Lariat's Shoot Interview Series: YouShoot with Bob Holly

[It's...Baylariat!]

Once again, your friendly Lariat has watched another great shoot interview from Kayfabe Commentaries. This series is called "YouShoot", which is a wrestling being fed questions through Youtube or other forums and are answered accordingly. I've watched many of them so far, but the more intriguing one I've recently saw comes from Bob Holly.

Most of us know Holly was known as Thurman "Sparky" Plugg, Bombastic Bob, and eventually, Hardcore Holly. He's also known as being a trainer on Tough Enough and for beating the hell out of Matt Cappotelli on the show.

Here's some interesting tidbits from his interview

• Bob Holly's passion is race cars and that's what he's been doing on his down time from wrestling.
• Holly was a jobber in WCW and mainly did jobs for the Horsemen.
• Vince McMahon pitched the "Sparky" Plugg gimmick to him. Holly accepted because he wanted to have a job.
• Holly grew tired of the name and decided to go to Vince and ask to have his character changed. He says McMahon agreed with the change.
• He mentions how he hated his hair when he was Bombastic Bob in the new Midnight Express.
• He liked being Hardcore Holly and was thankful to be employed.
• He mentioned the Bart Gunn knocking out Dr. Death Steve Williams during the Brawl-for-All really messed up the WWE's plans and pissed off management royally.
• Holly says he wouldn't have fought Butterbean under boxing rules.
• He misses Crash Holly, but wasn't that close to him.
• Mentions his reputation as a bully - says he's not a 'bully', and that he worked 'snug', not stiff.
• Says he beat the hell out of Rene Dupree in the back because of an unpaid parking ticket that Dupree received in Holly's rental vehicle. Holly says he gave him ample opportunity to fight back, but Dupree never did.
• Says he never broke anyone's nose, bones, or tried to hurt anyone in the ring. Also says JBL wasn't a bully either and they both beat up each other real good in the ring.
• Says he's fight Brock Lesnar in the UFC if the money was right.
• Doesn't hold any ill will toward Lesnar for the broken neck. Says Lesnar called constantly during his time off from injury.
• Mentions Angle breaking Holly's arm after a botched moonsault. Holly says Angle pannicked and tried to pin Holly immediately to get out of the ring, but when Holly kicked out, Angle pannicked.
• Also mentioned liking Smokey Mountain Wrestling and liking Jim Cornette and his booking down there.
• Has no plans to operate a wrestling school because it would interfere with him building and racing cars.
• He stresses he wasn't a bully and didn't go out of his way to hurt anyone. He just wrestled a certain style and would have expected the same in return.
• He also confronted the Kliq (Michaels, Hall, Nash) about them running their mouth and they never said another word to him. Also calls Hall a crybaby.
• Don't think he cared too much for Randy Orton or Mr. Kennedy.
• Says he was 'taking too many pills', but never went to rehab for painkiller addiction. He gave them up cold turkey and he's been clean ever since.

So based on what he's said, what are your thoughts on Bob Holly? Think he was a bully? Think he was gay? Did he kill Crash Holly?

 

[EastCoastFan]

Funny, Bob says JBL wasn't a bully but JBL himself has said he was, especially to Miz.

Everything I ever heard about Crash Holly's death was that his wife filed for divorce and he OD'd, his death later being ruled a suicide.

It's tough to say about Bob. There aren't that many people in the wrestling business who have said anything good about him besides Ivory and Crash. Fans don't seem to like him too much, calling him a bully and a jobber. I remember someone once saying that Vince Russo's greatest accomplishment in the WWF was making Bob Holly relevant.

 

[STFU Donnie]

The term bully has become the most over and misused word in recent years. I believe it has a very specific meaning and is not a catchall for any person who is aggressive in nature, willing to stand his/her ground, and will fight either physically or verbally when the situation calls for it.

JBL is/was a bully. By all accounts, he would target new or underneath talent for no reason other than he didn't like them/anointed himself sheriff and disapproved of some behavior/because he could. Then he would harass and bully them at every turn, in the locker room, in the hotel, and in the ring. And he always targeted those who could not and would not fight back and even long after it was clear that the target was not going to stand up for himself, JBL would continue to bully them until they either left or surpassed him on the card. That to me is the textbook definition of a bully...and JBL admits to everything he's been accused of, so there's no counterargument.

Bob Holly is a different case in my view. Chris Jericho writes about Holly in his 2nd book. Jericho had just started in WWE and after his huge hype and debut, he had fallen hard. The word on him backstage was that he was arrogant and aloof, acting as though he knew everything, his style did not fit the "WWE style which made for disjointed matches, and he was stiff and reckless. After a few months, Jericho was beginning to wonder if he was about to be released.

Enter Bob Holly. Jericho was paired with Holly and had what he said were his first great matches in WWE. Jericho said Holly was just great to work with. He could accommodate any style and if Jericho hit him hard, Holly gave it right back. Now if Bob was a bully, he would have jumped at the chance to bury the politically weak Jericho, the WCW guy with massive heat and no allies, in other words, a bully's dream. But he didn't, instead he treated Jericho with the same respect Jericho treated him and the result was the renewal of Jericho's confidence and the jumping off point for him to start showing Vince what he could do.

Where I think somebody like Rene Dupree calling Bob a bully is justified, in my view is more a case of Bob being an "old school" guy in a "new school" world, than him actually being a bully. Now their stories of what led to the confrontation differ slightly, but every conflict is told from each side's perception, so there's no point in picking sides. At the end of the day, both sides felt they were in the right and Bob felt as though he had been done wrong. In Bob's "old school" mind, he wanted to settle the issue like men and have at it. Now I'm not defending Bob so much as explaining that he wanted to fight Rene and have Rene fight him right back. But from Rene's perspective, he was a young guy, with few allies, and he was certain that if he fought back against a WWE mainstay and Undertaker ally, then he would be gone from WWE before he got his boots off, which is how he explained it in his own shoot. So while Rene felt he couldn't fight back, Bob thought he was just a pussy who wouldn't. In that regard, Bob was a bully...but he might not have realized the situation for what it was.

So I think where Bob deserves criticism is instances where he tried to treat colleagues as equals, just like the old days, ignoring that WWE was a highly political, modern corporate enterprise. The young guys who call Bob a bully have every right to feel that way. But where I would argue with them is that 1) Bob wanted them to fight back and if they had, the fight happens, one guy wins and that's where it ends without further repercussion. 2) any issue he had with a young guy came to a head and then ended. Sure, maybe they weren't buddies after the fact, but it was not like a true bully like JBL, who targeted guys and simply tormented them at every turn. So if you didn't fight Bob back, he didn't continue with you.

At the end of the day, every story has two sides and the truth lies somewhere between them. For every story that "so and so" is a jerk or a bully or whatever, there's always another story from somebody else about how cool or helpful or whatever that same guy is. If Rene Dupree and others hate Bob Holly then I'm sure they have reason...but I wasn't there, so I'm not about to take sides. I only know these guys from what I see on TV, so their personal issues for me are just that: personal. But I don't believe Bob was a bully, rather I think he was the kind of old school tough guy that wrestling sorely misses these days

Just an aside on that last statement: Go to Youtube and seek out the clip of the In The Ring DVD Bob did for RF. In the clip, Bob is in the ring instructing Sami Callahan and some other guy on the proper way to lock up. It is such a basic part of a match and to the untrained eye, just the meaningless, formulaic start of every match...that is until you watch Bob do it compared to the other guys and listen as he explains how it's done, the psychology behind it, and how it sets the tone and pace for the entire match. Having watched that 10 minute clip, I hope Bob can find time between racing to at least pop in on a wrestling school to work with young guys. Wrestling is becoming a lost art in so many ways and Bob needs to pass on his knowledge, even if he only does so in small doses.

 

[Poop Master Flex]

He's an old school dude, he was probably a bully but to be fair where he came from it wasn't uncommon to do the things he did, in his eyes he probably felt he had to do that stuff to people who disrespected him.

With Rene Dupree if anything Bob should have taken care of it after the match, not during as someone is giving you their body in the ring and they are at work, work is not the time to take care of this especially since it wasn't a work related problem. Work the match and kick his ass afterwards, that I would be understanding about.

I will say this though. If the young guys call Bob a bully and don't stand up for themselves then its really hard for me to be sympathetic. I've dealt with bullies at work and handled them accordingly, I would suggest these young guys stand up to Bob, I would at least like to pretend that you have some intestinal fortitude.

 

[HBsam31]

Bob Holly was probably a bully to some people, but I think he was just an old school guy that wanted to handle his business man to man. Hell if someone had a problem with me instead of all the talking and backstabbing I wish they would just challenge me to fight. You get mad, you fight, you move on. It seems like a far more sensible approach to things than how problems are handled these days. I understand they are working in a corporate environment, and you just can't go beating people up, but I just think it would make things a lot easier to settle things like men. I kind of respect bob Holly for this approach.