Sean Waltman On The Rock's Demeanor Backstage After Brutal 1999 Royal Rumble Match With Mick Foley
Sean Waltman has parlayed his wrestling career into a successful media career as the host of his X-Pac 1,2,360 podcast. Waltman interviews many past and present figures from pro wrestling, but when he joined our WINCLY podcast, the script was flipped.
Waltman was on the receiving end of the questions this time when he chatted with our Nick Hausman about his 1999 Royal Rumble match which was botched thanks to a Teddy Long early three count.
"Yeah," Waltman said about Long's botch, "but it wasn't his fault even though his cadence was terrible. I like Teddy but the reason I bring this up is because of something he said in an interview where he was blaming it all on me."
Waltman was facing Gangrel with the European title on the line, but the timing was off during a spot and the crowd certainly noticed.
"He started counting before we even rolled through on the crossbody," stated Waltman. "Trust me, it wasn't my fault."
Long made an obvious three count and then signaled "no pin" which resulted in the crowd chanting "You F'd up!" Waltman would defeat Gangrel to retain the European title.
Also at that Rumble was the infamous "I Quit" match between The Rock and Mankind. It was a brutal match featuring about 15 chair shots to Foley and Waltman remembers talking to The Rock after the match.
"I remember talking to The Rock and I remember him being really disturbed afterwards," revealed Waltman. "He was not digging what just happened and not digging that he had just done that."
Waltman put over the match for Rock, but Rock told him he was regretful for hitting Mick so many times in the head with the steel chair.
Waltman didn't have a singles match at the following year's Rumble, but he was in the Royal Rumble match in 2000. He was the 30th entrant for the match which even confused him as he wasn't involved in a main event storyline at the time.
"I don't know," Waltman replied when asked why he was the last entrant. "Usually there is a good reason for the placements."
During the match, Waltman took a back body drop from The Rock over the top rope, thus eliminating him. While most eliminations involve the wrestlers actually touching the top rope to help break their fall, Waltman cleared the rope entirely.
"[Rock] threw me over the top rope, but I didn't touch the rope," said Waltman. "I literally went over the top rope and took a back drop over the top rope to the floor and Rocky got mad at me for doing that.
"'Dude, don't do that. What the F—?' He didn't want me to get hurt on his account because he wasn't about to do that for anyone else. He was real smart about that type of stuff."
Waltman and Rock had many matches over the years thanks to feuds between factions that both of them were a part of. Rock has always been complimentary of Waltman's work and they worked well together in the ring.
"I had a great rapport with him because one of my first matches back was a tv match with him for the IC title ? the one where the girl showed her boobs on tv," said Waltman.
"We had great chemistry. I always put the matches together. He was great about that ? he always showed me a ton of respect."
Waltman also mentioned that the Rock named him in an interview in which he listed all of the guys he liked to work with.
You can find the full audio of Waltman's exclusive WINCLY interview in the embedded player below. It also features comments from him regarding this year's Royal Rumble, Brock Lesnar and more. Subscribe to Wrestling Inc Audio on iTunes to get all our podcasts as soon as they are released: