On today’s edition of the family-friendly version of the ‘Steve Austin Show’ podcast, Steve interviewed latest WWE Hall of Fame inductee, Robert Gibson of the Rock & Roll Express. Below are some of the interview highlights. You can listen to the entire interview at this link.
On What it Means to Be in the WWE Hall of Fame:
It means a lot. Worked hard all of our lives, me and Ricky [Morton], and are the longest reigning tag team in history. We went out there and busted our a** for years.
On Getting the Phone Call from WWE About Getting Into the WWE Hall of Fame:
It was shocking. It made my heart feel good. Not only that, but after that call, about five minutes later I get a call from my daughter telling me I’m going to be a Grandfather too, so I got good news all day long that day.
On Whether or Not He Thought He Would Ever Get Into the WWE Hall of Fame:
Well, I can’t speak for Morton, but I doubt it would ever happen. We have been around a long time and from fans all I get in my emails and Facebook and asking when we are going in? We’re way overdue, and I just say, when it’s right, it’s right.
On the Excitement of Going to WrestleMania to Make it Official:
I really am excited. It’s going to be a big honor. It’s always an honor to get something like this and am really looking forward to it.
On Growing Up with Two Deaf Parents:
It was rough. My dad left when I was like 3 years old, and my mom had to raise 5 kids by herself and that was pretty rough, and I was the baby of the family so I had to hang out with her to try and get people to donate to these ABC cards, which was how she raised us. She was a hard-working woman. I learned to use sign-language when I was about 2 years old, started picking up a little thing. If you noticed in our early careers, when Ricky would do the interviews, I would do sign-language to the people and before long, it was amazing to see all these deaf people show up at the arenas. I would invite all the deaf-mutes to the arenas and translate what Ricky would say in his interviews. It was really cool.
On How Long it Took for the Rock & Roll Express to Build Chemistry As a Tag Team:
I don’t think it took too long because what I did with Ricky Morton was what my brother taught me to do with him. All the things me and my brother did, me and Ricky Morton did. Ricky Gibson was the first to do the drop-kick off the top rope in 1972. It’s a big thing in Japan that they still talk about. My brother, Rick Gibson, is the first to do the drop-kick off the top ropes, and so basically what me and Ricky Morton did was the same stuff me and my brother, Ricky Gibson did.
On the Difficulty of Maintaining a Relationship as a Tag-Team:
I was with Ricky more than I was with my wife. That much on the road every day, so to be with anyone that long can get on your nerves quickly. When it comes to the point, we just started driving in different cars and meet up at the arenas and do our thing and take off again in different cars. We always did business because that was the name of the game. We were smart enough and knew what the ‘bread & butter’ was in this business. If we had our differences, we would just ride in different cars. We never came to the point where we had to fight each other or anything like that.
Congratulations to the newest inductees into the @WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2017… The #RockNRollExpress! #WWEHOF #RAW pic.twitter.com/yDRMKQNRCv
— WWE (@WWE) February 7, 2017
