This edition of Wrestling With Extra Sleaze is brought to you by alcohol!
So my memory’s a little hazy (no, I haven’t been drinking) but I remember a recent Botchamania video where there was a shoot interview with a wrestler that took place in a bar. I can’t remember the guy’s name but for all of you Botchamania fans with encyclopedic memories, it’s the infamous Dusty Rhodes “Muffler” story. Anyways, I saw this and thought “You know, that could be a pretty good idea. Have a wrestler laid back in a bar, shooting the breeze, talking about old wrestling stories and film it all.” Not long after that, I found myself a copy of Last Call With Raven and Sandman…and now I’m literally kicking myself for having such bad ideas. I haven’t seen many shoot interviews but my god, this one is HORRIBLE! Nothing of any merit was ever said, there were no juicy stories, barely any inside news, a fair bit of sleaze and plenty of shooting…that is if by “shooting” you mean “being drunk and really loud”. I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that this may actually be the worst shoot interview ever.
Hosted by Dr. Keith Lipinski, who normally does good work with this sort of thing, Last Call With Raven and Sandman almost falls apart from the beginning. I thought about doing a chronological recap of the interview but that would be pretty useless. At first, Raven and Sandman “act” drunk and uncooperative but when the interview finally starts, you begin to see that they actually are drunk and uncooperative. Though I’ll give credit where credit is due, I don’t believe Raven is drunk. It looks like he’s drinking water (though that could very well be vodka in a water bottle) and he’s pretty coherent, unlike Sandman. But even if he isn’t drunk, I think he realizes how much of a trainwreck this is going to be and pretty much uses any chance he gets to get in a cheesy wisecrack.
Even the advertised guest appearances don’t do much of anything but drag this mess of an interview down. The legendary Terry Funk appears in a weird bit where Dr. Keith goes underneath the bar to get some drinks and the Funker pops up instead. He asks Raven and Sandman about the “first time they did it”, meaning wrestling not sex. I can’t really tell if that’s sleazy or cheesy. Anyway, Raven goes into his story about how he got into the business while Sandman drunkenly calls BS. Then, from out of nowhere, Terry Funk goes into this long rambling story about how he used to work on the farm and have to feed his cows with a jug with a long nipple on the end. However, since Funk is naturally soft-voiced and he doesn’t even have a microphone, you can’t hear shit. I guess the cow ended up trying to get milk from him instead, you know, with his wiener. And then he disappears. So yeah, that was important.
If you thought that was bad, the next guest appearance of New Jack and Mustafa sends this thing plummeting even further downward and New Jack basically holds the interview hostage so that he can yell and scream about anything he feels like for just about the rest of the interview, which is at least a half hour if not 45 minutes. Things start out alright as New Jack apologizes to Terry Funk for things he said at one of Funk’s many retirement ceremonies but that gets old real quick. I got a chuckle or two whenever New Jack would end a random rant with “I cain’t ‘pologize no mo’, Terry Funk!” but after about the eighth time or so, I was done with it.
New Jack's approach to comedy.
Things get even worse when Sandman wants to talk politics since this was filmed as Barack Obama was getting ready to take office…or “Borack O’Bubba” as Sandman drunkenly calls him. Then New Jack dives into his book of racist “Black People Do This” jokes that Dave Chappelle does way better. I’m sorry but I really doubt that Obama has had BBQ’s on the White House lawn. Also, New Jack tries to make the viewer at home jealous by constantly talking about whatever rat he’s banging at the time and even bringing her on screen to make out with her. Jack, I really doubt anyone cares about who you’re banging just as long as it’s not Missy Hyatt. For the record, New Jack was last attached to Terri Runnels, which is about as random of a couple as The Kat and Kizarny or Gail Kim and the dude from Dinner: Impossible on the Food Network. This whole time, Raven is in the background trying to see how many cigarettes he can put in a stuffed moose head while Sandman takes personal calls on his cellphone. Hell, Mustafa looks the best out of this crew because he pretty much keeps his mouth shut.
Try as he might, Dr. Keith tries to get things back on topic but little to no inside scoops are to be had here. He tries to ask New Jack what brought the Gangstas back together for the XPW reunion show that was held the next day and all New Jack says is “a phone call”. Yeah, all those years where New Jack said that Mustafa wasn’t shit and that he carried him the entire way was just water under the bridge after just one phone call and a payday. The guys also indulge in a few backstage drug stories in ECW, including one where Paul Heyman blamed New Jack for Shane Douglas almost going into a cocaine OD, but considering this was ECW it’s nothing all that shocking and new. After getting New Jack out of the room for a while, Dr. Keith goes back to Raven and Sandman and asks them why they didn’t stay in TNA and WWE, respectively. Raven said his contract wasn’t renewed and Sandman asked for his release. There’s your inside news, folks! Also, Dr. Keith tries to play a game of Word Association but neither one of them take it seriously at all. All I really got out of it is that both Raven and Sandman like CM Punk. Then again, after these past weeks, who doesn’t? But soon enough, New Jack comes back and rambles on about nothing in particular until everyone else just walks away. However, there was one surreal shining moment in this whole mess as New Jack gets into a shoot argument with Dr. Keith about whether or not Good Times came after All In The Family (It did so you’re wrong, New Jack) and looks like he’s going to kill the poor white boy. It goes without saying that Dr. Keith looks like he’s going to cry throughout this whole interview but at this point he looks like he’s genuinely in fear for his life, as well he should be.
As for bonus features, this disc has New Jack’s aforementioned speech at Terry Funk’s retirement but I didn’t even bother watching it since I’ve had more New Jack than I can handle already. Also, there’s a bunch of XPW matches involving all these guys but considering I own more XPW DVDs than should be legally allowed, I’m sure I’m going to get around to these matches sooner or later. All in all, there’s really nothing to see here. Watching Last Call With Raven and Sandman only made me want to watch Raven in a real shoot interview with real stories and that’s about it. Honestly, you’d get the same effect if you asked a drunk person if they ever saw a Raven or Sandman match. Bonus points if some random black guy starts yelling about The Brady Bunch throughout your conversation.
So remember, kids and aging wrestling veterans alike: Don’t drink and shoot.