More Than Just Hardcore (17 page)

I even went up to New York City and Bill Apter (editor of the biggest wrestling magazines) took pictures of me with the fake belt. That’s what you call self-promotion! That’s what you have to do in this business, and it’s what I’ve always managed to do, one way or another.

Soon after, though, the belt disappeared from the locker room. In 1984, several months after the tournament for my duplicate NWA title belt, the belt showed up around the waist of Dick Slater! Slater was on Mid-Atlantic TV, doing an angle with then-world champion Ric Flair, where Slater had declared himself the real world’s champion (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?).

Throughout the 1970s, Junior and I were hated heels in much of the country, but in 1977 we popped the Detroit territory as babyfaces in a feud with The Sheik and Abdullah the Butcher.

The night of our big, final match, we had the biggest crowd Detroit had drawn in a long time. However, that night we also got some bad news. Eddie George, Sheik’s son, came in the dressing room and said, “Daddy! Daddy! There’s been a robbery at the box office!”

Honestly and seriously, I loved Ed Farhat, and I would have gone there for nothing. Hell, I went there several times for nothing. And who knows? There might have been a robbery. Who am I to say there wasn’t?

I actually got to spend time around one of the toughest, craziest characters in wrestling while in the Detroit area. Dick Afflis was a stocky powerhouse of a man who wrestled as Dick the Bruiser. With his roughhouse style and flat-top haircut, he was huge box-office. He loved getting into bar fights with pro football players, or whoever else he could find. Dick was married to one of the city’s more famous ex-strippers. She was a pretty good-sized woman and wore these fancy wigs onstage. Sometimes he’d come home drunk, put on one of her wigs and one of her fancy dresses, get on his motorcycle and drive up and down the yards on his block, tearing up the lawns in his very exclusive neighborhood in the middle of the night. His neighbors would look out the window and think his wife had gone crazy, because all they saw was this burly figure with a long, blonde wig on a motorcycle.

Bruiser also seemed to go to a lot of weddings. Whenever a promoter or booker would ask him to “get some color” (bleed), he’d always say, “Can’t. Going to a wedding.”

Farhat came out with a movie about Detroit wrestling and The Sheik, called, I Like to Hurt People. I am in it but I never saw it. I don’t watch everything I’ve been in, that’s for certain. And the older I get, the more I try to avoid my own matches, because I have memories of doing beautiful moonsaults and I don’t want to watch the match and see what they really look like. Even when I am doing the things I do in the ring today, they feel like wonderful things I am doing.

It’s like my memories of Dusty Rhodes talking about a finish with his opponent (of course, the discussion always ended with how Dusty was going to win). He’d say, “I’ll go ahead and I’ll climb up to the top rope before you can move, thinth you’ll be down on the mat after I thlam you. I’ll graithfully FLY off the top rope and land on yo’ body and cover you, one-two-three! And the crowd will go wild!”

Of course, that was not what happened. Dusty would climb up to the top rope, taking quite a long time to get there. Then he would fall, like a 300-pound sack of shit, onto the other guy’s body and get the pin. You know, there’s a great deal of difference between graceful flying and falling like a sack of shit.

But Dusty believed he was soaring like a damned eagle! And that’s why I don’t watch my matches—because I have occasionally watched a match of mine, and I know that I don’t look like what I think I look like.

Florida was always a good territory, before I won the title and after. Starting in 1975 and for about a decade, Dusty was the top star there. It was hard to believe this incredible star was the lisping baseball player from West Texas State.

Dusty had become a really big babyface—a 350-pound one! At five foot four! When he was born, Dusty was 14 pounds, eight ounces, and he was only 11 inches long! The intern dribbled him out of the delivery room and slam-dunked him into the incubator! I actually used that one on Dusty on TV once.

Seriously, he was incredibly over. What was so surprising was that the guy had a lisp, and he utilized it! He took every single hindrance he had, from his speech impediment to his physique, and turned them to his advantage. In college, Dusty could be very difficult to understand. I mean, you’d seriously have a problem communicating with him. That’s how bad it was. He self-corrected that to a large degree and did it because he knew he had to be able to talk on TV in order to make a buck in the wrestling business. The lisp he still had he made into part of his character.

I can’t say enough about the guy, because he was smart enough and tough enough to turn weaknesses into strengths.

He was a classic, and he was another one of those who was very real. He really hurt, and he really meant it when he told the people, “I am the American Dream!”

I also wrestled Scott Irwin in Florida. Scott would be better known as The Super Destroyer later on, but he died of cancer in 1987. He was tall and weighed about 280, but could move around like a much smaller man. His brother, “Wild” Bill Irwin, was also a very good worker, but just never seemed to find his niche in the wrestling business, which happened to a lot of people.

I also loved working for Paul Boesch, in Houston. I was there one night in 1977 to wrestle Nick Bockwinkel for the AWA world title. Harley was supposed to be on the card, too, defending the NWA world title against Jose Lothario, but didn’t make it. I still don’t know why Race wasn’t there, but I know it happened again in 1981, and Boesch was so mad about Harley no-showing a second time that he pulled out of the NWA over it!

Again, I don’t know why Harley wasn’t there, but I do know Boesch was utterly elated to see the Funker that night, even though he was pissed about the no-show. Bockwinkel ended up wrestling twice that night, once against me and once against Lothario.

That was a big night for me, and not just because I had a good match with Bockwinkel. I brought Sylvester Stallone to the matches with me, and those crazy wrestling fans helped me out a lot that night. We were walking into the arena, and here came about 100 fans running up. Stallone thought they were going to attack him. He had bodyguards with him, and they were saying, “We have to get out of here now!”

But those fans ran right up to me for autographs, not paying any attention to him. I think that was when he realized, “Hey, this wrestling is really something.”

Week One …

(I walk into the camera’s view—I am in a pasture, with a sign reading “Funker’s, Texas” behind me.)

“This is Funker’s, Texas, on the Double-Cross Ranch! As far as you can see to the left, that’s my property. As far as the eye can see, that is my property. I have a gated entrance, so I can keep anybody out that I want to. And believe me, I live a life of solitude.

“All except for one individual. Jerry Lawler has taken up residence in my mind, and he’s been in my mind for the last 20 years! Over two decades since he destroyed some of the vision in my right eye.

“I had a call from Memphis, Tennessee, in the hospital. It was from Corey Mac. He was blabbering and blubbering and bawling like an idiot, and he said to me, ‘Oh, Terry! Oh, Terry, I need your help! Please come down here now! Please come, Terry!’

“And I said, ‘Why?’

“He said because Jimmy Hart and Jerry Lawler had beat the hell out of him! I said to him, ‘Corey, don’t worry! I will be there, like I said, on the 28th of August, in the Mid-South Coliseum!’

“I will be there! Not because I love you, Corey Mac—because I hate Jerry Lawler! Not because I love Memphis, Tennessee, or the people of Memphis, but because I hate Jerry Lawler with a passion! Take a look at the man! Look at his face lifts that he has! He looks like Bob Barker!

“What I am going to do is, I am going to give Lawler an extreme makeover on the 28th! I am going to give him a two-fisted makeover! I’m going to lower his eyes! I’m going to widen his nose! I’m gonna fatten his lips, and I’m gonna realign his teeth! And then I’m gonna pull every transplanted hair out of his head! I’m gonna put my foot so far up his … so far up his … so far up his poo-poo, he’ll have to go the hospital to get it out!

“Lawler, there has to be a finality to this, and it’s going to be the night of the 28th—I promise you this. Bring that wimp Jimmy Hart with you!”

On August 28, 2004, Jerry Lawler and his manager, Jimmy Hart, battled Corey Macklin and me in Memphis. We drew nearly 5,000 people—one of the biggest crowds for a non-WWE show in years! We had no exploding cars, no fancy fireworks shows, no elaborate backstage skits. Hell, I wasn’t even in Memphis until the night of the show! How did we do it? With a tape I mailed to Memphis, containing four promos. We did it with carefully crafted promos— one a week, for a month of Memphis TV shows, leading up to our big match.

Throughout my career, there were places I could always go for a short, but successful, run. Memphis was one of those.

Florida was another. I could always go back to Florida and work with Dusty Rhodes. It was a feud that never lost steam. ltd had steam since the day we started. Some of the angles we did were silly, but our feud always had believability to it, because I would make fun of his family, his weight. Everything I said was strongly derogatory. People bought it because they thought no one would allow anybody to say that kind of crap about them.

I hate to admit it, but I really don’t think Dusty is a slob. It’s hard for me to do. It hurts me to write this, but I really like him. And that’s a horrible thing to admit. I sure wouldn’t want to be married to him, though, the fat asshole.

Seriously, it worked because I borderlined on him, and he borderlined me right back. He’d rip on my family, my athletic background, everything. Borderlining is cutting a promo and just coming as hard as you can at the other guy.

When I cut a promo on Dusty, I would say things that were true, to make people look at him and think, “God, that’s got to bother him!”

And the same thing with the things he said about me. That was a key to being successful in our business. It’s a combination of believing, and the suspension of disbelief, for fans. And we have to say things that they can suspend their disbelief on. You have to say things that are cutting, and you have to be clever about it, too. That way you get not only the fans who are going to buy into what you’re saying and believe it, but the ones who view it differently, who can think, “You know, that’s some sharp shit they’re doing there.”

And talk about a creative promo man, Dusty Rhodes was sharp! He was one of the truly great talkers—he could, as they say, talk those fans right into those seats.

And when I cut him up verbally, he knew that it meant we were going to do some big box office. And believe me, he hit hard on me, too. Our promos and knocking each other bordered on being shoots, from time to time, and I think that’s why ours was such a successful feud.

For most of my career, we had an assortment of people watching wrestling, from true believers to people watching for an entertaining show, and we wanted to open up that whole audience and grab up what we could. That was what I tried to do with the cleverness of my promos, but it had to be with a grain of truth. Building up to my August 28 match with Lawler, I took our famous 1981 empty-arena match, where he took a wooden chair to my eye for the finish, added in a real-life tragedy at home and made what I think was a very solid promo.

Week 2…

“This is my horse’s tail. I loved that horse. You talk about omens, no more than two weeks ago, my horse was in this pasture. Lightning came down and struck old Copus. He was 25 years old, Copus was, and when the lightning hit him, it went ahead and caused him to start turning in circles. It also paralyzed his lips. Well, that doesn’t sound too bad, but when you think about it, a horse has to eat, and Copus couldn’t hold the grass, or the grain in his mouth, so I had to do what a man has to do. I had to get a gun, and I had to put Copus down.

“Do you realize how I got that horse? My wife got me that horse after Jerry Lawler injured my eye, to give me solace! And now that horse is in the ground, and now, I am going back to Memphis, Tennessee, to find Jerry Lawler. That horse lay there, and I thought about it, and I thought about it, and I took that gun, and I thought about putting it to Jerry Lawler’s head at that moment, and pulling the trigger! But I know that I can’t do that to Jerry Lawler. So, Jerry Lawler, what I’m going to do, is I’m gonna bring you back something that you gave to me over two decades ago! And I’ve got it right here, in my back pocket!”

(I pull out a sharp piece of wood)

“Here it is, Jerry Lawler! The stick that you stuck in my eye—I have kept it for 25 years! If you look at it, it’s worn. You’ve heard of a worrying stone—it’s supposed to make you not worry. Well, this here, I rub it and I worry about you. It brings more worry to me—if I am going to have finality with you, Jerry Lawler, before I even die!

“I want you back in the ring, and I am going to bring you this stick! And, oh yes, I’m going to give it to you, Jerry Lawler, but it’s going to be like an Indian giver! I’m going to give it to you in your right eye, and then I’m gonna take it back! Then I’m going to give it to you in your left eye, and I’m gonna take it back! And then your right eye, and take it back! Left eye! Right eye! Whichever eye! Lawler, we’re gonna have some finality to this, and it’s going to be on the 28th in the Mid-South Coliseum!”

Florida was where I learned about promos, from Boris Malenko. He was the father of Joe and Dean Malenko, but back then, he was the best damn promo man I ever heard. I would watch him constantly, because he did such a wonderful job with long promos that had such intensity. I also saw the amount of time he put into his promos. He would head off to the side, way before he ever went on TV. He would have his notes there, and he would be thinking out exactly what he was going to say. His philosophy was that if he had a 30-second promo, that meant he had 30 seconds to improve the attendance of the show, which meant it was time he needed to put a lot of effort into. Those 30 seconds could be the difference between a fan coming and not coming.