Pro Wrestling Legend “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff recently appeared on The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling. Here are some highlights:
On working with Rowdy Roddy Piper:
“Roddy actually was in the business longer then I was and started sooner than I did and Roddy was a smart guy. I used my body and Roddy used a lot of his brains. I wished that I could do interviews and do the stuff the way he did and I really did. I tried to be like him when I did interviews but I had that fire in my heart that I was one of those type of guys that whatever I did I was going to do it better that anybody else and I feel like I pretty much have done that in a lot of cases.”
On Hulk Hogan:
“Let me tell you something right now. I don’t care and I don’t know what he did. When it comes down to him, I love him like a hated brother. We all have brothers that some of them we love and some of them we don’t but I don’t hate him now for nothing! He made me and helped make me. I was more to him then he was to me but I took him to a whole new level when it came to the matches because he never had anybody that had the intensity and had the body that I had.”
On the “Mr. Wonderful” physique:
“Vince’s father was a very smart man as well but Vince (Jr) was a whole new era. He took it to a whole new level and I was a part of it and I went with it. I fought for it because I wanted to be a part of it because I knew that I was different than anybody else. There wasn’t anyone like me at that time. There was nobody with that energy, aggressiveness and the body that I had. I could have been Mr. America if I wanted to be but I chose wrestling. I could have played pro-football but I chose wrestling.”
On the infamous WrestleMania 1 training vignette (Orndorff and Orton shoot on a bystander):
“It was a shoot. When I hit him, I hit him. He went down. If it was planned I didn’t know about it. That was a whole different ballgame back then and it isn’t like it is now, now it’s a joke.”
On if he liked becoming a babyface:
“No. I like being a bad guy. But the people were cheering me being a bad guy. I am not bragging it may sound like it but there was nobody in this business that had the aggression and had the body that I had, nobody! To this day there hasn’t been one. This is the one and only and that’s why I was the only one. I’ve seen guys that have the bodies but they didn’t have the ability because I was a worker. I worked every night and I’d go 25,35,45 minutes and that is what made me and that is that I knew how to work and I knew how to work the people.”
