It takes a lot to be in the pro wrestling business but sometimes what you need most is to be in the right place at the right time. For Sean Waltman, the right place was The Manhattan Center and the right time was Monday Night Raw.
It shocked the world when The Kid beat Razor Ramon with a quick roll-up pin on Raw. Razor was livid and couldn’t believe it happened. The Kid ran off and was given a new name he would hold for quite a while until changing it a couple times again. But he would eventually stick with X-Pac.
Scott Hall has said he knew he was putting Waltman over six months in advance but couldn’t tell anybody. Therefore after he lost to The Kid on Raw people were asking him if he failed a drug test, was suspended or getting fired.
Bruce Prichard was there and knew exactly what was really going on. He said the whole thing was planned but what wasn’t expected was how The Kid would get a great new name that night in The Manhattan Center.
“It sure as hell wasn’t planned six months in advance,” Bruce Prichard said on Something To Wrestle With. “Razor was getting a babyface reaction. Big, good looking guy — tough guy and the crowd was really drawn to him. He had natural charisma and he was oozing machismo, man.”
“So the crowd was getting behind him. They liked the son of a b-tch. So you kinda wanna feed into that but at the same time you don’t. At the same time, we had brought in Sean Waltman. We didn’t know what to do with Sean. I had worked with Sean in the Global Wrestling Federation prior to that during my hiatus from the WWF. And we brought Sean in, Vince [McMahon] took one look at him and was like, ‘what in the hell are we supposed to do with this?'”
“We brought [Waltman] out in the Manhattan Center on Monday Night Raw and the crowd knew who he was which — thank god. But they were chanting “Lightning Kid, Lightning Kid.” Vince didn’t wanna use the name Lightning Kid — he looked like a kid so Vince wanted to keep the Kid thing.”
“So each week we changed Waltman’s name from Cannonball Kid, Kamikaze Kid […] each week it would change until something would stick. And the idea was we would get into three or four weeks when we would get into the Razor match and Razor would just beat the dogsh-t outa him and the Kid would catch a quick fall on Razor.”
“What we did not plan, we did not expect and it was one of those beautiful moments in wrestling was after Kid beat Razor and Razor stood in the ring holding up two fingers like ‘what the hell?’ And the crowd started chanting ‘1-2-3, 1-2-3’ and Vince was like: ‘He’s the 1-2-3 Kid pal, godd-mnit we got something there!'”
It just goes to show that sometimes the most unexpected things can have the longest-lasting impact on somebody’s career.
If you use any portion of the quotes in this article please credit Something To Wrestle With Bruce Prichard with a H/T to Still Real To Us for the transcription
