On the most recent “Everybody’s Got A Pod” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Ted Dibiase commented on Virgil’s passing. DiBiase and Virgil worked together in the WWE and later in WCW during the NWO storyline.
“I was really sad to hear that,” DiBiase said. “Mike Jones is Virgil’s real name or was Virgil’s real name. We met in the WWE office when this whole thing with the Million Dollar Man started. Back then, Mike had this tremendous body and kept himself in shape and eventually that was his role. He was the bodyguard. I would run my mouth and if somebody wanted to say something, I would back up and say, ‘Virgil, take over.’ We did a thing where basically as Virgil, he gets tired of my crap and says, ‘I’m not doing it anymore.’ We ended up having a match. Mike was a great guy, a nice guy. To keep your body in that kind of shape takes a lot of discipline and he was very good at that. He was much better at doing that than I obviously was in terms of keeping his body in great shape. I just wish that he had more wrestling savvy. I don’t know how to put it any other way because if he could have really wrestled, we could have had a good run, but basically it was on and it was over pretty quick. Good ol Virgil. He didn’t have the charisma. It was probably over before it really started, but we continued to be friends.”
“I would see him at some of the Comic Cons from time to time. I said, ‘If you get booked on any of the Comic Cons and we end up there together, then please come and sit with me.’ I did that much, but the reason that I stopped doing it was things that Virgil had said to some fans that just wasn’t right. I’m looking back at it from where I am now. He never would say that to me, but he didn’t want anyone to know that he was struggling. Later, I did find out. I can’t remember the guy’s name that was his caretaker, but he was seeing to it that he was taken care of a little bit better. I just don’t know. It’s mind-boggling to me because I don’t know who he was living with or how he was living, but I know that it was not good. It’s just a sad story.”
“When I went to WCW, that’s one of the things I did. They had all these people coming over. It was kind of like the wrestlers were taking over. If you’re taking over, then obviously you need security and I said, ‘What better security could I have than the guy who was my security for all those years’, so I got Virgil booked with WCW.”
You can check out the complete podcast below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
