BROWN: Hello everyone, Will Brown here, joined as always by Allen Tyson, we’re here for the debut of Going Off Script, and we’re joined today by a man who’s really been everywhere in wrestling, Pete Iatello, who is better known as Problem Child.
PC: What’s up YouTube? And uh, radioland. What’s this shit, XM? Sirius?
TYSON: Well XM bought Sirius, but we’re on the XM brand right now.
PC: Already we’re off to a good start, I don’t even know where the fuck I am, haha.
TYSON: Cool man, we’re glad to have you. We’ve always been big fans of yours, and you’re kinda sorta infamous in the wrestling industry…
PC: Infamous, I like that!
TYSON: And you’re one of the few guys who hasn’t done a shoot.
PC: Oh I do shoots all the time, I just do ‘em in my promos.
TYSON: Haha yeah. Why don’t you start by telling us how you got into the business?
PC: Wow, that’s going back. I’m not sure my memory has the muscle for that. Ummmm…let’s see. Well I grew up in the Bronx, hung out a lot in the underground music scene, mostly metal and punk, shit like that. And at the time, in the mid-90’s, indy wrestling was getting popular again, especially in Philly with UWA paving the way and everything. So it was a natural transition in terms of ‘the scene’; punks and metalheads were getting down with the indy wrestling biz and vice versa. You started to see a lot of promoters hire punk acts to play their intermission, etc etc. And it wasn’t just Philly- wrestling orgs were popping up all over the mid-atlantic and tri-state area. You had EFW, WFW, Tri-State, NTWA, all these organizations, and I would go to these shows with my friends watching the guys wrestle, and some of them were like…you know, in SHIT SHAPE, I’m talking fat, no cardi, all that. I’d sit there thinking, “Dude, I can talk for miles, and I’m athletic, why couldn’t I do this?”
BROWN: So who was it, exactly, that broke you into the business?
PC: Well by this point me and all my buds were hanging out with the wrestlers after shows, getting drunk, living it up with them. I became pretty good friends with Alex Wylde, and this was I think…1996 I wanna say? 97? Alex was starting to really break out as a star in his own right, and the big leagues were taking a hard look at him. So he started training me, but only for a little while ‘cause he was on the move after that. Most of my training was under Robby Leland, aka The Great White Void from NTWA. Robby and Ross, who was Se7en, were training me most of the time, and they got me a job putting together the ring for NTWA. And then eventually I’d work some house shows for them. But I was real lucky, because Ross and Alex were two good friends of mine and their stars were one the RISE, man. UWA was interested in them, CSWA, and then of course…ACW.
BROWN: Yeah, that was your first big break, I remember that. Tell us about ACW and how that happened.
PC: Oh that was all Alex. For those that don’t remember, and most probably don’t, ACW was a big time Mid-Atlantic promotion. At least, they were, for a little while. What happened was, Ryan Engelman and Brad Smith, who were name bookers back then, lots of respect and money too, which is important, haha…Ryan and Brad put together all this money and got a bunch of other promoters on board and really hyped the shit out of this new organization, ACW, which was going to be this national powerhouse out of Jersey. Before they held a single event, ACW had a very decent TV slot, and what they had that was most important was the young talent, the guys everybody wanted to see pushed that just weren’t getting their shot in CSWA. I mean, no disrespect to them, but who the fuck really cares about Mike Randalls versus Julius Godreign 8?
(studio laughter)
PC: Ha, no seriously, I love Randalls, Godreign was always cool to me in UWA, and Chad and Steve made their money no doubt, but it was what it was. So ACW comes along, puts all this money behind the young guys, you’ve got Ares, Manson, Alex, Se7en, that ‘Highway Star’ dude that got the push from heaven and fizzled out, and the list went on. They were running an angle with Alex, who was their Interstate Champ at the time, working him into the main event. Alex comes to me and says, “I need a lackey, I need more heat…want a shot?” And I said fuck yeah. So over night, I go from busting my ass in gymnasiums to being Alex Wylde’s lackey on ACW television. They had me doing all this shit for cheap heat, like lighting dog shit in a paper bag on Brad Smith’s doorstep, pissing on the radiator, all juvenile, retarded shit that we used to do as kids, but hey…it was getting over. People booed me, they booed Alex more, and we made money.
BROWN: Where did the name Problem Child come from?
PC: The name ‘Problem Child’ literally came from the movie. Me and Alex were talking on the phone about what my gimmick should be, cause at the time I was wrestling under my real name. And in the background, I had Problem Child on. I said as a joke, “Yeah, I’ll be Problem Child” but Alex thought it was great and the rest was history. So to all you fuckers out there claiming I ripped off the movie…IT’S ALL TRUE, I did, so eat a dick.
(studio laughter)
PC: I mean, my initials are PI, so I could’ve been PI, but there was already a PI. Except he was like the McDonald’s version of me. The bigs created him for cheap heat, but see…I’m the master of cheap heat. Cheap heat may be cheap, it may be stupid, but damn it…I’m really, really good at it. You can’t take that from me, haha.
TYSON: Yeah, I remember Bob Ryder used to rip the shit out of you in the dirt sheets for being overrated, toilet humor…
PC: Yeah, well, Bob apparently was ripping the shit out of teen boys assholes too, so what the fuck does he know? Overrated…I used to love when they’d say that. What World Title have I ever held? What singles main event run did I ever have? I thought I was rated pretty accurately.
TYSON: So the ACW run continued…
PC: The ACW run continued, Alex was drawing, I was making a name, he was on the verge of stardom, and then something happened for the first time…and it would go on to happen many, many times…brace yourselves for this one, big fuckin’ surprise here…Alex got frustrated that he wasn’t being pushed fast enough, and he fucked around with the company. And in my experience, companies…don’t like to be fucked around with. Alex thought the Interstate title was garbage, wanted the World Title, wanted the main event, but they just weren’t having him drop that title. So what’s he do? “Aight Pete, the title’s yours.” Huh? “The title’s yours, man. I’m gonna get on the mic, in the middle of the ring, and crown you the new Interstate Champion. Congrats, man.” Uhhh, OK sure. You think they’re gonna be mad about this? “What can they do? They need me.” Alright man, if you say so. So he does it, makes me the new champ, and we hear…nothing. Not a phone call, not an e-mail, nothing. Alex just takes in stride, “Told you so, man.” But I’m thinking it’s the calm before the storm. In reality, it was no big deal for ACW, but in the long run it showed Brad and Ryan that they couldn’t trust Alex. And you saw that over and over and over in his career. Always a step away from stardom, from the big belt, and then the wall goes up: “Can’t trust Alex.” (shrugs) I could trust Alex, Manson could trust Alex, Ares could, Troy could, he was one of the boys and the people he was good to loved him back, but the promoters couldn’t trust him. Not that they could trust me either, but that had nothing to do with impatience or ego. That was more me being a drug addict and an asshole, hahaha.
BROWN: How did your title reign go?
PC: I dropped it to Jared Justice in my first defense. But that was OK, ‘cause I was comic relief at the time anyway. I wasn’t getting in the ring much at all. At the time I was kinda pissed about it, but looking back…me and Jared put on a hell of a match, and it showed all the internet dickheads and anyone else who was watching that I could work. (shrugs) I could work, man.
TYSON: And as I understand it, the UWA came calling not too soon after?
PC: Oh yeah, shit, that was like…phew, that was crazy how that happened. But lemme finish up with ACW real quick. So they slowly put the ki-bosh on Alex’s big push. They’d push him up a lot, and bring him down a little. Push him up A LOT…then bring him down a little. The Highway Star dude still had the belt, God knows who’s cock he sucked to get it, with that fucking gimmick ripped from a song.
TYSON: Yeah, what was the deal back then?
PC: I dunno! That was such a 90’s thing- base your gimmick off a band or a song. How many fuckin’ tag teams back then were named after songs? Danzig and Sepultura, one dude’s name was Skynyrd in UWA, Marc Robinson…the promoters loved that shit. I should have called myself Van fuckin’ Halen or something man, hahaha. But me complaining about gimmicks is like MJ complaining about child molesters. I got the worst of the worst. ANYWAY- Alex was so fed up with ACW that he swore to me if he ever DID get the belt, he’d lay down for Killer Bee and quit.
TYSON: Wow.
PC: Yeah, and I believed him too. Me, him, Ares, Manson, it sorta became a click and we were getting a bad reputation in the locker room. Then there was the TUSK incident where Manson punched TUSK in the mouth for saying some shit about him being a Marilyn Manson ripoff. Which he wasn’t, by the way. Some promoters wanted to present him like that, but aside from the name and the theme music, he was actually very different. People see the name, they see the theme song, and they think of the band. But with some it’s more coincidental than with others. Anyway, so Manson hit TUSK, who was like a big retard anyway, big fuckin’ baby, he goes running to Brad saying Manson punched him and pissed on his clothes while he was in the shower…which he did. So Manson and Brad had a falling out, Manson left cause UWA was pushing him, giving him more dates. Pretty soon Ares left for the same reason. Highway Star dude just up and left the business cause he thought he got an acting gig, which never panned out. Fucking loser. And they split up me and Alex. I got shitcanned to the undercard, Alex wasn’t making headway…so shit went from good to bad really quick.
That’s when the UWA thing happened. One day, out of the blue, I get a phone call. Guy on the other end says he’s Quentin Sullivan, and I recognized the voice from TV. I’m like, “Wow, you’re Prez of UWA and you’re calling me…that’s awesome.” Now the thing with UWA is, I was a HUGE fan. I tried so hard, so many times, to get in there, because that’s where all the noise was happening. The traditional crowd stuck with CSWA, but the new fans were into UWA, that’s where the business was headed, and Quentin Sullivan buying the company from Avery Prosser made it even bigger. Quentin killed off a lot of wannabees, man. He signed their talent, made them into stars, rinse and repeat. That’s pretty much why ACW failed, because they didn’t have the money to keep the cream of the crop, didn’t have the brains to know what to do with them, and when UWA, AACW, WFW started signing away their biggest draws…that was it. Game over. No more TV, no more crowds, no more ACW. Bye bye. They let the inmates run the prison, which was a problem, and eventually became part of the problem in UWA, but we’ll get to that.
So Quentin’s on the line, says he’s a fan of my work, and has an idea for an angle that he wants me in on. I told him I’d love to work in Philly, and the rest was history. I had a contract the next week, six figures motherfucker, and that was that. I left ACW without prior notice, they didn’t care, and I wound up bringing Alex with me. By that time I had worn out my welcome with Brad and Ryan anyway.
BROWN: Did you know what the angle was when you signed?
PC: Hahaha, no. Good thing too, cause I would’ve worked it for free.
BROWN: Tell us about that. They brought you in to work with Troy Windham, right?
PC: Specifically, yeah. You remember what it was like…Troy Windham was THE SHIT. My tagline was always “PC Is the shit.” But no, Troy Windham was the shit, brother, he was the real McCoy. By far, BY FAR, the biggest draw at the time, and the biggest draw in the history of this business. Hornet made money, Melton made money, Manson made money, Doc made money, Randalls made money, but Troy Windham MADE MONEY. They built Troy up for a run in UWA, with the “show Troy the money” angle, still one of the hottest angles of all time, which hit it’s peak I’d say around Random Rumble ’97. Then they put the belt on that elegant ASSCLOWN Javid Dones, hard worker, good booker, one of the smartest minds in the business at the time, but truth be told…he was an assclown. The guy could have had everything, but he burned and fizzled out. He was a better booker than he was a gimmick, and he sucked in the ring, but he was smart, he was Sullivan’s right hand, dealt with all the boys, and I think Sully was just repaying him. But this was before I came in. I had friends there at the time, so it’s really just second-hand.
Anyway, Troy stopped working the World Title scene and started feuding with Sullivan, this time as a heel. They made him a heel stable, The Frat, but it was Frat 2.0 since they did it once as a face, and Frat 2.0 was Troy, Bandit, me, Alex, and some douche named Red Headed Step Child. My second match in the company, SECOND MATCH, they had me go over Tex Wayne for the Mid-Atlantic title. It was unbelievable, man. In less than a few months, I went from being nobody in ACW to carrying gold in UWA, getting heat as Troy Windham’s stablemate. Way, way too cool.
BROWN: So you get to UWA and get your first sort of sustained push…What was the company like?
PC: Wow, how should I answer this? Well for me it was one giant party. That was MY UWA experience. And anyone you talk to from back then has their own, because the first thing anybody learned about the UWA locker room was it was full of cliques. Lucky for me, I was in good with Troy, Miles, Manson, Ares, Alex, and Sullivan liked me well enough. And like I said, it was a party. It was work, but it was fun, and we lived like Kings. Then you had the Dones/Steele/Canyeta triumvirate, which was all work and no play. Those guys lived and breathed the business, they worked hard, but you know…like anyone else, they wanted theirs, know what I mean? And who were the last three champions in that company…?
BROWN: Dones, Steele, and Canyeta?
PC: Exactly. They had pull, big time, but they had heat with a lot of the boys. Miles and Troy were cool with Steele, but had heat with Dones and Canyeta. Alex and Manson were cool with Canyeta, but had heat with Steele. Southern was being held down, at least to many of the boys. He kinda became the common cause, “If Shane gets over, there’s hope for the rest of us.” I don’t mean like he sucked, I mean…he was indicative of the future star talent that wasn’t getting it’s chance. In retrospect, no one was pushing new talent like UWA, at least not in the big time. But ya know, everyone thought they were a step away from the World Title. Not me of course. I knew my place, and was just happy to be making money. My push was a big step up from where I was, and PC wasn’t the type of gimmick they were gonna strap with a World Title. So hey, as long as the beer was cold and I was getting the friendly neighborhood discount on pills, I was all set.
BROWN: And towards the end, did you notice any change in UWA? Did people know it was going out of business?
PC: Uh…I don’t know if anyone really saw it going out of business, except maybe the people who were real close to Sully. I dunno, if Troy knew he never told me. But the factors that drove it out of business were definitely snowballing. Everybody knows what went down at Random Rumble ’99…
BROWN: That was when it was decided last second that Michael Sparks would win.
PC: Yeah, but that was just the final Jenga block that sent the rest tumbling over. The reality is, there was a lot of mistrust being sowed between the top guys, Dones was falling out of favor with Sully, Troy was talking about going back to CSWA, and it just got out of control. All the bullshit was getting to Sully, and Random Rumble pushed him over the edge.
I’d say the first incident that got the ball rolling on UWA’s collapse was when Steele went over Miles. If you remember, “Cocky” Craig Miles was getting major pops, “Troy” pops y’know? Everyone thought he was the second-coming, and that’s how he was being built. Steele was over, but he wasn’t the “God’s gift to heels” they were marketing him as. He replaced Dones as the top heel, and he was just raping everybody. Steele was the champ, and nobody could touch him. Now I didn’t know this at the time, but from what I’ve heard since from Canyeta himself, Miles was originally supposed to go over for the belt at the PPV. I forget which PPV it was. Apparently, when word got out to the top guys, and I’m talking Canyeta, Dones, and Steele…all three. This is from the mouth of Canyeta himself, he swears it up and down. They thought it made no sense to put the belt on Miles at the PPV. Their reasoning was that if the belt only changes hands at PPVs, nobody’s gonna wanna work the main event for TV, and it’ll be like a death race to get the PPV shot. So apparently, all three of them went to Sullivan, begged him not to strap Miles, and Steele wound up getting the booking reversed.
BROWN: Wow, Steele who was friends with Miles.
PC: Yup. How’s that? Here ya go buddy, big white cock right up your ass. Although I should say that Miles and Steele weren’t exactly best friends. They didn’t have heat, but there was a definite professional rivalry between them. After that, there was some serious mistrust between Miles and Canyeta, Steele too. Especially since the guy who eventually ended Steele’s run was…lo and behold, Carlos Canyeta.
BROWN: Did you think less of Canyeta for it?
PC: At the time I did, but looking back…could you really blame the guy? He was working the system to get to the top. Who the fuck hasn’t done that, in the main event? I felt bad for Craig, but if he wanted to be champion he shoulda been working Sully like the three douche amigos were. Y’know? I don’t think Craig really cared that much about being champion. I guess at the time he probably did, but years later I think it was just the principle of the thing that bothered him. The fact that a clique could influence the Prez at will. He might not even know to this day the details behind why he lost, but he assumed it was some political BS with Canyeta and Steele behind it. And when NFW was created, a lot of that was the impetus, and Craig was very protective of Sully to make sure people weren’t working him hard like in UWA.
BROWN: Why do you think Sullivan listened to them?
PC: To Steele and them? Sullivan’s a smart guy, he’s a business guy, and if you appeal to his business sense, he’s open to discussion. They made a case that Miles winning at the PPV would be bad for business and bad for the locker room, and there was no rebuttal from anyone else. Craig might not have made a strong enough case FOR himself. Who knows. But Sully’s about the money, first and foremost, and if you can make him money, if you can carry the ball, he’ll listen to what you have to say. Look, I don’t care whether it’s Sully, Dan Ryan, Chad Merritt, you take any booker in this business…and if he has a handful of guys working hard for him, harder than anyone else, and their focus is the business and the booking, they’re gonna have influence. So I’m not sure it was a Sully thing so much as a…you got three guys who decided to form a power triumvirate sorta thing.
Again, it all went downhill after Random Rumble when the locker room imploded- that was the end. Sully had enough of the drama, the BS, and he called it a day. Part of the problem was also payroll, but I think Sully got burned out and also got the feeling Philly was all tapped out, that UWA went as far as it could, and it was time to move on. Then of course came NFW, and Sully made his REAL money.
ALLEN: Before you get into NFW, quickly talk about what happened at Random Rumble and the aftermath.
PC: Oh God, this again? Haha. OK, so right before Random Rumble, you have Southern getting over, Manson and Ares getting over, Alex is over, I’m over, Maelstrom was brought in, he was over, Anarky was over, lots of guys were getting over. Couple with that with two things: one, Steele up and left after he felt they killed his character in the Canyeta match. Which, granted, they didn’t do him any favors by having him job three times in one night, but then again…you should’ve jobbed to Miles, you whiney fuck, now you’re bitching cause your loss to Canyeta wasn’t epic enough? Get the fuck out of here, you overrated crybaby bitch. Canyeta caught heat for a lot of the politics, but lemme tell you…Steele was responsible for half of it.
ALLEN: Did the boys have heat with Steele?
PC: I mean, I didn’t talk to the guy much, but the few experiences I had weren’t good. I can tell you right now, me, Manson, Alex, Ares, we thought the guy was a punk, straight up. Thought his shit don’t stink. Yeah, I’d be over as shit if GUNS went to bat for me, too.
Anyway, Steele was out, he wasn’t gonna be in the Rumble. Dones, who was Sully’s right hand man, fell out of favor with Sully and left. So no Dones. Canyeta was champ and would start the night by defending against Troy, so no Canyeta and no Troy. So let’s see…no Steele, no Dones, no Canyeta, no Troy…that means Sully had to elevate someone who was previously unelevated, and they would be getting a title shot at the end of the night. The boys were so fucking hyped, I thought they were gonna stroke out. Thing is, Sully kept the booking from everybody until literally the NIGHT OF. It was only an hour before start time that we learned who was going over.
ALLEN: Mike Sparks?
PC: Not Manson, not Southern, not Anarky, not Alex, not Miles, not any of the guys who’d been busting their ass, paying their dues, saying their prayers, eating their vitamins (laughter)…not the guys who people were SCREAMING to put over. Mike, fucking, Sparks. The X-MAN! Dude…shit ERUPTED. And it eventually wore on Sully. And to make matters worse, they didn’t know who was going to win the main event until match time. A whole locker room of people, guys with big, fragile egos, were convinced Mike Sparks was gonna be the new UWA champion. Of course, Canyeta wound up going over, but shit had officially hit the fan.
ALLEN: And what’s your take on it?
PC: (shrugs) Eh, Sully botched it, but again…he was trying to think outside the box. This guy turned nobodies into stars, repeatedly. He knew he could get creative and most of the time it would work out. It just so happens, this time, he got a little too creative at the worst possible time, and it just blew up. It wasn’t in his personality to start sending out fuck yous to everybody, so he took his ball and went home. He said, “Fuck it, now nobody’s making money,” essentially, and years later him and Craig would open NFW based on the lessons they learned from UWA. On the other hand, Sully’s been successful everywhere he’s gone. Maybe in retrospect we should’ve all calmed the fuck down and rode the gravy train to Disney Land, but again…egos were involved. (shrugs) What’s that line from ‘Point Break’? “We were young, dumb, and full of cum.”
