Diamond Dallas Page experienced a WWE run, but not perhaps the one he and many fans wanted.
As a part of the WCW invasion, DDP was brought in as a "stalker" and witnessed the long awaited Invasion angle fail to live up to the expectations of many. In a recent interview with The Mirror, the multiple-time WCW World Champion spoke out on the angle.
"You know I learned a lot of lessons from it. I learned my biggest lesson that you can't be afraid to walk away from the table. I shouldn't have done it, but it was a great lesson learned. That's what I took away from it. You guys have Dragons Den, which became Shark Tank over here. If I hadn't have gone through that, going into WWE at the wrong time, I never would have got up and walked away from the table when I went on Shark Tank. We went through a lot of s*** to get to the end of Shark Tank, but they wanted me to sign everything away to them. Basically, not my company, but all my rights, my PR, everything. At the end of it I said to my business partner, 'tell Shark Tank we really appreciate the opportunity, we love the show, but we're going to pass'. My partner was like 'what are you talking about bro? We've worked so hard on this'. I said 'I can't let anybody control me man, I learned that when I went to WWE. I have to be in control of my own destiny. We'll see if they call back'. Ninety minutes later they called back and said 'how do we fix this?'
"Vince McMahon made me a much better businessman and I'm super thankful to him. The second run they have given me, if I was going to pick between that run in 2001, 2002, or doing what I've done in the last five or six years with WWE, I would take that every time. They had me design Topps card. One of them is me wearing my DDP Yoga shirt, going into the ring at the Royal Rumble [in 2015]. Who do they let do that? You know! Ha ha. Guys don't even own their own names. I own everything. WWE treats me with such respect and this is the cherry on the top of the ice cream sundae at the end of it all. My business wouldn't be doing as strong as it is without the support of WWE. They allow me to do a lot of stuff. I just do it and they let me do it, because they know every time I'm a great example for the 'wrestling afterlife' ha ha. And I help the boys. The thing I'm the most excited for is Mick Foley, being able to help him. I was there when he put his body through those brutal assaults, in the early years. I'm actually writing a book now called 'Positively Unstoppable - The Art of Owning It.' Mick Foley wrote the foreword and it's awesome."
DDP would later go on to become a WWE European Champion, and was inducted into the 2017 WWE Hall of Fame
You can occasionally see Diamond Dallas Page on The List And Ya Boy Podcast, which airs Wednesday afternoons at 3 PM EST on FightfulPods.com.
