Road Dogg Recalls Final WWE Match Before 2000 Release Being 'An Embarrassment'

WWE Hall of Famer "Road Dogg" Brian James had an ignoble end to his first tenure with the WWE. On the latest "Oh You Didn't Know!" James spoke about his release from WWE at the end of 2000, after James showed up to a tv taping intoxicated.

"I talked with Jim Ross and I talked with Bruce Prichard but I was even hammered when I did that," James said. "It was definitely the downward spiral." According to James, it had become a habit of showing up in no condition to perform, and it all came to a head in a tag team match.

"I actually had a match with Ron Killings against D-Lo [Brown] and Headbanger Chaz," James remembered, through the haze of his struggle with sobriety. "I had a match with them, me and Ronny and I was messed up clearly." According to James, he never wants to see the match ever again. "I'm ashamed of myself and I'm ashamed of the integrity of my profession was destroyed by me. That part hurts me the worst that I would go out there and risk other people and all those people are my friends." James said that he was initially mad at his colleagues for telling WWE officials about his inebriated state, though he notes that it wasn't exactly a secret. "I was bouncing off the walls trying to get to gorilla position, but look that's on me and there's no other two ways to put it."

James says that the match was an "embarrassment," and the second-generation wrestler is still hurting over his behavior on that December night.

"The fact that I went out there and did a disservice to the industry and the talent in the ring with me," James confessed, "that hurts my heart to this day." James says that he uses the embarrassment as fuel to maintain his sobriety.

"It was all my fault, every bit of it, the professional and the personal."