Dusty: Reflections of Wrestling's American Dream (24 page)

I remember this other night in Orlando when I was in the ring with Molokai. During my match Kevin and Black Jack started fighting in the back, fought their way through the crowd, fought at ringside, fought in the ring, fought out on the other side of the ring, and fought right out the front door of the building. One week later, I was in the ring again with Molokai in a return match, the front opened and here came Kevin and Bobby Jack fighting into the arena. This old guy sitting at ringside said, “Goddamn, they’ve been fighting a whole fucking week!”

That feud obviously was classic, and Sullivan became a very good booker out of it. Like the Sheik, he lived his gimmick. He had a great vision. He had great ideas, and I really felt proud because I believe he learned a lot from me, and I, in turn, learned a lot from him. But he watched me closely earlier on in my career and he became a heel who drew money. That’s what manipulating people and things and territories is all about. God, we had a big feud, and given the opportunity, it would still be going on today.

“I’ve never thanked Dusty. I wouldn’t have had a career like I had or have everything I have without Dusty giving me the opportunity to wrestle him, and because of the track record to get the rub with Hulk. I wouldn’t have done the things with Abby and the Sheik. I thank him!”

—K
EVIN
S
ULLIVAN

A guy who was similar to Kevin in a lot of ways was Larry Shreve, better known as Abdullah the Butcher. Abdullah was a guy everyone was scared to death of and they still are today. If you ever watch the History Channel about the Haitians, they have these Voodoo dancers who go into trances and they pass out and fall down and they just go crazy. Well, one night as we fought in the West Palm Beach Auditorium, we fought out to the back of the building. There would be a lot of Haitians who came to the matches there, and a group of them were out in the back and they were the kind of Haitians who were worshipers. Well, Abdullah got away from me and he ran up on this group of people and they threw themselves into a fit just like you see on the History Channel and they got in a circle around him and they started doing all this shit. I was watching this unfold in front of me and they started passing out on the fucking floor. They just started laying out doing these weird gyrations and shit. As a heel, he had that kind of power over people. He had that knack like the Sheik, like Sullivan, that you believed this fucking guy was a bad motherfucker and still is. And heavy—Jesus—he must weigh 900 pounds! Today, while he still wrestles, he’s a successful businessman in Atlanta with “Abdullah’s House of Chinese Food and Ribs,” but there’s only one Abdullah the Butcher, and our feuds in Atlanta were … shit it’s one of them if you want to sell out, that’s what you booked before Yellow Finger— you booked Abdullah and Dusty in Georgia. The mysterious person you see is who he was, and almost like the Sheik, he lived the gimmick. The only time I saw him out of character was down at the Underground nightclub one night. They told me Abdullah went down to this club after I wrestled him in the Auditorium. That was the night the lady fell out of the balcony to get a glimpse of “The American Dream,” and he danced like a son of a bitch, so I went down to this African-American club, and I walked in, and there he was. He looked like a big, black, Sidney Greenstreet, the guy you see in those old movies. Abdullah had on a white suit and a big, white Panama hat and everybody around him was black and he was out on the dance floor dancing his ass off. And that’s what I think about now when I think of Abdullah. Dressing nice and classy, but everyone was scared of him and they still are. Larry was a bad ass and still is.

A couple of years ago, the most fun I had in a long, long time was when Terry Funk, Kevin Sullivan, Abdullah and I did this four-way brawl in Davie, Florida, for a local promoter down there. About 4,500 people showed up at the Davie Rodeo Arena for this independent show, which was really
unheard of, just to see the four of us kick the shit out of each other, and we did not disappoint the fans. I love those type of things because it was just so simple. There was no rocket science there that night, just four old fuckers beating the piss out of each other and loving every minute of it.

Wahoo McDaniel was like the first guy I really marked out for. He was an Indian from Oklahoma like my dad, and he had more fire in him than anybody else I had seen. His fire on his comebacks was just phenomenal and you believed in him. I was at this gas station in Canyon, Texas, at West Texas State University once and he stopped in on his way from Amarillo going to the next town for a match. He had a new Mustang at the time—a ‘66 or ‘67—and he got out and he was wearing this orange alpaca sweater, a really nice sweater with a turtleneck. Man, he looked immaculate, and I thought to myself he must have $20 million in the bank—that’s the way my mind worked back then. He took me in, he grabbed me, he brought me into that realm and made it real. This guy lived his gimmick and what I’ve been talking about all throughout the book. He got out of the car as Wahoo McDaniel, he didn’t get out of the car as Ed McDaniel, the former New York Jets football player. He was Wahoo McDaniel, the pro wrestler and he was at the gas station. To me it was like the fucking Beatles were here. He just drove up in a fucking Mustang instead of a yellow submarine, and that’s important because it was about believability. He was a good-hearted guy and a tough guy, too. He did some unbelievable stuff athletics-wise, that people still talk about him doing, like running from Norman, Oklahoma, to Oklahoma City, 18 miles or whatever it is on a bet with Bill Watts and taking on all comers. I had a lot of respect for him. I loved the guy and enjoyed being with him as he was kind of a father figure to me because he reminded me of my dad a little bit the way he looked, dark, and he had that face kind of like my dad. He wasn’t that much older than me, but he was kind of like a father figure.

Wahoo bought me a real nice shotgun one time, and I went dove hunting with him. He was one of those pre-Yellow Finger guys, and to watch his early matches would be a study in how to get “over.” In the end fans remembered the old, worn-out Wahoo, but that’s not him. It’s just like when Sitting Bull kicked the shit out of Custer at Little Big Horn, massacred him by the overwhelming numbers. Well, I imagine a few years later, Sitting Bull was a little heavier and wasn’t really the same Sitting Bull. So you can’t really look at Wahoo at the end of his career, you have to look at it as a whole. As a
matter of fact, he did a lot of “Dusty Finishes” during his career. I was sad when he died because I not only respected him, but he was one of my idols.

Dallas Page is a real friend. He works harder than anyone I know to be the very best he can be. He has a very impressive attitude. I think Dallas in a way is an example of doing anything you put your mind to, because he proved everybody wrong who said he couldn’t work. In the beginning, he really couldn’t. Dallas couldn’t do anything. He had no coordination whatsoever. But he worked hard to obtain it and he made history in winning the WCW title for a guy who became an overachiever. He really overachieved and he tried so hard to be in that little clique of guys.

I enjoyed watching him just as he was breaking out, battling Arn Anderson, Ric Flair, and company, who would try to keep him down. We had a real close relationship then as we still do today. We talk about our business of course, but we also talk about our personal lives. He has a real ability to stay focused and positive. In Fort Myers, Florida, one time, I invited him to a Willie Nelson concert. Chelle and I met him there and he was pumped as he took pictures of Willie and me on stage together; he was like a celebrity mark! Little did I know that he took the pictures to put in his resume for later use. He reminded me of “Rambling” Dallas Rhodes. Well, he proved himself, and we are very close. I still was really pissed off when he had Hogan write the foreword for his book—big mistake! Anyway, I got fucking over it! Dallas became a megastar in pro wrestling. Hard work and trusting his instincts paid off.

My favorite story about Dallas was at a pay-per-view when Jim Heard, the blooming idiot of corporate America, was running WCW. Dallas was being pushed big time by me, when in his “Diamond Mine” episode with Vinnie Vegas, aka Kevin Nash, he wanted to use what he called a “Garth Brooks headset” instead of a stick mic. Well, he said the word “fuck” on the broadcast. I remember Jim Ross and his personal bitch, Jim Herd, were in shock; they went off. I was able to get it shut down, but that was the “Diamond Mine,” and it was okay as he made it anyway. Dallas is my lifelong friend. Good work, DDP!

“If not for Dusty there is no DDP. I went up to Dusty to ask him if I should start wrestling and he said, ‘You’ll be a fire-breathing dragon … the greatest manager of all time!’ There were times I would go to him and he, like Jake Roberts, would smarten me up about how some guys were gonna fuck me even though they were making it look like they were gonna help me. I remember asking him how do I get to the next level and he said, ‘I don’t know how you got here?’ There was a defining moment, saying to him that I’m never gonna be you, or Hogan or Flair, and Dusty asked me, ‘If you don’t want to be world champion, then what are you doing this for?’ When I won the WCW title, I was driving through the mountains and Dusty called me on the cell phone and asked, ‘How does it feel? Even though it’s a work, it’s something else, isn’t it?’ Like I said, if not for Dusty, there is no Diamond Dallas Page.”

—D
IAMOND
D
ALLAS
P
AGE

One guy who I’ve had a lot of history with, but haven’t spoken much about was also one of my favorite guys as tag-team partner—Bugsy McGraw. I first met Mike Davis working for the Sheik in the Detroit territory. We wrestled each other 35 years ago at The Armory in Akron, Ohio. The Main Event was Johnny Powers versus the Sheik. Bugsy and I wrestled to a 20-minute draw. He was known then as “The Big O.” He went on to become one of the most charismatic and entertaining men to step into the squared circle. I loved when he put on those flight goggles and spun around, and when he and “Boogie Woogie” Jimmy Valiant tag-teamed back in the ‘80s … pure magic. We have been friends a long time. He always seemed to be watching over me, like an angel praying for me! I think we had a lot in common, like our speech impediments, which we both used to our advantage. If you really know him, you are better off than most. My friend Michael will always be in my heart.

Nikita Koloff and Magnum T.A., Terry Allen. To me, when you say one, you have to say the other. I would always try to pick the heir to the throne with me being the guy on the throne. Who is the heir to the throne? Who’s the next Babe Ruth? Who’s the next guy on the babyface side, and it was Magnum. Jimmy Crocket and I foresaw movies for him, we saw television for him, we saw all kinds of things happening for him, and he deserved it. His heart was as big as gold. He worked his ass off. He never complained. He was tremendous, and he was a close friend and a loyal friend. As I mentioned before, he went to Oklahoma to become a star, and it was my job to make him a bigger star. He drew some money for Bill and then when we began to make a move on the national scene with Jim Crockett Promotions and Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, we bought the UWF and we brought Magnum
to Mid-Atlantic. I remember him coming in with his first of two or three wives, and the way he looked when he walked in was one of those things I talked about a lot. He demanded that respect. There was something about him that said this guy is going to be special. When he had the accident, he was in the middle of the hottest angle in the history of Mid-Atlantic. You see, Flair and Tully and Arn and old J.J. believed that I had built everything around them. I had built a lot around them as Flair was the champion of the world and Tully was always tight with me as far as drawing money. But the angle that was the big deal, the one that there was none hotter than, was the Nikita and Magnum TA feud. None. Zero. Period. Nothing ever before that or since then in Mid-Atlantic. When he went down the blow was unbelievable, not only because he was a friend, but because once you got your composure, you had to think about what you’re going to do for business. Of course, everybody knows I brought the biggest bad guy, the baddest asshole in the world as far as the public knew “The Russian Nightmare,” Nikita Koloff, to be my tag team partner. The rest is history. The roar is still rumbling from the shouting in the coliseum when Nikita walked out as my tag-team partner to create the “Super Powers.”

“I don’t think I understood the impact it had on the wrestling world. Nobody knew who the mystery partner against the Horsemen was until I walked into the babyface dressing room. I got there one hour earlier. With no internet back then, it was easier to do. I had just gotten back from Japan, and being a wrestler, I thought it was a work. I had only been in the business for two years at that point and even though I stepped in right away, I didn’t fully understand what was happening. In that first nanosecond I walked out, you could have heard a pin drop. As we made our way down the aisle it starting getting louder … the second I jumped on the Horsemen and it sunk in that I was really Dusty’s partner and it wasn’t some double cross, the place erupted. The next 15 minutes were absolutely mind-boggling. With the fans chanting the name Ni-ki-ta, Ni-ki-ta … it does something for your ego and overwhelms you. Last week these same people were cursing you, spitting on you, throwing things at you, and now guys had their shirts off doing the Nikita muscle pose.”

—N
IKITA
K
OLOFF