DDP Reveals Regret Over Joining WWE Immediately After WCW’s Closure

WWE Hall of Famer Diamond Dallas Page (DDP) appeared on an episode of Six Feet Under, where he discussed various topics, including learning to take care of his body after matches.

DDP said, “Well, being an athlete. had many injuries. I went along. I mean, I was injured before I even started, you know? Because of my knee, I was walked out in front of a car when I was 12. It hit my right knee, my face bounced off the hood. It blew me out of my boots, and I flew 42 feet from the point of impact. So this knee, which is now the strong knee, this one has no meniscus anymore, partial ACL — these are all reasons why I knew to ice my knee way back then. So now we’re going to ice both [knees] and my back. That’s leaving the Power Plant. Because when I made that decision to wrestle, it went six weeks in and I was wrestling on the road. And that’s where I started to learn there. But when I wasn’t booked, I was back there, and back and forth. And then when I got let go, I could still go to the Power Plant. Because Jody Hamilton, remember Jody? Jody was amazing.”

On why he regrets going to WWE immediately after WCW closed and how he wishes he would have waited out his WCW deal like the others:

“What had happened, and this is what I had to do to get there. Me and Kevin Nash, Goldberg, and a couple of others had a lawsuit against WCW. Because they would just make [merchandise], and we weren’t getting paid royalties. Like, from bowling balls to, you know, you name it. The reason I had a bowling ball is I had someone send it to me, and I didn’t see any royalties from it. And then there were a bunch of things I didn’t see. So they weren’t going to give any less than 50 cents on the dollar for the money owed, if you wanted to leave. But because I had that suit, they would do 70 cents on the dollar. And Dusty [Rhodes] told me, “Do not go, take the money.” Because I left $487,000 on the table to go. And mainly because I was 45 at the time and my body was starting to feel it. My back, I broke my back, you know? And I was starting to feel it. And that would have put me out for like another nine months or something. And I was like, ‘You know, I’m gonna get Kevin.’ If I had listened to Kevin Nash, I think is one of the smartest businessmen in the business ever, I would have easily had a couple million dollars more in my account because of things that he told me to do, just out of experience. Some of the things he told me, I did, but that was a big one.”

You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.

(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)