Pete Gas Talks About Shane McMahon’s WWE Return, Shane Facing Undertaker At WM32, Did They Catch Any Locker Room Heat?

Former “Mean Street Posse” member Pete Gas recently spoke with Rolling Stone‘s Aaron Oster about his friend Shane McMahon’s WWE return. 

Pete Gas, real name Pete Gasparino, also talks about how the Mean Street Posse ended up getting on WWE TV, what he’s doing now outside of wrestling, his thoughts on Shane wrestling Undertaker at Wrestlemania 32, and much more. You can read a few excerpts below: 

Pete Gas reveals his reaction to Shane McMahon’s WWE return:

I think I was like everyone in that arena and around the world: shocked. I had no idea that was about to happen, even though I had talked to Shane. He hadn’t mentioned it at all. It was a long time coming for me. I always felt that Shane should have never left, but that’s his own decision. It was electric. When I spoke to him the following day, I told him that I always knew he’d get an amazing reception if he ever came back. But even I couldn’t imagine it being as great as that was. It was really special.

How did the idea for the Mean Street Posse come about? 

Shane was having his WrestleMania match with X-Pac, and he wanted to have his close friends involved. He called Rodney and I into his office and he said, “Guys, I have a favor I need to ask of you. I have this match coming up, would you guys mind doing a few vignettes about how we grew up on the mean streets of Greenwich?” We got a good laugh out of it. He had these scripts that were written. He grabbed one of them, tore it in half and threw it in the garbage. He basically said, “To hell with that, just go tell stories of when we were kids, getting in fights and doing different things.” He told us to dress real preppy, and that they’d cut up the stories and that they’d be on Raw on Monday night. We were blown away.

We did the vignettes and they played them on Monday, and then they continued to play them the next few weeks. Then they brought us to Albany for the final Raw before WrestleMania. They had always kept us in the dark about everything. We had no idea what we were in for. We pulled up in Corvette convertibles, as Shane had challenged X-Pac to a street fight. We jump out of the cars, beat him up and then we take off in the cars. It was so good to draw heat towards Shane. But to go back, Shane was the one that wanted to get us involved. That’s all he did for us though. After that, the writers saw the heat we were getting, and Vince Russo in particular ran with it.

Did the Mean Street Posse catch any locker room heat? 

Absolutely, especially because we were friends with Shane. There were plenty of guys in the back who would smile to our face but didn’t like us because of how we got into the business. The wrestling business is all about respect and paying your dues. We always showed respect. We always made sure we said hello to everyone, and we never took for granted what we had. We couldn’t help how we got into the business. We had no control over that. Once we got in there, we took advantage of that situation. We could have been like, “We’re Shane’s buddies, we don’t have to go to the gym, we don’t have to train. We’re good.” That’s not our way of thinking. We wanted to help the McMahon family. When Shane called us in ten days after WrestleMania, he handed us both envelopes. He said it was our pay for the show! We were stunned. We didn’t expect to be paid. We were doing it as a favor to our buddy, and we were excited just to be on the show. To be paid? That was amazing.

It’s easy for fans to shit on the Mean Street Posse. It’s easy to just say that we sucked. The true thing is, the guys who are tough guys on the Internet, who are sitting in their basement, I’d love to see them if they were just taken off the street and thrown into the ring like we were. I’d love to see how they would survive. It’s not easy. We paid our dues, but we did it in our own way. We didn’t do the indie circuit hoping to be discovered. I can’t help that. We took advantage of a situation that was given to us. If we had just sucked and didn’t care, and there was no heat…we would’ve been gone. At first, we were just trying to put on a show, without really knowing what we were doing. Once we realized they were going to start using us more, that’s when we started really focusing. We still had our jobs, and at night, we would go to the ring at the studios in Stamford and train. Then after that they sent us to Memphis [to WWE’s developmental territory]. We would train down there from Wednesday to Sunday, and then fly out to the shows. People who knocked us had no clue what our situation was, and how we handled everything.

Pete Gas shares his thoughts on Shane facing the Undertaker at WrestleMania

This is the biggest event of the year. It’s even bigger for me as Shane’s friend, and as a Shane McMahon fan. I know this is special for him and his children. His sons have been wanting to see him perform live. They haven’t had that chance. Declan is the oldest, and he doesn’t remember his dad performing. This is something that’s pretty special for Shane and his family.

Is there any chance the Mean Street Posse shows up in Dallas?

I’m honestly not sure. I haven’t heard anything yet, but Shane knows that all he has to do is call, and I’ll be there in a heartbeat.

TRENDING


X