Andrew Lutzke
From RF Video
This is a roundtable Q and A featuring Skandor Akbar, “Dr. Death” Steve Williams, Bill Dundee and Brad Armstrong. Sadly three of these men are no longer with us.
Bill Watts is the first subject. Akbar explains that Bill Watts bought a promotion that had issues with no shows and other rules being broken, so he became a disciplinarian.
Bill Dundee said Watts had a few strict rules and you best just follow them. Dr. Death was fined for wearing football shorts into the ring during a card. Dundee was fined for letting him wear them since he was acting as the agent for the office that night.
Brad Armstrong says the pay was outstanding but the travel was brutal.
Ernie Ladd would come into the locker room, take off his pants, give the guys their finishes for the night, then put his pants back on and leave.
Ladd was fined for fighting off the Rock and Roll Express while on his knees during a tag match.
Guys would often pay the driver of the car they were sharing .02 a mile for the trip.
Ricky Morton once had a handkerchief tied to his boots, somehow it got wrapped in the rope, Morton jumped off the top rope and splatted on the canvas.
Buddy Landell was a bullshitter but a fine worker.
Kamala kept kayfabe around the security force at the New Orleans Superdome – Once while being taken by golf cart from the underbelly of the dome to the arena entry the cart suffered a broken wheel. Kamala refused to get off the cart and just kept screaming at the guard in “Ugandan” moans and patting his belly. Dundee and Watts came by with a new cart and Kamala still refused to budge. Watts spoke “Ugandan” to Kamala and convinced him to come along. The guard asked what Kamala was talking about and Watts told him that Kamala thought the guard looked tasty.
The first time Jerry Lawler and Jerry Jarrett gave Sugar Bear Harris the Kamala gimmick, Lawler did the body paint work on him. Harris thought the moon on his chest was a banana and was greatly confused.
Kamala did big business in most of the places he went in the 80’s.
Brad Armstrong tells the story of accidentally busting open Dr. Death with an elbow, which ended up forcing Doc to get 115 stitches. Armstrong was terrified that Doc was going to kill him. Watts was worried that Doc would miss house shows via the injury. Doc simply said “Fuck it brother, it ain’t ballet.”
Watts would raise hell over a lot of small things.
Watts paid 10 grand for a rottweiler that kept the wrestlers trapped in Watts’ guesthouse because of how vicious it was. Watts also owned a big stable, and yet owned no horses.
Akbar once accidentally burnt Watts’ chest with a fireball.
The highway system was poor in Louisiana for much of the Mid-South’s heyday, so if you got stuck behind a logging truck or some-such, you were almost definitely going to be late to the show.
The boys were often disappointed by their pay offs for Superdome show. They failed to account for all the extra expenses that came with running a dome. Paul Orndorff quit the promotion after headlining a dome show and receiving “only” a seven grand payoff.
Dundee took over as booker and brought in sexier looking babyfaces to attract women to counteract all the big rugged workers on the roster.
The night the Rock and Roll Express debuted, the spotlight that was used on the wrestlers blinded Robert Gibson and he fell off the stage and hurt his ribs.
Watts was leery of using the smaller talent.
Brad Armstrong receives a cell phone call and picks it up on camera. Ironically it’s Brad’s Mid-South partner Tim Horner calling.
The heat the heels used to get was amazing. Akbar wore a bulletproof vest at a Superdome show after receiving death threats. Another time a fan tossed Drain-O in his eyes.
Your move set could be limited if you knew how to sell and how to make comebacks.
The fans mobbed the Rock and Roll Express. A fan got her hand caught in a car door trying to touch them. Instead of freaking out over her injury she just squealed, “I’ll never wash this hand again!”
Dundee goes on a bit of a rant about scripted promos not being conducive to drawing money.
Watts had to work harder to keep his headliners fresh and interesting compared to some territories. The Von Erich’s name alone was going to sell tickets in Texas, for example.
When JCP bought the UWF in 1987, Dusty Rhodes told Akbar that the WWF would be out of business in a year.
Bob Armstrong drew a big house in Florida once, so booker Dusty made sure Armstrong lost the next time around in the town to make sure Rhodes remained the top face.
Rhodes sent Dundee on JCP’s private plane from Texas to Charlotte alone. Rhodes was burning up insane amounts of JCP’s money doing things like this.
Jim Crockett would also take the top talent on trips to Vegas constantly on their plane as well.
Finally Mama Crockett called Jim and David into a meeting with Dusty, Dundee and other agents/bookers and told Jim that trying to cross America and only draw in big cities was a recipe for bankruptcy compared to the business Jim Sr. had run that saw many small towns hit a week, while actually maintaining a profit.
Ole Anderson bitched to Akbar about Jim Jr. not even being able to format wrestling TV and overall being a poor fit to run the company.
Jim Crockett Sr. started very small and left his company in very good condition. Many individuals in the business felt Jim Jr’s expansion attempt was ill conceived.
Rhodes was very stubborn to dissenting ideas.
Dundee explains how JCP would draw a big house for the summer Bash tours and the profits would be small because of paying for so much hullabaloo. Rhodes wanted to spend 50K a night to bring in country singers, and then Dusty would make a tape of himself singing with the star – all on JCP’s dime of course.
Akbar tells a story of Ric Flair’s first trip to Japan and gigging himself a ton to try and outdo Akbar, Rhodes, Dick Murdoch and the other Texans blade jobs.
They tore up Flair’s room and made sure he was drunk all night, every night.
Flair’s wild spending is touched on. Tully Blanchard took up Flair’s spending habits for a while.
Jerry Lawler put himself over Andre the Giant via pinfall and that created an uproar among promoters the very next morning.
Andre warned Fritz Von Erich in 1984 that Vince McMahon intended on putting him out of business, along with everyone else.
Tim Horner pops in the room and joins the table.
Brad Armstrong went in the ditch and got stuck in the mud. Hercules and Dr. Death were in the car following them, and Herc tried to power the vehicle out, only to have the mud splatter and cover him from head to toe. Akbar went off a snowy embankment and Dundee and other workers crashed down in a snow bank. Akbar never lost the cigar he was puffing on. They sent Billy Jo Travis for help in his wrestling boots since he was the youngest of the bunch.
Terry Taylor and Hacksaw Duggan were playfully tossing ice at each other at a bar. Hercules thought some fans were causing trouble and ripped his shirt off before starting a bar brawl with the unsuspecting patrons.
Duggan got cheap shotted by a “fan” at another bar and lost his glasses. Blind, Duggan swung wildly as the other guy peppered him. Finally the dude bit Duggan’s finger and Hacksaw screamed out “NOW I GOT YA!” and plowed the guy over with one punch.
Dr. Death power slammed a guy on a table during a bar brawl. Somehow he caught his nose on the edge of the table and busted it wide open. Blood spurted everywhere.
Ronnie Garvin was amazingly tight. He knew where buffets were all over the country and constantly managed to get into gyms for free. During one week long road trip, Garvin managed to train, eat and stay at a hotels every night for a total cost of 80 dollars.
Garvin was a pilot and would fly the boys around on occasion. The alternator on the plane went out, as did the power. He ended up flying over an Air Force base and being chased down by Blackhawk helicopters. Arn Anderson, Armstrong and others were praying and Garvin, the atheist, just teased them “Tell God to fix my alternator!” The guys were all freaked out when they landed, but Garvin was ready to switch planes and keep going.
Akbar was in street clothes at a gas station, when Mid South popped up on the TV at the station and he could hear the guys watching starting to cuss him out for cheating. Akbar was concerned they may start trouble while he was paying for his stuff, but the guys apparently didn’t recognize him.
Tim Horner was riding from a show and had to shit really bad. When he got to a gas station, he had to get a key to use the bathroom. By the time he unlocked the door, bad things were about to happen to his underwear and he flew in the dark bathroom and missed the light switch. He shit and then went to find the light… he hadn’t aimed near a toilet… shit was all over the wall. Naturally, he went and got Brad out of the car to see his mess.
Akbar tells Danny Hodge stories, including boxing Alex Karras!?!!?
JYD worked Memphis, and wanted to use a “King of Wrestling” gimmick. That obviously didn’t fly in LawlerLand.
George Gulas was a notoriously bad worker who was pushed because his dad was Promoter Nick Gulas – he’d chop guys in the ring and whisper to them “Daddy said y’all gotta go down”. Gulas was disliked enough by the fanbase that when he was put over World Champion Harley Race, the fans attacked Gulas.
Bill Dundee is glad Youtube exists so fans can see real wrestling and not “the modern bullshit”.
We get a bitchfest about guys not being able to work nowadays.
Armstrong tells about working Jake Roberts for 15 minutes based all around Armstrong teasing a punch and Roberts selling fear of the blow.
Final thoughts: Dr. Death was in the middle of his throat cancer battles here, and couldn’t talk, so if you consider buying this for his input, don’t bother. He does laugh and emote with his hands frequently. Otherwise this was a nice overview of some of the lower card guys view of the Mid-South/UWF universe. There were enough stories to keep things lively throughout.
