350 Days - Legends. Champions. Survivors (2018) - full transcript

[rock & roll music]

[Santana] 350 days a year is
a wrestler on the road.

This is something
that never escapes you.

All the sacrifices
that you had to do,

not only to yourself
but the family.

You, you knew that your family
was going through sacrifices.

I started having kids
and, you know, missing
my wife's birthdays,

and anniversaries
and my kids' birthdays

and, you know, it got
pretty lonely on the road.

[Orndorff] I miss my family.
I miss being away from them,

'cause I was always either
in an airplane or in a car,



Seven days a week,
twice on a Sunday.

And, uh, it was tough.

It really was, you know.

The whole thing was about money.

And then it got to the point
to where... [clears throat]

Pshaw!

They ain't nothing
like your family.

Money don't mean nothing
without your family.

[Valentine] Maybe it's
a sickness, I don't know,
but it's, uh, [chuckles].

It's a good sickness
because I was successful at it.

The road part,
riding the cars and stuff,
I mean, that was torture.

[Bret Hart]
A lot of physical pain,
a lot of loneliness, uhm...

I think that, uhm...

the good and the bad almost, uh,
balance out like there.



It can be really great being
a wrestler and it can really
suck at the same time.

350 days as a professional
wrestler, to me, reminds me

of having
to get up at 5:30 and 6:00
every morning to catch a flight,

and to go to some town, and rent
a car and then go to the hotel,

and then go to the gym,
have something to eat,

and then go to the matches.

That was my life.
Uhm, it was a lonely life.

[Steele] You know what I think
about the fans knowing
what happened on the road?

And their insight and their:
"It makes it exciting for them,"
and what was going on.

I have nothing to say
to them because that would like

be telling a little kid
that there's no Santa Claus.

Let him dream. Let them--
They don't want to know--

Let them think about the, the
highlights and the great stuff.

They don't wanna know
what a drag it is on you.

So just, "It was great.
Try it sometime, sucker."

[Fargo]
The guys today that I walk up
to go these wrestling matches,

they say, "Well, I'm a wrestler.
I've wrestled as well.

"Have you been on the road?
How many times do you wrestle?"

They say, "We wrestle
about once or twice a month."

I said, "Well,
you're not a wrestler till
you wrestle seven days a week,

and every day of the year
on the road constantly,
and living a hard life,

living in motels,
and being away from your family,

and having a hard time.
Then, you can call yourself
a wrestler."

[Graham]
That means you're being
abused by a promoter.

That means you're being
taken advantage of.

That means your, uhm,
lifestyle is totally, uh,

changed between, uh,
being a normal human being,

and being a, uh, robot
for the wrestling company
that you're performing for.

That means you're disrespected
and, uh, you have
no home life whatsoever.

That's the most important
thing that, uh, you,
you must consider,

uh, when you talk
about 350 days on the road.

[Snuka] You know...

Whatever number it takes,
500 or whatever days, you know,

I look forward to it, bro.
You know why?

Because I love it so much.
It's in my heart...

And, uhm, it's a great feeling.

When I hear that term, 350 days,

it reminds me talking
to Bret Hart in his home,

and he was banged up from a lot
of wrestling, and he says,
"You know," he says,

"the problem
with our, our business is
we're treated like farm animals.

And farm animals work 365 days
a year. We worked 350."

I couldn't have children.

I couldn't put them on
a turnbuckle while mommy worked.

I couldn't have any pets,
and I really didn't have
a personal life.

So my time in the ring was
the highlight of my day.

And I do miss that.
I miss the thrill of wrestling.

They say once it goes in your
blood, it's hard to get out
and it's true.

[Orndorff]
People think, "Oh, uh,
you're having a blast.

You're away from home."
This and that whatever.

Yeah, but you're not
with the people you love.

I mean, really,
you think about it.

I'm with a bunch of jerks
that pass gas all the time,

that wanna eat cheap hamburgers,
and I didn't do none of them.

Oh, you know,
it's good with the bad.

Uh... The-- Because you're
a celebrity to a degree,

the, the, the tempting things,
and by tempting things,

I'm talking
about you go to a town,

you know, you go to a club after
and drugs would be available,

and it's like somebody
wants to be your friend

and-- and so it's, it's there.

Some guys, uh,
could deal with it,

and some guys
have destroyed their lives.

Well, I'm gonna
tell you, you know,

to make some big money
in wrestling,

you had to wrestle every night
of the week, $30 every day.

So you had to wrestle
six and seven times every week

just to earn your money.

-[director] And cut. One second.
-[cameraman] So if you could do
that one more.

I didn't realize it was
gonna be that loud.
But I'm ready now.

What the fuck did you do?

350 days on the road,
with wrestlers? A living hell.

[Graham]
I never liked wrestling.

I didn't like traveling.

I didn't like the disruption
of a normal program.

Like the years I spent training
with Arnold bodybuilding.
You're on a program.

Every day you wake up
at the same hour,

you eat your meal the same hour,

you sleep
in the same bed every night,

you take the same steroids
every day.

[chuckles] You train
at the same time every day.

Everything is,
everything is on a schedule.

Pro wrestling, there is no...
The, the schedule is
chaos and chaotic.

[Eadie] You know, I think a lot
of the fans think that you live
in the dressing room.

And at eight o'clock,
the bell rings
and the lights go on,

music plays and you come out,

and you do your thing
and you go back in.

And they all have their popcorn
and they drop all the stuff.

They get in their car
and they go home.

They're in bed at 10:30.

All the guys are
still on the road,
three or four o'clock

in the morning. They're
gonna make the next stop.

So you're just traveling,
traveling, traveling.

But when you're young
and ambitious, and you got
that drive like I was,

it's part of the business.
You know, you don't mind it.

Now, I don't know if I could
ever do that again.

You know, I, I've been traveling
all over the place, bro.

I mean, you name the name
of the places, I've been there,

not once but many times.

[Lanny] Houston, New Orleans,
uh, Tulsa, Oklahoma City,
Mississippi, back and forth.

It was incredible.
I wouldn't have survived it

if I hadn't been in the car
with Grizzly Smith.

He drove all the way and I used
to swear he was falling asleep

at the wheel,
but we'd always get there.

[Abdullah]
I wrestled in Tokyo,
I wrestled in Korea,

I wrestled in Australia,
New Zealand, Auckland, Perth.

I wrestled in Puerto Rico,
Trinidad, Barbados,

Santo Domingo,
Saint Thomas, Saint Louis.

[Bret Hart]
Manitoba and Saskatchewan,

and Alberta
and British Columbia,

all the way to Calgary,

and Montana [chuckles]
and long, long trips.

There was so much fun hanging
around with all those wrestlers.

And I think back on it now,
I miss so many of those days.

Guys drinking beer
and the fun and the high
jinks in the hotel rooms and...

But I think
Calgary really had the... uh,

the frontier, Wild West
version of, of wrestling,
of Pro Wrestling.

[DiBiase] I think
about driving to Greenwood
and Greenville, Mississippi,

and wrestling
in front of a hundred people,
in front of a hundred people

and getting in a car and driving
300 miles and, and, uh,

and some of those nights not
having enough money to even eat
at McDonald's.

We would go and buy
a loaf of bread and...

you know, a Baloney,
We call it Baloney blowouts.

We get some fleabag hotel
and you know,

with two beds and we take
the mattresses off the bed

and, uh, the four guys and flip
a coin to see who had to sleep

on the hard box-spring
or who got the mattress.

[Valentine] You don't get to
bed 'til five, six
'cause you've been partying.

You wake up at seven, uhm,

you're alarm clock might
not work, so you might
miss your flight.

If you, If your alarm clock
does work you get downstairs,

you might be getting on
a van to go the airport,

but the, the stewardesses
and the, uh, pilots
have got it all

tied up, so you gotta wait
for the next one.

The guys
had checked their baggage,
which I thought was stupid,

and they'd get to the other end,
their baggage would be lost,
and now they don't have, uh,

their tights
or snakes or whatever.

Uh, it was always something.

[Valentine]
They always did it to us.
They always put us

on a first thing flying
out of there,

and they'd... Where do we go
from Davenport, Iowa.

We gotta fly
to Chicago and connecting
and go to someplace like

Denver, L.A. or something.
It was like, it's never close,

or Florida.
It was just like pff.

I left Phoenix, Arizona
and drove up through the spine

of the Rocky Mountains
and entered Calgary.

And I left Phoenix, uh,
it was 80 degrees.

I arrived in Calgary,
it's 50 below zero.

[chuckles] It was the first time
I'd ever been in this kind

of frigid, sub-zero weather.

Really, seriously,
uh, uh, kinda death killing,

weather if you were
stuck out in it, and it was
an absolute culture shock.

Calgary was famous for maybe
having one of the hardest, uhm,

travel trip like schedules
of, of any territory.

I think Amarillo was
another one that was...
Maybe Louisiana as well.

I think those were the three
that stand out as

you know, hellacious traveling.

Uhm, usually packed in a van
with, uhm... 10 or 12 wrestlers.

Sometimes we'd have the midgets
that would be working.

And I can remember the midgets,
they'd stack them up

like cardboard on top
of the suitcases in the back.

And they'd
just lie out and sleep

on the suitcases
all the way to, to Regina.

Some of them I can remember,
it still makes me laugh,

'cause I can remember
sitting in the van

and looking down
like this and there'd be
a midget under the seat

with his face right... like
under... by my feet.

Like I can remember
looking down like,
"Oops, sorry." And he's like,

"It's okay." Like,
"Don't worry about it.
Just don't step on my head."

[upbeat music]

I had a dream.

I was probably 16 or 17 years
old, born and raised
in Trenton, New Jersey.

And black and white television.
I'm giving my age away.

And I was a big
Brooklyn Dodger fan.

It was the era
when Mickey Mantle was
center fielder for the Yankees,

and Willie Mays for the Giants
and Duke Snider for the Dodgers.

And Duke Snider was my idol,
Uh, they moved into L.A.

And my interest in baseball
kinda waned as a result

of the team
that I loved leaving town.

And one night, uh, on a Thursday
night, wrestling was on live

from the Capital Arena
in Washington D.C.,
for an hour and a half.

And, and it was the era
of Argentinian Rocca,
and Karl Von Hess,

and Dr. Jerry Graham,
and Eddie Graham, and Chief
Big Heart with a headdress.

Haystacks Calhoun with the big
horseshoe around his neck,

and Bobo Brazil, and The Sheik.

And to me these... I was like...

And all of these bigger
than life characters.

And I decided that night

that this is what I wan--
You know, some people wanna
be cowboys and some...

I, I'm sure my parents
thought I was crazy.

I said, "This is
what I wanna do. I wanna be
a professional wrestler."

I wrestled in, I think,
44 in the 50 states.

I wrestled in Japan
like seven times.

It was, uh, going to Japan was
an, an incredible experience.

[whimsical music]

[whimsical music continues]

-My mom and my dad.
-[man] OK.

Uh, were both
professional wrestlers.

My mom's wrestling name
was Helen Hild.

And my dad's wrestling name was
Iron Mike, Iron Mike DiBiase.

And I actually think
that's how they met.

You know, my mother had been
a... She had done, uh...

a stage show dancing,
like choreographic dancing.

She danced on stage, uh,
in like a, uh,

chorus lines
and stuff with Danny Kaye
and the Sinatra and stuff.

She was a beautiful woman.

And I'm not sure just
how she got into lady wrestling.

But I know that
when, when wrestling--

When television was brand new,

wrestling was one the first
things on television.

And lady wrestlers
back then kinda,

they were treated
almost like movie stars.

My dad had a heart
attack in the ring,
on July the 2nd, 1969

at Lubbock, Texas, 45 years old.

And even when my dad didn't
want me to wrestle, again,
he wasn't there

anymore to keep me from it,
and it was just that attitude.

I was, I was so, uhm...

I guess I looked up to my dad
so much that I felt like,

"If this was good enough for
him, it's good enough for me."

But I did make a vow to myself,

because of my father's death
in the ring, that I would not
outstay my, my time.

My dad, uhm, he never encouraged
me to get into wrestling.

He never... It was...
As I got older,

when I was in high school,

so it was in the,
probably in the '70s,

wrestling was not doing so well,
business-wise, for my dad.

He didn't have that many fans.

Uhm, business was,
was so-so on those days.

Certain towns were
good and some were...
some were better than others.

But he was, uh,
he was a great promoter.

He really loved the business.

He's one of those kind
of guys that if he could...

And he did countless times,
break in the wrestlers,

and sort of do all the work
to make the wrestler and then

let the wrestler go.

And then he goes and makes
money for everyone else and...

Like he would create the Billy
Graham Superstars and, uhm,

Abdullah got
his first big break in Calgary
and, uh, Dynamite Kid, and

certain guys became
huge stars in the business,
uhm, through him.

You know, a lot times
they rarely came back
to pay the favor back

and say, you know,
"Someday I'm gonna come back
and help this guy and more..."

You know, you forget sometimes.

My father and, uh,
my great aunt, you know,

they, they were
very high people, you know,
very high people and, uh...

You know,
I got four uncles, you know.

I don't know how they had
all boys, but you know,
it worked out good for me.

You know, and I was just the,
you know, youngest kid who was
around, you know and...

It was, it was great.

I had my uncles.
I had my family.

But they always called me Muddy.

I'm, I'm always dirty, you know.

Muddy with the dirt
and everything.

That was my nickname to them.

Because every time
my mom would call out for me,

I'm in the jungle somewhere.

And they said, uh, "Okay,
brother. Go look for them."

[chuckles] They'll come,
and there'll be yelling,

and calling,
and I'll disappear, you know.

Playing games with them,
you know.

Go around the other way
and come back home,

but they caught me. They knew
what was going on, so...
but I loved it.

My parents were not
very supportive.

My, my mother was always
supportive of anything
I ever chose to do,

but my father had a fit.

I can't repeat the language
he used when I told him,

uh, when I just told him
I wanted to take a picture.

[giggles] I, I actually ran away

from home at 17
and left him a letter

and, uh, that I was gonna
get into wrestling.

And that's how, that's how
I got into it. I just left.

Left him a letter 'cause I knew
he would have a fit.

He probably wouldn't have
let me go and...

You know, I moved out
at 17 and never went back.

[Gangrel] I got started into
Pro Wrestling because
I was looking for-- I was 16.

Uhm, I broke
my neck playing football.

My parents wouldn't let me
do any other sports.

So this was at 13.

Uhm, I moved out
of home when I was 14.

The neck brace came off.

And so I started
working construction.

But to get in Pro Wrestling,
I was looking for a better
construction job.

And uh, I saw an ad
in a newspaper that said,

"Hey, beat people up
for a living and make money."

And I go,
"Oh, hell. I could beat
people up for a living.

I'll go make some money."

In between the side,
I went there, and, uh, turns out

it was Pro Wrestling,
which wasn't really
beating people up,

it was, uh,
sports entertainment.

But that's how I got into it.
I showed up there, uhm,

trained for three weeks,
thought it was real.
I was ready to fight,

ready to do whatever.
I couldn't figure out
what was going on there,

and then they said,
"You do know this is uh, uh,

it's entertainment,
it's a work, right?" and I go,

"What are you talking about?"
Oh, well, it explains a lot,

because I'm like,
I'm ready to go.
I'm like all tensed up.

[Bret Hart] It was a hard life
on the road but it was...

You know, it was a lot better
than a lot of other jobs.

You know, I had
a construction job I think, uhm,

before I got into wrestling.

A pretty good paying
construction job,
a couple of them.

And, uh, I made pretty
decent money, but...

I hated sitting around
talking shop with guys at,
during coffee break about work.

Like about, uhm,
you know, what kinda,

you know, gaskets we needed
for the rig or whatever
it is. I hated it.

I slowly talked
myself into wrestling.

[upbeat music]

Fate has a way of inter--
intervening sometimes.

Uh, my, my dad had booked
my two brothers

Smith and Bruce,
to, uhm, Puerto Rico

and he had bought the tickets,
and one was S. Hart
and one was B. Hart.

And my brother Bruce,
got cold feet, uhm,

the night
before he was supposed to go.

And uhm, my brother Smith
came up and my brother
Bruce kinda came up

and tried to talk me
into maybe going instead.

Like, the ticket was B. Hart
and you could go with Smith.

And Smith didn't wanna go
alone, and they...

And then I got talked into,

overnight, like changing
my life completely.

I packed up
a little bag and flew
to Puerto Rico with Smith.

And, uhm... I remember sitting
on a beach with a big full moon

and looking up at the sky
and thinking about it,

as the waves were
crashing on the rocks, and...

I can remember
just sort of thinking
about my life and where I was.

And, you know, I knew
what wrestling was,
I knew it was a hard life,

I knew it was traveling,
I knew it was...

But I just remember
I kinda asked myself whether,

whether I really wanted to be
a wrestler, like this was...

Do you wanna be a wrestler
and do you wanna spend
the rest of your... You know.

Do you really wanna go for this
or you wanna...
Maybe I wanna..."

I was homesick
and a lot of other things,

but I do remember making
a sort of pact with myself that

I was gonna give
this wrestling a real try.

And I was gonna not just
gonna be that wrestler,

I was gonna be one of the best
wrestlers in the world.

And I always believed,
in the early days, that it was

for the benefit of my father,
that I'd be his salvation

or be the guy that would come
in and help keep, revive things

for him and keep his,
the family business alive.

[Mosca] The business was
very good to me.

Uh, I came along
at the right time.
I was in the early '60s.

I learned everything
in the ring.

I didn't go to gyms.

I, they wanna get me
because I was,

I looked the part,
I was big, and I was lucky.

The wrestling was great.
It was...

I stayed in shape, I got
in shape, I was always in shape,

and it was fun.
The traveling all around.

I got, I got
a chance to go to places
that I didn't have to pay.

People today have to pay
when they go see them places.

I went there for free
and got paid for it.

I used to be a fisherman guy,
you know, uhm,

I love to go spear shooting,
you know, fishing.

And I used to go behind
the reef, you know,

when the tide goes out
and everything.

That's when I go down
and, uhm, go shooting fish.

Whatever my mom wants,
she'll get it.

Like her favorite
is that it, it's lobster.

And I always get a lobster
every time when she wants one.

I didn't tell her
that I was, you know,

getting into the wrestling
business and stuff.

And, uhm, when we, uh, you know,
came home, I thought she would,

because the wrestling comes
on in the evening, you know.

And we sit down and watch it,
because she loves it.
She loves wrestling.

She didn't even know
that I was gonna be,
you know, involved in it.

But when we sat there
and turned on the TV, right?

And my mom was just
looking, and looking,

and I didn't say
anymore to her after that.

Then, all of a sudden,
I came and I think it was number
three, which was good, you know.

She didn't have to wait around
too long, see the brawl.

And when I came in with me
and, uh, Cowboy Franklin,

we was in a tag match,

my mother thought
she just had another baby.

And I loved it.

[whimsical music]

[Farkas] Before my time, you
know, like a gimmick.

It look like a gimmick,
you call it gimmick.

You're a gimmick, him a gimmick,
I am a gimmick,

anybody a gimmick.

You from Italy, Germany,
call it gimmick.

[Fargo]
I think I had... [chuckles]

I think it was 18 different
what they call gimmicks.

And I actually lived
every gimmick that I did,

and that made it hard
for my family too, because
most people, wrestlers,

when they went to the arena,
they got dressed and went home

to their families or they hit
the road again like that.

I didn't. I hit the bars

and, uh, I was my character.

And I was always in fights
and stuff like that,

but a lot of the promoters
loved me for that,

because I was
attracting attention.

My goal when that bell rang
and even before it rang,

was to give somebody
something for their money

that maybe somebody else
didn't give them.

In other words, maybe I wasn't
good, but I was good and unique.

It's not good enough to be good,
you gotta be special.

Terry Funk told me,
"Lanny, if you wanna
make it in this business,

you got to be peculiar."

So since I wasn't born peculiar,
I decided to act peculiar.

Even walking like the Genius,
talking like the Genius,

and running away
from people like the Genius.

When I was Leaping Lanny,
I was a suffering hero.

All manly
and "I'm gonna kill you."

I had this Mine doll
and I would...

It had velcro on the hands,
and I put it on the ropes.

And my opponent would take it
and kick it. I would sell it

like he's kicking me, and they'd
kick it again and stomp it.

I would sell it like it was me,
and the people were buying it.

They loved it because of
George's way, poor George.

And then, I would beat him
at the end and raise
the Mine doll hand.

The mystique of the mask
was not knowing my identity.

I mean, they may have but nobody
ever approached me and said...

I mean, I get people
come to me and they said,

"You know, I never knew
who you were and I never knew

Ax Demolition and the Masked
Superstar were the same
till I read about them."

[Abdullah] I was
a natural when I first
hit the ring, right,

because I used to watch,
I used to watch Tarzan.

[chuckles] Did you see
the Africans, right?

Guess one of them, right?

And then [indistinct]
they show the eyes.

They would do this,
so I'd go and study this.

Just look in the mirror,
do something with the eyes.

And all of a sudden, it seemed
like I was hypnotizing myself.

When you start staring into
a mirror and you're like this.

How long can you do it?

Then I started picking up.

I'd go to the ring,
see the people and go:

Find one person who couldn't
look at me and I could
be like this.

And when you see them
going like this.

You stare at them
and they start to move.

Vincent came out
and publicly said,
"We're sports entertainment."

And just by the very nature
of the way he presented

our business, now, it's
more of like a family show.

And, you know,
Hulk Hogan was the superhero

who was bigger than life
and I was almost like

Snidely Whiplash, you know with,

[laughs] you know.

It was so over the top,
the good and evil,

Uh, people understood.

Abdullah the Butcher,
as you all know,

has challenged
Superstar Billy Graham

through his manager,
The Godfather wrestling,

Damien Kane,
so I decided to bring out

an old friend of mine Superstar
Billy Graham and Superstar--

-The world's greatest television
announcer, Mr. Paul Heyman.
-Oh, well.

Superstar Billy Graham is
on the wrestling scene,

and when I get my hands
on Abdullah the Butcher,

the 22-inch python
of Superstar Billy Graham...

[Graham]
I never believed in my own PR.

I knew it was
a work from day one.

I never believed that I was
Superstar Billy Graham.

"The man of the hour,
the man with the power,
too sweet to be sour."

All of these rhymes.
I never believed that I was
really the "World Champion".

I, I always knew that it was
a work from day one.

I never bought into my own PR.

When I was wrestling, there was
a guy an Israeli wrestler,

named Rafael Halperin
and he wrestled as
the Wrestling Rabbi.

So he was, uh,
a Jewish wrestler at that,

an acknowledged
Jewish wrestler at that time.

But generally, you hid
your name behind something.

Like I was a pretend
Prussian, German.

My partner pretended
to be Italian.

We wrestled as the Axis Powers.
[speaking in German]

[in German accent] I take you.
I break you!
I throw you from the ring.

So I carried on like that
for a couple of years then,
uh, it was a blast.

[Vachon] My brother, Mad Dog,
he says, Paul.

He says,
"Ever since they, they started

calling me Mad Dog,"
he says, "I've been

making nothing but money."
He says,

"We got to find you
some kind of animal name."

I figured,
Well, he's gonna call me

Paul the Bull or Paul the Goat

if you want to,
you know, an animal name.

Paul the Tiger
or some damn thing.

So he comes up he says, "You
know what we're gonna call you?

We're gonna call you
Paul the Pig." I said,

"To hell with you. I'm not
wrestling under Paul the Pig.

I don't care how much money
I'm gonna make."

Then we both started laughing.

And then we decided on,
on something else,

and that's where I got
the name Butcher.

When I was uh,
back in the Fiji islands, uh,

you know, we used
to go to a lot of movies.

You know I loved watching
the movies, you know, and...

when Tarzan came out
and I went to go see it,

it was all over, bro.

Because right then,
that sank right into my mind

and said, "My goodness,
I would like to be
like that guy."

And I said to myself I said,
"You know what?

I'm gonna do it,
'cause that's what I want."

And my mom, when she start
having tears and everything,

brother, then I knew that
uh, she was a wrestling fan.

[Steele] I was wrestling
in the Detroit territory.

I'd go to the northeast and the
WWF territory, now the WWE.

And I would come back and the
televisions never crossed.

But kids would come in
from the North-East, they would
move into Madison Heights,

and I'd see them over in the
corner with a magazine and then
have a bunch of kids going.

And they'd confront me.
This happened about, well,
maybe twice a year.

They'd come up with the magazine
and say, "That's you.

You're George
the Animal Steele."

I'd take the magazine.
Sometimes I was on the cover,

I looked at it like, seriously?

"Do you really think
I'm that ugly?"

[chuckles] Their answer was,
"Well, uh, uh..."

I'd go to a restaurant
and I'd walk up to

the people walked up, you know,
like, "Can, can I help you?"

I go, "Me, me, me,

egg, egg, bacon." Right?

Oh, you want eggs and bacon.
Hum. [chuckles]

You know, I just thought,
you know, there, there was

a lot of guys that had gimmicks
and stuff like that.

My gimmick was I had no gimmick.

I was just a wrestler.

[upbeat music]

[Savoldi] One night we're
coming back from Little,
Little Rock, Arkansas.

We wrestled there.

And I said, "George,
why don't you get yourself

a gimmick and call yourself

George something?"

So, uh, he, well he came back
and the next day,
he come to see me,

and he say, "Angelo,
I think I got a gimmick.

I'm gonna call myself
Gorgeous George, and that's
the way I'm gonna wrestle."

And he became
one of the greatest
entertainers in the world.

[calm music]

The worst thing that you can
say to, uh, to a wrestler is,

"Uh, well, it's just
a bunch of phony crap."

Uh, which tells me
they have absolutely no idea
what they're talking about

or, or, or some guy that's,
you know, 35 or 38
and, or 40-years-old

and is, is some great big
pus gut who's, you know,

you know,
hadn't been in a gym in,
in five years, come up and say,

"Well, how can I become
a wrestler?" Well, the first
thing I would ask them is,

what, how, what makes you
think you can?

I get pissed when people say
anything about fake,

because if it was fake,
I've, I'd have,

I wouldn't have, you know,
four artificial joints.

It was very real.
It was very real.

It's a tough life. It really is.

I mean, when you see
someone hit the mat,
they're hitting the mat hard.

When someone's picking them up
and slamming them,

they're slamming them down hard,

and you have to be in extreme
condition to withstand that,

just so you don't have
major injuries every time.

I could show you
my doctor bills. [laughs]

I could show you, uh,
in the ring what we do.

I don't like
to use the word fake.

I think anybody that's wrestled,
takes offense to that.

And whenever
I would meet somebody
and they would say that,

uh, very simply,
not get mad, get, not get loud,

uh, give them my card and say,
this is my training facility.

You can come up
anytime you want,

sign the release form,
get in the ring with me,

and you determine
if it's fake or not.

[Johnson] It's not fake.
It's show business.

Uh, the, the, the finishes are
pre-determined, absolutely.

I... we, you know, uh,
I'm not gonna try to insult
anybody's intelligence.

What we do,
the finishes aren't real,

but the wrestling
itself is real.

Uh, as far as
the bumps that we take,

and the, the maneuvers
that we perform, and all
the things that we do

in the ring to entertain
people, that's all real.

It's not real to the extent that
we're fighting on the street,

but it's real that we put
our bodies on the line every
single night and it hurts.

If I pick you up over my head
and throw you on the floor,
is it gonna hurt?

Probably, right? I don't know
how you fake the gravity.
It always seems to win.

And I don't see anybody here
that's had 20, 30, 40 years

in this business that walks
as good as most people do.

So the contact is the contact,
and that's the way it goes,
and you can't fake it.

You know, I tell them,
"It's no desk job.
It's a very physical job.

"Is that wrestling
a whole fake?" I go,
"Well, it is orchestrated,

but at the same time, it's, man,

the getting slammed, and thrown
to tables, and getting hit
with steel chairs,

we really do do that,
so the, the injuries are real."

What comes to my mind
is Captain Lou Albano.

He said to me,
"Lanny, the only two things

that's real in this business
is the miles and the money."

When we did
Lifestyles
of the Rich and Famous,
I, I...

They took a break in the filming
and I, and I said, and I said,

"You know, Robin," I was
talking to Robin Leach.
I said, "You know, Robin,

this isn't my house.
This is the boss's house."
It was Vince's house.

And you know what he said?
He said, "Don't-don't worry
about it, Ted."

He says, "We do this all
the time." I went [chuckles].

So wrestling's not
the only thing that's
fake on television, right?

Sports journalists and people
that don't necessarily
give wrestling their due,

they always were
just phony wrestlers.

But the ability to do
those kind of things,

that kind of athleticism,
to swing a chair

and hit somebody over the head
but to never really touch him

or tap him or injure him,
this... The, the precision

involved with being a pro
wrestler is, uhm, unimaginable

to most people
that don't know how it's done.

[rock & roll music]

[JJ Dillon]
My first single match was
against Killer Kowalski.

One of the great legends
of our business, and...

It's the closest,
I probably thought I ever
came to dying in the ring

because he was just on you,
on you, and just right
at the time you thought

you could take your breath, he
would do something else to you.

[whimsical music]

Ah, ah, ah. [grunts]

[grunts]

[noise cacophony]

What is this thing?

What, what...

What the...

Uh!

[coughs]

[Lazenby] Wrestlers are actors
and athletes most definitely.

Anybody who says
a pro wrestler is not an athlete

has never taken a single bump
in a ring whatsoever.

It's one of the most
grueling athletic pursuits
anybody can ever undertake,

and wrestlers are performers,
you are putting on a show.

There are some incredibly
technical wrestlers out there

who will never
sell a single ticket

to a wrestling show,
because they're not particularly
compelling or exciting to watch.

So if you're gonna be
an effective pro wrestler,
you have to be both.

They got to be good
on the stick, which is
good on the mike.

They got to sell it.
They gotta, they're
gonna build the feud up.

They gotta sell, do,
have the back story.

They gotta, you know,
make you want to come

to see that match
and that's acting.

I'm a wrestler.

I'm a wrestler, that makes me
an actor and an athlete.

When I- when I first walked on
the set of
Ed Wood,

Bill Murray,
you've heard of Bill Murray.

Uh, somebody says to me,
uh, "Are you nervous?"

I said, "No, I don't think so."

And Bill said,
"Why would he be nervous?

He's been acting
his whole life."

The real art of wrestling is
an acquired skill.

And what you are
really good at, is improv.

And I can still remember
the one movie that I was in,
uh, it was
Paradise Alley,

Sylvester Stallone's, uh...

first movie
after the original
Rocky.

And it's set in like
Hell's Kitchen, New York,

and it's club wrestling
type of thing.

There were a lot of people
making wisecracks on the,
on the set,

extras and what have you.
And Stallone stopped
the whole thing one day,

and he said, "I don't want
to hear another wisecrack
about professional wrestling."

He says, "We're gonna do
something here, in three days,

that would take us
six weeks to do,

with a bunch
of Hollywood stuntmen."

He said, "These guys are
the best improv actors
I've ever seen."

I think wrestlers, in a lot
of ways are the greatest
actors that ever lived.

I mean, they were harder
working, more realistic.

Robert De Niro can go ahead
and pack on 300 pounds
for a movie,

but, uhm, you know, they'll do
all these things for their art,
you know, but, uhm...

You know, you won't
see Robert De Niro cut
his head with a razor blade.

You won't see Robert De Niro
take a hair-- a chair
shot for somebody,

you won't see some, you know,
like all the stuff that you see
in wrestling, uhm...

It's an art form.
I consider myself an artist.

Anybody else, you'd get
a, a guy off the street,
you hit him with a chop,

he'd run forever
and never come back.

But we'd stay there because
that's how we made our money.

So, it's like, we wanted the
people to believe it for real,

and that's, that was
the mindset that I had.

[Graham] I approached
Pro Wrestling, uh, strictly
as the entertainment,

uh... Uh, venue.

I was never, uh,
a, a, uh, technician wrestler

like a Bret Hart or,
uh, other, uh,

like a Harley Race, for example,

highly precision,
highly technical wrestler.

I saw no future in that part
of the wrestling industry
for me.

My future in Pro Wrestling
was going to be in
the entertainment aspect of it.

-So, in fact, I was ahead
of my time by decades.
-[interviewer] Oh, yeah.

[announcer] Here he is,
here he is,

the former World
Heavyweight Champion,

Superstar Billy Graham.

[upbeat music]

You're your own director,
you're your own stuntman
and you're your actor.

And, uh, there's a lot more
to it than people think.

[Ox Baker]
There's life after wrestling.
You got to do something

after the last can
outside of your head.

So, I was in the kitchen,
telling my wife, I wanna
make this and that.

She'd, "Why don't you sit down,
big boy, and write a cookbook."

And I wrote one
and I've sold 3,000 copies.

Firstly, you got
the grease in the pan.

We put the pan over here.

We got this here,
fine hamburger meat here.

We take this here and we,
uh, straighten it up.

We're browning this up,
of course.

We're straightening it up,
right here.

It reminds me a lot
of my matches, you know.

You, you didn't get
right over, right away.

You had to work that crowd,
tell that fat girl
in the front row,

"Go home and lose some weight."
Oh, god!

We used, we used to
love our wrestling fan.

And uh, yeah, you wanna spread
this out real, real good.

Oh, you can almost, you can
almost taste it, right now.

And then I'm looking
for the salt and pepper.

With the salt and pepper,
right here in this little
glass, we sprinkle.

Oooh! Uh.

I remember a lot of the guys
when I used to grab them
and punch them.

They--
A lot of them didn't mind.

You keep browning it
all the time, you know.

You, you've got
the salt and pepper in there.
We're ready for the next.

You gotta,
it takes about five minutes
to really brown this up good.

It's like every match, you can't
just-- 30 seconds in the ring.

It takes a little while
to brown it up.

It's, uh. [exhales]

We had these beautiful peppers.
We put them right on there.

We've taken
the meat out of there.

These will cook up
a little faster

with that meat out of there.

And you take this here and
you got to mix these up
a little bit also.

You got to, you got to keep
these moving all the time,

like in a wrestling ring,
you gotta, you gotta move
around in that ring.

When you think it's ready,
I think it's ready,

you're gonna start
putting in the pan.

A little bit at a time,
a little bit at a time.

Oh, that's so good.

Alright.

Now, it's time
to put the potatoes on there.

You want all
the potatoes in there.

It's like painting a picture,
little brown in here.

Yes, sir and then, there.

How does that look?

Now, you get
your oven right here.

Put that inside your oven.

You put that on 350,
and you can sit down

because you're gonna
wait a half-hour.

Ah!

Don't let me stumble.

Ah!

That's worse than some
of the wrestling matches
that I've been into.

Sometimes you go into
the dressing room,
you're soaking wet,

you've had a hard match
and you're just waiting
for someone to come up and say,

"That was a great match."
And if they didn't,
you ask somebody.

You say, "Was that a great
match? And you better give me

the right answer,
and it better be, yes."

[playing "You're Nobody
till Somebody Loves You"]

[Howard]
I think that wrestling is gonna
be around for, uh, a long time.

I know it goes
through ebbs and flows,

but there is something
about the...

almost archetypal aspect
of villains and heroes.

There is an urging
in the human heart

to see evil defeated
and to overcome impossible odds.

That's something that's
gonna be with us forever.

People like to play out
the great dramas.

Back before, uh, the WWE
came out and publicly said,

"Hey, look. We are sports
entertainment, so what?"

Uh, back when we were
practicing Kayfabe,

uh, and, uh, trying to...

uh, to the best of our ability,
make the people believe

that we're
a legitimate competition.

We, we knew, uh,
that most people, uh...

be they an athlete or, uh,
and competed athletically
in anything,

or been in a real fight, you're
gonna watch wrestling, you know,

for five or 10 minutes and go,
"Wait a minute, what's up here?"

But we tried to present it
in such a way that it was
as believable as possible.

[Graham]
It was a real strict code of,
uh, protecting the business, uh,

to the, uh, to the fans and the
fans were being protected.

They were believers,
uh, in that era.

They believed the doggone thing
was real and they, they, uh,

were very, some of the fans
were very violent.

I would, I think
there was a time because
in '85 was a little bit...

You know, they believed it,
but they didn't believe it
like they did in '79.

They wanted to kill me
trying to get to my car

and they always knew
I was in a Cadillac
or something and...

And it was, uh, you know, they,

yeah, you're, you were in fear
for your life sometimes.

They'd burn you with cigarettes
and cigars. They throw
hot coffee at you.

Try to cut you
with an opener or a knife
and on more than one occasion,

my partner and I had to stand
with chairs back to back,

swinging at the audience
in order to get out alive,
because they took it seriously.

They were, they were
very dangerous.

[Slick] The New Jersey crowds
were always great

and the Boston Garden, it was
dangerous in the Boston Garden.

You, you know, it was a little
dangerous in all of them.

Yeah, but it was really
dangerous, you know,

they'd throw batteries
and quarters.

They, they would
actually throw quarters,
50 cent pieces, you know.

I picked, I pick'em up myself.

You're... [laughs]

[JJ Dillon]
There were places that, uh,

I remember up
in the Canadian Maritimes, uh...

uh, being shot at.

People had guns and, and it...
[giggles]

That's a little bit
of a scary feeling.

I was shot in the leg, uh,

coming out of the building.

It was, luckily, it was a 22.

It went below my kneecap.

If it would have hit my kneecap,
I would have been crippled,
you know, for life.

The worst encounter
I ever had with a fan,

uh, was a barber's razor, uh,
on the way out of the ring.

Uh, I think that was
a bad encounter, uh,
but you know what?

That, uh...
Well, I, I wasn't really
thrilled about that happening,

and I didn't realize it happened
until I got in the dressing room
and somebody said,

"Hey, look at your arm, man."

And, and a part of my biceps
was sticking out.

Uh, but you have
to understand that, uh...

That meant, for me,
mission accomplished.

And we never,
never stepped out of character.

Uh, if, if I was a heel,
a bad guy, uh,

I didn't want the people
to like me and they didn't.

While I was wrestling, the fans,
who were in the parking lot,

had popped the hood of my car,

ripped out
all my spark plug wires,

smashed my distributor cap,
[chuckles]

pulled off the fuel pump line,

punctured all my tires,
because they were very...

-[interviewer] Believed it.
-They're, they're believing,
uh, uh,

so much that they were
taking their, their venom

and their frustrations
out on me.

And I saw my car, uh...

I think, I, I think '66,
'67, something like that,

Caddy with the hood lifted up,
[laughs] all the tires flat,

all the spark plug wires
spread across the parking lot,

steam coming up, and it looked
like someone had bombed my car.

And so I, I just,
I was just really in utter,

uh, utter shock that they had
gone to that extreme,

and had believed
in this exhibition,
that we were performing,

to the extent that they would
actually destroy your car,

and, and destroy you
if they could.

When I was in Madison Square
Garden and a lot of the towns

that I used to go to,
Boston was one.

Uh, and, uh, many other towns.

I had to be escorted
by the police,

because it got to the point
that I couldn't...
[clears throat]

I had to fight and I did.

I mean, I've been sucker punched
walking through the crowds
and stuff with people.

Uh, I don't know, and if I look
back on it now, I'm saying,

"Boy, you put up
a lot of you know what."

But you know something?
That's what, that's what
drove me to do it.

Because the more those people
hated me, more of this I made.

[somber music]

[Ox Baker]
I... Every time the fans started
to like me, pat me on the head,

I would pack
my bag because I wanted
that can outside the...

I wanted to hear them boo,

I wanted the people to say,
"You're no good."

I loved the sound of it.

[Santana]
The wrestling fan,
you know, they loved you

or, or they hated you and,
and I was, uh, very lucky.

I think me and Ricky the Dragon
Steamboat were the only legends

that, uh, were never, uh...
you know, put out there
as a heel.

We, we never...
I never got a chance to,
to wrestle as a heel.

I was always a, uh, a baby face
is what we used to call,

you know,
the fan favorite and, uh,
you know, wherever you went.

I mean, it's just the, the fact
that the fans, you know,

they, they just opened up
completely to you and, and...

They didn't hold back, you know.
If the fan loved you,

they couldn't do
enough for you, you know.
They wanna buy you a meal,

they wanna buy you a drink,
they wanna...

You know. They just couldn't do
enough for you and, and, and...

You know. I, I think it was one
of the main reasons that...

You know, whenever I stepped
into the ring, I, I wanted
to give back,

I wanted to satisfy,
you know, uh,

the, the reason for coming out
and watching me wrestle.

I'll tell you what.
I treated fans with respect
and they loved me back.

Whether I was a heel or a baby
face, it didn't matter.

Uhm, I have never been
in an actual fight

in my life
and it's going to stay that way.

Puerto Rico was a territory

where, you know, I learned there

how to, to, you know, build heat
as high as you can build it.

You know, to the point
that it's, uhm, you, you're,

you're playing
with fire kind of thing, uh.

Like how angry do you wanna to
make your wrestling fans?

How much do you wanna
butcher up your baby
faces until they're like,

they're all
bleeding and they're being
beaten by eight or 10 guys.

And I mean,
how far can you push
and audience before they lose it

and then you have
the Alamo kind of thing?

When I won the belt
from Bruno Sammartino

in 1977, April the 30th,

and after that match was over
and my hand was raised

in victory
with the belt in that hand,

and the fans realized that it
had, it was really official,

the ref had actually counted
to three and had given me

the belt and I had raised
my hand in victory,

and they were completely, uh...
You talk about shock and awe,

they were in shock
and awe that it was official.

I was the new champion.

I had to use that belt

like a, like a helicopter blade

whirling around
to beat the fans off of me,

because I was being punched
and kicked and I was having
beer thrown on me.

I was having, I was having--
being hit by chairs.

There was a riot going on,
but they're just trying
to get me out of the ring,

and by the time
I had gotten back
through all of these people,

some of the fans
at the very back

had taken their big
quart size beer cups

and emptied the beer
and urinated in the cup
and threw the urine on me.

So it was, it was hell
on earth trying to get back

to the locker room after winning
the, uh, the belt from Bruno.

[Larry]
I used to have a, a miniature
contract in my wallet.

It was about four times
the size of a business card.

And if a guy was in a bar
and would start running his
mouth and the diner start--

You know, wherever it was at,
what it said was, "I," and then
it had a blank

for his name, "request a workout
with professional wrestler

Pretty Boy - Larry Sharpe,"
and a place for him to sign
and date it.

As soon as I put that in front
of me, calm them right there.

And if they signed it, then I'd
beat the piss out of 'em.

I remember I-- It was in
Oakland, and I'd come,
come to the,

the, the bar.

I was really thirsty
when I got to the bar.

I got there about 12:30 or 1:00,

and everyone else was

already drinking
in the Holiday Inn bar. And, uh,

all the wrestlers were there
and fans were there and stuff.

And this guy, uhm,
was sitting beside me,
and his talking me

I'm trying to look, trying to
get attention with the waitress
and stuff and...

You know,
I'm listening to him but not
really paying attention to him.

But he's talking about,
how much he hates my guts,

and how he wanted to, you know,
he thought he, you know,

he were gonna kick
my ass and all that stuff.
And I'm listening to him,

and finally, I just turn to ask,
"I see that you hate me so much.

What are you doing sitting here
and talking to me for?"

You know, "Fuck off
and go talk to somebody else.

I don't need, you don't need
to sit here and talk to me."

Anyway, I noticed that he's got
a beer bottle

in his hand now and he,
but he's holding it
by the neck, and he kinda...

And I said, "What are you
gonna do with that?"
He goes, "I would do

whatever I want with that."
And I said,

"Not, not with me here,
you're not."

And then I remember
I took him down.

All I did is take him down
by the shirt,

hold him on the ground.

And, next thing you know
the police came, and, uh,
the police left.

The police came again,
they left. The third batch
of policemen came.

This guy was determined to get
me charged with assault.

And it was just
lucky for me that, uh,
there was a police chief

that was in the bar that had
been watching the whole thing.

They came up,
when they were just
getting ready to take me away,

he came up and threw
his badge down on the table,

and said, he goes,
"I watched the whole thing.

He didn't do anything.
Let him go."

But, uh, there's
a lot of times you can do
some stupid things with fans.

You know, I also
told the fans, I said,

"Look, I do not get paid
outside of the ring.

I get paid inside. You don't
touch me outside the ring.
I don't touch you."

And if you check
the record books,

in 40 years,
Ox Baker never hit one fan.

Nobody really be...
messed with me in the bars

'cause maybe
they were afraid of me.

They figured
I was really that tough.

I was just a good actor.

[playing "You're Nobody
till Somebody Loves You"]

[Bret Hart]
I blew my knee out in 1984.

In a lot of ways, at the height
of my career when I was finally
getting a bit of a break

and getting a bit
of name recognition
outside of the family,

and, uh, I couldn't
get surgery 'til July.

And so, I had to wrestle
on a bad wheel for...

four or five months,
working for my dad,
taping it up every night,

and just hopping along and...

There was, been no shape
to be wrestling anybody.

I couldn't run
or anything. Uh...

It was a very
tough time for me though,

throughout those injuries
and, uhm...

and then, uh, I got the surgery.

And I was out of commission
for about five weeks.

I had two kids
at that time, and, uhm...

My, I got a family to feed, and
I had responsibilities and...

I just remember, uhm,
I was actually booked
to go to Japan

in a couple more weeks
and, uh...

I just kinda hit a low point
where I realized that I,

that I was probably
gonna miss my Japanese tour
which I desperately needed.

It was the only income,
real job I had that was secure.

And I just remembered Dynamite
Kid came over to my house

and he was talking to me.
He goes, "You never gonna
make your trip.

You're gonna lose
your Japan tour."

And I go, he goes,
"That's a week away."

And I said,
"I don't know what else to do."

And he said, "You need
to take some steroids."

If you want
to maintain the physique
of professional wrestling,

there is no way the physique
I had, to the degree that I had,
and that I wanted,

there's no way
to maintain a physique
of that quality, of that caliber

without the use of a humongous
amount of steroids.

Without the use of speed,
without the use of downers

to make you
go to sleep at night.
Because you're gonna have to--

If you're gonna
get a workout in,

you can't do it at nighttime
because you're wrestling.

And then you've got
to go back to your hotel,

and you've gotta,
uh, go to sleep,

you gotta prepare
to hit the road the next day.

So, you've got to train
in the morning.

In the morning, you must train.

So, to get up early and train,
you take speed.

And, of course,
you take steroids
to enhance your physique.

I have tried 'em.

I ain't gonna lie.

I did.

But I can tell you...

that it might've had something
to do with me having cancer.

But I didn't live on 'em,
no, no, no.

I didn't live on 'em
like people might thought I did.

I didn't.

I took a little bit, tried it,

but it wasn't good for my brain.

[chuckles] You know what I mean?

I'm, I was a little bit.

[clears throat] You know,
is he crazy or is he normal?

Well, some people say
he's about half crazy.

They were probably about right.

So, it's kind of like, "Alright,
tonight." I took s--

I took a modest amount
of steroids. It started
anyway from that point on.

Took them when I went to WWF.

I never, never, I never denied

that I took 'em, but I took 'em.

I took 'em in moderation
over a period of time

for probably about five years.

Then, when I won the title,
I was drug free.

My whole career, uh,
from that point on
was, uh, was...

was drug free as far as, uhm,
you know, WWE went, and, uh...

[clears throat] I, uhm,

I was always proud as being
the champion and being a guy

that held the championship,
uh, that took

WWE after Hulk Hogan
and steroids.

I can say this much, if you
never heard of steroids, you
still would heard of Bret Hart.

[Graham] I saw the physique
and the 22-inch arms

and the, and,
and the body as a drawing card.

Part of my package
with the tie-die,
and, and the Muhammad Ali

like wrap and the whole
entertainment package.

It fit the package.
It fit the package.

So, I had to take, uh,
steroids, uh, non-stop.

And, uh, and that was also, uh,

the reason I had
to have my hip replaced

was because
of the, the tremendous,
uh, prolonged use

and heavy doses of steroids.

One of the side effects was
to stop the blood supply

to the bone joints,
and the bone joint
would literally die.

And my doctor, Dr. Dora,
coined the phrase,
"The death of a bone".

And then, the blood supply
to my back stopped

and I had, and my back,
my spine started to collapse.

I lo-- lost four inches
of a height over the years

because of no blood supply
in the L3 and 4 vertebrae
had fused.

There's no cartilage
between those vertebrae
because of lack of blood supply.

And then the ankles went,
the ankles collapsed

because of lack
of blood supply to the ankles.

So, there was
a heavy price to pay
for the amount of steroids,

the heavy, heavy doses
and the prolonged use.

[somber music]

I look at my career of 23 years,
and the fact that
I never one single time

in my entire career
ever injured one wrestler.

There was not one wrestler
that ever got up the next day,

and couldn't work
and couldn't do his job.

I think the only wrestler I can
think of off top of my head

that I really injured
was, uh, Vader.

Uh, I think I chipped
his teeth one time with a chair.

But it was his fault. He was not
supposed to move and he moved.

He even told me, "It was my
fault, I moved." And I was like,

you know, "I'm sorry."
[chuckles]

But, uh, you know,
I took great pride in, uh,

not hurting any of the guys
that I worked with. And, uh...

unfortunately, a lot of
the guys I worked with,
didn't necessarily take

the same pride in, in,
in their own ability.

So, I've got extreme
arthritis in the joints

from wrestling, in my shoulders.

Both my knees, uh,
I need a knee replacement.

I tore both quads.

I ripped my right triceps.
I lost a couple of teeth.

I've had 10 knee surgeries
in my lifetime.

I've had my shoulder rebuilt,
my ankle rebuilt,

Concussions are...
There's no way to count.

[Doink] I've had a couple broken
noses. I've had both eyes split.
I lost my left ear.

I've had, uh, wrist surgery,
elbow surgery,
four knee surgeries,

a foot surgery,
and I need a shoulder surgery.

[Hansen]
I've had both my knees replaced,
both my shoulders replaced.

I've had, uh, I need, uh,
my [chuckles] wrist replaced.

Anyway, I've had
knees operated on,
Achilles tendons and my back...

I lipped off to
Lou Thesz one night.

I said, "Old man,
I want your World Belt, right?"

He told me look at some broad
in the front row and knocked out
six of my front teeth.

That was quite an evening.

[DiBiase] Are we trying to kill
each other? No, but you have to,

you have to be
the same type of shape.

You're putting your body
through... a beating.

I've had both of my knees
totally replaced six months ago.

I've had
two surgeries on my neck.

My nose has been broken
about, uh, seven times.

I've taken all the bone
out of it as you can see.

And at the-- That--
And those things just happen.

Those things just
happen in the ring,

from forearms,
guys landing, whatever.

Uhm, I'm a train wreck.

I'm one of wrestling's
train wrecks. But I...

For all intents and purposes,
I probably deserved

to be for the way it worked.
I worked hard.

I've had broken
my-- my collarbone.

I broke my sternum, cracked
my, fractured my sternum,
broke my tailbone.

Broke my ear drum,
which counts 'cause it was
one of the most painful.

Uhm, had my head kicked off
my shoulders, almost,
by Bill Goldberg,

which ended my career
with a concussion injury.

Uhm, broken just about every
finger in my... on both hands.

Broke my wrist.

To this day,

that's as far as I can
lift my arm.

That's it right there, and I'm
trying right now to do it.

It is just not there.

The nerve is pinched so bad.

Yeah, I've had
a lot of injuries.

I've had, uh, dislocations.

I've had broken bones,

but you talk
about 350 days a year.

If you go in with a dislocated
shoulder, shoulder, a bad knee,

a deviated septum
from getting hit
in the nose between the horns.

You've got to wrestle anyway.

So most of the wrestlers
die at a young age.

After they quit.

The body does,
doesn't hold together.

[Howard] Everybody gets hurt
in the game. It, it... You just
do it. It's part of it.

Uh, you're going over a rope,
you're going through a rope,
you're going under the ropes.

You're, you're, you're hitting
concrete, you get hurt.

So I probably would have been
more hurt than I am now.

I got a bad leg
from, uh, football.

But, uh, wrestling, you know,
it just-- it just hurts you.

You can't wrestle 350 times
a year and not get hurt,
year after year.

Or worse get crippled
or worse, get dead.

[upbeat music]

I'm the kind of guy
that walks into a bar.

You walk into a bar every day.

I look around the room.

I say, "Okay. All right.
Well, there's a few, uh,
country people in here."

I go to the jukebox,
play the jukebox.

I have 50 friends,
not 50, but 15 friends

by the end of the night,
"That was awesome.
I love the music you play."

Reading the room, right?
So and then with Pro Wrestling

I'd walk into a locker room
and be like, "Alright.

Well, alright, what's you
guys code?" And I fit in.

I would just go and like,
"Hey, we're going out tonight."

Alright so we'd go out?

Somebody's doing a few lines.

I will bust
a few lines with them.

They're drinking,
let's take some ecstasy.

I would do all that, but,

but my biggest blessing is
when I woke up the next morning

I'd be going, "What the
hell was I thinking?"

I just spent 50 extra bucks
or 100 extra bucks

on this and that, where other
people were still like,

"Oh, God. I gotta have some
more? I've gotta have some
more." And so,

you know, I think I was
blessed with non-addiction

but I was cursed with the fact

that I want to fit in everywhere
and make everybody happy.

Piper and me riding down the
road, doing 8-balls of cocaine.

Get up the next morning
go do it all over again.

But that was,
you know, we were pacing
ourselves, that was the 80s.

Or...

Me and Rick Flair drinking four
cases of beer between towns.

And still driving
and keeping it on the road.

[Don Leo] During my era,

when I first started,
drugs were out.

I never knew what they were.

Steroids, I don't think
they'd been invented yet.

Uh, but beer had.

And one, if, if, if one of
the wrestlers had a problem,

say a "problem",
it was always alcohol.

You know there's always been
wrestlers who drink hard.

There's...
I think through the '70s
and '80s and King Curtis

and Mark Lewin in that period,
there was a lot of guys that

were super potheads and,
you know, they got
so high all the time

they could hardly even
lace their boots up
and stuff like that.

But the, the drugs,
the pills, uhm...

They started because I think,
I always thought it was,
it was for sure American.

I don't blame the Americans,
but I blame the Americans
that...

A lot of the American
wrestlers were turning guys on

to taking downers and speed.

To make the pain go away.

To make the pain
of separation of my children,

because very close
to my children, very close.

So to make that pain
of separation going away,

I would, I would...
you know, and also make the pain

of the physical trauma
that I had just gone through

in some of these matches
go away.

Uh, and my own
psychological pain go away,

I would take a lot of downers
and I, I did have problems

with the, with the downers,
but the next morning

at eight o'clock or 7:30
I'd hit my speed,

I'd dropped some speed, uh,
amphetamines and I hit the gym.

People that travel all the time,
uh, they deal with this,

they deal with the loneliness
of being on the road,

and being away from home,
being away from family

and they, they all deal
with it in many ways, and...

You know, oftentimes,
it comes down to drugs and

alcohol and other women.

And, and, and
in the WWF in those days...

That's what we were.
I mean, we were, we were
like a traveling rock show.

It was the next town,
the next show,

the next party, the next girl,
da-da-da-da-da-da.

Now you're friend
of Ted Dibiase. Hey, Ted.

Ted, Ted, Ted didn't, he liked
the, you know, the high roller.

You know,
he would stay at the Marriotts

and, you know, do, do...
Name off another one.

The, the, the Hiltons. Uhm...

Whereas, if I was, you know,
we're on the road,
we're trying to make money,

saving, you know at least I was.

That was the whole point.
I'm trying to make money

not give it to a hotel.

Especially when you party
like, you know, we did.

If I... By we, I mean my
partner, tag-team partner.

I probably shouldn't say...
In fact we're not gonna say
Sean's name.

You know, 'cause you don't,
that way you all
won't know who it is.

And, and, uh,
we used to, a lot of times

it was just a place for our bags
and sit for the night.

Our, our bags had some
of the nicest rooms

because we'd throw them in there
and we go out and party and...

[Lanny] I know that you've
had Marty Jannetty on
and it's "Party Marty".

You know what? There's
a mandatory party
after the matches.

Mandatory means you have
to go to it, no exceptions.

Except one. I never went to
that party after the matches.

It's hazardous to your health
and your wealth.

And that's why I'm healthy
and wealthy right now.

And that's why very few
wrestlers are both healthy
and wealthy right now.

Now what did I miss?

Maybe I missed a lot.
That's okay.

I will say this much,
is that in those days,

not knowing anybody
and sitting in a room

with a bunch
of wrestlers doing cocaine,

we really got
to know each other.

It was a bonding
that took place and, uhm...

You know, contrary
to a lot of drugs in co--

with cocaine or being on it,
you, you retain everything.

I retained everything.
The lessons I learned
listening to Adrian Adonis

in a hotel room
talking about what lessons
he learned as a pro wrestler,

and where, how he started,
and the things that he had done,

and the places he'd gone, and...

Roddy Piper,
and guys that I spent time with,

but we, you know,
I cherish those memories now,

and I don't see it
as a waste of time.

Drugs and alcohol
are their own master.

Some guy can say,
"Well, I can control it.

I've seen this guy
can control it.

I've seen a guy control..."

Unfortunately,
they can't control it.

I didn't want to lose my family

or lose my life.
So it was easier just to say no.

And when I first,
there was no peer pressure.

Maybe it's because of my persona
or because of the way
I carried myself.

I'd say no,
and nobody would bother me.
They'd ask somebody else.

And just to fit in, that guy,
who didn't have any intentions

of getting in drugs
or alcohol, would do it.

I've never ever experimented
with any type of drugs.

Not-- not even alcohol
and I remember my father,

you've probably heard
of my father, Rufus R. Jones,
the Freight Train.

I remember the first day
that I was coming up here, uh,

to New York
after I had signed the contract.

It, it was so funny.

He pulled out a baseball bat.
[chuckles]

And he called off some names
that I won't, you know,
mention out of respect,

and he said, "If you get with
this person or that person
and you get on those drugs,

I'm gonna take this bat and beat
the hell out of you." [laughs]

So, I had it in the back
of my mind all the time.

A lot of my friends burned
the candle on both ends,
and, and, uh, you know,

We li-- we lived the life
like a, like a rock star.

And, you know, a rock star
would get up and, and play
a guitar or sing, you know.

And a wrestler would,
you know, we'd get up

and we have to get
into the ring and, and

you had to be totally
aware in the ring
because you're off, uh,

a quarter of an inch
and it could be your life.

I mean, my,
my ex-partner, Rick Martel,

you know, God bless his soul,
he lost a brother in the ring.

Uh, accidents did happen,
you know. Uh, we didn't go out
there to kill each other,

but, you know, we were out there
competing and performing.

[Valentine]
I remember Wahoo McDaniel.
I'm wrestling him one night

and he came after me
and he chopped me right

across the face and hit me
across the face again.

And I'm watching this stuff
run out of his nose I go,

"Oh no he's on the drugs again."

So I hauled off,

This is for the fans.
This a true story,

now Wahoo McDaniel's
a big tough guy, Indian,
nobody can beat him.

I hit him as hard as I could
and I knocked him down.

He went...

WWE, I think... You know,
maybe I'm wrong, but my opinion,

stepping on cocaine
was a good thing.

That was really necessary,
it did was, uh, uh,

a heightened time in, in,
in the world where cocaine was
epidemic in not just wrestling,

but football, and high schools,
and everywhere.

It was in a...
It was everywhere
and everybody was doing it,

and there was serious,
uhm, problems from that

and consequences
that people had lost their,
every penny they had,

and wrestlers had lost
their fortunes on...

Snorted it all up their nose
and stuff like that.

And then, when Vince stepped in
with drug testing for cocaine

and even with steroids
it was, it was good.

I was, really thought
those were good steps to take,

and, uh, I think most of the
wrestlers agreed with that.

Then they, uhm...
it suddenly became...

I remember they came in
and told the wrestlers
that they wouldn't be smoking,

no more smoking weed.

And, uh, I remember thinking,
"That is a big mistake."

Everything else is a good idea,
but it's not a good idea
to make that...

To tell these wrestlers
to quit smoking weed.

'Cause all these wrestlers
that smoke weed,
they go to their room.

They smoke marijuana,
they go to bed.

They don't bother anybody.

It's, it's like a therapy,
it's good for 'em.

It keeps them out of trouble,
you know, and, uh...

I remember sort of going like
you, I remember saying
to somebody,

I said, "You watch in
a few months from now.

You're gonna see
the cuddling out.

You know, they were
drug testing them for marijuana,

it's gonna force these wrestlers
to start drinking,

heavy amounts of alcohol
and start taking pills

'cause they can take pills."

I'm not kidding.
Within a year or two
of that, you see wrestlers

dropping dead left and right,
and it's been going on
ever since.

[somber music]

[Graham] Most wrestlers
will tell you, that are honest,

it's obvious if you look
at wrestling magazine
from the '70s,

almost on every
magazine cover there's

a picture of a wrestler
with blood on his face.

It was the decade
of the blading.

We used a razor blade to cut
across our foreheads,

and, uh, produce blood.

And then your opponent
would be bleeding,

and so the co-mingling
of this blood

would produce diseases
and I contracted Hepatitis C,

from the co-mingling of blood.

And therefore, created cirrhosis
of the liver and caused my liver

to go into failure and I had
to have a liver transplant.

And the-- the liver doctors
told me that I am now, uhm,

ten years and like five
months post liver transplant

thanks to Katy Gilroy
who signed her donor card

when she was 16 years old.

She was that sharp
at 16 years old.

So I received her liver
and when the doctor,

the liver transplant doctor,
uh, David Mulligan at Mayo,

pulled my old liver out, he said

it was the size almost
of a basketball.

And the doctor told me,
he called me Superstar,
he's a funny guy.

He says, "Superstar, you had
about 30 days left to live

with that old liver."

I said, "Uh, Doctor,
what," liver doctor,

"what is
the average lifespan of a liver
transplant recipient worldwide?"

They said, "Five years."
I said, "Well, why am I
at ten years plus?

I've already doubled
the average lifespan."

And they said,
"Because there's something
about your genetic makeup.

Also you received
a perfect liver

from a 23 year old,
young, healthy girl,

who never, uh, drank,
never did drugs.

And now we've advanced
knowledge-wise so far

that we believe genetics play
a part in the longevity

of a lifespan of a liver
transplant patient."

So I've been blessed
with the genes.

Maybe that's how I survived

all those years
of Pro Wrestling.

[chuckle] Good genes.

-[interviewer] You're a man
of faith too?
-Oh, am I a man of faith?

Oh, I thank God, yes. Oh, and
proudly so, and proudly so.

I thank God, uh, uh,
that, that Katy Gilroy,

uh, as a young girl, 16 years
old, signed her, uh, donor card.

I received her liver.
Two Navajo Indian girls,

of the Navajo Indian
reservation, got her kidneys.

And, and, and she said that,
she also put a personal
note in, uh,

in her ID that she carried
with her, she said,

"Take it all,
if I go, take everything
I got to keep people alive."

So it was a miracle.

[calm piano music]

[20s style music]

I think I-I've known Pete
for well over 20 years.

And I haven't seen him
in a long time.

I never realized
that he lived in Hamilton.

-Pete, are you lying to me?
-No, I've lived in Hamilton
all my life.

-I know it.
-I started in the business
in '76, I had my first match.

I've wrestled, I've tagged.

Got the opportunity
to tag with Little Beaver,

-we've wrestled against,
I've wrestled against Sky Low,
-He's dead now, right?

I've wrestled against
Sky Low Low, he's also gone.

Oh yeah, he got shot in the ass.
[laughter]

Uh, Sonny Boy,
a lot of the guys are passed
away now, the late great ones.

Uh, one of the greatest guys
I ever wrestled was a guy
named Little John.

-Oh yeah, I remember him.
-And, uhm, he had a bald head,

and the Bearman used
to bring the bear to the show.

Little John, every night,
would wrestle the bear,

and, but he just loved it.
He would...

The Bearman would walk
the bear around the ring,

John would go
behind the bear, run

and jump on it, on its back.

Just stick his hands in his fur
and hold him, and then,

Dave would tell
the bear to stand up,
and the bear would stand up.

It was an awesome sight,
it was an awesome sight.

Would then that bear use
to stand up and drink coke

-at the end of the, uh--
-Yeah, drink coke
at the end of the show.

I'll tell you what, it was,
it was a show of shows.

-He had, he had, I used to call
it geeks, freaks and midgets.
-Yeah.

-Yep, geeks, freaks,
midgets, and bears.
-We were-- we were all freaks.

-Yeah.
-[chuckles]

[20s style music]

The old school terminology
for a girl who hung around

a wrestling match, who's trying
to get picked up by a wrestler,

was an Arena Rat.

But we, we actually called
these girls Ring Rats,
Ring Rats, Ring Rats.

So it... I mean,
I can't even imagine having that
label being applied to me.

"You are a Ring Rat."

I don't know why would we say
that 'cause it's like, uhm,
rats?

Rats aren't really...
you know, that was...
what's good about that?

"I, I got with a rat
last night." Uh.

They were by the dozens,
they were always there.

In the South they were
always there, in L.A.
they had them as well. Uhm...

They're just part of what goes
on, it's, it's like Rock & Roll
groupies, they're there.

So if you're not involved
in a relationship and you want
someone for the night

and you come out of the ring,
they're waiting for you.

You can have anybody
you want, at any age.

All a wrestler needs,
he doesn't even need a payday,

all he needs is a six pack
and an arena rat,
and he's happy.

So there you go. That,
that tells you the real depth

of depravity that Pro
Wrestling, uh, has sunk to

in the early years, as it rose
into the prominence
that it is now.

I'm sure it broke up marriages.

Like I say, I was married,
married three times, but, uh...

I, I, I told
Ole Anderson one time, I...

My second wife in particular,
which was the bulk of my career.

I'm not... I'm not...
bragging about it,

I'm embarrassed to admit it,
but I was not a faithful husband

from the first day,
for the whole time on the road.

I lived a double...
I lived a double life.

Well, I don't read much,
but I remember reading

a John Lennon autobiography
or someone that wrote it.

Uhm, John Lennon didn't
actually write the book,

but it was talking
about all those crazy times

on the road and stuff
like that, that--

that you never really ex...
were existed, you know.

Okay, I'll run it by you.

Me and Flair would be in a hotel
room, and there'd be 35 girls

that came up to see us,
and we picked the one we wanted.

The Beatles, they had a hundred
of them, but, you know,
we were close there, 35.

Three a night was my limit.

I'm mean, if sometimes
I thought about four,

but then, I mean,
unprotected sex,

there's no telling,
you could just,
things that could go wrong.

Starting with children,
you know.

But I-- I just could...
[chuckles] I couldn't...

I guess the short answer is
it was great. [laughs]

You've got women
throwing yourselves at,
throwing theirselves at you.

I mean, these beautiful
lawyers, doctors,

strippers, whatever
your flavor was.
It was there. It was there.

The attitude there at wrestling,
we were a rock star at that
peak. And it, it was awesome.

I was behaving.
But I was getting treated like
all the other guys. That were,

that were misbehaving,
and it was so frustrating.

I needed it.
It was like I'm not getting
the love I need at home.

And, uhm, I'm not getting...
I'm not getting the...

What I need to sustain
or to stay.

I got a family to feed
and I, I got my back to the wall

and I got no one to support me
and, a lot of times, uhm...

If you could meet someone...
I made a lot of friends

and met people that, that helped
me through tough times.

And I have no regrets and I'm
grateful for all of them.

I'm sure a lot
of wrestlers are the same.

That, uhm... you did
what you did to survive.

And, uhm... I think, uhm...

Looking back, I, I,

I'm grateful for, for all
the people that kinda helped me

through whatever
tough times I needed.

Well, there was
always temptation, you know,

To say there wasn't
a temptation is lying.

And, uhm, you know,
I fell off the wagon
a couple of times but...

You know, I have a very,
very, uh, good wife.

Very fortunate that, uh,
you know, she stuck with me

and she went through
a lot of hell.

One of the few guys,
probably in this business,

that's married to the,
their first wife.

Uh... So I give her
a lot of credit.

How lucky I am to be the son
of Angelo Poffo and Judy Poffo.

They were married 61 years.

So don't tell me that wrestling
destroys marriages.

And what about Bill Eadie?

He's a wrestler.

And Tito Santana?

And how about Rick Martel?

All these people have been
married one time,

have successful children.

And don't tell me wrestling is
to blame for all these divorces.

You are to blame
for your divorce.

I'm to blame for my divorce.

Wrestling did nothing.

I'm married 35 years, as the sum
total of three failed marriages.

[chuckles] I was married
four years the first time
right fresh out of college.

It truly wasn't meant to happen,
but my second marriage lasted,

uh... uhm... 17 years which was
during the Horsemen era.

On the road a lot, so you could
kinda use your own imagination

to be with Rick Flair every
night, who used to go on TV

and tell the fans,
you know, what the lo...
the local watering hole

was or what hotel
where we're gonna stay.

And Flair always had
a limo and there was a guy

who would pick us up every
time at the private air center,

and after he'd take us down
there and he would say,

"Oh, please guys,
don't start, don't stay
out all night tonight."

"No, no. It's we're gonna make
it an early tonight." Well...

There was no such thing
as an early night.

[DiBiase] Although I love my
wife and my children,

uh, more than
I love life itself,

I was no different. I got
caught up with the same things.

Now, I was never, I never had
a problem with alcohol

and boo, and, and,
and drugs in terms of...

I was never addicted
to any of those things. Uhm.

I, I guess if you wanna
call it an addiction

it's, it was, it was...
the woman I had seen.

And, yeah, I called home
the day after
WrestleMania 8,

my wife confronted me with it.
And, uh...

It's funny how we,
we rationalize

the things in life
like that, that we do
that we know are wrong.

And we make excuses for 'em
until they're, until they come
out in the light.

And when they come out in
the light, then you see them
for what they really are,

and you see yourself
for who you really are.

I remember promoter
Roy Shires in, uh, 1972

telling me in San Francisco
that Pro Wrestling is
the biggest destroyer

of the family unit
that he is aware of

because, number one, you never
saw your children grow up,

because you are
always on the road.

[Bret Hart] You know,
the hardest parts for me were

the little s... the sometimes
the simplest things.

Halloween night.
Many people say,
"Ah, it's, it's just Halloween.

It's not a, it's not even
a special holiday or any..."

But you know, watching
your kids dress up,

you know, and that whole ex--
excitement of Halloween

for every little kid
year in, year out.

There's a certain age
when it's priceless.

You miss all that, you never
get it back. Christmas,

I don't know how I missed
Christmases for so many years.

I missed the birthdays,
I missed, uhm... you know,
Valentine's day.

You, you miss your own birthday.

I just, that's my only regret.

I had a great career.
I, uhm, I...

I'm so proud of everything I did
and the, and the chances

and opportunities
I got from it, but, uh...

I really wish that I could just
been at home a little bit more.

[Volkoff]
Freddie Blassie, my God.

I was in the first man
that he managed.

He told me a story about,
his wife, uh they have
a bitter divorce,

so he never saw his kids,
my God, for 30 - 40 years.

And one time when I was
a wrestler in St. Louis,

this girl come to me and said,

"Nikolai, is Fred Blassie
gonna be with you?" I said, "No.

He don't come to a show.
Just television, you know.

He's getting old and bad knees.
Lots of injuries."

And she started crying.

And I ask her why she's crying.
She told me

that Freddie Blassie was
her father.

I said, "Give me your phone
number. I'll guarantee you,

he will call you. I will make
him call. I guarantee you."

So she gave me her phone number,
I talked to Freddy and

he was all day in our room.
I said, "Come on. Call
this number, Freddy.

I have big surprise for you."
So he called the number.

Daughter answered.
He told her who he was.

Pretty soon
he would start crying.

I said, "Okay. Everybody out.
Everybody move out."

And he was
talking with her for hours.

And he was a very happy man.
And he said, "Nikolai,

that's the best present
anybody could ever give me."

I remember, [chuckles]
I remember one night,

I talked to my wife
and I think we, you know,

we were reminiscing,
and then we ended up

probably getting in an argument
or something and, uh...

I was on the phone forever and,

I go down in the morning
and to check out,

and I, and I looked at my bill
and there was a $800

phone call there
and I go, "What is this?

This is BS. There's no way
I could... $800!" And then,

Andre the Giant comes up
behind me and he goes,

"If you don't like it, go home."
[laughing]

[Steele] How many, how many guys
in the wrestling business

have a family left when they're
done? Most of them lose it,

because of the lifestyles.
So not the wrestling business,
because of choices.

Do I love
the wrestling business?

It's been very good
to me and my family.

Absolutely.

Why do I... where do I...
Right to the meat core.

I have two sons, both of them
excellent high school wrestlers.

Both of them thought about
trying to follow in dad's
footsteps in wrestling.

I said,
"If you try to wrestle,
I will break your legs."

[Graham] Also, what happens
with your children is

the mothers become very, uh,
belligerent and, uhm, uh,

antagonize, in my case,
the children to turn
against their father,

because the father's never home.

And it's almost justified,

because you're always
on the road,

you're always
out of town, you're--

and you're not there
to see your children grow.

Because you're
wrestling somewhere.

You're wrestling
on Christmas day.

You're wrestling
on Christmas shows.

You know? And so
it destroys the family unit.

And in my case, uh, it,
it made my wife at that time,

who's the mother of my daughter,
uhm, very bitter.

Uh. Even though I was
sending money home,

but money doesn't pla--
take the place of the father.

[chuckles]
If you provide the gifts,
you can provide the money,

you can provide paying
the bills, and keeping
the electric on,

and, and everything else, and,
and all the necessities of life,

but you can't provide
the human touch

of the love
of a child and a father.

That's gone
because you're on the road.

[DiBiase]
You know, I had made up my mind
that I was gonna tell the truth

and I had
believed wholeheartedly
that my marriage was over.

And I was gonna
get what I deserved.

And, uh, much to my surprise,

my wife's response was...

"I serve a God of restoration,
not divorce."

She goes, "I'm not
gonna make you a promise.

I don't know if I'm strong
enough to do this."

She goes...

"I wanna believe
what I've heard you say.

But more important than that...

Uh, I wanna be obedient
to this voice in my heart.

And for whatever reason,
it's saying to give you
another chance."

Then she goes, "I think,
from what I've heard
and what I've seen,

that you really
want to be a man of God."

She, then she challenged me,
she's, "But I'm just not sure
you're man enough."

And, uh, she says,
"So no promises." She goes,

"I might leave next week,
I might leave six months
from now."

She goes,
"All I'm going to promise you

is that I'm going to try."

That's when the trust
and the respect and all those
things came back, and today...

Uh, this next, uh,
New Year's Eve

we'll celebrate our 32nd
wedding anniversary.

And we've never been happier
and we've never been closer.

[calm music]

[Wendi] My favorite moment
in my career has to be

when I won
The Women's World Wrestling
Championship the first time

because that was
my ultimate dream.

I worked so hard for that.

I was so focused.

I made a difference
with women's wrestling

and hopefully I was a good role
model for the up and coming
wrestlers.

I was a woman wrestler
and darn good one.

[Bret Hart]
Wrestling's a hard life
and it's got a lot of, uhm,

lot of pitfalls to it,
and there's a lot of...

a lot of bad things that happen
to you in the wrestling business

and the wrestling profession,
uhm... But the truth is,

it-- There's a lot of good
things that happened to you
in wrestling too and, uhm...

You know, the things that I've
seen, the places I've gone,
the people I got to be with,

the fans that I connected with
and touched through my career,

great moments of,
uhm, athleticism, uh...

great entertainment heights.
You know, I...

When I look at
my
WrestleMania Main Event,

accomplishments
I'm proud of all of them.

Uhm, I'm proud of all
the guys I worked with.

[Eadie]
I have no regrets about being
in the wrestling profession.

I got to see the world.
I got to travel the world.

I got to see pace-- places
and do things that people pay
a lot of money to go and see.

[Snuka]
I love what I do. I love
my professional wrestling.

And brother, I'm
the happiest guy to, you know,

get out there and, uhm,
let the fans have it.

You know, enjoy Superfly Jimmy
Snuka wrestling, and, uh...

The fans are
the greatest in the world.

I lived the dream.

And I have a sign over my door

that was, that was,
that I put up there.

It was given to me
by Davey O'Hannon.

Uh, and when I went
to be inducted

into the Professional
Wrestling Hall of Fame,

I brought that sign along.
And the sign simply says,

"Don't dream your life,
live your dreams".

And that's what I did.

[Wendi] I really enjoyed it.
I loved what I did.

There's a saying
that if you love what you do,

you'll never have to work
a day in your life.

And that's how I felt
about wrestling.

It really didn't feel
like work to me.

I enjoyed performing
and I enjoyed the fans

and just, just the thrill
of being in the ring.

I take a lot of pride
in knowing, and I say this
with a great pride,

that one of the wrestlers
that I really love and respect

always tell me, a lot of them,
from Kevin Nash to

1-2-3 Kid, to Roddy Piper,
to Bulldog, Mr. Perfect.

They always tell me
that their best match
that they ever had, was with me.

And I think even Stone Cold
and Shawn Michaels would say
the same thing.

And I think I'm,
I'm really proud
of that more than anything.

At least it tells me
that it was worth it.

The fans should know
that over the years,

I loved each and one, uh, one,
every one of my fans.

I never hated anyone.

And when they went home,
they always said,

"Ox Baker always gives us
our money's worth."

[DiBiase] Whatever
you're passionate about.

If you're not passionate
about it, then leave it alone.

But if it's your heart's desire,
I don't care if you wanna be

a rocket scientist
or walk on the moon.

You can be whatever you want to,
if you're willing
to pay the price.

And the price of success is
hard work.

[Orndorff]
I knew where I wanted to go.

It was a plan. I had a plan.

You've got to have a plan. I
don't care what you do in life.

You better have a plan.

I had it.

I had a plan.

And you know how I did it?

I did it with my body.

I did it with my looks
and I did it with my brains.

[Mosca] Would I take
the same path as I did?

I probably would,
because I love the business.

The business was good to me
and, uh, maybe I would ask
for more money.

[laughs]

[Graham] Would I do it all...
Would I do it... Oh my god.

I am afraid just say
I would do it again.

I wouldn't change a thing,
wouldn't have changed a thing.

No regrets.

[Pete] I love everything I did.

I actually Wish I could
do it all over again.

I consider myself a lucky man

to have been in a business
where you got to see the world.

Australia, New Zealand,
all throughout Europe.

Every place
in the United States and Canada.

I got to do it all for free.

And I loved every moment of it.

You gotta love this business.

And the only way to get out
of this business is
to give it 150%.

'Cause if you try to go halfway,
you don't get it done.

And I can tell you in 40 years,

no matter where I was at,
Ox Baker always got it done.

Wrestling, you know,
there's bullies.

There's guys that are
bullshiters or there's con men.

There's great guys,
there's great athletes.

There's great performers,
and showmen and characters.

You know when you open up
that dress room door,

it's, it's such a, uh,
chocolate box of characters.

I mean, it's--
And I think from every
country that I ever worked in,

all the territories
that I was in it was always,
always a great adventure.

♪