News on Gail Kim, Byte This guests, Mean Gene interview
Submitted by Dustin Tingue on Wednesday, April 23, 2003 at 4:03 PM EST



Gail Kim, the latest addition to the Diva roster in WWE is featured in the current WWE magazine. The article said that she's been working house shows pretty regularly and she's being called the female equivalent to Rey Mysterio. Kim was introduced to WWE by Molly Holly, a mutual friend. No word on her debut or what side she'll be on, Raw or SmackDown. Raw would be the logical choice, but I've read and heard rumors that she might also be on SmackDown, so who knows.

John Cena and Kevin Nash are scheduled to be on Byte This this Friday.

Mean Gene Okerlund was interviewed on 4/20 on the Interactive Interview (www.theinteractiveinterview.com) and here are a few tidbits from the interview.

-Okerlund says he got his start in AWA when it was being run by Verne Gagne. He said he filled in on announcing for someone who was out sick for a live show on Saturday evening.

-Gene said he was offered a huge amount of money from Vince McMahon to make the jump to the WWF. He said he had to fly out to New York every three weeks and spend only three days there. One trip every three weeks for a lot of money.

-Okerlund said that Vince McMahon has changed since he met him over 20 years ago, but he said with the business, you have to change. He said Vince is 24/7 in the business and spends his weekends coming up with ideas for future angles.

-Gene talked about the match which involved himself and Hulk Hogan against George Steele and Mr. Fuji. Okerlund said he wasn't supposed to be involved in the match at all as Hogan had promised him he wouldn't, he was just supposed to hang around on the apron. During the match, Hogan and Okerlund high-fived and the ref took it as a legal tag.

-Gene made the jump to WCW when Jesse Ventura was a big part of the company. Ventura said that Okerlund could be making a lot of money in WCW and could also be contributing more to WCW. Okerlund called his agent (the same agent as Ventura's) and the deal was sealed.

-Okerlund felt that once the nWo had over 20 heels in its ranks, it was no longer an elite group or a headlining type of angle. Okerlund said he thinks stables and such work best when there are only a few members, like the Four Horsemen. Gene said he felt the nWo angle eventually became tired and repetitive.

-On the topic of Vince Russo, Gene said he has no personal problems with the man but said he has no talent. Gene even questioned Russo's contributions in making the WWF so huge with the Attitude era.

-They talked about Gene's favorite promo guys in the business and he named off guys like Mad Dog Vachon, Ric Flair and Hogan. When asked about some of his least favorite interviews, he said the British Bulldog and Bret Hart.

-Gene said he's happy with his current status in WWE, hosting Confidential and ocassionally appearing on a Raw or SmackDown. Gene said he misses working with Bobby "The Brain" Heenan but hinted that a Heenan return may be in the future.

-Gene said he got the Confidential gig when his name was brought up by Kevin Dunn and Hogan. When asked if Confidential exposes the business too much, Gene called it "BS" and went on a big rant about it.

-Okerlund said he has hundreds of notes about his life in wrestling stored on his computer and has no doubt that it'll come out in book form someday. Gene said if he were to tell all he knows it would blow the industry wide open.

-Gene also had some insulting things to say about Brad Siegel, Vince Russo and Triple H.

-To hear the show in streaming media, click here.

-To download the show to your computer, click here.

Credit: 1wrestling.com








*NEW GALLERY* The WWE SD & RAW Divas PARTYING in a CLUB! WOW!

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