Gilbertti adds that when McMahon interviewed Andre the Giant back in the day he’d have Andre stand on something to make Andre tower over him even more than he legitimately did. He points out that WWE officials aren’t even trying to protect their performers in this sense anymore.
Lane points out that WWE legend and Hall of Famer, Bruno Sammartino passed away this past week. Gilbertti notes that he doesn’t really know much about Sammartino’s history so he’s refraining from commenting. Russo mentions that he’s a huge fan of Sammartino and although he never met him, he had one phone conversation with him back in 2000.
Russo called Sammartino because he wanted him to come to WCW to do a spot on WCW programming. Sammartino listened to Russo’s pitch and then responded by saying he’d need $5 Million to appear and do the spot. Russo laughs and says he’ll never forget that phone call.
Lane mentions that Rusev has been placed back into the Casket match against The Undertaker at next week’s Greatest Royal Rumble event. Gilbertti points out that Rusev was taken out of the match and replaced by Chris Jericho initially because Undertaker’s wife read a mis-quote from Rusev online and was offended by it. After they did some research WWE realized that Rusev didn’t say anything disparaging about Undertaker and was placed back in the match.
