Chair Shots and Other Obstacles: Winning Life's Wrestling Matches

First Chapter

So, You Want To Get Into Professional Wrestling

One time I was traveling with Gorilla Monsoon to Toronto. He was so tired. They had us in so many towns, and on top of everything else, he had just had his little toe amputated because of his diabetes. There I was, pushing a 350-pound guy named "Gorilla" in a wheelchair through the airport, just like I did in those big chairs in Atlantic City on Prime Time Wrestling. There was a line for handicapped people, so I went in that line for him.

"What is your citizenship?" the guy at the counter asked.

"United States," we both said.

"What is it that you do?"

A tired Monsoon yelled, "They fire us out of the cannon until they kill us! We're circus people!"

People always come up to me and ask me, "How can I get into professional wrestling?" If I were honest, my response to them would be, "What's the matter? Aren't they hiring any more drug dealers or bank robbers? You could do all that and really have a good time. Why would you want to get into this? Do something legitimate."

In all seriousness, I don't know why anyone would get into wrestling except for the glory. Don't get me wrong. This business has been very good to me. I have raised a family and buried my mother from the money I made off professional wrestling. I'm not bitter and I've seen the world and made lifelong friendships. For me, it was a dream come true and more. But with every dream you have, reality comes in and wakes you up. I'll get into that later, but, for now, let me deal with this question that I hear so often.

Bottom line. If you're getting into professional wrestling for anything but the money, you're a fool. Yes, you can be dedicated. Yes, you can be for the fans. But make no mistake about it. It's a business. First of all, you can get hurt real bad, and if that happens, you're of no use to a promoter. I've had both ankles sprained, my collarbone and neck broken, and operations on my knee and elbow. I even developed a cyst on my side from all the bumps I took-a cyst that got infected following my radiation and chemotherapy treatments after my cancer surgery.

If you get hurt, there's no hospitalization provided by the promotion. I broke my neck in 1983 and I couldn't afford to have it operated on. It wasn't until 1995, after I left WWF and went to work for Turner Broadcasting and WCW, that I was no longer considered a wrestler or manager or even considered talent. I was an announcer and a full-time employee. That's the exception to the rule, but that's how I got my insurance and how I could pay for my neck and cancer operations. If I had to cover those expenses, I would have been in deep water. Anyone would. Whether I had the money or not is not the issue. Plus, with my wife getting cancer after me, that would have been $300,000 to $500,000 with everything we went through. That can knock you out pretty quick, whether you have the money or not. If you don't have it, you don't know where to get it. If you have it, you won't have it for long and it's gone.

If a guy is hurt nowadays, a promotion like WWE will pay him for a while and maybe even pay him the whole time. I'm not sure, I never had that luxury. After my neck operation in 1995, I never missed a day of work. I was in the operating room for seven hours, came home, and then went to Atlanta with a neck brace on to do voiceovers. The doctors told me not to fly, because you never know when you're going to get turbulence. I had to wear the brace the whole time. Plus, it's hard to drink on a plane with the neck brace on. The olives keep getting caught in your throat.

And the treatment doesn't change, no matter where you are on the card, whether you're in the main event or the opening match. I remember one night where Lou Thesz broke his leg while wrestling. The next night, in St. Louis, he taped up his ankle and wrestled one hour with Dick the Bruiser. Sure, he was dedicated to the business. And he was the world's champion at the time in the main event. But he probably needed and wanted the money and would not have received it if he took the night off.

There are no benefits in wrestling for the guys, and there should be something for them. There should be retirement after so many years. A gold watch or a "gold potato" for all the stiff shots we took in the ring. Professional wrestling is the only business like it in the world.

In today's wrestling world, guys like Hulk Hogan could afford to get hurt and take time off to recover, but if you're the guy in the first match trying to catch a break, you may not be able to.

Even if you were able to work, you weren't guaranteed a payoff. Sometimes you'd wrestle on TV, and if you went over, you got nothing. The guy who did the job made 10 bucks. Why? Well, you went over, but you're also doing the house show. You have more exposure and you'll make more money at the house show and down the line more so than the guy you beat and who just got paid more than you did.

I got merchandise money from the WWF but never really knew how much a Bobby Heenan action figure sold. I know it sold well, because the Hulk Hogan doll needed someone to wrestle. It's "First Count" in action, just like when we got our payoffs. They count the tickets and count the money, long before we ever see anything.

The promoters don't pay for your hotel rooms. They don't pay for your rental cars. They cover your transportation, but you have to take the cheapest flight they can find for you. That doesn't seem so bad, but if you're a big guy like Earthquake or the Big Bossman and get stuck in 32F, the middle seat, it's hard to fly three or four hours like that and then have to think about flying back. Then you have to stand in line for a half hour for your rental car and wait another half hour for the bus. You get to the hotel and there is no guarantee that the room will even be ready. Then you have to get to the building. Hell, first you have to find the building. Then, you return the car at 6 a.m. the next day, only to find out that they haven't opened yet. It was more fun in the '60s when we were driving around in cars with four guys. Just good friends laughing.

On top of the hectic travel, there are such high expectations of what wrestlers should be doing in the ring. That comes from promoters, and it comes from fans too. You can only inflict so much damage to your body. Back in the '60s, promoters liked you to take bumps and give blood-"getting juice or color" means cutting yourself for you moochers who don't know about wrestling, didn't buy the first book, or are bumming this book off someone.

Professional wrestling was natural for me. I always had the ability to bump and bleed. Come to think of it, I wouldn't have been a bad "hit and run" victim.

Now, promoters want you to really look like you're in top shape and fly around that ring. If you don't have what they see as good matches, the promotion simply doesn't want to use you. That shatters a lot of dreams for good wrestlers. But there are a lot of people in the business who think that they're a lot better than they are.

Today's style is different from what it was just a few years ago. I could get in the ring right now with Paul Orndorff, who is retired, and get heat. I would do an interview about what I think of him and he does one on what he thinks of me.

We could stand there in the ring. When the bell rings and we look at each other, I'd back off in the corner and we'd walk around. Finally, we would lock up. Then, I'd pull a cheap shot on him and jump out. I'd argue with a fan or tell the referee to check him for a foreign object. I could stall and take time until the people would be so upset that they would want to see Orndorff come get me. We could tear the place down today and really get the fans riled. I could do it by just pulling his hair and then telling the referee I didn't.

That is, if the referee didn't see it.

Everybody does everything in front of the referee nowadays. All the heat goes on the ref and, with all due respect, no one bought a ticket to see the "Earl Hebners" of this world. Everybody pulls hair, hits each other with chairs, and there are no count-outs or disqualifications for it. But if I snuck something or pulled hair and then the ref asked me if I did that, I'd shake my head wildly and make my hair go all over for all to see and yell, "No!" as loud as I could.

The place would go nuts for Orndorff and me, and we wouldn't have to go through a single table. That's called working.

You have to do minimal things to be a heel. Honestly, you get more heat when you sneak. I snuck out of the house four times last year and boy did I get heat. All a heel has to do is be a sneaky little coward and take bumps. That's it. You don't have to do anything else. Wrestlers and fans forget that you don't have to be strong to be in our business, you just have to look strong. You don't have to be tough, but you sure as hell have to sound tough. You want to be humble? Be a babyface and make the people cry. I'd rather be a heel and scare the hell out of them or piss them off.

Now, they're doing routines, and I think it's ridiculous because it is just so much effort and it means so little. These young wrestlers are flying around the ring and they are inevitably going to get hurt. The "no insurance" card is played again. Oh sure, a promoter such as Vince McMahon may take care of you for a little bit, but if you break your back, he is not going to take care of you for the rest of your life. It doesn't make Vince a bad man, just a business man.

If anyone is reading this thinking that they want to be a wrestler and nothing will ever stop them, then God bless you. Be a wrestler. I felt that way. It was something deep inside of me, and no one, no matter who it was, could have talked me out of it. But once you start going through five tables or fall off a steel cage onto a floor, it will be called a truly spectacular moment by the announcers, the fans, and the people who cover professional wrestling. But once it's done, it's history. Now, it's up to the next guy to go through six tables or dive off a higher cage. Who knows what they are going to want to do next and who knows where it will stop?

So, these unbelievable bumps are being taken, and guess what? No one sells them, so those moves end up not meaning anything. Like I said, it's all routines, just like the Rockettes. If you jump off the rope, chances are you're not going to get hurt. But if you jump off a cage, you will get hurt and that's the problem. The standard has been set, and it may be just another reason to stay far away from professional wrestling.

Believe me if you believe nothing else, the promotion does not care about you. You're a product to be marketed. If you can get through your wrestling life without a career-ending injury, that doesn't matter. You are finished when a promoter says you're finished. That is just the way it is. Take all the silly bumps you want to and the promoters will tell you the goofier, the better, because it makes their shows memorable and spectacular. People will want to come to the next show or buy the DVD. But when you are hurt, you are hurt, and it's over. The physical pain may or may not go away, but the emotional pain will stay with you forever.

Working the wrestling style I described is the way they learned. I'm not saying today's way is wrong, just different. But I still say I could go out there and have any type of match and be entertaining. No chairs. No tables. No ladders.

I don't know how anyone would get a start in professional wrestling these days. WWE uses Ohio Valley Wrestling as a developmental territory and wrestling school. I don't know if the wrestlers have to pay for it or even if the wrestlers are guaranteed anything. It's just very hard to get into the business and make a full-time living. The hardest thing after getting into the business is just being able to stay in the business. You can stay in the business as long as you want and I know guys who say that they've been "in the business" 10 years, but only had three matches.

At the time I got into wrestling, I really didn't plan to do so, and it wasn't by choice. I was drafted. I was working as a car jockey at a Ford Dealer in Indianapolis, bringing the cars up from the lot to the mechanics. They would get them ready. I would basically sit and hold a washrag all day, smoke cigarettes with a guy named Willie, and listen to the Four Tops. That's all I did. I loved it. It was the best job I ever had. I loved wrestling and loved being a part of it, but never did I ask to be wrestler or a manager.

At the time I broke in, I was working for Championship Wrestling promoted by Dick the Bruiser and Wilbur Snyder. I was selling Cokes and carrying jackets. They had a manager named Captain Willie, who was a goof, and Bruiser didn't like him, so he got fired. I wasn't begging to get into the business, but Dick needed a manager for the Assassins. I was drafted and became a manager without asking anyone if I could give it a try.

And you probably wonder what kept me in it for all those years. Honestly, I was lazy. I didn't want to get up in the morning and be a milkman, work in a spring factory, or put up hockey boards in the Coliseum for the rest of my life. I didn't want to go back to a hardware store or the Ford dealership. I saw Willie break-dance as much as I could possibly tolerate. Professional wrestling provided me a good job for the money, and it was exciting. There were a lot of women there. I felt like somebody. I had bleached blond hair and wore nice clothes.

Laziness kept me motivated, but the biggest motivation of all was feeding my mother and my grandmother. Plus, I love to be a ham, and I love to entertain.

The business is work-which means it's not real, for you people who are mooching the book. Wrestling is roller derby without shoes. It sounds funny coming from me, but I always resented wrestling being called a sport. It's not a sport. It's a predetermined event. Some bitched about the coverage we did and didn't get, but I can understand why sportswriters never wrote about wrestling on the sports page or sports broadcasters would never cover it. For us to say it is a sport, well, we just look like idiots.

Think about it. There are no masked men in the on-deck circle at Yankee Stadium. They don't announce a guy starting for the Lakers from Parts Unknown. How can I work for a promoter and not tell him who I am? How do I get paid? Only in professional wrestling could there be a guy from Borneo who supposedly spoke absolutely no English, but wore a UCLA ring while he wrestled. George "The Animal" Steele supposedly could only say "Hey you" and "Mine," yet he wore a Michigan State watch and a ring from the wrestling team.

Have you ever gotten into a fight and airplane spin a guy or ass bump a guy on the bar? The average fight lasts 30 seconds. Professional wrestlers can compete in a one-hour Broadway show and they don't have a bruise on them, and they got hit by chairs, too. When I was a kid, I threw a wrought-iron kitchen chair at my grandmother. Wrought-iron bounces. It hit the wall, bounced back, and hit me right between the eyes. I looked like a raccoon for a month. That took four seconds. Three seconds for me to grab and throw the chair and one second for it to clock me. Hell, a mosquito lands on your arm and bites you, you can see it for a month.

I felt stupid, and I could never defend it to people. That always got me. Honestly, I was always embarrassed to be a wrestler because I had to protect what I did. The promoters would brainwash you, telling you not to talk to people about the business. We were told, at all costs, to not smarten anyone up. But was that the only way to save the business, or was it the only way to save the promoters' own companies and meal tickets?

I know there are a lot of people at home watching wrestling on television, knowing it's a work and thinking to themselves, "I could do that. I could be an actor." Believe me, acting is a very hard business. Not only do you have to know your lines, but you have to know their lines. As much as I did comedy in wrestling over 40 years and got my share of laughs, I never said anything scripted. The closest I came to using a script was when I did the movie Time Masters with Gene Okerlund.

To do a whole show or movie with a lot of dialogue is tough. Some actors are taught to learn their lines from singing instructors who teach them rhythmically. Acting is not a part-time job. You can't take a couple of months and become an actor. Those people are out there working constantly. They're out there doing jobs as waiters or busboys to pay the bills. Many are unemployed, but they continue to go to casting calls every day, just waiting to get their break.

I think people would have respected us more if we admitted that we were great athletic actors, not professional wrestlers. Robin Williams is a great comedic actor. Sir Lawrence Olivier was a great Shakespearean and dramatic actor. Hulk Hogan is a great athletic actor, but he'll never win the Oscar. Mickey Rooney was a great actor, but he couldn't play the Scorpion King. He'd need a boost to get on the horse.

To tell the fans that professional wrestling is real is an insult to them. They all know it's not real. It's just a different form of entertainment-sports entertainment. But for being actors, we received not one residual because we're considered a sport like basketball and hockey. We're not. We should get the same type of residuals like Cheers or Friends. They're pre-determined shows, just like Raw, Nitro, and Smackdown.

When it comes to professional wrestling, I know nothing else like it, except prostitution. Promoters are pimps in good-looking suits, and the wrestlers are the whores. There are a lot of similarities if you think about it. Wrestlers wear shiny and glittery costumes. Someone tells them what to do. Pimps want a prostitute to bounce on the bed and promoters want wrestlers to bounce on the mat. Both "encounters" are booked beforehand, with one person telling the other what they will and won't do. And they tell you you're great when you may not have been. If you're bad at it, they stop using you. Take a week off and don't get paid. They tell you how much time they want you for and who you're working with and how much you make. And you travel around.

It's the same thing.

Promoters and pimps don't really yell, because they know if they yelled too much, that person might quit and the promoter or pimp would make less money. But, in the end, there's always another guy waiting in the wings. I was one of those who could have been easily replaced by my promoter/pimp. Just call me Trixie.

Think of it this way. Imagine applying for a job in professional wrestling just like you would any other part-time or full-time job, say in the United States Postal Service. This is how the interview would go if the post office was like a professional wrestling promotion.

"What days do I have off?" you'd ask.
The boss would chuckle, "It beats me."
"Will I get paid vacation or summers off?"
"I don't think so."
"Will I work eight hours a day?"
"You could. I'm not sure. You could work 14."
"All I have to do is deliver the mail?"
"No, you may have to grease the trucks or even mop the floor if the janitor doesn't show up," the boss would say.
"Well, what would I make?"
"How do I know?"
"Is there any insurance?" "Are you kidding?"
Give me that job. Where can I sign up? I did it. We all did it. And now they want me to write a book on giving advice?

What did I do for 40 years? I carried a razor blade in my pocket. I bleached my hair. I changed my name and I said I was from Beverly Hills. I was on an airplane one day and the guy sitting next to me asked me where I was from. I told him Beverly Hills. "Just my luck," he said, "So am I. What part of Beverly Hills do you live in?" I didn't know any street names. I only knew the zip code because I saw that "90210" show. If anyone had asked me the zip code before that show was on, I would have never known.

Frankly, I would suggest not getting into wrestling. I would suggest getting an education. If you're not good scholastically, get a vocation. Learn how to do something with your hands. Learn how to repair cars. Learn a trade or something creative.

That's not to say that wrestlers are not educated people. While a lot of the guys have little if any formal training for anything but wrestling, a great many of them attended and graduated college, such as Nick Bockwinkel, Tito Santana, Baron Von Raschke.

Just know that you're not going to get anything out of professional wrestling when you're done. There's no pension. While you're in it, promotion and elevation are hard to come by. There's little opportunity in the way of commercial endorsements and, if there is, it's usually not a mainstream product. I wouldn't even suggest backyard wrestling as a way in, because they simply don't know what they're doing. It's like a kid driving a car at 14, pretending he's a race car driver. It's just as dangerous.

Enjoy wrestling for the entertainment value-or not. If you don't watch wrestling, turn it off. Some people don't like certain sports or types of entertainment. I don't watch hockey because it's too violent to me and I'm not a violent person. I know what you're thinking. He's a wrestler, but he's not violent? No, I'm an actor, and I don't like to see people get hit from behind. Plus I can't read the names of the players on a hockey team. It's like looking at eye charts.

If you want to get into something, try the medical industry. Perform plastic surgery, for example, and specialize in breast enhancements. You get to see women from the waist up nude and they pay you for it. You get to look at them and touch them, when you're done and before. Come to think of it, maybe I need to go to medical school, but it will take me until I'm 78 to put my shingle out there. Shouldn't be too hard. Finish the eighth grade, get my high school diploma, and go to college.

But I won't be a proctologist. Who would want to be a proctologist? No one ever comes to the office with a healthy ass. It's always a sick ass. You're always working with assholes.

It's like the doctor who came in the examining room with a thermometer behind his ear. The patient asked, "What's that?"

"Oh my God," the doctor said. "Some asshole has my pencil."

If you're pursuing a dream, think about the reality of it. Think about the future of it. If you're athletically inclined, professional football and many other sports provide pensions. You have to consider that.

If you want an eight-hour day, look somewhere else. You leave the house at 10:00 in the morning to make a noon flight. If it's a two-hour flight, between getting off the plane, getting your rental car, and driving to your hotel, you're not at your hotel until 4:00. Then you have to leave for the building at 5:00-hoping you can find it by 6:00. Then you go on at 9:45. You're out of the building and get back to your hotel by 11:30 or midnight. That's 14 hours right there.

Plus, you're away from home all the time. I never liked that part of it. I'm a home guy. I love my home. I like to be at home with my family and friends more than I ever loved the wrestling business. But I could never make any money at home with my friends. They're deadbeats.

In a wrestling locker room, it was much different. If anyone from the outside came into our dressing room, we wouldn't talk to them simply because they didn't belong there. We were hiding something. It was a whole different world that others would have never believed.

But that doesn't mean there was always a strong union, brotherhood, or fellowship that existed with the guys. If you were in the bar and if a guy got into a fight, everyone wanted to help him. It was like an unwritten law. But once we walked into that dressing room, everyone wanted everyone else's spot. It all came down to that payoff.

I think there is a brotherhood in wrestling to a degree, but not as much as you might think. I have close friends who are probably the only guys no one has ever said anything bad about: Ray Stevens, Baron Von Raschke, and Red Bastien. People may have said bad things about me and others-and maybe deservedly so-but nothing has ever been said bad about those men. Sadly, there are guys in this business who didn't want to see Baron, Ray, or Red draw money in the main event because they wanted that shot. The special relationships I had with all my friends are very few and far between.

I've had some great relationships in this business. There are so many people on top of the three I just mentioned. I could just go on and on, and if they're not mentioned in the book, I'm really sorry. I should mention all of them, and I do care about them. I do know a lot of people. For example, John Tolos called me while I was sick. He had never called me in his life. We were in Minneapolis together in the AWA and only get to see each other at the annual Cauliflower Alley banquet. He just called to say "Hi." We may never talk again for a year or ever. But he's an example of a good friend. Sadly, a rare example.

People lead very busy lives, and it's hard to keep in touch. You may not hear from someone as much as you would want to, but that doesn't mean that they're not a friend.

It was just hard in wrestling to even get close to other people if you wanted to. You're only in a territory for six months or a year. Sometimes their wives didn't like each other. Other times it was jealousy toward the guy in the ring about stealing a gimmick, getting a push, or never being willing to drive to the towns. It's always something that prevents friendships from forming.

Many times, it was the promotion or just the overall environment that promoters created. We never knew what we were going to make money-wise, because everything was on a shoestring budget. Everybody was worried about their job. The promotion could fire you at any time, but if you wanted to leave, you had to give a six-week notice. And, if you did leave, your old boss would call your new boss you were going to work for and say that you're not reliable and can't be trusted. When you showed up in that promotion, they would use you, but you wouldn't become their champion, because they would be scared that you could pull up stakes and go. So, you had to kiss their ass, stay the six weeks, say nothing, and take what they give you before you leave.

Working relationships were very hard and they rarely turned into personal relationships or friendships. One guy had "First Count." One guy paid you and hired and fired you. They wouldn't tell you how much the house drew and even if they did tell you, you didn't believe them. Hell, we never knew how much money we were going to make. I would walk up to a promoter and say, "Hey, we sold out tonight," only to have him say, "Well, it's like this. We gave an entire section of tickets to war veterans." That creates strained relationships, but that's how the business is. But no matter what, a lot of guys continued to brown nose and suck up to the promoter, but that doesn't always help.

There's no "I" in "team" and there's definitely little team effort in professional wrestling. For instance, on the Cubs you have 25 guys on a team. I guarantee you that someone wants Sammy Sosa to pull a hamstring so he can get his spot. He wants to take over for Sosa, so he can get that job and make his money. They're all on the team bus together, and they all want to win that game. Just like all the wrestlers want the show to go well and the house to make money. But in the end, they all want to be that one guy who hits the ninth-inning home run with the bases loaded to come from behind and win. I don't think anyone wants to see anyone else hurt, but if someone pulls a hammy, they pull a hammy. Somebody always wants your job if you're doing better than they are.

It's weird. Maybe professional wrestling is like Hollywood too, in that respect. When an actor is sick or dying, everyone comes to help. But when it comes to getting a part, they want that same person to fail.

But in spite of that, professional wrestlers were a lot closer in the old days, because they spent more time in cars together. In many ways, the "older" wrestlers were still great examples for me, because they took everything in stride-their payoffs, bumps, and their love lives. I never remember a wrestler coming in to a locker room, throwing down his gym bag and screaming, "Damn, I don't know how I'm going to pay the mortgage. My wife is fooling around with another guy. My kids are flunking school. My car is going to get repossessed." We all tried to keep things light in the dressing room, nice and relaxed. Those were the best of times in those locker rooms. Not the travel. Not waiting in line for an hour to get a ticket or a rental car. Or figuring out where the hotel and building were.

Plus, if you get a great guy in the ring, that can be relaxing as well. You were at home, and you felt that was your domain, just like that locker room. That's why very few outside of the business were let in there. I'm friends with a lot of baseball people, and that locker room environment is completely different. Jimmy Bank, a good friend of mine who is the press secretary for the Chicago Cubs, takes care of me every time I get to Chicago. He took me to the locker room once and introduced me to Sammy Sosa, who autographed a baseball for my son-in-law, John. We were just talking, and everyone was very nice. I was more than welcome, even though I was not in the baseball business.

You can always tell a wrestler is good if he draws money and gets heat. An average fan can go out to a show, watch a wrestler, and then tell after one match if they like him or not. There are some guys who get better. There are some guys who are the shits in the beginning and never get better. They never made it. They're like a fart in a spacesuit.

But success in wrestling comes down to the booker liking you, not necessarily the promoter. If I was a promoter and I hired the booker, I'd tell him, "You run it. Don't bother me." But maybe my ideas aren't like his. I bring in two guys who I like, and they're not really that talented, but I like them. I will push them down everyone's throat until people buy tickets or not at all. Some bookers like to do that, because they like the guys and want to make them money. but if you really want to make everyone money, push a guy you don't like who can make you money and send a check to the other guy you like but who is the shits just to stay home.

The booker used to get a very small percentage. I was offered a job as a booker in a territory for $100 a week. He told me that whatever I booked myself into, such as the main event, I would make more. It was the same as working in the ring. But I'd have to be in the office five days a week, from 10:00 until 6:00 on the phone with the guys, kissing ass and lying. For a hundred bucks a week? No. But everyone wants to be a booker. It's about power and controlling things. Some bookers were good. Some were ridiculous, foolish, couldn't book anything, or even call a cab because they weren't in the business.

It's just like WCW where they put championships on non-wrestlers such as Buff Bagwell's mother and David Arquette. It was booked by people who had never been in the business. It sounds like I'm knocking them, but that's the truth. I couldn't run a hockey team or anything. I've only done one thing in my life and that's wrestling, make people laugh, and be stupid. I made a living off that.

You want to get into wrestling? Buy a ticket.