Ron Simmons spoke with the Jobbing Out podcast about his historic WCW World Title win 25 years ago, becoming the first African-American to win a World Title. Here are some of the highlights:
Not knowing he was going to win the WCW Championship that night:
“That night there they saw a real moment in professional wrestling. Which is very rare that they see that kind of thing happen. Because there was no knowledge of that happening — it wasn’t even knowledge [for] me that that was going to take place that night. And I think that’s one of the biggest reasons [for] that reaction of the fans. Not only that, but they can see from the enthusiasm from me and all of the other guys that this was something that was not scripted of any kind. That wasn’t supposed to take place that night.”
Inspiring fans still today:
“It’s something that you never forget, that you always relive, and I’ve done that ever since that happened. … It’s something that you never get over and you are not only proud of yourself, but also it gives you special meaning when people come up to you and say, ‘Thank you for giving me that inspiration from when you won that title that night. Not just because of it being the title but because of it giving me inspiration to go on to do other things with my life.’ Now you can’t ask for a better compliment than that.”
Thinking the win would have a lasting impact:
“Absolutely not. And I would be lying if I said that because I had no idea of the impact that it was not only going to have on them but on me and on the world of professional wrestling. When I go back and look at that, just the crowd, just the look on their faces and the reaction of when that happened — listen, you’re not human if you don’t get chills when you look at that. Every time I see it … it just makes my flesh crawl and it almost brings me to tears, to be honest with you.”
LATEST NEWS var numposts = 5;var showpostthumbnails = true;var displaymore = false;var displayseparator = true;var showcommentnum = false;var showpostdate = false;var showpostsummary = true;var numchars = 100;
