This is where we learned to wrestle. It was brutal.
Eddie could see by our reactions that we were less than enthused about working in his ring. “Hey, don’t worry about it, guys. We’re only going to be training in learning how to take bumps.”
Yeah, right. Taking a bump onto your back in Eddie’s ring had all of the charm of falling off a building. The Empire State Building.
Our first lessons consisted of simply falling straight back on the mat, making sure to keep our heads up so as not to give ourselves concussions. I quickly found out how it felt to bang your head when taking a bump. Not pleasant. Then we moved onto falling straight back while kicking our legs up to give us air while we took the bump. That added a little dramatic visual and was the way I always took a bump from that point on.
Next, we learned how to do basic moves out of the corner, like a hip toss. I’d be punching Barry, whose back would be in the corner, and I’d hook my right arm under his. Then I’d take a half step, then a big step and flip him over onto his back. It sounded easy at first, but I realized how much of my success in performing the move depended on Barry synchronizing with me. He would have to carefully do the opposite of my footwork by taking a big step first, then a small step and jump in the air doing a flip. In the finished move, it appeared as if I was throwing Barry out of the corner onto his back in the middle of the ring.
There’s no question that learning the right timing of a sequence of moves was the key to everything. It had to look effortless. When you’re watching a couple of guys in the ring perform a series of spots3 and it looks flawless, that means you’re watching two guys who really know what they’re doing.
Eddie was so happy with our progress because we were all getting it the first time around. He’d take a broomstick and hold it out in front of one of the corners and we’d take turns flipping over the stick onto our backs. Bam! We did that every day for a couple of weeks, about fifty bumps per day, to get used to it.
Something else we had to get used to was learning how to throw proper working punches. This was such a gradual process and a lot harder than you’d imagine. We were used to hitting people for real and couldn’t grasp how to properly time it. You had to throw the punch while stomping your foot, making every effort to stop short of actually touching the other guy’s face. Mike was really adept at it. He used to stomp his feet really hard to get that loud ring sound, making his punches come off perfectly. After a few days, our punching may have improved, but we still had no clue.
We’d be in the ring all pumped up, pretty much swinging for the fences, not realizing the damage we were doing. Everybody was bleeding all the time. Whether I punched Rood in the nose or Mike in the mouth, it was only a matter of minutes before it came my way. Although taking bumps and throwing punches took up most of our time, you never knew what the next lesson would be.
I even learned something on the sidewalk outside of the church one afternoon. I happened to be outside taking a break when Curt Hennig, the future two-time WWF Intercontinental champion as Mr. Perfect, came strolling up the sidewalk. Curt had gone to Robbinsdale High School with Barry and Rood and wanted to stop by.
Just before Curt showed up, I had finished learning how to throw a good working punch, so when I saw him, I couldn’t wait. Like a little kid, I ran up and started throwing some punches at him.
A couple of lefts and a right later, Curt quickly started saying, “Kayfabe, brother. Kayfabe. There are people watching us, man.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about. Kayfabe? What the hell was kayfabe? So he gave me a crash course.
In those days, professional wrestling was protected by the philosophy of kayfabe, which was the illusion that wrestling was real. Guys in the business had to “keep kayfabe” at all times, which meant they had to live their gimmicks. It was the bread and butter of being a professional wrestler. One of the greatest examples of kayfabe happened on December 28, 1984.
A reporter named John Stossel was on assignment for the news show 20/20 to investigate the legitimacy of professional wrestling. While walking around backstage at a WWF event at Madison Square Garden, Stossel approached a wrestler named David Schultz with a poor choice of questions. Schultz was a huge guy, like six feet five and 260 pounds, and one of the big heels for the company. When Stossel came up and asked Schultz on camera if wrestling was fake, he had no way of knowing Schultz was in full character.
Stossel had no sooner asked the question than Schultz legit slapped him right down to the ground. Boom! Then Schultz asked him if he thought the slap was fake and slapped him again. It was all over the news in a hurry.
Needless to say, there were lawsuits filed and the WWF eventually fired Schultz, but Stossel had unwittingly convinced a lot of people watching at home that wrestling definitely wasn’t fake. It was a big victory for the credibility of the business.
And that’s exactly what kayfabe was all about.
The days and weeks started to fly by at our little wrestling school, and eventually Eddie decided to put us to the test. It was time for a show. My first match ever was against Rick Rood. Eddie opened up the doors of the church basement for all these little inner-city kids, like thirty of them, so we could show off our stuff. Those kids were great. They knew their wrestling and weren’t shy about letting us know it. They’d boo or cheer depending on how realistic our moves were. They were ruthless. I remember busting Rood’s nose open and blood gushing everywhere. Those kids were yelling, “That’s fake. It ain’t real.”
Ha. Little did they know Rood was in my ear, saying, “What the hell? Fake? This isn’t fake. Look at my nose.”
I think we only went about five minutes and didn’t even have a winner. They just rang the bell and we were done. Man, we were so blown up and out of breath that we couldn’t even talk or move.
My second match was with Barry, who almost destroyed my leg. He had me in a headlock, and I pushed him off into the ropes. He gave me a running tackle so hard that my tibia in my right leg popped out of place. You could actually see the bone protruding against the skin. I thought it was my knee and rolled out of the ring, yelling, “Oh man, my knee. I did something to my knee.”
I’ll tell you what, the kids in the audience were cheering and having a ball while I thought I’d never walk again. Fortunately for me, my legs were strong and big—probably about 30 inches around— from all of my weight training, so I was able to slightly walk.
On my way out to go home, I took a seat on the church steps for a second to rest. When I got up, grimacing from the pain, I wasn’t paying attention and stepped on an uneven section of the sidewalk. As my right ankle turned sideways, the bone popped back into place. I started bending my leg back and forth, relieved beyond belief that I hadn’t blown my knee out.
I looked at Barry, who was with me, shrugged, and said, “Hey, that feels pretty good. See you at the gym in two hours for squats?” And I did.
Aside from being impressed by our in-ring training and first couple of matches, Eddie was always taken aback by our size and was convinced we could make it in the business. He would talk about how he knew people in the business like Ole Anderson, who ran Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW). “Ole would love you guys. I’ve got to take some pictures of you and see what he could do. I’m telling you, Ole will be interested.”
Ole Anderson was a major wrestling star all of us knew from TV. He’d been in the legendary Minnesota Wrecking Crew tag team with his kayfabe brother Gene Anderson. The Andersons had been a main event attraction since the late ’60s. They’d won every major tag team championship the NWA territories had to offer, many times over.
By 1981, Ole was focusing more on the business side of things and was a small percentage owner of GCW in Atlanta. He was the booker and the man in charge of everything, including hiring new talent. Eddie was convinced that if Ole liked the pictures of us, he’d stop to see us during one of his trips to visit his parents in his hometown of Ramsey, Minnesota.
We
humored Eddie. “Okay, Eddie, whatever you say.”
We posed outside of the ring in the church basement for some really rudimentary photos, each of us wearing shorts, our hands on our hips. At the very least, the photos showed how big we were. Add Eddie’s slick descriptions of how we were in the ring, and the plan worked.
I’ll never forget when Eddie ran up to me one day and said Ole was up from Georgia and was going to stop by Gramma B’s for a beer. Now that was big news.
Ole showed up on a particularly busy night, which meant he’d get a good show. You see, at Gramma B’s there was this big electrical box on the ground outside the front door past the sidewalk. Attached to the box was a midthigh-high wire that we all called the trip wire. Whenever someone got rowdy or outlandish, we’d take him by the back of the neck with one hand and the back of his pants with the other and run him out the front door.
These poor guys would go hurtling through the doorway and, without seeing it, hit the trip wire and either flip and land on their faces or bounce back onto their asses. It was the greatest thing ever, and we all used it as often as possible. Eventually we got to the point where we’d rate each other on the landing of our victims on a scale of one to ten. Rest assured, I always scored a ten.
I had just finished sending some jerk into the trip wire, causing a dazzling flip and smash. I was proud.
“Hmm, that was different,” someone off to the side commented. I looked over, and there was Ole Anderson standing with Eddie, admiring my technique. I knew it was him, but I casually walked back inside and resumed my position next to the front door. I was playing it cool, but in my mind I was freaking out. Holy shit, that was Ole Anderson.
About twenty minutes later, I heard Eddie shouting down to me from the upstairs office. “Hey, Joe, get Rood and come up here for a minute.”
Eddie introduced us, and we shook hands. I was much bigger than Ole, but he was a mountain of a man who reminded me of a rugged old lumberjack. He gave me a strong grip, which I gave right back.
Our meeting was casual and pretty brief. Ole told Rood and me he liked our pictures and Eddie had spoken very highly of our athletic ability. “We’ll have to see how things go,” he said, “but I’d like to bring you two down for a tryout in Georgia sometime.” He said he’d give us a call, and that was it.
On a Thursday afternoon a few weeks later, I was hanging out at Rood and Mike’s apartment. We were all starving and decided to victimize the local smorgasbord restaurant, but as usual, we had to wait on Rood to get ready.
One thing you have to understand about Rood is that he had no shortage of lady friends and loved to look good for them all. His hair and Tom Selleck mustache were always a priority when going anywhere.
Mike and I were getting tired of waiting and went out on the front steps. Finally Rood emerged. As we all started to leave, the phone rang. Mike and I moaned for Rood to let it ring and come on, but he couldn’t resist the urge to answer it. After all, he had girls calling day and night.
Rood was in the apartment for a few minutes before coming back out. “Hey, man, that was Ole. He wants me and you to drive down to Georgia and wrestle on the TV tapings Saturday.”
The news couldn’t have been any bigger. Mike congratulated us, and we all left for lunch.
I could only think about how crazy all of this was—and how long that drive to Atlanta would be. It was already Thursday afternoon, and we had to be there by Saturday morning. We didn’t have enough time.
As soon as we got back to Rood’s, I called Ole and told him driving might be a problem. He said not to worry and that two tickets would be waiting for us at the airport the next afternoon. In a rush, we packed and got ready to go.
3
EDUCATION OF A ROAD WARRIOR
Before Rood and I headed toward fame and fortune down in Atlanta, I had to call my folks. It’s funny because the day Ole called us, my dad had taped the local classified ads on the refrigerator and told me I shouldn’t bother coming home without a job. By that same afternoon, I had the privilege of calling my dad to tell him his son had indeed gotten a job. “Dad, I’m going to be flying down to Georgia tomorrow to be a pro wrestler.”
He was incredulous. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“Nope, I’m not kidding. This is what I’m going to do for now and see how it goes.”
And that was that. If wrestling had the potential to offer me and my little Joey a good living, I had to check it out.
So Rood and I caught our flight and made it down to Atlanta in plenty of time for the Saturday morning TV tapings. Here we were, completely inexperienced and starting off on GCW’s World Championship Wrestling TV show. This was the show to watch on cable. It came on every Saturday at 6:05 p.m. on Superstation WTBS 17 and was as big as it got.
We were both a little nervous but excited, too. I was ready, or at least I thought I was. When Ole and I discussed what my gimmick4 would be, he already had an idea. The Mel Gibson movie Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior inspired Ole. The characters had a savage and brutal attitude combined with a neobiker image. I would be Ole’s Road Warrior.
The first thing I needed to do was get my image and outfit together—quickly. For whatever reason, I decided my Road Warrior wardrobe would be a little jean jacket vest, black leather gloves, sunglasses, jean shorts, and to top it all off, a Village People-style black police cap.
It seemed right at the time, but looking back, man, was I off.
When I arrived at the studio, Ole quickly hid me in the back. I guess I was kind of like his big secret because he kept me away from everyone throughout most of the taping.
When it was my time to enter the show, Ole made it very clear he wanted me to be vicious as hell: “I want you to go out there and kick the shit out of this guy tonight.”
That sounded good to me.
My first match was with a guy named Randy Barber. Randy was a jobber5 who was short, pale, middle-aged and looked as if he had no business in a ring of any kind. He wasn’t intimidating in the least but was a nice enough guy. I felt bad about what Ole wanted me to do to him. I don’t remember much about that first experience against Randy other than the audience’s reaction to me and how much of a beating I dished out.
Ole and I hadn’t discussed anything about how the match would go. “What’s the point?” he’d said. “You’re going to forget it all the second you get in front of the audience.” He was right.
That night is like a series of quick snapshots in my mind, but I can recall walking up to the interview podium across from the ring. In those days, I wasn’t allowed to say a word. When I went up to the host, Gordon Solie, for my prematch interview, Gordon said, “Any words from the Road Warrior before the match starts?”
I didn’t answer. I stared at him through the sunglasses.
Without missing a beat, the bewildered Solie looked right at the camera and said, “Let’s go to the action in the ring.”
That kind of noninteraction got a hot response from the little studio crowd, which was comprised mostly of young inner-city kids. They booed me incessantly from beginning to finish. I loved it. My big, mean attitude shined right through, which was the plan from the get-go.
When the bell rang, I quickly charged at Randy, grabbed him by the throat, and pushed him into the corner. As I was choking him, I pushed back his head and then forearm smashed him so hard his chest practically caved in. Poor Randy literally didn’t know what hit him. I let him go, and he came groggily walking back. I grabbed him and gave him a giant knee smash to the head for the finish. The match was over almost as soon as it had started, but there it was, my big debut.
As the match ended, all the kids were letting me have it with boos and jeers, so I flipped them all the middle finger. I had so much adrenaline running I didn’t know what I was doing. Oops. Thankfully, Ole said they would edit it out of the tape for the evening broadcast.
I didn’t even get a chance to see Rood’s match. Then, for whatever reason, Ole sent Rood up to Mid
-Atlantic Championship Wrestling (MCW) based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. It was like that in the wrestling business, though. One minute someone would be right next to you, and the next he was gone without a trace. I would see Rood again very soon, though.
Little did I realize that while my big opportunity was unfolding, a power struggle was also developing between Ole and a guy named Jim Barnett over GCW. All I knew was that Barnett was a big player in the business and was another stockholder of the company. It was all a big mess I absolutely had no understanding of. Above that, I didn’t care as long as I had a job and kept working. Lawsuits were exchanged, and I remember the constant threat of Barnett trying to shut GCW events down.
As a result of Ole’s troubles with Barnett, Ole told me I was going to be shipped off. “Hey, kid. There’s a lot of crap going on down here. I need to get rid of you for a couple of months. You’ll go up and work at Mid-Atlantic in Charlotte. When this storm blows over, I’ll send for you.”
I didn’t know what to think.
Ole was pretty adamant that he had to shut down operations for a short period and fight to stay in business. “I can either lie down or die trying,” he said, raising his hands, “and I ain’t lying down.”
When Ole told me I was going up to MCW in the Carolinas, I wasn’t sure. It sounded to me like going from the big time in Atlanta to some little hillbilly setup in the middle of the sticks in North Carolina. Ole said promoter Jim Crockett would take care of me, but I didn’t know.
I called Rood, who’d been up there for a couple of weeks and knew the lay of the land. When I told him my concerns, he said, “No, man, you’ve got it wrong. This territory’s a hotbed, man. Mid-Atlantic is the headquarters for the whole NWA. Crockett has a good thing here.”
The Road Warriors: Danger, Death, and the Rush of Wrestling Page 3
