It was always my thought that a little Diamond Dallas Page goes a long way.
But after watching the latest WWE related A&E Biography about DDP, I have to say that I wanted more.
After a trio of great two-hour Biography editions on Sgt. Slaughter, Randy Orton and Scott Hall, this was the first episode that was only an hour, and it wasn’t long enough. Not even close. They jumped over huge swaths of his life and career, and especially his post-wrestling accomplishments.
Back to my original point. He was okay as a manger in AWA. In his early days in WCW as a manager, it was much of the same. But then, after training at WCW Power Plant and floundering as an older wrestler, came his push in WCW. As much as I respect what he did, rising to be WCW World champion, it didn’t always resonate with me. It wasn’t channel-changing, but I got tired of his schtick, and WCW’s obsession with bringing in celebrities like Jay Leno as wrestlers was the wrong kind of heat with long-time fans. His WWE run was brief enough at least that it’s an afterthought.
Then we’d see him here and there, but mainly related to his DDP Yoga. Man, that guy knows how to promote, whether it was working out, a book, or an appearance. Still can.
On the Biography episode, we flew through his early days in New Jersey, where he and his sister, Sally Jane Smith, grew up with their grandmother, only seeing their mother occasionally. “I pretty much raised myself,” said Page (actually Page Falkinburg). He loved football and hockey, but was hit by a car as a teen and his knee was damaged. “No one was taking athletics away from me,” vowed Page, one of the first times he would not say no.
A wrestling fan, he started training in 1978 and actually wrestled a little bit before hurting his knee yet again. Boy, did I want more about this. Nothing about who he trained, where he worked. The fact is that he was never a 35-year-old rookie, he was just a guy who had a really long hiatus from pro wrestling.
Up next, he started bouncing and bartending at bars, which led to managing the bar, and then an invite to run a new place in Fort Myers, Florida. Page keeps running into wrestlers and gets a reputation that he likes to party with wrestlers, so they keep coming out.
Since Page did the radio spots for the night club, a TV news segment featured him, which found its way to the eyes of Rob Russen of the AWA – though Russen isn’t named. For that story, read this one — Music, boxing, wrestling promoter Rob Russen dies — where Page told SlamWrestling about that story.
The two years in the AWA are tossed away in the blink of an eye. And they didn’t do the little side detail that it was Page’s pink Cadillac at WrestleMania VI in Toronto, with him driving The Honky Tonk Man and Greg Valentine to the ring.
At 35-1/2, Page started training again, in Atlanta at the WCW Power Plant, and a neat little anecdote was Lex Luger telling Page not quit his day job.
His ex-wife Kimberly Page probably could have told another hour’s worth of stories without any issue, but she was great in spots (and still looks great, if you were curious). “It was stressful, yeah, it was hard to make ends meet,” she noted of Page training and not bringing in money.
But Page’s “inner voice” told him he would be a star.
Jake “The Snake ” Roberts re-enters his life — they’d met at the Fort Myers bar — and ends up living in the Page’s spare bedroom, and he and Dallas would watch wrestling all night. Roberts taught him psychology; “There was nobody on his side but me … nobody worked harder than him,” hissed the Snake.
DDP is an active wrestler in December 1991, and doesn’t really go anywhere for a few years. Dusty Rhodes mentors him (and Cody Rhodes is the talking head), and encourages DDP to think big, aim to be World champion or leave.
The business changed as WCW got hot with the arrival of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, and the subsequent formation of the NWO with Hulk Hogan.
“The bookers didn’t really see me as that top guy” but Hall and Nash talked the planning committee into Page being a star, and when DDP turned down the offer to join the NWO, it worked. “He went out through the crowd and a star is born,” said Nash.
It was great hearing from basketball legend Karl Malone about teaming with DDP against Dennis Rodman and Hulk Hogan, but he was probably given too much time given how short-lived that storyline was (but as a basketball fan, I loved it). WCW was after mainstream attention, and, as DDP said, it was “paparazzi insanity.”
“It was like being one of the Beatles there for a while,” claimed Page.
Burning the candle at both ends, DDP’s body gives out and he ruptured part of his back.
Kimberly was the one who suggested yoga, which helped Page get back in the ring, and laid out a post-wrestling path.
Unlike a well-planned out, mind-clearing and soul-enriching yoga class, the last 10 minutes crammed everything else into the Biography. It was a rush to the finish.
Page comes back and becomes World champion in the four-way dance with Hogan, Ric Flair and Sting. They don’t cover the terrible WCW stuff, like with David Arquette. His WWF run after the sale of WCW is not even mentioned.
Good God! We’re in 2005, and Kim and Dallas move to Los Angeles but split — but as still friends.
Bang! We’re in 2011 with footage from Dallas helping Roberts from the documentary The Resurrection of Jake the Snake.
“He loves helping people,” said Eric Bischoff, never mentioning how Page was a neighbor for years, and the dirtsheets always pointed that out, insinuating that their closeness helped DDP’s push.
We see a little footage of DDP teaching yoga, Roberts and Hall going into the WWE Hall of Fame — but not DDP’s induction — and we’re out.
If anything Dark Side of the Ring had more recent details on Page than Biography, talking about how he helped Scotty Riggs in its Buff Bagwell episode.
The extra voices weren’t given a lot of time, understandable with the shortened show. It was nice to see a few people that rarely get interviewed on these things, like Terry Taylor, but, again, we have to hear from the usual gang: Nash, Bischoff, Hogan, Mick Foley, Sam Roberts, Dave LaGreca.
It’s like comparing a 10-minute match to a 30-minute match; they can do the same thing, tell a story, but one is just so much more enjoyable and draws you in. This Diamond Dallas Page Biography was not satisfying and needed to be longer.
RELATED LINKS
- Diamond Dallas Page story archive
- Slam Wrestling’s WWE on A&E archive