DDP looks back on the stalker storyline.
Diamond Dallas Page was one of WCW's top babyfaces when WWE acquired the company in 2001. But when he joined WWE, he was presented as a heel, as he was revealed as the stalker of The Undertaker's then-wife Sara. Fans have criticized the angle over the years, especially given Page's popularity as a babyface.
Speaking on The Undertaker's Six Feet Under podcast, Diamond Dallas Page looked back on the storyline.
"You have to understand, everything I did in WCW, I had to fight, and I mean arguments in the booking room. I wouldn’t back down to anyone, and neither would they. so we would go. I had to fight for everything. I’m in New York now. I know how over I am, I know I’m gonna draw serious money. I never [had a problem] about doing the job for anyone. I’m the perfect employee. What I didn’t realize is what [Steve] Austin said to me. He says to me, ‘When you came in, did you realize the heat that you guys had coming in?’ I said, ‘No. why would I think I have any heat?’ ‘Oh, because you’re the brand, you’re the guy, besides Sting, that’s the guy who came up with it and everything, and you’re that cat.’ This is what Vince’s ego, to me, as we went through this, and I didn’t realize. Let me go back to this meeting here. We talk a little bit, and then we get into what we want you to do. We want you to be the stalker to ‘Taker, and no one knows it. Now, it isn’t me personally, it was the character and WCW. So I get it was business to a certain degree. I learned a lot from it. If I was keeping my same mindset [from] WCW into WWE that I was already using, if he would have said, ‘We want you to stalk Undertaker’s wife.’ I’d have looked at him, I’d have looked at [Kimberly], and I’d have looked at him. I’d say, ‘Are you fucking looking at my wife? She’s the most fucking beautiful chick ever. You want me to stalk, of all people, Undertaker’s wife?’ That’s what I would have said. I would have went, listen, when you want to do People’s Champion vs. People’s Champion, give me a call. I didn’t say that. I did pitch the idea of doing it, and the pitch is really good. I didn’t say that," Page said.
Page went on to say that he learned an important lesson from the situation. He stated that, years later, he didn't have any mortgages, and that was because Vince McMahon helped him learn that you can't be afraid to walk away from the table.
"What I had to go through in my head over time, because I would have killed to work with you [Undertaker] a year earlier when I didn’t come in with that heat. I was being booked differently. That’s what people don’t understand. You didn’t do it. You were booked that way, [WWE] wanted to beat WCW down. It was a fluke, those 83 Weeks were a fluke. It was what it was. But I learned. The only reason I’m building this beautiful place on the beach, I have no mortgages on anything. The only reason I can do that, I learned a very valuable lesson from Vince McMahon that day. You can’t be afraid to get up and walk away from the table. If I could have shifted over to People’s Champion vs. People’s Champion, knowing what I know now, I would have done exactly the same thing to get me here. It was so important for me to have learned that lesson," Page said.
DDP previously discussed the stalker gimmick. Check out his comments here.
DDP has said that Steve Austin was supposed to be the stalker. Click here to see what he had to say.
Check out Page's comments about working with WWE again here.
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