The Good
Tom Brandi was a long-time independent wrestler in the Northeast who had shots in both the WCW and WWF that were not particularly memorable. In this shoot interview he goes over his roller-coaster career from a hard-working athletic type working the Indies to generic babyface Johnny Gunn in WCW then from his run as WWF gimmicked jobber Sal Sincere and back to the independents. Usually I think interviews with indy guys (or primarily indy guys) are dull and uninformative. Brandi though loves to bury people, in fact, he revels in it. So, if you like burials, you'll like this. He says things that are anti-Semitic, things that anti-gay and things that are just plain mean. I know some people love that negativity and you'll get it in droves here. Brandi has a really different viewpoint that is rarely shared in popular shoot interviews, so that much of this was fresh in several ways.
The Bad
Regardless of your views on homosexuality, Tom Brandi's flippant remarks about how Pat Patterson sexually harassed all the boys, how Tom Zenk had relationships with Rick Martel, Brian Pillman and Marcus Alexander Bagwell and so on, simply irritated me. While those accusations are not unheard of, Brandi just seemed so nasty about it. Like his buddy, the Honky Tonk Man, he loves to rip on people, their work, their personality or their dirty laundry. HTM is extremely entertaining doing this and to his credit, he was a draw and meant something to the WWF when they were in one of their hot periods…Tom Brandi was a glorified jobber in the WWF at its lowest period. Although he had some interesting stories and thoughts on a number of topics, he just struck me as being bitter despite claiming not to be.
The Rating: ***1/2
