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Should Hornswoggle Be In The WWE Hall Of Fame? WeeLC, Vince McMahon's Son, Anonymous Raw GM, Fit Finlay & More!
Dylan Postl (@dylanpostl) is a professional wrestler and actor who is best known as Hornswoggle from his time in WWE and Swoggle in Impact Wrestling. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about his new podcast called "Going Postl", his iconic career in WWE, how he got started, getting trained by Mr. Kennedy, being part of the storyline where he was Vince McMahon's son, his role as the anonymous Raw General Manager, being part of the first ever WeeLC match, his friendship with Ethan Page, coming out to AJ Style's music on Impact Wrestling, getting ask to be a member of Degeneration X and much more!
Listen to Dylan's podcast "Going Postl" here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/going-postl/id1664477039
For more information about Chris Van Vliet and INSIGHT go to: https://podcast.chrisvanvliet.com
“No. And it's one of those things like I get it, I do. I was the mascot, I was always known as the mascot. People didn't view me as such. But I knew it and it's fine. I never like to think about that, because if it never were to happen, I can only be let down rather than if for a crazy reason it does happen, it's the coolest surprise ever. But I never think about that. People ask me all the time and all that they say it to me all the time. But it's like, I don't like thinking that way. At this point. Now. It's like, it would just be cool for my son, like I have so much now where it's just like, I want to do fun things that I can bring him along to as well. Like, it's all I care about nowadays. And that's, hey, when can I get a AIW booking in Cleveland so we can go to this Hall of Fame or we go to the Pro Football Hall of Fame or the Rock Hall again and just get spaghetti pizza again, just like fun things that he can do along with me that at this point in my career, that's what I really enjoy is him coming along for the ride.”
“[Someone watching is like] Oh Dammit, he took a number! And everyone's all mad because they have that number in their draft pool and obviously I'm not gonna win. That stuff like that makes me feel Good. When I did the greatest Royal Rumble, when I had involvement in the Women's Royal Rumble a few years ago, all of that stuff, kind of just makes me feel good. And it makes me feel like, oh, they remember. And it's doing conventions, and doing wrestling shows still and being as active as I still am. It's just, it's fun that people remember and it's that they come up to me [and say] ‘hey, remember when you did this?’ Yeah. Or ‘hey, you remember when you did this?’ I didn't do that. And like this podcast recording the podcast with George Going Postyl. He brings up things that I did that I have no recollection of doing, and then they'll send me a picture. And I go, I did do that.”
“So it was kind of funny. Like, I always laughed during WWE stuff at times because it was like, how are we gonna get out of this one? Here comes Hornswoggle. It was like, we need someone to work with a guest host, here's Hornswoggle. It's like every, the guest host stuff was so much fun. My bar downstairs in my basement. I built a bar, and it's just signed stuff from the guest host era. Like every week, I was like, hey, what can I get Bob Barker to sign? Oh, Happy Gilmore, there's a random thing. Mike Tyson is gonna sign The Hangover, but just like fun stuff. Betty White signed a Golden Girls DVD set. So good. Floyd Mayweather gloves and Mike Tyson gloves down there. Ozzy Osbourne, I have a vinyl from him. I got a vinyl for my dad too which is like, mind blowing to my dad. But it always was like, What are we gonna go back on? Oh Hornswoggle is here, let's have him be the answer. Fine by me, like I don't care. You're putting me on television, on worldwide television. How dumb would I have been to be like, not gonna work for me, boss? Nope. Not gonna work. Mae Young gave birth to me as the New Year's Baby. I dressed as a cow. Like, the sh*t I didn't want to necessarily do, but then I sit back and go, I'm on worldwide television, getting paid to do my dream job from when I was four years old. Life could be a lot worse. Like, again, I don't take myself seriously. Although that's where an ego comes from. I don't, it is just what it is. I don't, I don't, I don't care enough about how I'm viewed. It doesn't matter to me.”
“So many of those things just get swept under the rug and forgotten about obviously. But then, as everyone was leaving, rehearsal was done. And Bruce goes, ‘Okay, I need to know where your bag is in the locker room.’ I go, why? He goes, ‘because you're going under the ring right now.’ Until then, I was like, it's 3:30. [Nobody knew]. No, literally. I get under there. And Kevin Dunn gets on headset with me. And he goes, ‘Hey, Vince will talk to you about what you're going to do.’ Vince went over it on headset, the whole segment of Vince said please stay off headset until we ask for you again. Because they didn't want any producers, nothing to know. And no one or no one to hear me over the headset talking. I was like, so I'm changing underneath the ring. And I had my Cruiserweight title in my bag, and I go, do I come up with it? Oh, no. What do I do? What do I do? Oh, no. And I'm like, freaking out.”
“It took a while for me to talk. And that was like, but even without the talking, we still were able to pull off, like the Vince's son stuff and the hospital stuff. And like when I was in the hospital and JBL still attacked me. And all of that, the JBL attacking me in the cage match. It's just all that stuff without talking, and we still like we're able to get emotion out of people. Thinking back on it is pretty, pretty incredible.”
“The Wee LC table, obviously, it's like the coolest, the best match I've ever done and the best thing I've ever done in my career in the ring. And so immediately after the match, I headed the props department say, hey, I need a piece of that table right now. And I got a piece of the table and I got it signed by everyone that was involved in the match.”
“Wrestling figures got me into pro-wrestling. My brother always played with these, the original series of Hasbro's, Andre, Warrior, Hogan, Jake, Bossman. That's who he had. And then me being the little brother. I of course took those figures from him, and my parents that had to buy me separate ones as well. I didn't know what these were, I just thought they were my brother's cool toys. And so he then showed me what they were from, and this is professional wrestling, and I was hooked, immediately hooked. And I've been hooked ever since.”
“From that day, I was like, that's all I want to do. People want to be superheroes. People want to be firefighters, or police officers or pro-football players, I just wanted to be a pro wrestler. And, like, it was like, one of those things where my family, okay, all right, it's not gonna like, again, I don't have the body type of a pro-wrestler. So it was kind of like, just tongue in cheek yeah, that's gonna happen Dylan. And then I found a training school around the area and started doing that after backyard wrestling. And then I started taking it a little more seriously, obviously. And they were supportive of it until I dropped out of college to do it. But then they were still like, hey, just, you know, whatever, he's still a young kid, do your thing. And then I made it to WWE, and it was one of those oh, he accomplished this. That's incredible. And they were never insanely like, not supportive, but they're just, I shouldn't have made it. I say all the time, I shouldn't have made it. I shouldn't have like, I'm not the typical hire for WWE. It was a specific role that they needed me for, that is crazy. And that lasted for so long is nuts to me, because they told me this could be six months, and they first hired me. And it all lasted just under 10 years, which is incredible. And thinking that is now seven years ago, is even more nuts that I still like, man, it's just crazy. This year in August. I've been wrestling for 20 years. Wow. 20 years. That's all, that's more than half of my life. Like, it's nuts. It's crazy.”
“Kevin Dunn on a headset. I was underneath the ring, and I could always hear the conversations between everyone. Everyone. The producers in the back, Kevin Dunn in the truck, Vince in the back. Whenever he had to, like, say a specific direction. I was like, on this headset, I loved it. I was like, Oh, I get to hear a lot of things. So Kevin Dunn's like 'Vince, we need to figure out how to get the midget back to the back.' [As Vince] ‘Goddammit Kevin! We don't use that word. He's a little person.’ [Dunn’s response] ‘Oh, sorry. Sorry, Vince. Sorry.’ And it was like apology after apology after apology. And they apologised to me, too. It's like, I don't care.”
“I fell asleep. I talked about it in my book. Life is short and so am I. I fell asleep overseas. And there was a six man tag match. It was Finley Big Daddy V and Khali against Undertaker Kane and Batista. So a very heavy match going on above me. It was an overseas tour, international tour. And I was very sleepy, very tired. Just tired from the night before, didn't get a lot of sleep the night before, went to bed late. That's what I'm going with. I was not overserved, and like they put me under the ring at intermission. And so I was like, okay, whatever. And I just fell asleep and I woke up to Finley opening the curtain and yelling at me. Hey, hey, and then he finally goes like, I'm not waking up and he sees me face down. He thought one of the ring things knocked me out. He goes [makes slapping sound]. I go ‘Hey man.’ He goes ‘You’re on!’ And I go Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit, because I knew I had a spot with Undertaker who was waiting above me. Yeah. He rolls me in and Takers laying down and we'd always did this thing where Taker would be laying down. I'd walk up to him and he'd sit up, scare the sh*t out of me. And like, either just goozle me or chokeslam me off his knee or something. But now he throws me in and I go, the whole time walking up to Undertaker I go. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”
“We get to the back and Undertaker asks where were you? I said I was sleeping. He goes, where were you? I said I was sleeping. He goes, holy sh*t, and he just walks off. I go oh I'm dead. I'm done, I'm done. This is it, it's been a good run. It's been a good two years at that point. Did a lot of fun things. But I'm done. And he just couldn't believe it. And so I graced him with a bottle of brown liquid as an apology gift. And we sat on the bus that night and indulged in that and played cards. And he was just like he goes, I can't believe that you fell asleep with that much weight going on above you. Like I just the ring wasn't loud to me after a while. It's probably why I need my hearing aid all the time nowadays.”
“My dad, my town and my son.”
