Step into the ring with us as we recount the raw and riveting journey of a wrestling icon who grappled his way from the ground up. With no formal training and only the dead of night to practice his craft, our guest paints a vivid picture of his first pulse-pounding match. Hear how his makeshift beginnings in tag team bouts and guidance by the likes of Tom Jones set the stage for a debut filled with adrenaline, nerves, and a quick-witted victory that would cement his path in the wrestling firmament.
This episode is a thrill ride through the slams, the sweat, and the sheer determination that define the legends of the wrestling world. From the electrifying arenas of WrestleMania III to the nostalgic Comiskey Park, discover the camaraderie and mentorship that shaped an era where a bar of soap could be the unlikely key to success. Join us for stories of triumph, laughter, and a deep dive into the unexpected turns and tricks of the trade that turn a hopeful newcomer into a superstar of the squared circle.
Step into the ring with us as we recount the raw and riveting journey of a wrestling icon who grappled his way from the ground up. With no formal training and only the dead of night to practice his craft, our guest paints a vivid picture of his first pulse-pounding match. Hear how his makeshift beginnings in tag team bouts and guidance by the likes of Tom Jones set the stage for a debut filled with adrenaline, nerves, and a quick-witted victory that would cement his path in the wrestling firmament.
This episode is a thrill ride through the slams, the sweat, and the sheer determination that define the legends of the wrestling world. From the electrifying arenas of WrestleMania III to the nostalgic Comiskey Park, discover the camaraderie and mentorship that shaped an era where a bar of soap could be the unlikely key to success. Join us for stories of triumph, laughter, and a deep dive into the unexpected turns and tricks of the trade that turn a hopeful newcomer into a superstar of the squared circle.
Speaker 1:
Pop goes the weasel guy. The weasel says Pop, yeah, come on. Yeah, half a pound of Tarponny rice, half a pound of treacle. That's the way the money goes. Pop goes the weasel. A friend in need, he's a pest. You're gonna be a successful WWF villain hated by millions.
Speaker 1:
Let me elaborate a little bit on what it was like going into your first match, considering you really didn't have any training, anything like that. Okay, that night I found out I had to. Well, I used to have a bunch of friends of mine Mike Hughes and Dennis Maley and Bobby Fletcher and my Billy Day Farmer and I and after we'd set the ring up at the Coliseum we'd set up usually after an ice show or something after public skating. So I'd be like at midnight you'd set work. You'd be done like at 3 in the morning, but then all the other hobos they had help us. They'd all go and drift away and do something. But we were young kids then, so we'd all get in the ring and have tag matches and we just worked back then on TV. A lot of them guys were bail workers in the CDD and that's just how I learned to work. And then I got a guy named Tom Jones in Indianapolis. He was a friend of Prince Paul's.
Speaker 1:
Tom Jones wrestled lots for a while down there in Tennessee. He was a real nice man. He and I would go to the Southside Army when the ring was up and him and I would work out there a little bit, but that was all. Nobody ever taught me timing or anything. He billed me, he saw me, I grabbed the headlock, took him over stuff like that.
Speaker 1:
But no, and my first night wrestling was with Prince Pullms, and Prince was about 210, muscular, I think. He wasn't real big, I was about 180 pounds and, uh, the ring was real hard because it was a boxing ring the armory had, but I didn't. I could go slam me on ice. I would have fell to bed. Man, I was so high, I was so ready for this one. The one thing I forgot was I never bothered on checking on my endurance.
Speaker 1:
So as the bell rang I turned around and first of all I started begging away from it and after about three times doing that I was out of gas. I was so blown up from nerves I was nervous. I hadn't taken a pump yet. My tongue was hanging out. I took a cash register. I couldn't get any air. I thought, my God, I've got to go eight minutes with him, I'll die, I'll never make it. Then I'd go back and talk to Markoff to get my hair all done and he'd grab ahold of me and throw me in and give me a headbutt, a couple bumps. My God, I didn't know where I had this hair. There was more hair coming out of me and finally we went into the finish and I think what it was.
Speaker 1:
He had me in the corner and was beating me up and Markoff jumped up and the referee went to Markoff and I took a pair of foreign objects out of my pants. Everybody used to say take nuts. How do you know they're nuts? It's paint. All we say is foreign objects. I took a foreign object out which was a bar of soap tape and I went over and they were pulling from behind. He went down and I got the one, two, three on him and I thought to myself I'd rather be a manager for four bucks than a wrestler for ten.
Speaker 1:
I found my own way. This was hard, it was fun, it was my home, I had all my friends there, I wanted to do good. There was that and the WrestleMania three, one of the biggest thrills of the business. Yeah, oh, and I got to work at the. I got to wrestle at Comiskey Park.
Speaker 1:
Oh, wow, it was Sheik and I against Bruiser and Bobo. Oh, and I'm sitting there and I'm thinking I used to carry all their jackets. She used to give me five bucks to watch his car, bruiser used to give me five bucks to wrestle for the year and Booboo would have given me fifty if I had asked him. He was such a nice guy. Yeah, booboo taught me how to chew tobacco and Copenhagen, and then I'd chew Redman for a while, or Beechton, I forget. I think it was Redman and after we'd take it out, open it up, put the Copenhagen in there, then you'd start dealing yourself. But he was a good man, bumble. So it was more like the first match was more like excitement as opposed to nerves. Yeah, I wasn't nervous.
Speaker 1:
I had never experienced winning or losing in my life. Have you, as far as A major level, like I won and lost at Little League. That was it. Ever since then, I never had to went to the NCAA championship. I never went for that cup for 100 grand. I never went for the World Series ring and I never played. I went to high school, so I never played on a team, so I don't know what winning and losing is. I don't know the agony of defeat I've never been defeated. I know the agony of getting a bad paycheck. I know the good feeling of getting more money than you thought you'd get, which doesn't happen that often. But no, I have no idea of that competitive feeling, so it never occurred to me.
Speaker 1:
I was out there to entertain. I always thought to myself there's Shakespearean actors like Sir Lawrence Olivier, there's comedic actors like Robin Williams and there's athletic actors. And that's who we are, nothing less, nothing more. There are some wrestlers, like Von Gagne, who was a very tough man and a very good wrestler, very good shooter. There is no shooting that draws you money. If there was, he would have been in it, he would have won it all, but he would have never met me. I told him. I said you beat Nick one more time. You get to keep him. Put the word in the streets.