In this eye-opening video, former WWE Superstar Shawn Stasiak shares a compelling and deeply personal account of how the world-renowned wrestling organization disrespected his father, Stan Stasiak. Unraveling the untold story behind the scenes, Shawn sheds light on the challenges his father faced during his time with WWE and the subsequent impact on their family.
Join Shawn Stasiak as he courageously delves into the details, exposing the struggles his father endured, and the various instances where WWE allegedly failed to honor his legacy. From backstage incidents to moments in the ring, this video provides a rare glimpse into the often-unseen side of the wrestling industry.
You can also visit our site: https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe
#WWE #Wrestling #ShawnStasiak #Sportskeeda
Join Shawn Stasiak as he courageously delves into the details, exposing the struggles his father endured, and the various instances where WWE allegedly failed to honor his legacy. From backstage incidents to moments in the ring, this video provides a rare glimpse into the often-unseen side of the wrestling industry.
You can also visit our site: https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe
#WWE #Wrestling #ShawnStasiak #Sportskeeda
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SportsTranscript
00:00 I said, listen, I appreciate the acknowledgement,
00:02 because there's a part of me that's grateful,
00:05 and you have to be grateful,
00:06 and I'm appreciative of the acknowledgement.
00:09 I mean, at least they're acknowledging him.
00:10 But, man, I just felt it was a slap in the face, ultimately.
00:14 I really did.
00:14 And I was, like, even asking myself,
00:15 "Am I taking this wrong?"
00:17 And, you know, to them, maybe it's no big deal.
00:19 Obviously, it wasn't.
00:20 [rock music]
00:23 Hi, this is former WWE and WCW star,
00:28 Shawn Stasiak.
00:30 You know, some of you know this already,
00:31 but some of you may not,
00:32 but I am a second-generation wrestler.
00:35 My father, the late, great Stan "The Man" Stasiak,
00:37 was the fifth wrestler in the history of the WWE
00:40 to become WWE Champion when he defeated
00:43 and ended Pedro Morales' three-year reign as champion
00:47 on December 1st, 1973, in Philadelphia.
00:50 So you can say that, you know,
00:51 my dad's got a very deep lineage and roots to WWE history.
00:56 He was one of the original champions.
00:58 And, of course, wherever he went in the world,
01:00 like, whether it was Japan or Australia, Canada, Europe,
01:05 maybe one of the 32 territories that existed
01:07 during the Territory Days,
01:09 he was always a big name, a big hit,
01:11 mostly known to be a dreaded villain.
01:14 But, you know, he was a beloved baby face at one point
01:17 in Portland, Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest,
01:19 Don Owens' promotion.
01:20 Nonetheless, you know, I just remember my father
01:23 as early as a young boy.
01:25 I was with my mother.
01:26 I was probably four or five years old.
01:28 They decided, thought it was a good idea
01:29 to take me to a wrestling match
01:30 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
01:32 And I didn't, I was too young to understand
01:34 what was going on.
01:35 All I know is my father's in the ring.
01:36 He's bleeding.
01:38 You know, the crowd's 20,000 people
01:40 are screaming and yelling.
01:42 And I started crying.
01:43 I was upset.
01:44 I didn't understand what was going on.
01:45 So that was my very first memory of seeing my father
01:48 in a professional wrestling ring.
01:49 But then, of course, when I mentioned the territories,
01:52 that's when, you know, the Pacific Northwest
01:55 and Portland, Oregon,
01:56 especially at the Portland Sports Arena,
01:58 that's when I met a young eight-year-old Dwayne Johnson.
02:02 I was 10.
02:03 He was eight because his father,
02:05 the late, great Rocky Johnson,
02:08 Soul Man came through there,
02:09 just like all these other stars,
02:11 Roddy Piper, Jesse Ventura,
02:13 the Sheepherders became the Bushwhackers,
02:16 Andre the Giant, Harley Race, Ric Flair.
02:19 These are like some of the biggest names
02:21 or these legendary names in the business
02:23 that came through the Portland territory.
02:24 So I remember my dad, you know,
02:27 interacting and working with some of those guys.
02:30 And of course, my dad then would often
02:32 take me back to the dressing room
02:33 to meet some of the wrestlers
02:35 and to be able to meet Andre the Giant,
02:37 a live, living giant right in front of me,
02:39 a live giant in my living room,
02:41 drinking beer with my dad until 5 a.m. in the morning.
02:44 Imagine that, being a little kid here
02:46 and oh, oh, oh, these big, giant laughs
02:49 to come down to see there's a live giant
02:51 in my living room with my father, okay?
02:54 So these are just cherished memories
02:57 that you just can never buy.
02:58 And I had the same experience here in Dallas, Texas
03:01 with the Von Eriks.
03:02 My dad worked with Kerry, Kevin, David back in the '80s,
03:06 Fritz Von Eriks, you know, their father.
03:08 So Dallas and Portland are two of the real instrumental,
03:13 influential memories that I have of my father
03:18 growing up around the professional wrestling business.
03:21 I learned about my father being inducted
03:23 into the WWE Hall of Fame through Twitter.
03:26 I had just finished a workout at the gym,
03:28 I walk out to my car,
03:30 and all of a sudden my phone starts lighting up.
03:32 I get these notifications from Twitter
03:33 and these wrestling fans saying,
03:35 "Hey, congratulations, they're finally putting your dad in.
03:38 "He deserves it, you know, it's about time."
03:41 And I'm like, as soon as I saw that,
03:43 you would think that I'd be elated, I'd be happy,
03:46 I'd be excited, but it was actually the opposite was true
03:49 because I knew at that point what had happened.
03:52 This was literally, I think, a day or two days prior
03:56 to WrestleMania weekend,
03:58 and usually they had the Hall of Fame
03:59 was on a Friday night, I think,
04:01 or maybe it was a Saturday night.
04:02 But anyway, I live here in Dallas, Texas.
04:05 This particular WrestleMania,
04:06 I don't remember what number it was,
04:08 but it was in New Orleans,
04:09 so it's a very short flight away for me.
04:12 It really hurt because I knew at that point
04:15 that I had never received a phone call,
04:18 I never received a text.
04:20 And so to learn that your father
04:23 was gonna be inducted into the W Hall of Fame that way,
04:26 I had questions.
04:27 I was scratching my head thinking,
04:28 what on earth, like who's gonna induct him?
04:30 Like, no one's, are they gonna want me to do this?
04:32 I can get ready in two days?
04:34 I mean, I was confused,
04:37 but I was upset because I felt that they never informed me.
04:39 And I just thought that I would have at least
04:42 deserved a notification or to just let me know
04:46 that they weren't gonna do that.
04:48 So that's how I learned of my father
04:51 being inducted into WV Hall of Fame.
04:53 It wasn't a call from Vince,
04:55 it wasn't a call from anyone from the office.
04:57 Again, not a text, not an email, not a phone call.
05:01 It was through wrestling fans on Twitter.
05:05 Well, my initial reaction, again, was confusion,
05:09 but at the same time, not really.
05:11 I was like, they wouldn't just put him
05:12 into the WV Hall of Fame without notifying me, would they?
05:15 But because of, and I won't make this about me,
05:17 'cause it's not about me, and it's not a sappy story
05:20 or feel bad for Sean by any means,
05:22 but this is just the truth.
05:23 I'm just coming from my heart, guys.
05:24 I'm being very authentic and real here.
05:26 I mean, I always am in these interviews,
05:27 and whenever I share these stories,
05:30 these are all coming from the heart.
05:32 It really hurt, and I was surprised,
05:34 but then I wasn't surprised because just the way
05:36 that I felt my relationship was with that.
05:39 It's like the analogy I'll use,
05:40 like you're knocking at the door of a home.
05:42 There's a family inside, and you're outside in the cold,
05:44 and you're just knocking at the door,
05:45 trying to be let in so you can be part of this family,
05:49 but the door never opened for me, for whatever reason.
05:52 Who knows what the real reason has been,
05:55 but it just, I've never felt included
05:58 or a part of the WV alumni, the WV family,
06:02 and there's a piece of me that's, I think,
06:04 longed for that for many, many years.
06:06 You hear other wrestlers and talents talking about
06:09 Vince as a father figure, and I had just lost my father
06:12 not too long prior to becoming a board WBE,
06:16 so I think when I arrived there,
06:17 I just, that's the only place I ever wanted to work.
06:19 The only promotion I ever wanted to work for was the WWE,
06:23 and I think there was a piece of family feel
06:25 with the McMahons and just that promotion,
06:28 and I think it just brought me closer to my dad.
06:30 I just lost him, and that was the commonality,
06:33 that that was the link that kept me close to him, too,
06:37 and I know I put a lot of pressure on myself,
06:39 and I made some mistakes, man.
06:41 I mean, we all do.
06:42 That's what life's about, living and learning,
06:44 refining yourself, right, and growing
06:46 as we go through this journey of life
06:47 and go through these different chapters,
06:49 but man, when I found that out about my dad being inducted,
06:53 I knew at that point because for a couple years prior,
06:57 'cause one of my favorite, most exciting aspects
07:00 of the WWE Hall of, or the WrestleMania weekend
07:03 is the Hall of Fame, and I always get emotional,
07:06 and I just have so much respect for all the men and women
07:10 who paved the road before us, you know, and for me,
07:14 and even have my short-stint career that I had, really,
07:18 and so I just, I love the WWE Hall of Fame,
07:21 and for a while there, I would see these video packages,
07:25 like Legends Wings and different categories,
07:29 and for a couple years, I would start to get nervous,
07:31 like, wow, he wouldn't just show up in that.
07:33 They wouldn't just put him in that, would they?
07:34 'Cause I just felt that my dad being the fifth wrestler
07:36 in the history of the WWE to become champion,
07:39 even though he held the belt for only nine days,
07:41 I think that was a very instrumental part of WWE history,
07:43 being one of the original champions,
07:45 and I just think that he deserved to be inducted
07:48 by someone personal, you know, myself, his only son,
07:52 or if it wasn't me, then somebody, you know,
07:55 of his era or generation that would've been fitting for that,
07:58 but I anticipated for years.
08:01 I promoted it.
08:02 I campaigned it on social media
08:04 for probably a good seven, eight years,
08:07 so when I learned about, you know, through Twitter
08:11 that he was gonna be inducted, I knew at that point,
08:14 I said, "They're gonna do their own thing.
08:17 "They're cutting me out of this thing,"
08:18 and so I just instantly was very, very hurt, very upset.
08:23 I was really pissed off,
08:27 and literally get into this the next point,
08:30 but I had to make a phone call,
08:32 and that was to Vince McMahon,
08:35 and I didn't think he'd pick up
08:36 because it was WrestleMania weekend.
08:37 The best thing I could do was then text, right,
08:40 and I just asked him.
08:41 I said, "Listen, I appreciate the acknowledgement,"
08:44 because there's a part of me that's grateful,
08:46 and you have to be grateful,
08:47 and I'm appreciative of the acknowledgement.
08:50 I mean, at least they're acknowledging him,
08:51 but man, I just felt it was a slap in the face, ultimately.
08:54 I really did, and I was like even asking myself,
08:56 am I taking this wrong?
08:57 And you know, to them, maybe it's no big deal.
09:00 Obviously, it wasn't, right,
09:02 but it was a really big deal for me,
09:03 and it would have been a really big deal for my dad.
09:05 I know it would have.
09:06 Just to give me five minutes.
09:09 I don't even need 10 minutes or less.
09:11 Let me go up there and prepare a speech,
09:15 share a couple funny stories.
09:17 My dad was a fun guy to be around, tons of funny stories.
09:21 Everyone loved my dad,
09:22 and I would have just accepted that honor and that award
09:26 in my father's name and in our family name,
09:29 and that just never came.
09:30 So when I text him, I did get a text back,
09:34 and I'm sure you saw that I tried calling him
09:36 a couple times, and I just asked him in my text,
09:38 I said, "Vince, look, I appreciate the acknowledgement,
09:41 "but don't you think that maybe he deserves
09:44 "just a little bit more to be inducted in the Hall of Fame,
09:48 "and wouldn't it be more fitting maybe next,
09:50 "the following year, they were at MetLife Stadium
09:53 "in New York, New Jersey, in that area?"
09:56 That's WB's backyard.
09:58 That's WB's home, right?
10:00 And I just thought it was more suiting and fitting.
10:02 It doesn't matter what I think,
10:03 but that was just my thought process,
10:05 and I would think that they would think that,
10:07 just logically, geographically speaking.
10:09 If there's any one place that my father
10:11 was gonna be inducted in the Hall of Fame
10:13 would be in that region, in New York, New Jersey region,
10:17 in WB's backyard.
10:18 And I just thought, you know,
10:20 I just think that he deserves an actual induction.
10:23 But soon after I received a text back from him,
10:26 and it was simply nothing personal,
10:29 but it was just a company decision.
10:31 And you can imagine, I text back, quite a novel,
10:34 and I said a few things to get off my chest,
10:37 spoke from the heart, as always.
10:39 But then I think the response again was,
10:41 again, no disrespect to you or your family,
10:45 but this is just a company decision.
10:46 So I don't buy it.
10:48 I'll never really accept that.
10:50 I don't think there's any excuse or reason
10:51 other than there's some personal vendetta.
10:54 I'm not one of those guys who's gonna point fingers
10:55 and say, "Oh, yes."
10:57 If I point fingers at anybody, it's always at myself.
10:59 I've messed up a lot in life.
11:01 I've made a lot of mistakes.
11:02 I made some mistakes when I was with the company,
11:04 the two tenures that I was there.
11:06 This was not one of them.
11:07 And I just felt that, you know,
11:09 and here I am a speaker of all things, right?
11:11 You'd think that they would call upon me to induct my father
11:15 and I'd be able to put together a nice little speech,
11:17 a couple of funny stories.
11:18 Again, thank you all.
11:20 Good night, God bless, and goodbye, right?
11:23 Never came.
11:24 Really, really disheartening.
11:26 You know, for a while there, it really consumed me
11:28 and I had to learn to let it go.
11:30 You know, but just to give you the level of,
11:33 and not to over-dramatize this,
11:34 but just to give you a comparison.
11:35 Look, I lost my mother when she was 39 years old.
11:38 I was 14 years old, the first day of high school
11:41 in Portland, Oregon, September 4th, 1984.
11:43 I lost my father, he was only 60.
11:46 In 1997, I was 27, or just about to be 27, right?
11:50 I'm sure any of you who have lost a loved one,
11:53 a family member, you can relate to this, right?
11:56 It's some of the most grieving moments you'll go through.
11:59 Breakups or divorces in relationships, you know,
12:04 those are tough.
12:05 When I lost my WWE dream, the first tenure I was there,
12:09 because of a stupid mistake on my end
12:12 that was no wrongful intent whatsoever,
12:15 that's the honest to God truth, but it was stupid,
12:18 it cost me my job.
12:19 But it was heartbreaking that I was,
12:21 I lost my WWE dream job because of something so,
12:25 a prank that went wrong backfired and I lost my job,
12:28 and I don't think I ever recovered from that.
12:30 I don't think that's why I could,
12:31 we could never get it right, WWE and I.
12:33 And most people know this, and I know this,
12:35 I never even scratched the surface of my potential.
12:38 Again, not about me, but I'm just giving you this backstory.
12:42 I'm trying to rationally think about
12:44 why this would have happened.
12:46 This ranks right up there,
12:47 as far as the grief that I felt from it.
12:49 It really affected me for a while.
12:51 But again, I don't let it consume me, I've released it.
12:54 I let universe, God, karma, energy,
12:57 whatever you wanna call it, I trust in that,
12:59 and what's meant to be is gonna happen.
13:02 But I've compartmentalized it where,
13:04 if you ever wanted to pull some real emotion
13:07 from an archive file that exists,
13:10 it's still there if I ever need to pull from it,
13:12 but I don't let it consume me.
13:13 It is what it is, it's unfortunate,
13:15 I did the best I could, I would've really loved
13:18 to have the opportunity to induct my father
13:20 into the Hall of Fame.
13:21 And how about be invited?
13:23 That was another slap in the face.
13:25 That to me was like rubbing salt in an open wound,
13:29 in a cut, right?
13:31 It's like, I would've liked to at least been in the building
13:33 to pay my respects to all the other legends,
13:37 and especially the 20 second video package
13:40 they gave my father and threw him in that legend's wing.
13:43 Would've been nice, but that even reinforced my intuition,
13:48 or at least, how would you interpret that any other way?
13:52 You know, they don't notify you,
13:54 they throw him in some 20 second video package,
13:56 and they don't even invite you to the event.
13:59 Don't take that personal, just business, Sean.
14:01 Come on, man.
14:02 But all in all, my father's legacy
14:06 in the pro wrestling industry,
14:07 regardless of WWE or no WWE,
14:10 or how they went about inducting him into the Hall of Fame,
14:15 the legacy that my father leaves
14:17 is something that I've learned about in more recent years.
14:20 Just through social media,
14:22 interacting and speaking with various fans
14:25 at different appearances and direct messages,
14:28 and even talking to some of the guys in the business.
14:31 The legacy he's gonna leave is that he made an impact,
14:34 and he made an impression on so many people,
14:37 in a good way, even though he was a dreaded villain
14:40 and a heel, right, for most of his career.
14:42 But he was a beloved babyface.
14:44 But regardless of what story he was telling,
14:46 people to this very day will never forget
14:48 Stan "The Man" Stasiak, because he was a man's man.
14:51 I mean, hence, Stan "The Man."
14:52 He really was the man.
14:54 When he walked in a room,
14:55 not just with the physical presence,
14:57 garnered people's respect, but it was an energy.
15:00 He exuded an aura about him
15:03 that just, you could not notice him.
15:05 He was always there, you know, in a big presence.
15:10 And, you know, just a fun-loving guy
15:13 would give you the shirt off his back,
15:15 prankster, great storyteller, had the boys laughing.
15:19 He had a mean streak.
15:20 He was a tough cookie,
15:21 but he was a sweetheart of a man, great soul,
15:24 very generous, loving, caring, go-lucky, happy guy.
15:28 I think that's really truly the legacy,
15:30 apart from wherever he went,
15:31 whatever territory he went to, it didn't matter.
15:33 He was a top draw, main event guy,
15:36 but it was just, as a person, as a man,
15:40 among that profession, among his colleagues,
15:42 the respect that he garnered,
15:44 the impact and the impression that he made
15:49 on fans all over the world will never be forgotten.
15:51 So that's truly his legacy.
15:53 Remember, it's not so much what you say,
15:54 it's how you say it,
15:55 and it's not so much what you say or what you do,
15:57 it's how you made that person feel.
16:00 Professional wrestling fans will never forget
16:02 Stan "The Man" Stasiak.
16:04 Well, I hope you've enjoyed this video.
16:06 Join me next time for another episode
16:09 here with Sean Stasiak.
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