The Sandman Reveals He Hated His WWE Run: “It Was Soul-Sucking”

ECW legend The Sandman appeared on an episode of the 1 Of A Kind podcast with WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam to discuss several topics, including how he didn’t remember partying with Metallica on stage.

Sandman said, “You’re going to love this story. And the only reason I remember this is because [Tommy] Dreamer remembers it. We’re on stage somewhere with Metallica – me, Dreamer, and a couple of the other boys. And, you know, and I’m three sheets to the wind, of course. And they started playing my song, and I started walking out on stage – I don’t even remember it. Dreamer reminded me of this story a year ago. I’m like, ‘No, Tommy, I don’t think I did that.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, I was there.’”

On how he hated WWE:

“I assume this is like right after SummerSlam because right before SummerSlam, Johnny [Laurinaitis] calls me into his office and he goes, ‘You can’t drink the beer anymore,’ And I’m like, ‘What?’ And I’m pissed. I’m like, ‘Johnny, how about you give me my release? He’s like, ‘Hak, wait.’ And I got two raises or at least one raise out of them by asking for my release, but it was up to like $125 to $150,000, but then I find out I gotta stop drinking. Next thing I know, Austin’s in the f***ing main event for SummerSlam. So they’re taking the beer away from me so I can’t do it on my entrance. I was freaking pissed. I was hot. And I hated it there, dude. I had no friends. It was soul sucking. It honestly was soul sucking to me. I hated to get on a plane. I hated to go there. I hated to be in the locker room. I couldn’t wait to get out of the f***ing building. Everybody goes on TV and they want to get as much time as they can. They had to tell me to stop going home early. I was going in there and giving him five minutes to go. And then finally … Kevin Dunn says down to maybe [Mike Chioda] – he goes, ‘Dunn says DO NOT go home early.’ I went home early every single match.”

You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.

(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)