Kenny Dykstra Explains Last Year’s Handshake Deal With WWE
Fans of nostalgia got a nice treat last year when The Spirit Squad returned to WWE as part of The Miz-Dolph Ziggler feud. Former members Kenny (Kenny Dykstra) and Mikey (Mike Mondo) returned to help The Miz put an end to Ziggler’s (formerly Nicky in the Spirit Squad) career.
While they were unsuccessful, the duo did stick around for a handful of appearances on SmackDown Live before eventually leaving the company.
Appearing on the List and Ya Boy podcast, Kenny Dykstra spoke about how his WWE return last year came about.
“I got a phone call one Monday, I got home from work and the phone rang, and it was (WWE Senior Director of Talent Relations) Mark Carrano. I didn’t answer it cause I thought, ‘Oh great, they found something that I must have broken from before.’ Like I owed them money. Something ridiculous, I don’t know why I thought that. Then he text me and said, ‘Call me as soon as possible.’ So, I call him and he says, ‘Hey, next week, can you be in San Diego for SmackDown?’ I said, ‘Sure, I guess so. Yeah, I’ll do it.’
“Then (Mike) Mondo texts me and is like, ‘Dude, we’re going to Smackdown as The Squad.’ I was like, ‘Ok, lets do it. Who knows.’” Originally, they said ‘We’re going to bring you in for one week.’ That was it. Just that one SmackDown. We did it and Vince liked it and he came up to me afterwards and said, ‘I’ll see you at the pay-per-view at No Mercy.’
“Every week, we would fly home on Wednesday, then Thursday they would email us with our confirmation that they need us on TV next week. We never had a contract. It was just a handshake deal.
“They trusted us to do business right and we just kept doing business by them, and one day they just stopped calling. But, that’s just how the business works, I guess”
Dykstra also said that people in the back were a bit surprised at the handshake deal nature and WWE allowing The Spirit Squad to pin WWE SmackDown tag team champions Heath Slater and Rhyno in a non-title match.
“Mike Chioda was saying, ‘This has never been done before. They put you guys over on the tag team champions in a non-title match. You’re not even under contract. They’re giving you a live microphone out there. They trust you guys, in a way.’ At any given point we could have said, alright, let’s just really beat up Dolph Ziggler in the ring. Give me the live microphone and I’ll just talk trash. At any point in time, that could have happened.”
The Spirit Squad may have been done with WWE television, but they stuck around on the Independent scene for a bit following their WWE return. The duo appeared at Ring of Honor and House of Hardcore events earlier this year. And who knows, if Ziggler is still struggling to come up with a gimmick, The Squad might be needed again.
