How do you get to the point to where you can make a living at professional wrestling? If I could give you that answer, I could get rich selling the formula. I've been very lucky. I worked all of the little hellhole towns for two years for little or no money, trying to learn and then got the break of my life, when I got hired by Jerry Jarrett and the USWA. This was in 1990. I thought that I knew what I was doing, but, let me tell you, I didn't know anything. Thankfully, I was able to learn from some of the best.
I was hired because I had such a good voice and could do good interviews. My wrestling ability (at that time) was not that good (it sucked) and after a while, we did an angle where I was taking over the USWA from the (in name only) promoter, EDDIE MARLIN. Now, Eddie was about 62 years old and had been retired from wrestling for a long time. He ran spot shows and appeared on camera as the promoter, but hadn't wrestled forever. The angle came down to this, I put up my stock in the USWA (by now 50%) and Eddie put up his 50% in a match where if he won, I could NEVER wrestle again and he would have his company back. If I won, I owned the USWA. The reason that it came down to this, was they were making me into a manager, since my wrestling was so terrible, while they could teach me how to really wrestle. I used to go to Jerry Jarrett's office, in Hendersonville Tn, every Tuesday, on my way from Memphis to Louisville and he would give me pointers and try to help me learn what wrestling was all about. I used to practice punching one of the referees (Paul Neighbors) and I about beat him half to death every Tuesday. Now that I have a great punch, I must say that I owe a deep debt to Paul for all of his sufferings and all of the pain that I must have caused him.
In one of the matches, prior to our, "winner take all" match, I remember that Jerry Lawler, Jeff Jarrett, and Eddie marlin were in a six man against me, and two partners. While we were in the ring, being announced, I heard Jerry Lawler tell Eddie Marlin to "suck in his gut". As they were announcing Eddie, I very plainly heard Eddie, in a very strained and painful voice, tell Jerry that he was ALREADY sucking in his gut. I almost wet my pants, right there in the ring, from laughing so hard.
That is just one of the reasons that professional wrestling is so great. You meet people and you do things that you never really dream of doing. That feeling of doing something for all of the fans in attendance and knowing that it brightens their lives is a feeling that is very hard to explain.
One day at the t.v. station, in Memphis, Eddie Marlin told me that he had taken the spot show ring to a location where GEORGE JONES had filmed a music video and that GEORGE FOREMAN had been in the ring with GEORGE JONES. Now, our old spot show ring was not in very good (looking) shape, and I couldn't imagine it being in a music video. But I started watching CMT and sure enough, there it was, and it looked pretty good. The name of the song was "I DON"T NEED YOUR ROCKIN' CHAIR". The song was about George Jones telling the world that he wasn't ready to be put out to pasture just yet and that his old body was still doing just fine, thank you! This song fit Eddie Marlin perfectly and I went out and bought the tape and gave it to Eddie to use when he and I had our matches. Eddie used to run spot shows and he was notorius for NEVER having entrance music. Of course that changed when I bought him that tape. Now he played entrance music for the wrestlers, because HE HAD SOME TOO! We had many matches, working our way up to the big final match, and I will never forget the night in Nashville when I faced Eddie Marlin, with the fate of the USWA on the line.
The building at the fairgrounds in Nashville was built especially for wrestling. It was the perfect wrestlig building. Several thousand people could sit in that building and all have a good seat and could all be close to the action. Sometimes, a little to close, but that is another story.
On that night, the build was packed with several thousand fans, and I knew why they were there. Or at least I though I knew. I thought that they were there to see the changing of the OLD into the NEW. They wanted to see me beat Eddie Marlin and bring new blood to the USWA. Boy, was I ever wrong.
My music played and I went to the ring first. I stood there looking at all of the people and thinking, "wow! this is a helluva house that you drew Mike". Then Eddie's music played. As George Jones started singing, every person in that building stood up and waited for Eddie Marlin to come out of the dressing room. When the spotlight hit 63 year old Eddie Marlin, and George Jones was singing that "he didn't need your rockin' chair" the place went wild. I stood in the ring with goosebumps and a lump in my throat, and a small tear in my eye, as Eddie Marlin, for the final time in his career, was coming to the ring, to do what was right and teach some no good bastard a lesson, and damnit he wasn't going to leave that building until he had done it!
That is why professional wrestling is so great. That night we touched the lives of several thousand people in a very special way. The thing is, it happens almost every night, when it is done right. That's why so many young fans want to become professional wrestlers. When a 15 year old boy hears that glass break and STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN makes his way down the aisle, that 15 year old can't help but be moved in a way that is almost spiritual. He wants to be the next Stone Cold!
99.99% of the time, it ain't going to happen, but the desire is there anyway. Even after you get to a certain point, you always have that desire to connect with those fans and make them feel what you are feeling. Ask most real professional wrestlers about their profession and they start off with telling you all of the bad things, like the never ending torture of travel and the living in hotels, and the time away from families, and the interuptions of their "normal" lives by the fans that bug the hell out of them when they are trying to eat a meal or catch a plane, or even use a public bathroom. But wait a minute or two, for their fustrations to get out of the way and the smile is there. Then they are telling you about how it feels to be "out there, under the spotlight" and how good it feels to know that there are people that live and die by what you, as an entertainer, say and do. Then they start telling you about this match one time where.................... Well, you get the picture. It's the time under those ring lights that make it all worth while. The rest of the time, really is very tedious. But the ring and the lights, and the fans, it all washes away those long flights and the hotel rooms and the lousy food, and the lack of real sleep, and makes all of those hours in the gym and paying all of those dues actually worth it.
My doctor told me that it takes about two weeks for your body to adjust to a 12 hour time change, or jet lag. My flights to Japan take me across a 13 hour time zone change. I usually stay for two or three weeks at a time, then come home for two or three weeks and go again. Is it any wonder that I can't sleep?
When I was with the USWA, a 6 hour car ride was a typical trip. We worked 6 days per week, and averaged driving about 2000 per week. What do you do on those long road trips? Well, you try to have someone with you to talk to, that's one thing. It was always better if it was somebody that had been around and could tell you some good stories. I brought Jim Cornette back from Memphis to Nashville one night and the 3 hour trip seemed like about 30 minutes. Jim could tell some stories. He wanted to pay me for gas and I wanted to pay him for the entertainment. I used to try to get Frank Morrell, one of the USWA referees and a long time wrestler, to ride with me, when possible, because he told the best stories. Frank had been everywhere and had done it all. He had stories that were so good, I wish that I had been writing them down.
Jerry Lawler used to hate to travel. He had done so much of it during his career and was tired of it. He always drove fast, VERY FAST. He had a way to avoid boredom, while driving. He would stop at a fast food restaraunt and load up on cups of cole slaw, before he left. Then, as he passed you on the highway (with him doing over 100 mph) he would bomb your car with cups of cole slaw. This became a game and was quite a challenge to some of us. Nobody could beat him. He was the KING of road warfare!
I remember once picking Jery Lawler up, in Nashville, after a WWF show, and taking him to Louisville. The stories that he told were the best that I ever heard. For those of you that don't know Jerry Lawler as the KING of Memphis (and of that entire mid-south territory) and only know him as the announcer on the WWF, well let me tell you, you do not know Jerry Lawler. I guess that's one of the things about wrestling. Today's superstars are tomorrow's "what was that guy's name". I mean, in a few years, there will be someone asking you, who was this guy you are talking about, The Rock? Fame is fleeting. But it is the moment that counts.
I still study tapes of the great old veterans, like DICK THE BRUISER, BILLY ROBINSON, VERNE GAGNE, IVAN KOLOFF, and others. Whenever I get to thinking that wrestling has changed to much, I put in a RIC FLAIR VS RICKY STEAMBOAT tape and all is right with the world, once again. I have had the pleasure and honor of working with Abdullah the Butcher, for the last year, in Japan and he can tell you some stories. Not just wrestling stories, either, life's lessons. If you listen, you never know what you might hear.
Wrestling in Japan is very much different that wrestling in the U.S. But one thing that is the same is the REASON that you are there. A crowd of people have paid their money (in Japan they pay between $60 and $100 to attend wrestling matches) to witness a human sports opera. An athletic event of dynamic proportions that might change the very world in which they live in. As a wrestler, you have a duty to give them more than their money's worth.
I love wrestling in Japan, I would not trade wrestling there for a job with ANY wrestling company. But, my best memories are from a town that I wrestled in every week, off and on for 6 or 7 years. It is a very small town, called CENTRAL CITY KENTUCKY. The promoter, Shelby Adcock, is a very nice person and a good friend of mine. He is now 63 yeas old. 10 years ago I thought that he was about 65 years old. He never changes. He now runs the Evansville Coliseum in Evansville Indiana, every Wednesday night. He quit running Central City a few years ago, but that was the best town ever.
The dressing room in Central City was a nice large room, plenty big enough for 20 guys to dress in and still have room. There was a shower that didn't work, so all the boys used that as a urinal, since there was not a bathroom back there. If it rained, the roof leaked so badly that you could not find a dry spot to dress and sometimes there would be an inch or two of water on the floor. It was great.
The arena itself would hold about 300 people or a few more. There were bleachers and chair seats. The show would start at 8:00 p.m. and they opened the doors at 4:00 p.m. because a few people would always come early to get the chair seats and just sit and talk to each other. Everybody in that building knew everybody else. This was a small town and the Saturday night wrestling, or RASSLIN' MATCHES, as they were called, was THE place to be.
I started out there as a bad guy and after a couple years turned into a good guy and I was loved by one and all. The Stanley Family was always seated in the same 6 or 7 chairs at ringside, running from the neutral corner to the babyface corner. Most Saturday's one of the sisters would bring a big pan of homemade fudge and give it to us goodguys. There was an old gentleman that sat up in the bleachers and he was always so worked up over the matches. I would watch him and he would be punching and moving around like he was in the ring. When things would get really bad for the babyface, he would sometimes pull out his pocketknife, a black handled barlow knife, and threaten to come to the ring and kill the heel. A couple of times he made it to the security rail, with knife in hand.
We all knew all of the people, and they thought that they knew us. Boney's wife died of cancer. Another lady would miss some because of her failing health. One of the Stanley daughter's married one of the other fans. Sometimes the crowds were huge and loud and wild and sometimes they crowd was small. But the show went on. Every week, it was good vs. evil with the fate of the world, as they knew it in Central City, hanging in the balance.
I loved wrestling there. These days, even when the crowds in Japan are huge and the money is good, I still think of those days in Central City and I think about those people that had to come up with $6 a peice every Saturday night and I can't help but wish that I was back there, just for one more night.
Being a weekly town, there are a lot of funny stories about Central City. One time, one of my friends that I got booked there, Larry Corey, had the major embarassment of his (short) wrestling career. Larry wrestled as THE CALIFORNIA DUDE. He had these small neon orange trunks, a pretty decent body, and a bushy, semi-long, head of dark blonde hair. Only the hair wasn't all real. At an early age, Larry started losing his hair, so he had a big time hair weave done. He would go once per month and they would shave the top of his head and weave in his hair peice. It was done tight and looked very good. I knew him two years before I knew that he had a weave, it was a good one. Well one night, the CALIFORNIA DUDE, who had all of the fans loving him, was taking on the promoter's son. Now David Adcock had been a helluva amatuer wrestler, plus he had trained at Malenko's school, so if he wanted to snatch your ass, he could. Of course, Larry told him before the match, to watch the hair, but maybe that was the wrong thing to do.
Mid way through the match, David grabs Larry by the hair, and YES, off came the weave, complete with blood and pain and yelling and Larry diving UNDER the ring and refusing to come out until someone brought him a towel. The California Dude surfed out the door, that night, never to be seen again.
So now you know what wrestling is really about. Can everybody be successful? No. But, if you try, and if you get just a few good stories, you too might get a chance to write your TALES FROM THE ROAD. What the hell. Aim for the stars and shoot for the moon. what's the worse thing that can happen. You might just do like my dad and get a job that you really love.
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