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blowflyfag · 12 hours

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the Wrestler: Volume 25, 2009

Q & A

MISSY HYATTT

(Part 2)

“If I didn’t need money, I’d work in this business for free”

WHO WAS WRESTLING’S original diva? There are credible arguments to be made for Miss Elizabeth, Baby Doll, Sunshine, Tammy Sytch, Sable or any number of pioneering women. But, there is one lady in particular who would make any short list: Missy Hyatt.

What has been the key to Hyatt’s success? Her uncanny ability to reinvent herself. Hyatt started out as the self-centered, pampered brat that everyone loved to hate, with every woman wanting to rub her face in the mud and every man wanting to turn her across his knee for a good spanking. She evoked strong emotions during her stints in World Class Championship Wrestling and the Universal Wrestling Federation in the mid-1980s, and often outshined her male counterparts, including “Hollywood” John Tatum and “Hot Stuff” Eddie Gilbert.

Yet Vince MCMahon wanted her to give up her naughty ways and join WWF as an affluent hist of the “Missy Manor” interview segment. It turned out that “Missy’‘s Manor” was no “Piper’s Pit,” and the WWF and Hyatt parted ways in a matter of weeks.

So what’s a girl to do? Hyatt returned to Jim Crockett Promotions, where television producer Dusty Rhodes made her backstage interviewer and an occasional color commentator. She was one of the hottest stars of WCW during the early years of Ted Turner’s ownership, managingThe Steiner Brothers and The Nasty Boys, hosting a highly successful 900-line, and appearing on countless pieces of merchandise. Hyatt ended up suing WCW for what she considered her rightful share of the proceeds and all of it landed in court, where she also filed a sexual harassment claim.

With nowhere left to go, Hyatt accepted Paul Heyman’s offer to appear in ECW, where she flourished as a sultry sex siren, whose conniving ways seemed to be a natural extension of the spoiled Southern Belle she had portrayed a decade earlier.

Her out-of-the-ring exploits have embroiled her in controversy. In her 2001 tell-all autobiography, Miss Hyatt: First Lady of Wrestling, she detailed her relationships with John Tatum, Eddie Gilbert, Road Warrior Hawk, Jake Roverts, and Wonder Years star Jason Hervey, among others. Today, Hyatt lives in New York City with her two Jack Russell terriers, Milo and Jake. For fans who want to keep Missy Hyatt under minute-by-minute surveillance, her pay website–missyhyatt247.com–offers a webcam that constantly streams video from her apartment. Hyatt’s house website is missyhyatt.net.

“Missy has revealed so many intimate details about her life in her autobiography and on her websites that I felt as if I already knew her,” said Senior Writer Harry Burkett, who spoke with the self-proclaimed “First Lady Of Wrestling” for 90 minutes. “Her real personality is quite different from the ‘vamp’ persona she tries to project. She has a very sweet ‘girl next door’ quality.”

Q: Despite the fact that you began your career 23 years ago, you’ve never stayed very far from the wrestling business. You still make appearances on the indy circuit. What are you up to these days?

A: I still have my websites, missyhyatt.net and missyhyatt247.com, and, yes, I still work the independents and do autograph sessions. I'm really proud of the work I've done with Women Superstars Uncensored over the past year or so. I do color commentary for WSU DVDs and I also host some “Missy’s Manor” interview segments.

Q: What is your typical day like?

A: I work with Jack Russell terriers for an organization called Russell Rescue, not to be confused with Dawn Marie’s Wrestlers Rescue [laughs]. She takes in unwanted and abused wrestlers, and I take in unwanted or abused Jack Russells, so I'm sort of a foster mom. I recently took in a dog named Bruno, who had heartworm, and I kept him until that problem was cleared up and he could go to another family.

I do behavioral assessments on the dogs when they come to my home. Do they go after someone who’s knocking on the door? Is there anything that seems to upset them? So I document all of that behavioral stuff on the paperwork. I also do home checks to make sure that prospective homes have the proper fencing, things like that. Jack Russells are very smart, but they also have so much energy that some people can’t keep up with them.

[It was then-boyfriend John Tatum who got Missy Hyatt into the wrestling business back in the mid-’80s. Tatum felt he needed a beautiful blonde valet–and the rest is wrestling history.]

Q: The question is, are you able to keep up with them?

A: My dogs end up adopting my personality, which means they become lazy and sleep in late. Dory Funk Jr. said that he grew up with a bunch of Russells, which are really handy if you have a working ranch with horses and stables.

Q: That sounds like enough to keep you busy. DO you have time to watch the current wrestling product, such as WWE and TNA?

A: Yes, there’s a lot that I like about WWE and TNA. When I watch Raw or Smackdown, I just think how I'd like to work a big crowd like that. Back in the NWA and WCW in the late-’80s and early-’90s, we did pay-per-views every couple of months and drew decent crowds, but it was nothing compared to what WWE draws on a nearly nightly basis. I just think, Wow. I’d love to see myself on that big TItanTron.

I have a dream, and it sounds really corny, but I've always wanted to work one WrestleMania dressed as The Gobbledy Gooker. I’d want Kane to give me a tombstone piledriver and then rip off my turkey costume. Of course, I'd still have the beak and big feet, wearing a fur-kinki, and I'd cluck around the ring and get back inside my egg. Some people dream about dollars or fame, but I've had a much simpler aspiration: to be The Gobbledygooker at WrestleMania!

Q: Maybe you weren’t The Gobbledygooker, but you certainly came a long way. How did you break into the wrestling business?

A: I became involved through my boyfriend: John Tatum. He had been wrestling in Georgia and then went to work for the Crocketts for a while. He met Tully Blanchard and Baby Doll while he was there, and that’s when John decided he had to get him a blonde girl who looked like Baby Doll. So, when he went to Texas, he took me along. [World Class referee] David Manning convinced me that I would make a good valet, and David and another referee, Rick Hazzard helped me with that.

Q: What were you doing when John met you? A: I was working as a cocktail waitress at a bar, the Hyatt Hotel–as a matter of fact–in downtown Atlanta. I also worked at the pool bar during the summer there.

Q: Where did you grow up?

A: Tallahassee, Florida.

Q: Had John been in the wrestling business very long when you met him?

A: No, no. He was from Pensacola, Florida, and he’d been in the business for only about six months, if that. He worked in Georgia and then the Caroolinas for about 10 months. Then we went to Texas in ‘85.

[Although Missy Hyatt and Sunshine were in-ring rivals in World Class Championship Wrestling (above), they were good friends outside the ring (right). Hyatt says Sunshine was a patient mentor during her early days.

“When I first started working, I was really nervous and scared. The first big thing I did was a catfight with Sunshine where we pulled hair and rolled around the thing, and I couldn't help laughing. When we got in the back, Sunshine yelled at me, “You can't laugh out there!”]

Q: Had John always been a wrestling fan, or did he fall into it some other way?

A: John and Michael Hayes are cousins. Michael is from Pensacola, too. As for me, I fell in love with wrestling when I was 17. I was over at my parents’ house, and I was upstairs with my dad, who was flipping channels. I saw Michael Hayes and Buddy Roberts putting a baby bonnet on Terry Gordy’s head and a pacifier in his mouth, and they were all running around the ring. It was Georgia Championship Wrestling. I was amazed by what I was watching. What was this? I thought it was the coolest thing. I knew I didn't want to wrestle, but it seemed like a real hoot and something I wanted to do.

Q: Wow, that must have been when The Freebirds were feuding amongst each other. What was the first challenge you had to face as a valet in Texas?

A: Trying to figure out what my name would be! My last name is “Hiatt” with an “i,” so I changed it to “Hyatt” with a “y.” Also, my first name is Melissa, but my parents called me “Missy” and John caught on to that. That’s how I became “Missy Hyatt.”

When I first started working, I was really nervous and scared. The first big thing I did was a catfight with Sunshine where we pulled hair and rolled around the ring, and I couldn't help laughing. When we got in the back, Sunshine yelled at me, “You can't laugh out there!” But I was having so much fun. During my career, I've been paid a lot of money for what I love to do. If I didn't need money, I'd work in this business for free.

Q: I suppose World Class was ahead of its time as far as divas are concerned.

A: Let me tell you, we sure were! Looking back on it, I'm surprised that I got paid the same as the guys. They didn't just look at me as a female, but someone who helped draw people to the shows. My pay depended on where I was on the card and how many people were there. So I was paid extremely well, even though I was a woman. I think of all the people who helped me–Fritz Von Erich, David Manning, Bronco Lubich–and realize it was a great time. If Texas had been the only place where I had worked, and John and I had gone back to Florida right afterward, i’d still consider it the highlight of my life.

[Was it Hyatt and Hot Stuff International or vice versa? Either way, Hyatt and Eddie Gilbert made an effective and entertaining team in the Ultimate Wrestling Federation.]

Q: Did it occur to you that women could add a whole new dimension to wrestling?

A: Sex and violence sell in movies and on TV, so why not wrestling? Even ultimate fighting has the octagon babes and boxing has the ring card girls in their little outfits.

Q: Your catfights with Sunshine must have gotten a huge response, considering the audience was definitely male-dominated at the time.

A: Because we did the same buildings each week, we had to come up with something new each week. For over a year, I'd do bad stuff to her on TV and then she’d beat my fanny all week at the house shows. I’d lie, or come up with a new way to insult her, and she’d be ready to tear into me again. It was so easy–and so fun to get a reaction. We nearly started a riot in Abilene, Texas.

Q: What was the road schedule like for World Class?

A: We did TV tapings every Friday night in Dallas and then we’d run a show on Monday night in Fort Worth. Every three weeks, we’d go to the outskirts, such as Lubbock, Amarillo, and El Paso. For the most part, though, most of the shows were in smaller towns within a couple hours of Dallas-Fort Worth. Football was really big in Texas, so there were plenty of large high school stadiums where we drew a lot of people–usually within 60 miles of Dallas.

Wrestlers and divas are so much like movie stars now because there’s so much glamor. The outfits are so fancy and everybody’s so polished. That’s a big difference between now and the territorial days. Even WCW was much glitzier toward the end of my time there.

Q: Was Sunshine helpful when you first went to World Class?

A: She was the best. She taught me everything. And, trust me, I was a handful. You may remember that World Class had a two-hour show on Christian network for a while.

Q: Yes, the Christian Broadcasting Network.

A: That’s right. [World Classbooker] Ken Mantell gave me a line to use against Sunshine. It went something like, “Sunshine’s butt is so big that when she has to haul ass, she’s got to make 10 trips.” I said it verbatim. When I got backstage, poor Ken looked like he was having a heart attack, red in the face with his blood pressure going up. He told me that I shouldn't have said the word “ass.” I said, “Yeah, but you told me to say that.” I was so young at the time. I was surprised that CBN didn’t even bleep it out.

[“Sex and violence sell in movies and on TV, so why not wrestling? Even ultimate fighting has the octagon babes and boxing has the ring card girls in their little outfits.”]

Q: Well, the word “ass” was used in the Bible.

A: That’s true. I felt sorry for Ken because he had to deal with these girls all of a sudden. But Sunshine and I were good friends. I’d have friends over at my apartment, and Sunshine would have to sneak through a window. Back in the kayfabe days, I couldn’t party with the babyfaces, you know.

Q: Was there anybody else you looked up to? Or were you and Sunshine the only women around at that time?

A: There was Baby Doll with the Crocketts, and Miss Elizabeth had just started in the WWF. Here’s one funny story: George Scott, who worked for Vince McMahon, had heard about Baby Doll at about the same time I sent pictures to the WWF. He contacted World Class, thinking I was Baby Doll. That’s why David Manning and Fritz Von Erich wanted to keep John and me there. I’m glad John and I had that run in World Class, because I think we were great working together.

[While working in the UWF, Hyatt often interacted with a young Jim Ross. According to Missy, nobody can match Good Ol’ J.R. on the microphone.]

Q: I thought so, too. How did you meet Eddie Gilbert?

A: I met him when we went to the UWF.

Q: When you first met him, did you think you’d ever marry the guy?

A: No! It was another case of life imitating art. That time was wild. We did the Hot Stuff & Hyatt International angle, and Ken Mantell was there … it was such a blur because we were traveling so much. I enjoyed that time very much.

Q: You mentioned that life imitates art. As we know, you left John and eventually married Eddie. Leading into that, John and Eddie were vying for your affections on UWF TV, with Eddie outsmarting John each week. The vignettes from that time were very funny. I remember a limousine pulling up to take you and John to lunch, and somehow Eddie elbowed his way into the limo so he could sit beside you. It was really funny stuff.

A: I remember that! Jim Ross was interviewing John, who was waiting for me to arrive in the limo. Eddie came out, noticed there was a TV in the limo, and squeezed himself into the car between John and me. I think we left Jim Rossjust standing there. At that time, Eddie and I liked each other, so I guess it was happening and I didnt realize it.

[Life imitates art. To John Tatum’s chagrin, a UWF storyline romance between Hyatt and Gilbert evolved into an off-screen attraction and eventually marriage.]

Q: Wrestling is weird in that way, as far as life imitating art. It seems that every man and woman that are put together in a storyline end up as a couple in real life.

A: It may be terrible to mention this, but look at what happened to Chris and Nancy Benoit. There was also Steve Austin and Jeannie Clarke, and Steve and Debra McMichael.

Q: So you would say that love triangle among you, John, and Eddie mirrored reality?

A: On TV, Eddie and I always said it was “strictly business.” But there was a lot of playing around and joking. Once when we were at the hotel in Tulsa, John had left with Jack [Victory], and Eddie got really drunk. Eddie came in from the pool, down the hallway, and passed out in my hotel room. I had to get Carl Fergie to get him out of there. The next day, I teased him all day. Something just sparked, I guess.

Q: You certainly demonstrated a sexual tension on TV. I remember that Eddie would refer to your group as “Hot Stuff & Hyatt International,” but you would always refer to it as “Hyatt & Hot Stuff International.”

A: Right. Bruce Prochard worked out of the Houston office at the time, and he had blue satin jackets made. Mine said “Hyatt & Hot Stuff” and Eddie’s said “Hot Stuff & Hyatt.” I don’t know what happened to that jacket, but I wish I still had it. It would bring back good memories.

Q: Eddie was often credited for having a great wrestling mind. Did you learn things from him that you didn’t learn from John or anyone else?

A: I learned more about wrestling as a business, from how it works to how to handle money. I learned what worked with a wrestling crowd and what did not. Eddie loved wrestling since he was a boy. His mom showed me how he would make up characters, book matches, lay out TV shows, and create whole storlines in his black-and-white composition books. He was really elaborate. He was the Anges Dixon of wrestling.

Q: No wonder the CWF seemed like All my Children! Seriously, though, I know Eddie wrote for some fanzines and magazines in the late-1970s.

A: And he took pictures! He showed me a tape of a match where he and Jim Cornette were at ringside taking pictures.

Q: Cornette, Paul Heyman, and even Tammy Stych got their start by taking pictures and sending them to our magazines. You never took pictures for us, but you sure posed for a lot. Tell me, how was the UWF different from World Class?

A: The traveling. I think they would sit there with a map of the United States and then throw darts to see how far they could make us drive. We’d be in Tulsa one night, and then have to drive to New Orleans, and then drive to Houston, and then to Memphi. It never made sense. We’d leave at 2:00 in the afternoon and not get back until 4:00 in the morning.

[“You could see how hot and intense the crowd was on UWF TV shows. It was like a fever. The craziness was contagious. To me, it was more exciting in those days.”

Q: I think the most common complaint I've heard about the UWF, or the Mid-South promotion that preceded it, was that it was really big territory.

A: That’s for sure. But you also made a lot of friendships when you’re traveling together so much. I remember we’d all be in a can with One Man Gang driving–just a lot of camaraderie because we were working together every night. We were more like a family.

Q: At the time, the WWF was expanding nation-wide. Frit Von Erich and Bill Watts certainly entertained the thought of challenging Vince McMahon. Did World Class or the UWF have a chance?

A: If either World Class or the UWF had gotten a better foothold on cable, maybe so. The UWF was the hottest wrestling show on TV at the time, in terms of pure action. THe show had enormous talent, in addition to Jim Ross as the announcer. And nobody can compare to Jim Ross as an announcer before or since. When we would tape shows in Tulsa, everything would break down at the end of the episode, so fans always wanted more. We didn’t give away main events in those days.

Q: That’s what I hated about the UWF! Hacksaw Duggan wouldn’t tear into One Man Gang until one minute before the show went off the air. I would be screaming at the TV!

A: Yes, Jim Ross would be yelling, “We’ve got to go!” The whole idea was to get people to buy tickets. We didn’t have pay-per-view yet, so the TV show was like an ad to sell tickets to the arena. We would do the TV tapings in Tulsa every two weeks. We never had to give away tickets for free because the arena was always packed. You could see how hot and intense the crowd was on UWF TV shows. It was like a fever. The craziness was contagious. To me, it was more exciting in those days.

Q: I suppose that’s the price you pay when wrestling goes mainstream. Nowadays, you get more of a mainstream crowd, the same people who would come out to see the Harlem Globetrotters if they came to town.

The UWF must have had wide syndications back then, because I remember the UWF running its TV show in my home state of Maryland. That was a long way from Tulsa.

A: The UWF had really good syndication, but World Class was even more impressive. If I remember correctly, World Class had 223 stations–including stations in the Middle East–while the WWF had only 30 stations here in the United States.

Q: World Class even tried to run house shows in Massachusetts.

A: As well as Georgia and California while it was expanding toward the end. You knew one of these companies was going to become a true national company, but you didn't know which one would get there first.

Q: Who contacted you about going to the WWF?

A: Eddie and I just mailed in some pictures, and Vince called.

Q: Did he call for both of you?

A: Yes. It was a complicated time. There were rumors that Crockett was going to buy the UWF. We didn’t know whether Crockett was going to swallow up the UWF or keep it separate. Some said he would honor the UWF contracts and others said he wouldn't. Eddie sent out stuff to the WWF just as back-up. But I wanted to go to the WWF because I wanted to be a big star and get me a doll. It still hasn’t happened.

[After a short stint with the WWF and some indy appearances, Hyatt made a move to WCW, where she made her name as a ring announcer (left), color commentator (above), and valet.]

Q: Did Eddie ever wrestle for the WWF in the late-’80s?

A: He had first gone to the WWF in ‘81, but he didn’t go in the late-’80s. He was helping Ken Mantell book for the UWF. When the buyout came, Crockett wanted Eddie to do all the booking for the UWF and Ken left. Eddie told Vince that he’d rather book for the UWF than just wrestle for the WWF. I was very pigheaded, though, and I wanted to go to the WWF and become a superstar.

Q: I remember “Miss Manor.”

A: Oh, gosh.

#part 1 #I hate when I have to split stuff into two but you know how tumblr is #missy hyatt #magazine scan #magazine transcript #also love her love her gobbledygooker dream

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dalekofchaos · 2 years

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One thing I notice about current WWE, in addition to being reliant on the past (Which AEW is also guilty of but I digress) it seems that they want the company to be the star lately, not the wrestlers and that honestly makes it feel like I'm watching 1995 RAW instead of 2022 RAW

It's been like this since Cena's decade of doom ended. All it cares about is the image of the company. No one is allowed to be a star like Hogan, Austin, Rock or Cena. Now? No one is allowed to be as big as Roman Reigns The Four Two Horsewomen(I say Two Horsewomen cause Sasha is Bayley's best friend and I can't see Bayley being okay with how Sasha was treated) and no one is allowed to be bigger than the company.

The wrestlers these days are like props with catchphrases. They read scripts and their promos don’t feel authentic and organic. They are not larger than life, they are not stars and no one cares enough about wanting to be stars. The company doesn't want stars or larger than life personalities. They want to control them and every aspect. And WWE views the “superstars” as replacable and no one is valued in the WWE, they don’t care about anyone who isn’t Roman or Charlotte or D-List Celebrities.

Passion, momentum and creativity dies in WWE. No one is allowed to organically get over on their own. If it’s not a chosen one by Vince, then they are punished for having a genuine connection with the audience.

No one wants to rock the boat. No one wants to make the best possible product, they want to do what Vince wants.

Just look at Sasha Banks as an example. This woman is the very embodiment of a star. She walks and talks like a star. She works like a star. She has mainstream star appeal. Oh let's not forget. SHE WAS IN FUCKING STAR WARS!

WWE never treated Sasha like the star she was born to me. Charlotte won at Wrestlemania 32, when the entire crowd was behind Sasha. Sasha had piss poor title reigns and shitty booking throughout her career. Only when the Golden Role Models era did it feel like they finally treated her right.

Sasha Banks has had a terribly booked run as Smackdown Women’s Champion, a botched feud with Bayley and Bianca but only good matches. WWE NEVER ONCE capitalized on Sasha Banks being IN FUCKING STAR WARS when she was Women’s Champion. Her feud with CHarlotte was dropped and she went out of her way to bring life back to the Women’s Tag Titles. Sasha Banks walked out of WWE twice, and both times it was because they broke their promise to let her build a midcard for the women’s division. This time she gave up a main event title match with Ronda Rousey for it. That’s not selfish, that’s what a leader does.

WWE should build around Sasha Banks the way they have built around Roman Reigns. She is demonstrably excellent at every aspect of her job, is amongst the company's biggest ratings draws, and has crossover appeal. Yet they never capitalize on her mainstream appeal and instead thinks Ronnie Lousey is worth more, OH AND THE FACT THEY NEVER ADVERTISED THAT ONE OF THEIR BIGGEST FUCKING STARS WAS IN FUCKING STAR WARS(NO I WILL NEVER LET THIS FUCKING GO, YOU FUCKING IDIOTS)

Another Example is what happened to NXT. Because Vince is petty and because HHH lost the Wednesday night wars, NXT was killed and replaced with NXT 2.0. I feel like NXT 2.0 is the modern day Black Saturday. Black Saturday refers to Saturday, July 14, 1984, the day when Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation (WWF) took over the time slot on Superstation WTBS that had been home to Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW) and its flagship weekly program, World Championship Wrestling, for 12 years. McMahon’s purchase led to a longstanding rivalry between himself and WTBS owner Ted Turner, who later bought GCW’s successor Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP) and formed his own company under the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) name. A lot of fans of GCW did NOT like this. This took away their more serious southern, athletic and serious wrestling or as they dubbed it “Gordon Solie” wrestling and replaced it with McMahon’s cartoonish, gimmicky and silly alternative. I feel the same has happened with NXT. HHH’s NXT was like the old days of NWA wrestling, it had a more focus on wrestling, a dark and gritty feel and it felt like what the WWE needed to evolve into. When NXT 2.0 came around. It made everything more bright and colorful(quite literally lol) more gimmicks, cartoony, phony and fake and it just feels like Vince taking NXT in the back of the barn and shooting it and replacing a prized horse with a jackass. And as Bronson Reed said recently “NXT was the professional wrestling show, now it’s just another entertainment show.”

And honestly? Modern WWE is like WCW 2000. Terrible booking, bad comedy, legends forced down our throat at the expense of the young hungry talent, 3 hours of television and a product no one, not even the people in charge care about.

#WWE #Anti WWE #Anti Vince McMahon #Sasha Banks

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