Strange and Amazing Wrestling Stories

by Bill Gutman

  "I needed an operation right away," he said. "The ankle had to be reset and the ligaments repaired. To put it simply, I'd been wrestling for three straight months on a fractured ankle and torn ligaments!" Though the ankle was never quite the same, it healed

  enough for Boyer to continue wrestling. The amazing part is how he kept going with the injury. It's hard to visualize an athlete in another sport being able to do the same thing. So for Bob Boyer, it was a truly incredible feat.

  THE STRANGE BETRAYAL OF TERRY TAYLOR

  Friendships in professional wrestling have always proved very fragile. It's not unusual to suddenly find two grapplers, who had been friends and even partners, facing each other from opposite sides of the ring. And for some reason, when these friendships shatter, the resulting clash is more brutal and violent than is normally the case.

  A recent example was the shattered friendship between Steve Williams and Terry Taylor. Williams was an ex-football star, a huge man weighing nearly 300 pounds. A native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, he had played briefly with the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League, then turned to wrestling.

  Williams was always a rough, tough customer. His high school football coach watched his style of play and quickly nicknamed him Doctor Death. The coach meant it as a compliment, but the nickname carried over to the ring, and it was a compliment no longer, except maybe in the mind of Steve Williams.

  Terry Taylor seems to be saying "I wnat you!" to his former friend, Steve Williams, who stole Taylor's championship medal.

  Early in his career, Williams befriended another young wrestler, the popular Terry Taylor. Though their styles were different, the two became friends, taught each other, and often wrestled together as a team. Then Terry Taylor got a break, a chance to wrestle for the Mid-South Television championship. The champion at the time was Krusher Krushchev, and nobody liked him except maybe his mother. Williams was in Taylor's corner the night of the match, ready to lend his friend any support he might need.

  The match was brutal and vicious and ended in a victory for neither man. Since Krushchev didn't lose, officials were set to give the championship medal back to him. But when they went to retrieve it, they found that Steve Williams was clutching it in his huge hands.

  "Let Terry and Krusher meet again," he roared. "There was no winner tonight. So I'll hold this medal and give it to the winner of their next match, even if it's that rat Krushchev. But no one earned it tonight, so I'll keep it safe and sound."

  At the time, no one thought much about it, especially when Williams said there weren't enough men to take it away from him. Why not let him keep it? After all, he would undoubtedly keep his word and give it to the winner of the rematch. So Steve Williams took the championship medal home with him.

  The rematch between Taylor and Krushchev was another brutal battle, only this time the popular Taylor emerged a clear winner. After celebrating in the ring, Taylor looked to his friend for the medal.

  "I don't have it," Steve Williams said. "I left it home, but I'll give it to you as soon as I can."

  Taylor nodded, a little puzzled, but still trusting his friend. Yet when several more weeks passed and he still didn't get the medal he had earned with his blood and sweat, Terry Taylor began to wonder. Finally he demanded the medal and so did Mid-South officials. That's when they realized for the first time that Steve Williams had something else in mind.

  "Anyone who wants this medal will have to defeat me for it," Williams exclaimed. "And that includes Terry Taylor. I'm not giving it up."

  The news came as a shock to everyone. It was one of the few times in wrestling history that a championship emblem had been claimed by possession, not won or lost in the ring. And for whatever his reasons, the act of stealing Terry Taylor's medal completely changed Steve Williams, in both his outlook on his sport and his perception by the fans.

  "I'm the real champion," he proclaimed. "This is the beginning of a whole new era in wrestling. Now Doctor Death's reign of terror is beginning and everyone, including Terry Taylor, is going to find out just why I have that name."

  What makes a good man turn bad and what causes close friendships to splinter? It's hard to say, but it is not all that uncommon in the incredible world of professional wrestling.

  JUST AN ODD JOB HERE AND THERE

  One of the most popular series of movies in recent years are the James Bond films. Moviegoers everywhere are familiar with British Agent 007, whether he is played by Sean Connery or Roger Moore. One of the earliest and most popular of the Bond films was Goldfinger, and it can still be seen both on television and in theaters.

  But how many people realize that one of the major roles in Goldfinger was played by one of the roughest, toughest, most feared wrestlers in the world? His real name was Harold Sakata, but wrestling fans everywhere knew him as Tosh Togo, a native of Japan who was a master of mayhem in the ring.

  In Goldfinger, Togo played a deaf-mute character named Odd Job, the right-hand man to the film's villain, Auric Goldfinger. Odd Job dispatched death and destruction the way Tosh Togo dispatched opponents in the ring. Among other things, Odd Job wore a kind of derby hat with a razor-sharp metal brim. He threw it like a frisbee and with deadly accuracy.

  During a climactic scene, James Bond and Odd Job staged one of the great fight scenes in movie history. As was sometimes the case in the ring, Tosh Togo dealt out most of the punishment, but was finally defeated. In the film, Odd Job administered a savage beating to Bond at Fort Knox, where much of the gold reserves of the United States were kept. Goldfinger was trying to steal the gold.

  Odd Job's derby hat had lodged between some metal bars, and when he went to retrieve it in order to finish Bond off, agent 007 managed to touch a live wire to the bars, electrocuting Odd Job. Making the film was a fun experience for Tosh Togo, who said the poise he acquired through wrestling enabled him to make a smooth transition to the world of motion pictures.

  "I can thank wrestling for eliminating any fear I might have had," he said. "Because I've wrestled before large crowds all over the world, I wasn't the least stagestruck. I had a great deal of confidence right from the beginning."

  It was also wrestling that helped Tosh Togo get the role. The daughter of one of the studio heads saw Togo wrestling and right away thought he would make a great Odd Job. She told her father who arranged for an interview, then an audition. The rest, as they say, is history. Despite the film's huge success, Tosh Togo found himself longing to return to the ring. The 5'9" 224-pounder realized that wrestling was a way of life he wasn't quite ready to abandon.

  "Tell the people back in the United States that I'll be as big and as bad as ever when I return," he said. "And I can't wait!"

  For Tosh Togo, the lure of the ring was still great. That's the incredible part. Despite starring in a major motion picture, he longed to return to wrestling. His movie role was just . . . well . . . another odd job.

  SHALL WE DANCE?

  In the macho world of wrestling, most grapplers take a he-man approach to their sport. Ask any wrestler what is going to happen when he faces a certain opponent, and he'll likely tell you in no uncertain terms how he is going to destroy his adversary. No question about it.

  Yet there was once a wrestler whose approach was entirely different. He entered the ring with ballet slippers on his feet and wearing pink or baby blue trunks. At the beginning of a match he would literally dance around the ring, doing classical ballet steps, jumping and turning, and generally interpreting whatever mood he was in through dance.

  His name was Ricki Starr and his opponents learned quickly that it wasn't wise to make fun of his attire or his dance routine. For Starr could handle himself very well in the ring, and his dance training made him one of the most acrobatic of grapplers, with unique holds and maneuvers such as "The Big Dipper," "The Starlight Roll," and "Shooting Star."

  Starr also had a different background from most grapplers. He attended Purdue University as a drama major and had the lead role
in several stage productions. Yet he already had a love of wrestling and was an amateur champion at the same time that he was a budding actor and dancer. Before becoming a professional wrestler in 1952, Ricki Starr had already danced with several ballet companies, and he decided to bring his love of dance into the ring with him.

  "The first time I did it was in Amarillo, Texas," Starr said, "and I was really nervous about it. The crowd was mainly oil workers and cowboys, and a few of them began riding me at the beginning. But most liked it. Before the night was over they were all applauding."

  Of course, Ricki Starr also used his dancing to rile his opponents. He would often go into a series of complicated dance maneuvers, and while his opponents watched and wondered, Ricki would suddenly dance across the ring and give the other man a playful slap in the face. The fans loved it, and Ricki's opponents would be angered to distraction.

  But the world of dance and the world of wrestling were not always compatible, especially in the mind of Ricki Starr. To solve this dilemma, he became one of the first professional athletes to visit a psychiatrist with his problems, then talk freely about it.

  "I think I'm the first professional athlete to work out his emotional problems in a scientific manner. There were things about dance bothering me, but they were hidden deep inside. It had something to do with the prejudices against ballet that I encountered years earlier. What the psychiatrist did was instill and reinforce the idea that dancing and wrestling are separate, but harmonious."

  So Ricki Starr continued to do his own unique thing in the ring. He was a top attraction in the late 1950s and 1960s, an outstanding wrestler who proved that wrestlers don't have to be tough guys . . . at least not all the time.

  THE INCREDIBLE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD

  In the 1930s, a wrestler came on the scene who defied belief. They called him Man Mountain Dean and he weighed about 400 pounds. He was the first of the so-called giant wrestlers and a foreshadowing of what was to come. But even Man Mountain Dean would look small next to a man who wrestles today, an incredible athlete billed as the Eighth Wonder of the World.

  He is a French Canadian called Andre the Giant, and he stands 7'4" tall and weighs nearly 500 pounds. What's even more amazing is that Andre is a gentle man who appreciates some of the more delicate things in life, such as gourmet cooking. He has even appeared on nationwide talk shows where he has discussed cooking instead of wrestling and has prepared some of his favorite dishes in front of the camera.

  In the squared circle, however, the Giant is not so delicate. Wrestling all over the world, Andre has never been pinned and never forced to submit. The only times he hasn't emerged a winner have been caused by disqualifications. Because of his great size and immense popularity, Andre has always been a target of rolebreakers, and this has made it difficult for him.

  It's easy to see why no man has ever defeated Andre the Giant by a pin or submission. The huge Canadian stand 7'4" tall and weigs nearly 500 pounds. Here he dwarfs his good friend and fellow grappler, the muscular Tony Atlas.

  "When I started wrestling I always depended on my size and strength," Andre has said. "But as I became more experienced I learned more and more about scientific wrestling. Unfortunately, many of my opponents use brute force and all kinds of rulebreaking tactics against me. Because of this, I will often fight back the same way, and that makes every match a bitter struggle."

  In recent years, more and more wrestlers have come after Andre the Giant. There isn't a man in the pro ranks who wouldn't want to be the first to pin this living legend. As a consequence, Andre has been in much more difficult matches against bigger and stronger foes. Some fans think he is taking too much punishment. But the brutal matches have led to feuds which the fans seem to love. And Andre certainly won't run from a fight.

  "I've never started a feud and I don't like them," Andre has said. "But there are certain people gunning for me and I'm not hard to find."

  The most vicious of these feuds began in early 1985. Though he wasn't legally defeated in a match, the Giant found himself "ambushed" by Big John Studd, Ken Patera, and their insidious manager, Bobby "The Brain" Heenan. What they did to Andre was perhaps the most humiliating thing anyone could have done to such a proud man. They cut his long dark hair!

  It takes an awful lot to really make Andre angry. But this cowardly act was going too far. The Giant vowed revenge, and said it wouldn't be pretty. Defeating Studd and Patera as part of a three-man tag team wasn't nearly good enough. Andre wanted more. Heenan hadn't been there that night, so when the Giant finally met Patera one on one, and saw the Brain in Patera's corner, he sensed his time had come.

  Patera, a former Olympic weightlifter, fancies himself the world's strongest man. But in the hands of Andre the Giant, he had the strength of a puppet. Andre began tossing him around the ring. When Heenan began taunting the Giant, Andre turned his attention to the rulebreaking manager.

  That gave Patera a chance to recover and he attacked Andre from behind. The match was quickly turning ugly, especially when Heenan began slamming the Giant with his walking stick. For a minute it looked as if the big guy was in trouble. But somehow he managed to get a hand on Heenan and dragged the manager into the ring. What happened next was one of the most bizarre sights ever seen in a ring.

  Andre the Giant hoisted Bobby Heenan above his head and began using the manager as a human club. He pounded Ken Patera with his own manager! Andre seemed possessed with superhuman strength as he used Heenan to batter Patera to the canvas. Then he tossed the dazed manager on top of the dazed wrestler and pinned them both as the huge crowd went wild. Still, Andre wanted more.

  "I am going to continue to punish these men whenever and wherever I find them," he said. "My revenge will only be complete when all three of them retire from professional wrestling."

  There was still the matter of Big John Studd. No slouch in the size department himself, Big John stands 6'10" and weighs close to 400 pounds. But he's still no Giant, and Andre vowed he would bodyslam Studd or retire from wrestling. The two met on March 31, 1985, as part of the huge Wrestlemania extravaganza at Madison Square Garden in New York before some twenty-two thousand five hundred fans.

  Studd was making his usual claims that no one had ever bodyslammed him and offered the Giant $15,000 if he could do it. The match began with Studd managing to drop Andre to the canvas and getting on top. But the Giant's thirst for revenge was still strong, his rage growing, and he threw Studd off as if he were a paper doll.

  With the fans screaming and roaring, Andre wasted no time. He bear-hugged Studd, pinning his arms to his side, squeezing harder and harder to weaken his opponent. Then he casually lifted Studd over his head, paused to smile at the TV cameras, then bodyslammed his enemy to the canvas with a vengeance!

  Studd was finished. The fans roared as Andre grabbed the dufflebag that contained the $15,000 bounty. The Giant began tossing some of the cash to the ringside patrons when the defeated Studd sneaked up, grabbed the bag, and ran out of the ring. But Andre only laughed harder. The money didn't mean anything to him. He had beaten Big John Studd, bodyslammed him, and he continued to mete out the revenge he had promised.

  To many fans, Andre the Giant stands head and shoulders over all other wrestlers. He is loved the world over and has proved once again that he is one of the most incredible and amazing figures in all of sport.

  GEE, THANKS, DAD!

  To paraphrase an old saying, you can take the wrestler out of the ring, but you can't take the heart out of the wrestler, especially when the honor of his son is at stake. Recently two legendary champions returned to the ring to help out sons who were following in their footsteps. One of the retired champs did it on an official basis, the other on an impromptu one. But in both cases the fans loved seeing their favorites back again.

  The legendary Verne Gagne had been a champion for many years, holding the AWA belt on and off for some two decades. The Minnesota native tapered off his activities in the 1970s and retired for go
od in the early 1980s. At least he thought it was for good. For in 1985 Verne Gagne found a good reason for a return. In fact, it was the best reason a man could have.

  He decided to help his son, Greg, who had followed his father's footsteps to become a fine wrestler in his own right. But in 1985 Greg became embroiled in a feud with the nasty Nick Bockwinkel and the evil Mr. Saito, and those two had launched several brutal sneak attacks on young Gagne.

  Finally Verne had seen enough. He challenged Bockwinkel and Saito to a tag-team match, claiming he would come out of retirement to join his son. The villains agreed, figuring the aging Gagne would be dead meat. More than 16,000 fans packed the St. Paul Civic Center to witness the match, and it turned out to be a real slam-bang affair.

  Many of the fans who loved Verne Gagne were concerned about their hero. They didn't want to see him hurt.

  "It's not like I just had three weeks of training," Verne said. "I have 30 years of experience behind me."

  The Gagnes showed they meant business by storming the ring and attacking Bockwinkel and Saito as the fans roared. Veteran Verne, it seems, had learned some new rules. Once the match officially began, Greg was in control until he made the mistake of turning his back. That's when Bockwinkel and Saito double-teamed him and had him in deep trouble until he managed to tag his father. Verne came on like a hurricane looking for a place to land. He threw chops, drop-kicks, and bodyslams, and finally got Bockwinkel in his famous sleeper. He would have had the match right there if Saito hadn't clobbered him from behind.

  But as Bockwinkel lifted the stunned Verne into a backbreaker, Greg paid them back by sneaking in for a drop-kick, sending Bockwinkel to the canvas with Verne on top of him. The veteran recovered his composure quickly and applied the pin, ending the match. The fans went wild. They had witnessed the return of a living legend and hometown hero, a concerned father who returned to the ring to help his son. It was an amazing and heartwarming night.