Brian Knobbs Talks XWF, Randy Savage’s Departure, More
Former WWF and WCW Tag Team Champion Brian Knobbs recently spoke to David Penzer about the short-lived XWF.
You can hear the full podcast "Sitting Ringside" with David Penzer at this link, and submitted highlights below.
So let's set the time. The time is 2000, 2001, WCW was sold to WWF leaving a big void in people's viewing habits who were used to having two major shows. Then you were the one who got this XWF company going. So, tell me about how that happened?
"Well, there was no real place to wrestle anymore. A lot of the guys were actually personal friends of mine. I came up with a Brainiac idea to get everyone in the wrestling business who got along to create a family atmosphere, and go out there and do what we knew how to do best, which is professional wrestling. We'd get all the top talent that Vince (McMahon) let go to start our own league.
"We started out with me, Greg 'The Hammer' Valentine, we even had the 'Macho Man' involved at the start! There was a guy by the name of Kevin Harrington (Shark Tank) who was a very intelligent man who had connections. Kevin Harrington ended up hooking us up with Walter Frank, who was very interested in investing in a wrestling company. We then created the name XWF."
The XWF roster:
"We had guys like Bobby 'The Brian' Heenan, Tony Schiavone, Rowdy Piper, The Road Warriors, Mr. Perfect! I mean you name it, they were there! It was a fantastic atmosphere! I've never done this in my life, I knew the wrestling business, so I figured, lets at least have a place where people can turn the channel if they don't want to watch the WWF. That was main premise of getting it done!"
"Macho Man" Randy Savage leaving XWF:
"Macho Man didn't like the way the plan was going; so he ended up coming up to me and said, 'Knobbs, I don't think this for me'. I thanked him, wished him the best, and told him, 'whatever you think, but thank you for your input'. Macho Man said, 'I'm just going down a different road', and I said, 'no problem!' I said, 'If we can get this thing going maybe you can come back again'!
