WWE Hall of Famer Larry Zbyszko had great runs in the WWWF, AWA and WCW. As his notoriety grew he became using the moniker “Living Legend”. Zbyszko spoke to the It’s My Wrestling Podcast on why he filed a lawsuit against WWE and Chris Jericho in 2001 regarding the “Living Legend” nickname.
“Even though WCW just ended I was still using the ‘Living Legend” to do independent wrestling, TNA stuff when they started, so I was still using the living legend – that was my trademark,” Zbyszko noted. “And then he (Jericho) started using the living legend. I kind of was talking to some WWE people, I was actually trying to maybe work something out where I come in and wrestle Jericho – but then it didn’t work out so I wound up kind of filing a lawsuit against them to make them shut up.
“We filed it but then it was just kind of like a double knockout and nothing happened. Okay, we won’t use it, okay good. I mean there really wasn’t much I could do, I could come in and do broadcasting, I was getting too old to wrestle. I mean, there’s no hard feelings against the WWE or anything.”
The potential match between Chris Jericho and Larry Zbyszko would have caused the lawsuit filing to have never happened, but as he stated, Zbyszko has no animosity towards WWE or Chris Jericho. While speaking about WWE and the McMahons, Zbyszko discussed his dealings with Vince McMahon Sr. and what Vince Jr’s father was like.
“He was an approachable and very smooth character,” Zbyskzo recalled. “I mean, if you watched movies from the 1930s and 40s and 50s, Mr. McMahon Senior was like the perfect promoter from an old movie. I mean, he’d be walking down the back of the garden and even have his cashmere long, light brown jacket on. He had this habit of always having like four or five quarters in his hand, and he’d like move them around a little bit. So you get here a little jingling and you know Vince is coming.
“But he was a classy guy, grey hair, always looked good. If someone had a good idea he’d do it. If somebody had a bad idea you know, he had agents like Gorilla Monsoon, and obviously some of the guys if they kept bugging him too much and Vince knew that this is not a great idea he’d say, ‘you know what, that’s a good idea, I’m gonna go think about that.’ Then later that night, he’d go into one of the offices and see Gorilla Monsoon there and go – Gorilla. Fire that guy. So then it wasn’t Vince that was the bad guy it was one of those agents. One of the middlemen, but that’s the way the business had to go in those days.”
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