The Outsiders' Edge

The Predator is a great American.

March 2, 2010
Host: Elevation
Guest: Don “The Predator” Frye

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/elevationradio/2010/03/02/elevation-radio-with-don-frye

Don’s website: www.donfrye.com

Elevation Radio was proud to be joined by Don Frye, the rambunctious Charles Barkley of MMA last Tuesday. The Predator was in amazing form and shared many interesting tales, opinions, and memories from his legendary pro wrestling and MMA careers. Don offered his thoughts on a variety of topics including his long time friendship with Dan Severn, being a college wrestling teammate of Randy Couture, taking the MMA world by storm when he won the tournament at UFC 8 in a combined time of just over three minutes, how retirement is treating him, acting in movies like Public Enemies and Miami Vice, thoughts on forming a reality show with Gary Busey, his legendary mustache and so much more.

Here are a few highlights:

Don’s memory of facing WWE Hall of Famer Antonio Inoki in his retirement match before 75,000 people at the Tokyo Dome and the crazy aftermath:

“They had Muhammad Ali show up and light the torch like the ’96 Olympics in Atlanta, it was a great celebration to be a part of….after someone’s career of thirty years, who was the top athlete in the nation (Inoki), you’re supposed to give him you know a 30, 45, 60 minute retirement match, something to say goodbye to the to the crowd…about two minutes into the match I broke his ribs. You know, two or three ribs, hell 30 year career, ended in 4 minutes. So I ruined that right away. I thought he was going to have the Yakuza wipe me out you know, so I was telling my wife goodbye. We made it out and got to the airport, we were boarding got on the airplane, you know, and snapped my belt, let out a big sigh and grabbed my wife’s hand, petted her in the hand, and then I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I look up and the stewardess says ‘There’s a phone call for you outside.’ And I went ‘s***’, so I walked outside to pick up the phone and it was Inoki. He says ‘Hey, I wanted to thank you for the match.’ I felt that ‘oh man, I’m going to die’, but that’s how much power that guy had. He stopped the whole international airport to make a phone call. “

The Predator on the difficulties of being in a faction with Ken Shamrock in New Japan Pro Wrestling:

“You know Ken and I, they put us together as kind of a gang, you know, where we would be a tag team, a disgruntled tag team, and you know have more hate towards each other than our opponents, and that would prevent us from winning and we would eventually after the match get into a fight, and that was the whole storyline. That’s what happened. Hell, they (NJPW) called me up and said ‘Do you want to do the job?’ I said ‘why?’ ‘ Well, Ken Shamrock doesn’t want to do the job, (Keiji) Mutoh doesn’t want to do the job, the other guy doesn’t want to do the job, and now you don’t want to do the job. I said ‘Hell, I don’t give a s***, if somebody’s gotta do it, I’ll do it. That’s why I ended up doing the job and that kind of wound up biting me in the ass because the last 5 or 6 matches I did over there in Japan, they had me jobbing out. You can understand, its hard to decide who is going to do the job and who is going to go over, but in the fan’s mind they want somebody strong. The biggest mark is in the locker room in pro wrestling. Generally the person who runs around saying that is the biggest mark, because they’re trying to get everybody else to go their way.”

Frye’s memories about the time he and the WWF had a meeting regarding the Predator joining the promotion:

“Back in ’97 when I was fortunate enough to train Scott Ferrozzo for his fights, Scott and I had a contact with WWE. We went up there together, interviewed together, and apparently they didn’t like our attitudes you know. Scott was a used car salesman, and he walked in there with a used car salesman attitude you know, and I was pretty full of myself at the time. Those boys (The WWE), they don’t want somebody coming in there with their own idea, they want someone who is going to rollover and do what they tell them to do…….they keep everyone the same. The cookie cutter formula. That way they keep the son-in-law(HHH) on top.

Visit www.blogtalkradio.com/elevationradio to hear way more from Don including his memories of his legendary fight from PRIDE 21 with Yoshihiro Takayama, the potential creation of a Masters Division for older MMA legends, dealing with dishonest MMA promoters and much more.

Also check out John’s interview with the likes of Bret Hart, JJ Dillon, Dan Severn, Frank Shamrock, Vince Papale, Cullen Jones, Ivan Koloff and more!