More Than Just Hardcore (25 page)

But Hogan made the most out of his stardom.

When we had our match in late 1985, on the fourth NBC Saturday Night’s Main Event, we worked together fine, and I never had anything but a good relationship with Hogan when we were both in the WWF.

I got the Saturday Nights Main Event assignment because nobody else wanted to do the job, and Vince wanted Hogan going over cleanly for the TV audience. A lot of guys felt like getting beaten in front of such a big audience would hurt their personas.

There were no volunteers, except for the Funker. They asked me to put him over on national TV, and I said, “No problem at all.”

Most of my early matches in the WWF, however, were part of my feud with Sylvester Ritter, the Junkyard Dog. On my debut, they had me attack black ring announcer Mel Phillips to set up my feud with Junkyard Dog, a black superhero of sorts.

The Phillips deal and the ensuing feud had some racial overtones. I’ve never been a prejudiced person, but I didn’t have any qualms about the racial angle. Believe me, I have been on the receiving end of prejudice. I know what it’s like not to get the fair shake. The biggest misconception among the American wrestlers when I wrestled in Japan was that we were on equal footing with the Japanese from a business perspective. I have a lot of friends over there, but not everyone was equal in Japan. They felt like it was their country, and they were going to take the lion’s share of the money, and the lion’s share of the matches, and they did. And I’m not talking about the public, because the general public there was wonderful, but in business that was the way it was. So I have experienced prejudice, and I know it’s an awful thing.

But a racial angle could be a wonderful thing, if it was handled properly. You had to have your minority hero overcome the racial overtones for it to work, though. Now in the year 2005, it would be utterly ridiculous to do an angle like that, because the whole issue is in a different place in our society. In those days, and back to the 1960s and 1970s, a well-executed racial angle was probably one of the better things pro wrestling could show our society. The guy would come in with the strong racial overtones, whether against Hispanic or black people, and then gets the crap knocked out of him. That sounds funny, but people weren’t that used to seeing a black man beat the crap out of a bigoted white man.

In our Amarillo territory, Thunderbolt Patterson, a charismatic black wrestler and an amazing talker, had more heat than anyone else when he was a heel for us in the late 1960s. It took a lot of guts for him to do that, because almost every night he had a riot. One night we were in Albuquerque, and the place was packed to the rafters. We had a hot finish planned, with him going over my brother in a tag match.

When his hand was raised, the riot started. Thunderbolt tried to get through, but the fans kept closing in more and more. Junior and I were even trying to make room for him! Finally we were closed in, so Thunderbolt reached into his tights, pulled out a Derringer, fired twice into the ceiling and screamed, “All right, back up, motherfuckers!”

Those fans parted for him like he was Moses and they were the Red Sea.

He and Ernie Ladd were the first prominent black heels in the United States, and I thought my father was very innovative in positioning Thunderbolt that way. He carried heavy heat, but when he finally turned, he became one of the biggest heroes the territory had ever seen.

When he fought racist heels like J.C. Dykes and the Infernos, or the Von Brauners, it was like everyone in the crowd was with him, wanting to see him beat the bigots. I think it helped black Americans, because the heels knocked the black babyfaces but always got their comeuppance. And the white fans would even pull for the black man, because the white heel was so rotten, at a time when acceptance of a black athlete by white fans was something that wasn’t usual.

My series with JYD did some good business. At that time, there was an “A” crew and a “B” crew, with Hogan always heading the “A” shows. JYD and I were the main event for the “B” shows, and we held our own.

Shortly after I got to the WWF, they put me with Jimmy Hart as my manager. I didn’t think I needed a manager, because I could do my own talking, but almost all the heels had managers at that point.

And one of the longtime heel managers, Lou Albano, was now a babyface as a result of the big MTV feud with Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper and Cyndi Lauper. That feud went a long way toward putting WWF on the map.

Albano ended up managing George “The Animal” Steele, who was a Michigan high school teacher named Jim Meyer who only wrestled in the summer. George was one of the true geniuses of the business, because George “The Animal” Steele convinced everyone that he was a teacher pretending to be an animal. In reality, he was an animal pretending to be a teacher! That’s what I accuse him of every time I see him.

Steele was feuding at the time with Nikolai Volkoff, a big Russian wrestler. Here he was, the terrible, brutal Russian, doing all his power moves on his opponent. And then, out of nowhere, here came a cartwheel! He’d be working along, getting heat, and then out of the clear blue, he did a cartwheel. It had nothing to do with the match. I don’t know what crossed his mind. Maybe he had hopes of joining the Cirque du Soleil. Maybe he knew where wrestling was headed and was determined to be the pioneering WWF acrobat!

I saw a lot of my old friends in wrestling while I was in the WWF, including tough guy Adrian Adonis. He was an absolute maniac. I had known him for years, and he always wanted to ride with me.

Jimmy Hart and I had been riding together to a town in New York, and when we were getting ready to head to Newark, N.J., Adrian said, “Hey, can I ride with you guys?”

I said, “Sure. Come on.”

Boy, he was happy about that, so he got a case of beer and a five-foot submarine sandwich. I remember thinking, “What in the hell does a guy need with a five-foot sandwich?”

He put that thing in the car, propped on a board, and it reached all the way from the dashboard, back into the back seat. It was sliced in four-inch sections, and I ate one four-inch piece and drank two of the beers. Jimmy Hart ate one four-inch piece of the sandwich and he didn’t drink.

Adrian Adonis ate all 52 inches that were left of that sandwich and drank the rest of the case of beer.

Then he decided he wanted to drive! Before that, he had me pulling over every 10 minutes, because he had to take another piss, so I had gotten to where I was too tired to drive. Jimmy Hart was asleep in the back seat.

I was too tired to argue, so I said, “OK, Adrian, you drive.”

He was going down the damn road at 105 miles an hour, when he passed a Connecticut police car, waving at the damn cops as he drove by!

They pulled him over, of course, and ended up putting him in the back of their car.

One of the officers told me, “We have to take him in.”

They took Adrian to jail, and I drove to the jailhouse to get him out.

They were giving him a drunk test at the police station, and Adrian was farting so bad it was awful, but the cops were all thrilled to meet the WWF star Adrian Adonis. His farts were godawful—they smelled like those Chinese eggs that are 2,000 years old, or whatever they are, but those cops were lining up to get his autograph, and they didn’t even seem to mind his gas!

But they still had to test him, so Jimmy and I sat there, waiting, and I thought, “Damn, we are going to be here forever. He’s gonna be in jail, and I don’t know how we’re gonna get him out.”

A few minutes later, here came Adrian—he’d passed every single one of their tests. All I can think is that the bread from the 52 inches of sandwich he ate absorbed the case of beer (minus my two) that he drank.

God bless him, he was a slob. Sometimes we’d be in a restaurant and he’d have his plate cleaned off within minutes, and he’d start reaching over and eating off of my plate!

Adrian really kept me on my toes, too, even though I never wrestled against him there. I was never sure if he was admiring my work, playing a rib on me, or trying to drive me nuts, but every night, he would watch my match. The next night, he would do all of the spots he had watched me do the night before, so I had to come up with a completely different match with the Junkyard Dog that night. The next night, he’d do all the new spots I had done the night before, and I’d have to change all of my spots again.

Adrian’s gimmick changed in 1985, when he went from being a leather-wearing tough guy, to an obese cross-dresser, wearing a dress, makeup and everything. You might think he hated that gimmick, but I think he was utterly elated. That nut absolutely loved that, because if anyone was misanthropic, he was. Adrian didn’t care to fit in anywhere.

Adrian was a tough guy, but he found out the hard way that he wasn’t as tough as Dan Spivey. They ended up in a beef over a match they had, where Adrian wouldn’t sell for Dan. And Dan didn’t do anything about it in the ring. He worked the rest of the match like the true professional that he was, but he sure did something about it in the dressing room. When they both got back there, Spivey beat the living crap out of Adrian. Spivey busted him up and just beat on him until he didn’t feel like beating on him anymore. It didn’t take long, either. It was a pretty short fight.

I actually had wrestled Spivey in his first match for the WWF, in a little town in New York. I had to show him how to do every damn thing. Boy, he was green.

“Spivey, take the headlock.”

“Loosen up a little bit, Spivey.”

“Now take me over, Spivey.”

He was such a nice guy, too, although Adonis probably wouldn’t have agreed. Everything with Spivey was, “Yes, sir, Mr. Funk.”

Spivey was a tough guy and a phenomenal athlete. A lot of people forget that he was an Ail-American football player as a sophomore at the University of Georgia. He probably could have played pro ball if he hadn’t torn up his knee in college. He was still a good hand in the ring, though.

Later on I helped him get into Japan, and he really proved himself there. He worked his ass off for All Japan, absorbed a lot of physical punishment and was one of the company’s harder in-ring performers (and that was quite a statement, in that company). As a result, he became very successful there, but the punishment cut his career short, and he was out of the profession by the mid-1990s. But he didn’t let wrestling rule his life, and he ended up becoming a big success in the construction business in Florida. He went down the road, which is a tough thing for a lot of wrestlers to do. He still stays in touch with a lot of the guys, including me, but he doesn’t look back. He doesn’t linger, and I find that very admirable about him.

Spivey’s tag partner, Mike Rotunda was another one—a smart guy and a great athlete. He made a lot easier transition than a lot of people have, from being a great amateur wrestler (at the University of Syracuse) to a very good pro. He also watched his money very well over the years. I can promise you, if Mike’s not working right now, his family’s not going hungry, because he’s been very smart with his money.

Paul Orndorff was another nut, and tough on top of it, as his car found out one day when he got caught in traffic on the way to a show. He got in such a rage that he ripped the steering wheel right out of the car. Then he started reading The Bible. He said it calmed him. Paul was also the kind of guy who’d fight anyone. He didn’t care if you knew more wrestling than him—he was going to beat your ass. Don’t get the wrong idea—he was a great guy, but everyone knew you didn’t mess with Paul.

Don Muraco was another crazy man, and another guy you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. He was a true Hawaiian and didn’t care about much. Muraco was such a great worker, but he had that island attitude, and when he was ready to go back to the island for a while, he went back. He never let anything get to him, because he knew he could always go home and go surfing if he wanted to.

Like with the NWA championship, the thing that finally wore me out was all the travel. If anything, the travel with the WWF was tougher than it was when I’d been champion a decade earlier. The WWF schedule had us taking a plane and going to a town, taking a plane, going to another town, and so on, constantly. When I was NWA champion, there were many times when I’d go into a territory for a week at a time. If it was Florida, I might do a night in Tampa, then work Jacksonville and drive back to Tampa. I could work several cities but head back to Tampa each night, sleep in until noon and then head out to the next show in Orlando, or wherever. Each territory had a base. The WWF had no base. It was everywhere!

Between the big paydays and the crazy travel, it was too much for some. A lot of the boys practically exploded from the combination of money and pressure. I saw a lot more drug use than I’d ever seen by the guys, on the whole. It was a situation that no one alerted Vince to that I know of. It stayed among the boys, and it got heavy at that time. And Vince was insanely busy, trying to run every aspect of this huge show. Would Vince have intervened, if he’d seen a problem? I don’t know, but I’d like to think so. Vince had road agents, guys who went on the road who were supposed to keep the guys in line. I think they were the ones who slipped, who maybe weren’t as observant as they could have been.

The road agents knew of some of the issues and instances involving drug problems, but they tried to handle those things themselves. I think they were afraid if they told Vince, he might think they weren’t doing their jobs controlling the guys on the road. When they were asked, it was “all clear” on their front. Except it wasn’t.

You can talk about drug testing, and I think there’s a point where it becomes necessary, but in 1985 we were a couple of years into a thing that was red hot, and everyone was blowing and going. I’d been around drugs, seen them, and had partaken of them a little bit earlier in my life, but certainly don’t now. My drug use had pretty much been confined to that time in 1973 right after my divorce, when I weighed 195 pounds and went to Florida. There were drugs everywhere there. The whole state was running amok, on cocaine, marijuana and everything else. And even then, I was never a big drug user.