March 1995
He looks over, distrustfully, as he paces back and forth, his shaved scalp black and blue with tattoos. Little orange and red flames lick around the edges of a nonexistent hairline. He's big. Real big. Well over 6 feet tall, his 300 and some pounds are packed into a blue elastic jumpsuit and a pair of stomping boots with 18 inches of eyelets. Bam Bam Bigelow is not the sort of menacing individual whose integrity you would question with the petulant observation, "Wrestling, it's all fake, right?" He could pull my head off my neck if he needed to. And for now that commands both my attention and my respect.
It's Friday night and the World Wrestling Federation is in town. We are sitting backstage at the Cow Palace with a wrestling legend. I didn't know that at first, but he explained it to us. You see, I havenÕt been following wrestling all my life. After about fifth grade I thought it was kind of stupid. But now, as an adult, to reconsider this bizarre and animated spectacleÑthe collusion and suspension of disbelief that is required of the audienceÑwrestling as a great American pastime makes perfect sense. But back to the legend.
He's old enough to be someone's dear granddad. But when he taunts Wink, one of a pair of midget wrestlers dressed up like a clown, with "Come here you little son-of-a-bitch, I'll kick your ass," I'm glad he isnÕt mine. But then he wasn't ever paid to be a nice guy. Classy Freddy Blassey, barrel-chested with a thick neck and head of platinum hair to go with it, was, in his day, one of those bad guys who can incite old women and adolescents to froth at the mouth and spit.
His wide old body sits hunched before us, scarred and tired, taking up all the surface area the brown folding chair has to offer. "I look at a fella right away and tell; he'll never make it," Freddy says with some authority, having discovered one of the biggest wrestlers of this era, Hulk Hogan. He has seen it all in the wrestling biz. From being stabbed, to having acid thrown on him, to seeing his new Lincoln set on fire one day in San Bernardino.
Where else but in professional wrestling can a large, physically fit, mean man dress up in orchid and baby blue tights with a cape and make a decent living? Freddy started when he was 17 in East St. Louis, Ill. He needed five dollars for a wrestling license and his mother made $4 a week. It was 1935 and the depression. His 45 years in the ring began as a carnival wrestler for two dollars a match and eventually he became a five time World Heavyweight champion.
As Freddy reminisces about the old days, a few wrestlers for tonight's matches pace backstage like caged animals. They are pretty keyed up and Freddy is telling us how many times he's been stabbed and I'm getting confused about where the show ends and the reality begins. So I ask if fans ever get out of control and he says "Who the hell else is gonna stick a knife in me but a fan?" The danger suddenly makes sense. The wrestlers are on the same side and it is the public that provides the potential threat.
Ringside and the atmosphere is inescapably festive. It smells like children and beer. Small packs of 10-year-olds race around jockeying for position. Men in need of a shave jostle the 10-year-olds from their spots, spilling their beers and taunting the wrestlers.
A couple of skanky chicks in leather jackets, tight black jeans and hightops are checking me out. Even from a couple seats away an alarmingly pungent odor of sweat and who knows what emanates from their direction. Some sort of wrestling-chick calling card I presume.
Wrestling has been good to Freddy Blassey. He wears an 18 karat diamond pinkie ring. He was the first inductee into the Wrestling Hall of Fame. He recorded the Dr. Demento hit song, "Pencil Neck Geek." But he has also paid a price: 16 knee operations, eight wives, he nearly lost his right foot when a couple of teen-agers at the Olympic auditorium in L.A. threw acid on him in the '70s. And he also has a plastic hip, which we had the special pleasure of viewing, among other parts of Freddy's anatomy. But such is the life of a champion villain. "I went out of my way to be obnoxious," he admits.
In front of me, a baby on her mother's shoulder peers back happily, while in the ring above, Tatonka and Lex Lugar, two large, sweaty men in their underwear, heave their rippling tan bodies against each other. Tassels dangle from their brightly colored boots and trails of perspiration explode in the spotlights.
It is exotic and physical and the crowd is very much a part the ritual, rushing the stage barriers before and after each match. During one bout a combatant is dislodged from the ringÕs confines and a pack of kids and a few over-interested adults swell within arm's reach of the action. An auburn-haired youngster and his friend lean over the barricade shouting obscenities and flipping off the massive wrestler.
All in all, this perverse world of masculine showmanship, of big sweaty guys lying on top of each other and performing simulated violence is fun. It nurtures the American passion for "knock-down, drag-out" action. Fake or not, these larger than life athletes are working hard and taking their knocks in this weird genre where no one really wants to think about what is real and what isn't. Sit close and feel the energy.