Scott Steiner was already one of the most intimidating wrestlers on the planet, but D-Von Dudley says Big Poppa Pump had another weapon opponents had to deal with—his body oil.
Speaking on the D-Von and the Duke podcast, the WWE Hall of Famer told a wild story about “Hot Stuff,” a warming oil wrestlers used to give their bodies a slick shine. The product may have looked good on camera, but D-Von said it became a nightmare once a match started.
D-Von explained that Hot Stuff absorbed into the skin better than baby oil, which made it popular with wrestlers and bodybuilders. The problem came when an opponent’s face or hands made contact with it.
“Some of the guys who wore it in the ring, when they would put you in a headlock, or you would pick them up, or you were selling and your face happened to be on their arm or in the middle of their chest, it would burn your eyes like crazy.”
The oil worked fine for wrestlers who wanted to look shiny in a promo, but D-Von said using it inside the ring was a completely different situation.
“It was good in one sense. If you were doing a promo and you wanted that slick shine, you would use it. But man, if you used it in the ring when you were wrestling, it was bad. It would burn your eyes and everything, to the point where people were like, ‘Please don’t wear that.’”
D-Von then named Scott Steiner as the wrestler he hated dealing with the most because Steiner used the product all the time—and apparently used plenty of it.
“I remember the one person I hated wrestling a lot of times because I knew he used it all the time—Scott Steiner.”
Steiner was already massive, and D-Von joked that it must have taken multiple bottles to cover his entire body. That became a real problem whenever Steiner locked him in a headlock. D-Von said the oil would get near his eyes and leave him struggling to see.
“Good God, that man had Hot Stuff on every part of his body. As big as he was, you had to put at least two bottles of it on him.”
“He would grab me, put me in a headlock, and I would pull away from him and get away from him because I couldn’t see.”
D-Von also recreated the argument he would have with Steiner in the middle of a match. Steiner could not understand why D-Von was trying to escape, while D-Von was simply trying to get his vision back.
“He’d be like, ‘D-Von, what the hell are you doing?’ I’m like, ‘What the hell do you have on your skin?’ He goes, ‘Oh, it’s just the Hot Stuff. Don’t worry about it.’ I said, ‘Scott, I can’t see. I’ve got to tag out to Bubba.’”
The situation got so bad that D-Von started changing how he wrestled Steiner to avoid getting trapped against his upper body.
“It was bad because I didn’t realize how bad Hot Stuff was until I got in the ring with these guys. It would be on their skin, my face would rub against it, and I’d be like, ‘Oh God.’ So, I made sure they couldn’t put me in a headlock after that.”
Duke then pointed out that certain versions of Hot Stuff contained chili oil extract and capsaicin, the same ingredient that gives hot peppers their kick. D-Von made it clear that getting the product in his eyes was far worse than a little irritation. D-Von said he complained directly to Steiner more than once, but nobody was about to force Big Poppa Pump to stop using it.
“I would talk to Scotty about it all the time. I’d be like, ‘Scotty, you and that damn Hot Stuff.’ He was like, ‘D-Von, everybody complains, brother. Everybody complains.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but ain’t nobody bad enough to tell you to stop.’”
Bubba Ray Dudley was not a fan of the product either. D-Von said Bubba would warn him before tagging out whenever an opponent had Hot Stuff all over their body.
“He’d tag me, and right before Bubba went out, he’d go, ‘He’s got that Hot Stuff crap on him. Be careful.’ Bubba hated it too. He did not like that Hot Stuff.”
D-Von also remembered Triple H, Test and Funaki using the oil, but Steiner clearly left the strongest impression. Getting trapped in a Scott Steiner headlock was already bad enough without chili oil burning your eyes at the same time.
What do you think of D-Von Dudley’s Scott Steiner story, and which wrestler do you think would have been the worst to face while covered in Hot Stuff? Leave your feedback in the comments.
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