Each month PWTorch VIP features a Vintage Audio Torch Talk from our two decades of Torch Talk interviews. For one month, the audio is available. Each month, the interview is replaced with a new Vintage Audio Torch Talk. They are not archived.

This month's new feature is one of the most influential, newsworthy, talked about interviews in the history of the industry - the 1991 "Torch Talk" with Bill Watts that originally was published in transcription form in the Pro Wrestling Torch Summer Annual IV in 1991.

This interview features one of the industry's most respected, successful promoters memories and opinions of his years working with virtually every power broker during the 1970s and 1980s. He talked about his entrance into pro wrestling, how he became a headliner, his transition into promoting, and his philosophy on how to be successful.

The interview progresses to a discussion about Watts's opinion of the haplessly run WCW promotion, his ideas to right the ship, what it would take for him to take on that project, and extremely harsh opinions of those running WCW at the time. He also talks frankly about Dusty Rhodes's ego and the strengths and weaknesses of other wrestlers, bookers, and promoters he dealt with.

He also, in reaction to a discussion about steroid testing, broke off into a libertarian rant about government getting involved in personal business in ways he disagreed with, which included extremely harsh language on race and sexual orientation which ultimately influenced and perhaps accelerated his departure from WCW.

It's one of the most frank, fascinating, authoritative walk through the life and career of the recent WWE Hall of Famer and one of the most outspoken major influences on the course of the wrestling industry. It's an interview that has never been heard before - only read in transcript format. Now, 18 years later, we present one of the early Torch Talk interviews that put the Torch Talk format on the map as the premiere news-making and history-chronicling interview format in the industry.

BILL WATTS VINTAGE TORCH TALK

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