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BREAKING NEWS from ESPN: Dennis Rodman will be elected to the WWE Hall of Fame! Rodman famously battled Karl Malone in the 1998 WCW Bash at the Beach after the Finals, where the two kicked off their wrestling in Game 6.
As Rodman’s then-agent Dwight Manley told me, this was Rodman’s plan to both promote the match and, more importantly, to “disarm” Malone in the biggest game of his life. Full interview here:
SILVERSTEIN: That had been announced by the end of the ‘98 Finals, and famously in Game 6, Dennis and Karl got sort of into a wrestling match coming back up the floor. What was the deal with that? Was that them putting on for wrestling? What was that?
MANLEY: That’s exactly what it was, and Dennis started it.That’s his sixth sense: pushing things. And he did. And he conflated the wrestling and the NBA on primetime at crunch time. And whether that disarmed Karl a little bit, for the game, or however, but that was a major tweak.
SILVERSTEIN: What was the effect?
MANLEY: It disarmed Karl.
SILVERSTEIN: Like that he was thinking more about wrestling than winning a championship?
MANLEY: One percent would be too much. When you say “more,” like 51-49? Thinking about wrestling at all is not right. (Laughs.)
