Steiner adds muscle to Lynn wrestling

Pro wrestling returns to Lynn Friday night with a card headlined by wrestling legend Scott “Big Poppa Pump” Steiner.
Doors open for Friday’s Big Time Wrestling show at St. Michael’s Hall on Elmwood Avenue at 6:30pm, and the card also features Mickie James and Kevin “The Taskmaster” Sullivan. Lynn’s wrestling lineage runs deep, and this night of action represents the latest line in its rich history. Steiner is grateful to have ties to the Lynn community.
“I wrestled at Madison Square Garden and the LA Forum, but I love coming here,” said Steiner. “There is just so much nostalgia. I worked in the old (Boston) Garden, the same building where Red Auerbach coached, and I’ll always remember wrestling in the same building where the Celtics won all those championships.”Steiner broke into the business after wrestling as an amateur at the University of Michigan. The physical education major was intrigued by the squared circle and, in 1988, he and brother Rick formed the Steiner Brothers, one of the greatest tag teams in wrestling history.
The 52-year-old Steiner remains in tremendous shape, with a physique to vouch for that. Yet after nearly three decades in wrestling, he can still pinpoint the highlights of his career.
“Winning the world championship was pretty cool,” he said, referring to his reign in World Championship Wrestling. “But so was winning the tag titles [11 times] with my brother.”Another highlight was setting the outdoor attendance record in North Korea,” he continued, discussing the 1995 “Collision in Korea” that held 340,000 people over two days. “Now that was pretty cool.”
Steiner also accomplished the rare feat of transitioning out of a successful tag team into a bona fide superstar as a singles wrestler.
“The opportunity to turn into this totally bad guy allowed some of my personality to come out,” he said of his “Big Poppa Pump” character. “I had a free reign of everything I wanted to say, and that character kept on evolving. I was trying to make the people not like me, because that was my job. But they ended up still liking it.”Steiner is also a firsthand witness to many changes in the business.
“Now everything is scripted,” he said. “It’s so embarrassing to listen to guys who are so lost because their character isn’t them. They’re given these interviews they had no part in creating. ‘Big Poppa Pump’ was all my work. How can you ask a writer to write like I talk? It’s one of the reasons CM Punk and Alberto Del Rio left [WWE]. It’s all scripted. That’s what they’re doing at their [WWE Performance Center] school. They’re making robots, making puppets.
“All of the good interviewers back in the day used their personality and their character the way they thought it should be. You had to make it work, otherwise you wouldn’t have a job for long. Now it’s tough to watch the current product, especially when you know who’s behind the scenes.”
Steiner is still devoted to the wrestling business, and cannot wait to reconnect with his fans in Lynn.
“I’ve always loved wrestling here,” he said. “It’s a tremendous fan base. If they like you, they’ll let you know. But if they don’t like you, they’ll absolutely let you know, which I always appreciated. The more they booed or cheered, the better I liked it. I can’t wait to come back tomorrow.”Justin Barrasso can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @JustinBarrasso.