Original subtitles

It's time for another edition of the Snake Pit, presented to you

exclusively by Podcast Heat and AdFreeShows.com

- Inside my Hall of Fame ring, it says,

"Work ethic equals dreams."

You can do it.

Anything can happen.

You gotta be positive, shake that-- off,

and just keep moving forward.

[crowd cheers]

- He does the Diamond cutter and the place explodes.

- My whole life, I believed in myself.

- Everybody told him,

"You're too old. You're too old. You're too old."

- Even at 35-year-old with years, some hard years.

- I actually told him, "Don't quit your day job."

- I don't wanna be messing my hair.

- The goal that everybody told we would never achieve,

nobody but him believed could happen.

- Underdog that he might be.

He has became a major player.

- He was right, and all the naysayers were wrong.

[bell rings]

- We got a new World Champion, guys,

- And it's DDP.

- Then, everything I worked for was gone.

- It was stressful.

It was hard to make ends meet.

- It doesn't matter what the adversity is,

if you fall, get back up again.

- He is so, and always has been so driven.

- [grunts]

- He just has such a strong work ethic.

Growing up the way he did, he always had to work harder.

- 17.

- I think his legacy is more outside of the ring,

than it is inside the ring.

- Bottom line is, it starts here, bro.

I'm -- frustrated, man.

I'm -- pissed off.

- Dallas saved my life.

- Ahh.

[laughs]

- Dallas just likes helping people.

[applause]

- If he needed me today, I would stop everything I'm doing,

and I'll go wherever he at he need me.

- It's all about pride.

- You get whatever you want, as long as you help

enough people get what they want.

That's truest statement I've ever heard,

and I live by it.

♪

- The old neighborhood.

[laughs]

I was born Page Joseph Falkinburg.

April 5th, 1956 in Point Pleasant, New Jersey,

down on the Jersey Shore.

By the time I was three-years-old,

my mom was married, divorced, and had three kids.

My mom moved up to North Jersey to make more money,

so she could help support the family.

I went to live with my dad.

My dad was, he was a hard worker.

He was a good guy, but he made bad decisions,

and he liked to drink.

He couldn't even spell the word "father" back then,

let alone be one.

So he brought me to my grandmother's house.

That's where I grew up.

- My grandmother brought us up.

My mom was our dad, basically,

because she took care of us financially.

And my mom would come down, and she would make sure that

everything was in order.

- Once or twice a month, she would come down,

didn't see her a lot, and my grandmother was there,

but there wasn't a lot of parenting skills there.

I pretty much raised myself.

And when I was in school, when you can't read,

the last thing you're gonna tell somebody is, "You can't read."

I mean, I-I grew up with ADD and dyslexia, at a time when no one

knew what the hell ADD or dyslexia was.

They just thought we were stupid.

And when you had everybody laughing at you,

I'd get myself kicked outta the class before it got there.

I didn't look at it as adversity,

I just looked at it as life.

Then, when I was in seventh grade, I got hit by a car.

It hit my right knee, my face bounced off the hood,

and I flew 42 feet-

[chuckles]

-from point of impact.

So this was a serious knee injury.

That was a life-changing experience, to say the least,

because I was like, loved football, loved hockey,

and they weren't gonna let me play that anymore.

They weren't gonna let me play sports.

That was the first part of someone telling me

I can't do something.

No one was gonna take athletics away from me.

And I really believe that, that helped me develop

a lot of the positivity, if you will, when it looks the darkest,

I believe it really helped me start very young, telling them,

"No, you're not gonna tell me what I can, or can't do."

- Back then, and through his whole lifetime,

everything always turns around for him, because not a quitter

never was, never will be.

[crowd cheers]

- And the roar of the crowd now is for The Dream.

It is for Mr. Dusty Rhodes.

- When Page was younger, he loved wrestling.

He watched it on TV.

He fell in love with it.

- Dusty Rhodes, Bruno Sammartino,

and those bigger-than-life characters made me think,

"I could do that."

And one night after college, me and my buddy had gone

to a wrestling match at Asbury Park Convention Center,

and we were like, "We're gonna talk to somebody there.

We're gonna find out how to get into wrestling."

And I see Greg "The Hammer" Valentine.

- Thus far, this match, pretty much all Greg Valentine.

- I was out in the back of the Asbury Park Convention Center,

and this skinny guy yells up at me, and says,

"Hey, Greg Valentine."

- Hey, Hammer, how do you get into professional wrestling?

- Yeah, I said, "Go -- yourself."

- He walked back inside.

He was being a heel, but he was fascinating to me.

- Next time, I won't accept gift any on here.

- I thought, "Man, professional wrestling."

This became my dream.

So I go up to Jersey City twice a week to start

learning how to wrestle.

I would get so excited, but at one point I went over

to the top rope and came down, and tweaked the hell

outta my right knee, the same knee got hit by the car.

[chuckles]

The doctor's like, "You're done."

So, at 23 in 1979, I don't have a job,

and that's how I came in to the nightclub world.

Started as a bouncer, and bartender.

- Everybody knew Page, you know, he-he was large and in charge

when he walked in the door, and he just knew

how to bring people together.

- And then, eventually, I get a call from my buddy, Tony Cafaro,

and he says,

"Hey, I got this idea about a club in Fort Myers, Florida.

I really want you to come down.

You can run it.

Norma Jean's Dance Club."

And that place was crazy.

- You've gotta remember, in the 1980s,

Florida was synonymous with a good time.

[Miami Vice theme song]

- Miami Vice was the biggest show on television.

When you thought about Florida and the nightlife scene,

you thought about the biggest party in the country.

- I'm not seen as a pill head or a drug addict, but I partied.

One night, I did some cocaine, and that like scared me,

and I thought, l "Mm, that -- wil own me."

And I stopped.

Still, it was the booze, the broads, and the party.

I was a guy who looked like a rockstar, who ran a nightclub.

And I was wearing my zebra skin boots and jeans

with holes in it.

Rock and roll T-shirt.

And I said,

"Can you imagine if I ever have a reason to dress like this?"

[chuckles]

And by this time, I'm not really even thinking

about wrestling, but occasionally,

I watch and then WrestleMania happened.

[crowd cheers]

The first guy to come through the curtain.

I'm like, "Who is this guy?"

- Jake "The Snake" Roberts.

- I am totally sucked in.

- Let's see what-- Oh, my goodness,

look at that.

- I was so bummed out that I did not continue

following my dream.

So one night I get in my club, go back to my office,

I'm gonna get my keys, and I go to grab 'em.

And there's two monitors there.

And I look at the monitor, I'm like, "No way."

Of course, it's Jake "The Snake" Roberts.

I say, "Man, you Jake 'The Snake'?"

"Who wants to know?"

"The guy that runs this place."

Said, "What are we drinking?"

And me and Jake, we had a hell of time that night.

And he would later, you know, best friends with DiBiase and

The Bushwhackers, and-and he told the boys like,

"Hey, you got some guy there, cool dude,

you won't pay for anything."

[laughs]

- And we went into this bar, and this wild character

was in there running the place.

And he goes, "Man, I love the wrestling business.

Someday I wanna be in it."

I'm thinking, "You're my age.

I'm on my way out, and you're not even in it yet."

- At 30-years-old, being around those guys, it really started

getting my mind thinking, "Man, you really blew it.

You-you could have been a part of this."

- Norma Jean's is the place to go.

It's the hottest club from Sarasota to Cuba.

- One night out with my girlfriends, I decided to go

to this hot nightclub that everybody was going to,

and this huge hulk of a man walked in,

and asked if he could buy me a drink.

- Kimberly and I started dating, and the guy who was not

a faithful dude to anyone, became very faithful.

One year to the day, I asked her to marry me.

- He did live a very rockstar lifestyle in the nightclub

business, but I thought, "He's a hustler.

He's gonna make things happen.

I know he's going to be successful whatever he's doing."

- So, here's Page, newly married.

And even though he's successful in the nightlife industry,

he can't get out of his head this dream of being

a professional wrestler.

- So, one night at my club at closing time,

I've been drinking, and we're all doing shots.

And while we were in my office, I thought, "I'm 31 and a half.

Too old to be a wrestler, but maybe-maybe

I could be a manager.

I could be Diamond Dallas Page,

and I could have the Diamond Exchange."

And I'm just writing that down, doodling it.

That's what makes me think of it.

And at the end of the night, you know, we're getting ready

to leave, and I said, "You know, it's possible."

- Good God, now to the end of February, Norma Jean's Café

there's a special--

I did all of our radio commercials.

I get a call from the local cable network that wanna

do a story on the guy behind the voice.

I want it, but it isn't just the commercials, the voice,

the writing of the ideas.

If we can't get it across from our people--

They say to me,

"So where does the voice come from?"

And I grabbed those sunglasses and I put them on, and I said,

"I was born to be a professional wrestling manager."

That's right.

Diamond Dallas Page is where the voice comes from.

It speaks--

You never know who's watching.

I get a call from the AWA.

There's a void for a young manager.

- The AWA sees this character, and mistakenly think,

he's in the world of professional wrestling.

- They said, "Dallas, we're gonna give you a tryout."

I couldn't believe it.

- That's when I thought about the risk, because I thought,

if he's really gonna do this,

this is a crazy industry to be going into.

- You got it, dude.

MTV is looking to stand a wrestling world on its ear.

We're looking for the--

- Next thing you know, I am Diamond Dallas Page.

[chuckles]

I'm being walked to the ring by the Diamond Doll.

- Give me that microphone, L-L-L-Larry.

- Then, I get a call from Mike Graham.

He goes, "I'm sitting here with Dusty Rhodes.

He's left WWE and he's coming to WCW to work.

I wanna put you on the phone with him.

I want you to blow him away like it's the biggest mark ever."

- Dusty took an interest in Dallas because he saw something.

- "Mike, Mike, Mike, I've-I've got strep throat."

"You're on."

I had nothing prepared, but I knew Dusty's stuff.

"Good God. Dusty Rhodes, the tower of power,

the man of the hour."

Did like this 40 second rant.

And then you hear that voice, "Was that a recording kid?"

I said, "No, Dusty. That was me."

He goes, "All right, we're gonna talk about some business."

[crowd cheers]

- Big Daddy D and Chairman of the Board of the Diamond

Exchange, Diamond Dallas Page.

- His dream finally started to come true well into adulthood.

- I got all my ducks in a row.

I'm gonna--

- When he made his way to WCW, fortunately,

they stuck him with Scott Hall.

- I felt like I was pretty sound and had a pretty good physique,

and stuff like that, but I didn't have a marketable look.

- I pick up the phone and I call, and I go,

"Bro, you gotta get rid of that mustache."

I took him to my hairdresser.

He showed up.

He looked like a damn movie star.

- 293 pounds, the D-D-D-Diamond Stud.

- And from there big things happened.

Turned out to be great for me.

Life changing.

So, thank you, Dallas.

- He's Diamond Dallas Page.

- And you're not.

See ya.

- I'm living the dream right now.

I'm thinking I'm on fire.

- I don't want to be messing up my hair.

Good God.

- There's this kind of a fulfillment of a dream for him,

so I was supportive.

But, again, I knew that it was-- It's a rough racket.

- Welcome back to Worldwide Wrestling.

Magnum TA, here with two real characters.

- Magnum TA was a former wrestler that was now

in a management role in WCW.

- Magnum pulls me into the office of TV.

He said, "Listen, we can't let you manage anymore."

I said, "Did I do something?

He said, "No."

He goes- he goes, "It's not your fault.

It's the hair, the clothes, the bling, the wrap, the dolls.

When you're out there, you're taking too much attention

away from the wrestlers.

And they're the ones who draw the money."

I'm like, "Magnum, are you telling me I'm too over the top

for professional wrestling?"

So, now, everything I worked for was gone.

- I think everything that happened to me along the way,

from not being able, to read to bouncing around

from one family to another, to raising myself most of the time,

it taught me that, it doesn't matter what the adversity is,

you just have to keep moving forward.

If you fall, get back up again.

So, at 35 and a half, I said,

"I'm gonna become a professional wrestler."

No one starts at that age.

I moved to Atlanta.

Next day, I started at the Power plant.

[background conversation]

- He worked out at the same gym I did.

I actually told him, "Man, don't quit your day job."

[background conversation]

- He's in his 30s.

Who starts wrestling in their 30s?

It's a young man's game.

- The challenges that lie before him were,

I thought, unnavigable.

I thought, "There's no way this guy can do it."

- I thought to myself,

"Man, I got a long way to go and it's gonna be a long, hard road.

And I'm not making any money."

- It was stressful.

We, um-- yeah, it was hard to make ends meet.

- Five months in, and Kimberly, she was like,

"You need to go back into the bar business.

Like things are getting really tight."

And that's where that inner voice, like,

"Yes, I am gonna be one of the top guys in this business."

That was the story I was telling myself.

And then one day at the Power Plant, I hear, "Page?"

and I turn around and it's Jake "The Snake" Roberts.

He's with WWE.

And he's moving into the territory.

By this time, Jake was battling demons.

- All I cared about was getting my next high.

You know, that's what drug addicts do.

- But Jake, I thought I could help him just, you know,

just to be on a healthier- healthier journey in his life.

That's what I said.

"Listen, I'm gonna talk to Kimberly and see if she'll let

you, uh, take the bedroom we have downstairs

until you find a place."

So, he stayed with us.

"I don't wanna be the booze police.

You know, I just wanna be your friend."

- As DDP is trying to figure out how he can get back into

the industry, that same industry is kind of pushing out

Jake "The Snake" Roberts.

And-and those two paths come together.

But the ultimate irony is that Jake "The Snake" Roberts

is one of the guys that DDP had idolized for years

leading up to this.

And now he's-he's crashing in DDP's basement.

- He was bad, but wasn't anywhere near as bad

as he would get decades later.

- When Jake came to stay, Jake and Dallas,

they'd spent a lot of time staying up late,

watching Jake's wrestling videos, rehearsing things.

[crowd cheers]

- DDT.

- No.

- Look at that.

- I'm going to teach you psychology

I'm gonna teach you timing.

Either you're gonna do it right, or you're not.

- Even with Jake "The Snake" falling on hard times, the

mastery that Jake "The Snake" Roberts had for this industry,

was able to be passed into DDP.

- He said, "You'll learn more sitting on the couch with me,

than you ever will in the ring with me."

- There was nobody on his side other than me.

Everybody told him, "You're too old, you're too old,

you're too old, you're too old."

But they didn't see what I saw.

I seen how hard he worked.

Nobody worked harder than him.

I mean, nobody.

- Come on.

There you go.

- It's the Power Plant.

I'm getting a little bit farther, a little bit farther,

a little bit farther.

- That's when DDP gets the call from WCW.

He now has a second chance as a 35-year-old rookie wrestler.

[DDP's music plays]

- Ladies and gentlemen, making his way to the ring area,

Diamond Dallas Page.

- At that point, Eric Bischoff is the Executive Producer.

Well, first of all, Bischoff, I could see where you would

be totally lost without me, but I told you for months.

- With Page, you know, I had been watching this character

struggle to kind of find his footing.

- He had sunglasses on, he had girls, he had a mink coat

a cigar in his mouth.

I'm going, "I don't know what this guy is."

- The audience wasn't getting with him at all.

- Wooo.

- Look at where DDP was at that time.

He had already gotten a crack as a manager.

If it doesn't work this time,

there's simply nothing left for him.

- And one day I just-- I-I said,

"Page, you gotta lose the gimmicks, man.

You gotta be you. Just be you."

- This is a different kind of Diamond Dallas Page

that we've been seeing coming out week-after-week.

- That's where fans started to see there's a human in there.

- It's all about pride.

When Page Joseph Falkinburg stopped trying to be

Diamond Dallas Page, and Diamond Dallas Page

started taking on the characteristics

of Page Joseph Falkinburg--

nobody but nobody

in World Championship Wrestling has worked harder than I have.

That's when my career started to take off.

- Diamond Dallas Page is much better than we've seen him.

- And it's a Diamond Cutter outta nowhere.

- The Diamond Cutter.

- See ya.

- I was getting this over, man.

- Oh, he got the Cutter.

- He just kept getting better and better

and better and better.

- This guy is electrifying.

- Grand slam dunk.

Somebody stop me.

At this point, I really want to be a top guy.

And one night, I see Dusty and I said,

"Uh, you know, Dream, I know I'm never gonna be you.

I know I'm never gonna be the World Champion."

He's like, "What the hell are you doing it for?

Dallas, if you are as hard as you work, as far as you come,

if you don't believe you could be the World Champion,

you need to get the hell out of our business right now."

- During that period in the '90s, my dad was like a mentor

to a lot of different up-and-coming wrestlers,

but I think Dallas was probably his number one.

- So I can tell you exactly what I did.

There's a phone, a ledger pad, and I wrote on it,

"I will be the World Champion in five years or less."

[crowd chants "Hogan"]

And then Hulk comes into the company and one night,

Hulk grabs me, and he pulls me over.

He says, "How are you doing it?

How are you getting so much better?"

- Once he got, you know, his feet wet, he figured it out.

And he pushed so hard.

The people dig him now.

Didn't understand this guy.

Now, I get it.

There's main event potential there with this guy.

[crowd cheers]

- And he said, "Whatever you're doing, you need to keep doing

it, 'cause somewhere down the line, you have the ability

to draw huge money with me."

And he walked away.

I was like, "Holy --."

So now it's Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Dusty Rhodes,

and Hulk Hogan are telling me I have the ability to,

and Hulk Hogan are telling me I have the ability to,

at some point, be a top performer in our business.

That's powerful.

- I collected so much of my memorabilia over the years.

It's like show and tell.

This is when I'm managing Scott Hall.

Kevin Nash, and Scott, both of those guys were

so instrumental in my life.

Me helping them, and them helping me.

- Years before, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash got their start

in WCW alongside DDP.

And once joining Hulk Hogan, they created the NWO,

one of the biggest acts that pro wrestling has ever seen.

- By that time, you're watching Page's career ascend, right?

He's getting more and more popular.

- He got the Diamond Cutter and the place explodes.

- But the moment that put him over the top was when

Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, it was their idea to bring him in,

be a part of the NWO.

- You, my friend, can be NWO for life.

- The bookers really didn't see me as that top guy,

but Kevin and Scott, they're the ones who

fought for-for it for me.

[crowd cheers]

- The welcome wagon, if you will.

[chuckles]

- Going out to officially welcome DDP aboard.

- I put the shirt on, Scottie high-fived me

and as he pulls away.

Bang.

[crowd cheers]

- Hey.

- Whoa.

- No.

- No, no, I can't believe what I'm seeing.

- He got to Scott and I turned around, and I go through

the table that was on the floor.

- This man is out of his mind.

[crowd cheers]

- He walks with the crowd, and a star is born.

[crowd cheers]

- And the audience was telling me loud and clear,

this guy's a main eventer.

- It felt really good 'cause it was kind of our idea,

and he's my buddy.

And it felt like, wow, full circle.

Like wow, man.

Remember when you helped me?

I never forgot that.

And it worked.

- That made Diamond Dallas Page.

That was like, "Okay, you're in."

- At that time, I knew he made it.

I knew he made it.

- And then his peers, guys in the locker room, were all of a

sudden now coming to him and going, yeah, Randy Savage.

"Hey, brother, got an idea.

Me and Page, think it could be good."

"Okay, Randy."

- Underdog that he might be.

He has became a major player at WCW.

[crowd cheers]

- And then one day, I was at an autograph signing in Houston.

So I went to see the Rockets play that night,

and they were playing the Jazz.

Karl Malone, the third leading scorer of all time.

He throws the Diamond Cutter

[chuckles]

sign out to me, and then he sent us VIP passes,

we went backstage.

- As a little kid, there was no other kid in the neighborhood

that loved wrestling more than me.

So I was nervous as hell.

Hell, yeah, you get awestruck.

Are you- are you kidding me?

- And Page called me and said,

"Hey, you know what do you think about Karl Malone?

We've already been working with Dennis Rodman.

What do you think about Karl Malone?"

I was, "What-what are you?

Crazy?

Of course.

But how's that gonna happen?"

He goes, "He's sitting right next to me.

You wanna talk to him?"

[chuckles]

- Eric Bischoff, he just shot a number out there.

Hell, I took it.

I-I didn't negotiate.

I just-- I wanna do it.

Hey, I started laughing when he left, like,

" --, I would've done this for free."

Dallas, the very first training we had, we connected.

I'm an old cowboy from the south, and you know, as they

say, when-when-when- that's a good egg, so to speak.

We would go to restaurants and it could be a homeless person.

He'd give him a hug.

You'd see him put something in their hand.

Just the-the heart.

If he needed me today, I would stop everything

I'm doing in my power, and I'd go wherever he at.

If he need me.

- It's summer of 1998.

DDP and Malone against Hogan and Rodman.

And you gotta understand this, this is just after the NBA

Finals, where you have Malone and Rodman going at each other.

So this had the potential to be huge.

- I'm going to call him out.

going to win in the court, brother.

- Yeah.

- We shoot the angle, not on the wrestling show,

on the world stage, The Tonight Show.

[crowd cheers]

- Hello.

Hang on.

- That next day, paparazzi insanity.

- Left.

- I'll bet you, there was 70 cameras from all over the world.

- And over here, guys.

[crowd cheers]

- The whole magnitude of what we was doing,

that's all people wanted to see.

- Four of the most recognizable faces in the sports world

are center stage for one of the most anticipated battles ever.

- Dallas would say thanks to me-

- Here's a desperation tag, and here comes Page.

- -"You're bringing light to our profession."

[crowd cheers]

- It's the fourth quarter, and the Mailman's got the ball.

[crowd cheers]

- And I'm saying,

"No. What y'all did for me is what's amazing."

[crowd cheers]

The funnest -- ever,

DDP, he brought me along for the ride.

He brought this little snotty nose kid from North Louisiana

on the ride of a lifetime.

[crowd cheers]

- Now, he was teaming on giant pay-per-view events

with celebrities like Jay Leno,

becoming a household name.

- To think where I was even two years earlier,

to where I was at this point,

humbling-

[laughs]

-mind-blowing.

I knew it was gonna change my life,

but I didn't think it was gonna change up like that.

It was like being one of the Beatles for a while there.

It was really crazy.

- It was an amazingly exciting time,

but it was also a really stressful time too.

- He got really exhausted burning the candle at both ends.

- Between The Tonight Show, Kilborn, uh, Hollywood Squares,

filming movies when you're riding that tsunami,

you gotta ride the tsunami.

I was so burned out, and my body was pretty beat up

'cause I was running so hard.

The abuse had just blew my back out,

and that's when I ruptured my L4 and L5 vertebrae.

Went to three different doctors,

they said my career was over.

- DDP.

- When I blew my back out, went to three different doctors

they all said I was done.

Woo.

But again, this was a thing that happened as a kid that really

stuck with me-

[chuckles]

-man.

Like-like I'm gonna figure out whatever it takes to be able to

continue to live whatever dream, I'm working towards.

But more than anything, you can't give up.

How do I fix this?

Around that time Kimberly says,

"Why don't you try yoga to heal your body?"

[chuckles]

I was like, " -- that."

- I had started doing yoga, and I would often invite Dallas

to work out with me.

He wouldn't even come downstairs to try it.

He was like, "Nah, that's for- that's for chicks."

- But she kind of bullied me into it.

- Whoa.

[chuckles]

- And he did one class with me.

From that one first workout, he became a yogi.

- I started to feel a significant difference,

and that's how I got back in the ring.

[crowd cheers]

- Well, Diamond Dallas Page is one of those wrestlers that you

just can't keep down, no matter what the condition,

DDP is ready to go.

- Diamond Dallas Page a-a-ascended to levels that

I think even he would think unbelievable.

But even with all this success, Diamond Dallas Page

had never been World Champion.

[crowd cheers]

- Ladies and gentlemen, this is Spring Stampede's

main event of the evening, a four corners match for

the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.

- One of these four men will emerge as the

World Champion tonight.

[crowd cheers]

- I told Dusty four years, four months, and 14 days earlier,

that I know I'm never gonna be you or Rick or Hulk.

Yet that night, I step in the ring in a four-way dance

with Rick, with Hulk.

- You given it up or not?

- Oh, God.

Help.

- That goal that he strived for, the goal that everybody

told him he would never achieve,

nobody but him believed could happen.

- There it is, Diamond Cutter by Page.

1, 2, 3.

[crowd cheers]

- Oh.

We got a new World Champion, guys.

[bell ringing]

- It's history.

Diamond Dallas Page is the

Heavyweight Champion of the world.

- That was Dusty saying to me,

[sigh]

"The guy who believed in himself

more than anybody," 'cause he knew that I believed in myself.

But it doesn't happen when you want it to,

you've gotta put the work in, and you gotta be relentless.

- A man who knows what it means to be a champion, to work hard.

The people love Diamond Dallas Page, and they should.

- In the '90s, WCW became the biggest wrestling

promotion in the country.

[crowd cheers]

- So if you wanna talk about the significance of one

individual, truth is, Page was right there,

smack in the middle of it all.

- He was a guy that stepped up, and became an attraction for us.

[crowd cheers]

- You will feel the--

[crowd yells "Pain"]

- And the good part was, he was right, and all the naysayers

were wrong, which was just so cool at the end of the day.

[crowd cheers]

- But it's where I said, "Okay. I'm done."

You know, I was good with it because I had something else,

and it's going dwarf my wrestling career.

- We had moved to Los Angeles from Atlanta, because I wanted

to pursue some other interests, I wanted to work on some acting

and-and get in that pond.

While we were in LA, we just started growing apart.

So it was kind of a warning indicator

that we needed to break up.

But the love stayed.

He's still, in many ways, my best friend.

And at the time, he knew what his next path was going to be.

It was going to be to invent this new system of yoga-

Put your fist and make some noise.

- and introduce it to a whole new population, who normally

wouldn't do yoga, and change people's lives.

- Life is not about how many times you get knocked down,

it's how many times you get back up again, and that's what

DDP Yoga is all about, and just, you know helping people.

In 2011, now, I tried to help Jake many times,

but he wasn't ready to hear, especially,

when you're dealing with addiction.

- Comfy or not

- I was doing cocaine every day,

and not just a little bit either.

- I couldn't believe how bad he was.

I said, "I don't think I will ever be able to have a real

conversation with my brother again."

- I was near death.

I wanted to die.

I actually wanted it, and he threw out a life rope to me,

man, and offered to move me in with him, and you know,

have me working out every day.

- I'm right here. I'm right here.

I'm right here.

- [grunting]

- When people ask me, "Why would you do that?"

We don't live in this house without him, that's why.

- I'm just -- frustrated, man.

-- pissed off.

- It was a long ride.

- I know, I know.

It-it-it's is a vicious -- cycle, man.

I -- up, then I want to get better then,

it's 2 o'clock clock, it's time to start again.

- Okay.

So what do you really want?

- I wanna be free.

- Okay.

Well, it takes work.

- Deep breath, exhale forward.

- Three years it took to get me sober.

8, 7, 6, 5.

Then, I finally found out what happiness is,

true happiness.

- Ahh.

[laughs]

- Make no mistake, DDP saved Jake Roberts, saved his life,

and then he went ahead and helped Scott Hall as well

with his addictions, that also helped save his life.

- Awesome.

That's farther back than you've been, dude.

That's way back.

- All the things he's doing with wrestlers, who others have said,

"No, I'm done. I'm done with them."

Dallas is never done.

- That's one here, three.

- That's just his passion.

That's his-- That's what makes him tick.

He loves helping people, and he wants his friends

to experience that.

And that's really who he's always been.

- Yes.

- Jake and Scott both get sober in the same house,

and then they both in the same year, go in the Hall of Fame.

It really--

[chuckles]

It made me so happy that I felt like I was going in.

- DDP has one of the biggest hearts

of anybody I've ever known.

He will give you the shirt off his back.

I see him doing such amazing things for other people,

and I think what we're seeing is just a manifestation of a really

really good heart, and a good soul that keeps on giving.

- Dallas' early life experience would suggest a man,

who's selfish and bitter, and he's the opposite.

- Diamond Dallas Page's legacy is that he is a guy who refused

to sit on his couch and say, "Could have, would have,

should have," and went out there and did it.

He is an inspiration to every overachiever

that has come along since then.

Now, he's just trying to do the same thing.

He's a guy that's transformed lives.

I'll go as far as to say, he's saved lives.

He's the real deal.

[applause]

- A lot of these people are transformations,

or on their way to transforming not just changing their life,

but owning their lives.

- You got it?

- I got it.

- You got it?

- I got it.

- Give it to me, bro.

Come on.

Just five.

Just five.

- He helps people that are broke.

He helps people that are addicted.

He's out here beating the bushes, man,

trying to help people.

- You know, I'm just doing what comes natural to me today.

That's why when people say, "How do you stay so positive?"

Because I'm happy, I'm remarried to my beautiful wife, Page,

who's supportive in everything that I do today,

and I help a lot of people.

You can get whatever you want, as long as you help enough

people get what they want.

That's a truest statement I've ever heard, and I live by it.