaign&participantID=720221 and donate $5. 100% of your donation goes to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and their suicide prevention programs and research. That’s it for now. I hope that we can do this again, real soon, but in the meantime and in between time, take care of yourself. Until next time!