During a recent edition of former MTV personality Riki Rachtman’s podcast, The Cathouse Hollywood Podcast, Rachtman described the alleged heated altercation between Motley Crue’s Vince Neil and Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses during the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards. Alternative Nation transcribed Rachtman and Brooks’ comments below.
Rachtman: After the show, Vince (Neil) is looking for Izzy (Stradlin). I was not there but here is how Vince told the story after it all went down.
“I went up to Izzy and said, if you ever touch my wife again, I’ll f**king kill you. He’s all like f**k you, f**k you and then I knocked him out.”
Rachtman: For me to comment on this would make me like the other hacks, I was not there, I’ve heard so many versions but most have Vince confronting Izzy and hitting him. How hard? I don’t know. Did he cold-cock him or was it a straight shot in front of Izzy? I’m not sure. What I do know, however, that Axl (Rose) caught wind of this and was pissed. He wanted a piece of Vince Neil. The two got into a verbal exchange that got was broken up backstage. It ended up with each of them going their separate ways but it was far from over. For months, words were tossed back and forth. Axl told me several times that he really wanted Vince Neil.
Rachtman continued:
Rachtman: This stuff had been going on for years now. Even boxing promoter Don King wanted a piece of it. How serious were the guys? It was no publicity stunt. Let me tell you something, Axl Rose is a very intense individual he really wanted (a fight) to go down. I think they both did. I remember Axl telling me that he found an island where the two could have a fight to the death. I’m serious. Axl said he didn’t want any press about it. I even heard that Guns N’ Roses’ manager at the time, Doug Goldstein passed that message to Motley Crue’s manager. We never heard anything else about it after that.
