Reported by Adam Martin of WrestleView.com
On Monday, August 22, 2005 at 4:33 PM EST

Jimmy Van of JimmyVan.com sent in the following:

Part two of my nearly two-hour interview with former WWE star The Genius, aka "Leaping" Lanny Poffo, is now online in Windows Media and Real Audio formats at JimmyVan.com!. You can also listen to a five-minute preview clip of the interview in Real Audio format at this link:

http://www.jimmyvan.com/audio/lanny/part2/lanny-081705-clip2.ram

Here is a text transcript from this 37-minute portion of the interview…

When talking about the poems you said Vince asked you to do them and you weren't sure how you would do that and be a babyface. But you used to always use your poetry to rip on your heel opponents. Did any of them ever wanna know beforehand what you were going to say?

"Yeah a couple of times, and if they wanted to know I'd tell them," Lanny said. "But it was my gimmick and I used it to the best of my ability. It was my time to shine. And I tried to keep them short unless I had a big point to make. Of course when I turned villain, it was a lot easier." Lanny said his first match as The Genius was in Boston, and he recited a portion of his poem that night that ripped the Boston Bruins. "Oooh, man almost had a riot!" he said.

Somebody else you seemed to target with your poems was Jesse Ventura when he was a WWE announcer. What did Jesse think about all that?

"Jesse's a fantastic guy, he was so far above everything. He just reacted the way he should," Lanny said. "In my first book, "Wrestling with Rhymes" that's available at Amazon.com, there's a big picture of Jesse, a beautiful illustration, and a couple of Jesse poems that were on the air." Lanny put over the artwork in his book and said he likes art where you can see what's being drawn, plus he likes music where you can hear the words, and he dislikes music like rap.

Speaking of rap music, what'd you think of your brother's rap CD?

"I wrote one of the songs on there, the one for Mr. Perfect. Randy came up to me and said, 'Hey you were his friend and so was I, do something for him,' and I said, okay. But do I like rap music, no. Did that album change how I felt about it, no. I spell rap with a 'C'."

You were talking earlier about the suit of armor. I remember a bunkhouse brawl style of battle royal where you wrestled in a suit of armor...

"I did about 15 of those and when I was done, the suit of armor was destroyed," said Lanny. "It was theatrical armor that you would use if you were going to be playing Sir Lancelot in Camelot. But it was not real armor. It cost me $1,800, it was an idea I had on how to get over in this business. It worked to an extent, it didn't set the world on fire, but at least I was trying."

There was a battle royal on Saturday Night's Main Event prior to WrestleMania 2. There was a moment where Andre the Giant headbutted you and threw you over the top to eliminate you, and moments later the camera got a shot of you being stretchered out and a bloody mess. Was that intentional?

"It was unintentional, Andre headbutted me right in the head," said Lanny. "He always liked me and he was really sorry about it, but that's what happened. He was a very strong guy. And his head is like three heads... my head is just like one and a half. Maybe he was trying too hard. But I never begrudged him for it, the poor guy was in so much pain. I wrestled him in 1975 when he was excellent. And then I saw him again in 1985 and he was a physical wreck. And it's very well documented that the last few years of his life were miserable. And you know what the greatest thing in his life was?"

JV said the movie ("The Princess Bride").

"Yes," said Lanny. "And can you blame him? He was great in that movie. That was his favorite thing he'd ever done, and why not? ... With a face like his you didn't need an agent did you?" joked Lanny.

JV mentioned the passing of actor Matthew McGrory, who was filming a biopic about Andre.

"Well a lot of people that have acromegaly, they die young, because it's too much work for the heart to do," said Lanny.

Nora "Molly Holly" Greenwald did an interview talking about difficulties getting footage from WWE for her DVD project, and she said you once asked for footage of you and Andre the Giant, and WWE demanded a large fee for the footage. Is there any truth to that?

"No, I don't know what you're talking about," said Lanny. "It doesn't ring a bell. I've never known Molly Holly to lie about anything. She might be mistaken, or you might have your facts wrong. Any time I've ever needed anything from WWE, they've always busted their asses to comply with me. I'm not saying that you didn't hear it, and I'm not saying that Molly lied, she's never lied in her life. But it's possible that somebody's mistaken. Unless it had something to do with my infomercial. In that case, you would... you couldn't blame WWE for wanting to wet their beak a little. Yeah... the Tony Little thing, maybe that was it. It just didn't... the thing is, I've known Molly Holly for all these years, and she is the finest person that ever walked down the pike. So if she said something, you can take it to the bank."

I saw this non-WWE wrestling magazine, I think maybe Pro Wrestling Illustrated, and they had pictures from a brother vs. brother match between you and Randy Savage. This was at a time when it wasn't known that you two were brothers as far as WWE was concerned. Did you guys have the chance to work together much in WWE?

"I worked with him twice, once in Nassau Coliseum and once in Hartford, Connecticut, I think," Lanny said. "And that was only because it was a man short and they just had to juggle around the card a bit. The incident that you are referring to happened in Memphis Coliseum. Bill Apter was there with Jerry Lawler, it was their idea. And they said, let's have a match between you guys with nobody in the audience. I hate to break it to you but all the pictures were posed. And everything was scripted and they ended it in a draw. If it were real, I wouldn't have lasted five seconds with "The Macho Man", and that is the truth. It was all scripted, planned, whatever. 'I'll do a picture like this, and I'll do one like that.' Even some of the ones where I was suspended in mid-air, we did the move, but it was all planned."

You mentioned the book that you released in 1988 called "Leaping Lanny: Wrestling with Rhyme". That was written not only while you were still in WWE, but that was written before wrestling books were considered fashionable. Mick Foley wrote his book, and then this huge wave of books came out...

"But keep in mind one thing as I interrupt you... Mick Foley wrote his books. "Leaping" Lanny or Lanny Poffo wrote his books. I don't think anybody else did, it was always Ric Flair, written by Keith Elliott Greenburg... that's who wrote the Freddy Blassie book, that's who's writing the Billy Graham book. He's the great writer. And then they've got Ole Anderson who wrote a book, how corporate America killed wrestling and blah, blah, blah, when it should have been titled, "I'm the Greatest and Everybody Else Sucks" ... and then he was on a radio show saying, 'Well Lanny Poffo can't even write his name.' Well how come his book was written by Scott Teal, and my book was written by Lanny Poffo? Both my books. Even if my books are lousy, at least they're mine."

Why would Anderson even say that about you?

"Oh, because he can't live unless he makes everything else dead around him. I'll tell you a little incident that happened. When I was working in 1976-77, working for Charlotte, North Carolina, that's why George Scott and I are friends, he was the booker. There was one particular wrestler that used to draw sellout crowds every night no matter who his opponent was. Maybe you've never heard of him... "Nature Boy" Ric Flair. Well they used to run three towns a night, and the town with Ric Flair would always draw a sellout crowd, even if it was the presidential election for Jimmy Carter, even that night, even that Tuesday. And the other two towns, you know Ole Anderson would say, 'How do they expect us to draw with the presidential election?' At the YMCA the next day I said, 'What town were you in? I was in Fayetteville. We had a sellout.' 'Who was on top?' (Ole asked) 'Ric Flair.' (Lanny replied) Case closed. Maybe the polls were closed early that day. So then Ole Anderson used to knock Ric Flair behind his back and then kiss his ass to his face all the time. So he would be holding court in the dressing room making excuses why the Andersons vs. Bravo and Woods weren't drawing again. And he said, 'Well don't forget, Ric Flair entertains them, but we convince them.' And I said, 'How do you convince an empty chair?' And he said, 'How dare you talk to me, in this business? Just for that, we're gonna teach you a lesson tonight.' It was a battle royal, everybody was in the ring. And when the ring was half empty, he got Gene Anderson to try to stretch me. Gene Anderson unbeknownst to me, the late Gene Anderson, got behind me, picked me up in the air, took me down, I did a short sit-out, pinned him, and kept him pinned while Tim Woods and Dino Bravo and my brother are laughing their asses off. And I wouldn't let him up. Now if I were another kind of a person... I liked Gene Anderson... if I were another kind of a person, I would have put a... hold on him and made him submit or die. But instead I just kept him pinned. And everybody was saying... so when I let him up I said, 'Okay Ole, your turn,' and he turned white. He didn't wanna face me. But what I found out was that Gene Anderson was the tougher of the two Andersons. And what they didn't know was that at any weight, even my brother's skinniest weight, that Lanny Poffo was the weakest of the two Poffos."

One other thing about the "Wrestling with Rhyme" book, you worked for WWE at the time, why do you think WWE never got behind it and promoted it?

"What happened was, it was poor timing," said Lanny. "As soon as the book was released finally, I had the opportunity of a lifetime to become The Genius. So why would they wanna promote a book like that when I was no longer valuable as "Leaping" Lanny, I was now The Genius. See let's face it, Vince McMahon, Linda McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, all of the McMahons together... Shane... never did anything but help me. Even in that little thing, which is better, to have them get behind your book, or to give you a new persona of The Genius and then a couple of months later when it started catching on, Hulk Hogan got interested. And then I was teamed up with Mr. Perfect, one of the greatest workers that ever lived. I held the rope and he did all the work. You know, it's the way it is. I cried when he died, and I was absolutely shocked to find out that it was an acute cocaine overdose because I promise you, the only thing on his mind when we were together was passing Vince's drug tests. Those were impromptu drug tests, you never knew when they were gonna be. And they'd do one right after the other just because they knew you'd be celebrating."

I heard that you did a run as Gorgeous George but it never made TV. What was that about?

"I bleached my hair blonde, I bought all these gimmicks for Gorgeous George... The proper question for you to ask was, with all of Ted Turner's billions, why did Vince McMahon still beat him? The answer is, because Ted Turner wasn't running it... the people that were entrusted to run it were spending Ted Turner's money as if it was Ted Turner's money instead of their own. And that's the only thing about Ole Anderson, in his book that I agree with. And that is the fact that you have to be a little more frugal. Well, when it was decided that I was gonna be Gorgeous George that was one thing, then the bookers got fired, and new bookers came in... then I got lost in the shuffle. In the meantime I'd keep bleaching my hair blonde for a year. And I can guarantee you that I wouldn't have made it as Gorgeous George because after a year's time... you know how fantastic Ric Flair looks with his blonde hair? Well my hair was bleached raw. My natural color... I just don't have it. First it got brassy, then it started breaking off. I couldn't look like Gorgeous George, that's a tough gimmick. Then your roots go dark and all this stuff and you've gotta keep up with it. What a hard thing to do and I'm not that kind of a guy, I'm an un-kept guy. I'm not a metrosexual. I'm not walking around like Nick Bockwinkel where he always... three weeks in France and Italy, and he still, the pleats on his cuffs were still sharp, and everybody else looked like their food was on their chest."

Did WCW give the Gorgeous George name to Randy's girlfriend (at the time) as a rib on you?

"No Randy had bought the name. Randy gave it to Randy's girlfriend... Randy was helping his little brother, and then he was helping his little girlfriend at the time. Randy's never done anything but help his little brother. The little brother's not mad at Randy. Unless I wanna be one of those guys that bites the hand that feeds them, and then I'll join the ranks of every other ingrate in the business."

You worked Hulk Hogan on SNME and you guys headlined some other shows. I heard that Hulk Hogan told you he didn't like the Genius character...

"No. No it never happened, I don't know what you're talking about. But I'll tell you that night was the biggest crowd ever, dollar wise, in a non-PPV event at the time, in Los Angeles Coliseum. Another box office record was smashed in Oklahoma City at the Marriott. So whether he cared for the character or didn't care for the character... maybe the run was up. But see the thing is, even if it had been said, I'd have chosen to ignore it. Because I love Hulk Hogan for... he was the epitome of wrestling and he chose a jabroni like me to work with. And I'm thrilled to have done it... So I don't have to say it, I could have the experience to drink from the silver chalice of success for one brief shining moment, because in life that's all you get, if at all. So anyway, whether it was said or not, I love Hulk Hogan, and I forgive him or whatever, and besides, how much of The Genius could you stand anyway? I mean I like to see a variety of wrestlers. I get tired of the same boring characters. The act gets tired after a while, you need new people."

Who came up with the idea for you to recite the proclamation at Randy's coronation for King of the Ring?

"Actually, I remember Jack Lanza came up to me, he was an agent. And he says, 'Hey Vince wants you to do this, and this, and this, and this,' and I said, okay. And I recited it, and I thought it went very well... I know one thing, I had my scroll in one hand, and Jimmy Hart who was a fantastic guy, I told him I had a little problem - I had to hold the sceptor, the scroll, and the microphone. And I couldn't... no... I don't know if I held the sceptor, but I had to take my cap off and place it near my heart since I never did that as The Genius, I thought that would be pretty great. So I knew I didn't have three hands, so I had Jimmy Hart... there's a picture of that on my LannyPoffo.com website, you'll see Jimmy Hart... his skinny little arm is stuck inside my armpit holding the microphone for me. And Jimmy Hart's been in show business, so I said, 'Make sure that the urethra of the microphone is near my mouth,' which is kind of... if you know your anatomical penile..."

I read that you once recited all 50 American states in less than a minute while wearing a blindfold?

"Well I could do that also, but it was the Presidents." Lanny then recited all of the U.S. presidents from Washington to George W. in under a minute. Lanny then told a story about two of his teachers who noticed him for his writing when he'd previously only ever been noticed for athletics. He liked getting praised for that and started putting pen to paper.

Let's talk about some of the biggest matches of your career. There was the one vs. Hulk Hogan on Saturday Night's Main Event, you beat him when he was the WWE Champion...

"Of course I might have cheated a little, we used a little chicanery," Lanny said.

JV said back then, Hogan rarely ever lost, even by DQ or count-out.

"Right but if it were real, I'm sure I couldn't beat him to the bathroom," said Lanny. "Of course that doesn't go for "The Macho Man" but it goes for me."

You had a tag match, you and Perfect vs. Hogan and Warrior on SNME.

"Hogan and Warrior, yes. That was when Hogan and Warrior turned on each other," Lanny said.

And you had the match with Brutus Beefcake at the Royal Rumble when he gave you a little trim.

"Yes, and I wound up... I believed in a little retribution, a little comedy," Lanny said. "I always would try to be humiliated and try to get my dignity back. I always tried to incorporate that type of comedy into the character... losing my hair... what I would do on some of the house shows is... Hogan said, 'What do you wanna do at the end?' and I said, 'Hey, after you beat me'... I knew the program was over, he was about to go make a movie... 'Capture me, put me over your knee, pull my pants down, and spank my butt rosy red.' And when they pulled my pants down and spanked my butt, I mean, that's entertainment. And then I'd go down for a while and I sold my butt, know what I mean? And I said, 'Slap it real hard until it turns red, because it will,'" he joked. Lanny joked that the sun had never hit there, except once in Sydney, Australia when he was on a nude beach, and he spent two hours there and when he came home on the plane, it was uncomfortable.

Where there ever any ideas pitched for you in WWE that never came to fruition?

"I don't remember," said Lanny. "Besides, I don't believe in opening up champagne bottles and drinking from them, only having to put them back. I only believe in stuff that happened yesterday. I don't get all upset about things, that's why I probably look so good at 50. I concentrate on the things that I can control." Lanny said he couldn't control the booking, but he could control his finances, so he saved his money. He said he's a certified credit counselor so he doesn't have to dip into his investments.

You talked about kindness and treating the fans properly. I read that one of your traveling mates was Rick Martel because he had the same mindset as far as staying out of trouble and staying away from drugs.

"You're affected by the company you keep," Lanny said. "Rick Martel was a serious Christian... there is peer pressure. Peer pressure that's positive, draws you to the positive. Peer pressure that's negative, you will eventually succumb to it. So we hung together because neither one of us wanted to pollute our bodies. When we went to restaurants, we didn't act like wrestlers, we acted like citizens, and were not noticed. If somebody asked for our autograph, we would stop what we were doing and sign... it doesn't take any time to sign it. People say, 'After I'm done eating.' No, do it now. You're not that busy. You can stop a little bit. What are you, King Kong Bundy? Then I can see it, you know?" Lanny joked.

Do you still talk to Rick at all now?

"Yes, he has a beautiful little Chinese girl that he adopted from Beijing, China. He actually filled out all the paperwork, he and his wife went there... I'm gonna visit Rick probably this year, maybe next year..."

Is he back in Quebec?

"He's in Quebec City... I take my father to church every Sunday, he went with, when he was visiting here. He's just an excellent person. He's not the only excellent person I have ever met but definitely the most excellent person I have ever met."

There was a rumor claiming that Randy got you a six-figure contract in WCW to basically sit at home and do nothing. You've talked about the Gorgeous George idea and how nothing came of it. What happened in WCW?

"Well it was, beware of getting in business with unsuccessful people. As much as I dislike Ole Anderson who is an excruciatingly putrid waste of human tissue, he is right about the fact that the WCW was an improperly run, ridiculously run organization. Now if you worked for WWF or WWE, it cannot be run ridiculously because Vince McMahon is in the trenches. Linda McMahon is in the trenches. Shane McMahon has adapted himself to be in the trenches, and Stephanie is in there with her nose. And these are excellent people, they do not make mistakes. As soon as they make mistakes, they sever the mistake immediately. Where in WCW, you have people that are personally bankrupt trying to be in charge of millions of dollars... so what I was was a slow drip waste of money... I kept waiting by the phone hoping for my break. The break never came... maybe it's the reason I am where I am today but so what? And so be it. I'm not going to give the money back."

You weren't the only one, there were lots of guys collecting paychecks and the company had nothing for them.

"And some of the guys were faking injuries... but my brother went out there with injuries because he's a team player and he's that kind of guy," Lanny said.

I read an interview you did previously where you were asked whether you're jealous of your brother, and you said there's a difference between jealousy and happiness...

"There's a fork in the road, you can be jealous, or you can be happy. I always choose happiness. Jealousy is one of the seven deadly sins," said Lanny. "If I've got two loaves of bread under each arm, why must I feel jealous of anybody? Why can't I just be happy for myself? If that's the way you look at it, then why isn't Randy jealous of David Letterman or Jay Leno? Because there's always somebody better than you. The thing is, I would rather just be thankful and live each day as if it was a gift instead of a burden. It is a burden if you're so competitive or so ego-driven that you can't live unless you make everything else dead around you."

Part two of my nearly two-hour interview with former WWE star The Genius, aka "Leaping" Lanny Poffo, is now online in Windows Media and Real Audio formats at JimmyVan.com!. You can also listen to a five-minute preview clip of the interview in Real Audio format at this link:

http://www.jimmyvan.com/audio/lanny/part2/lanny-081705-clip2.ram

Visit www.LannyPoffo.com for more on The Genius!