25.06.2007, 08:27
Wall Street Journal
New York City, New York
28 May 1971
The Rasslers
classy freddie blassie, a villian turned hero, bites, growls, prospers
he, others insist the 'sport' is real, but many say no; either way, it's popular
kiss for the fan from the soul man
by hal lancaster, staff reporter for the wall street journal
los angeles -- the mob has been building outside for more than an hour, and when the creaking double doors open the building seems to explode. nearly 10,000 faithful sprint for their seats, engulfing rickety old olympic auditorium for a night of professional wrestling. it is a spectacle part carny, part acrobatics, part abnormal psychology.
on a given night, aficionados may see a match held in a cage (to foil escape by a terrifed villian), a 22 man, survival-of-the-fittest battle royal, or midgets and women grapplers. they are certain to see pulled punches, feigned falls, and masked heavies. and they are certain to cheer their lungs out at the appearance of 240 pound classy freddie blassie. he is at least 43, he is thickening around his glossy bronzed middle, those silky strands of blond hair are bleached, and the voice is ground glass. but he is the hero.
it is this way every friday night here, and on other nights at other arenas around the country where the freddie balssies turn on the faithful. they come in swarms. professional wrestling, long since excommunicated from the realm of popular sport and ignored by the press, survives and flourishes desoite this lack of recognition.
from villian to hero
it grosses at least $25 million at the gate for more than 400 promoters nationwide, and the take is growing yearly, according to sam muchnick, president of the national wrestling alliance. it generates an unknown but sizable amount of tv revenue from weekly telecasts that clog the airwaves in most major cities. it's a safe bet that few southampton swells are tuned in, and no one has ever spotted a rockefeller crowding ringside, but in the nether realm of sport that is wrestling, the freddie balssies don't need the four hundred.
mr. blassie, who has been wrestling for a living for at least 25 years, has the skill and the moves of long practice. slamming iinto the ring post, tumbling out of the ring, whirling savagely to hurl his man into the ropes, he makes the fans believe it's all real even when they know it's not.
until recently, he played the villian with convincing malice. no trick was too dirty -- biting, eye gouging, all the traditional nasties. (his specialty has long been forehead gnawing; with white teeth supposedly filed razor sharp, he grasps his fear-stricken foe in a headlock and gorily chews his way across the victim's hairline.) the fans hooted and hissed when he derided his opponent -- "pencil neck geek! ya got a neck like a stack of dimes!" -- and cheered when he took his lumps.
but in the past year he has become a darling of the crowd. he was even named 'los angeles wrestler of the year'. "it all started when i jumped in and helped out a couple of latin wrestlers who were getting beat pretty bad in a tag team match," recalls mr. blassie. there is no surer road to favor in los angeles. mexican-american wrestlers are idolized by the largely latin crowd at the olympic, and villians constantly malign them in order to hype emotion -- and the gate. "i'm tired of the chili-pickers coming up here all the time and taking opur money back to mexico to buy more chili and tacos!" stormed the evil bull ramos (the apache renegade) on ocal tv one night.
bad investment
villian or hero, it's all right with mr. blassie either way. he still takes a six-figure annual salary home to his modern five-bedroom beach house in santa monica, where he lives with his third wife, miyako, whom he met and married while on tour in japan. sound investments in stocks and real estate have left him well off.
"my worst investment," he declares, "was my second wife. i'd make $1,000, and she'd spend $2,000." but mr. blassie confesses he isn't a frugal man himself. "i used to buy two pink cadillacs every year," he says.
all in all, it has been a lot of neckbreakers (mr. blassie's favorite hold) since he made his wrestling debut before a hometown crowd in st. louis in 1943. he got 50 cents. like many young, impressionable athletes, he blew the whole wad (on bus fare) and promptly ran up heavy debts with the promoter ($5). "i had to wrestle 10 times for that guy to pay it back," he sighs.
now he wrestles 100 to 200 times a year all over the world, though the olympic is home. he often has wrestled every night of the week and several times a day. it isn't unusual for a wrestler here to perform on a televised show in los angeles, hop into a car with his hated opponent, and do it all over again the same day in san bernidino, 60 miles away.
an honest match
(it was on such a drive, one former wrestler confides, that he had his only legitimate match. he and his opponent, driving north from des moines, got into a squabble over who would emerge victorious in waterloo that night. the only to settle it, they decided, was to stop the car and go at each other for real right there in a farmer's field. they did, but it was indecisive, so they decided to wrestle for real that night in waterloo. but alas, says this ex-pro, the match was rained out so he never did fight an honest match in public.)
a typical two-week tour for mr. blassie would include, on consecutive nights, ventura, calif., baltimore, los angels, washington, atlanta, new york, a rest on sunday, then san jose, columbus, ga., honolulu, portland, ore., edminton, cincinnati, and toronto.
besides the rugged travel schedule that makes a normal family life impossible, the wrestlers compplain about injuries. they are mostly unintentional, but hwne a 250 pound monster lifts you over his head and hurls you to the mat, you are apt to get hurt at times.
mr. blassie's momentos, he says, include a dozen broken ribs, a fractured skull and brain concussion, two broken elbows, a broken wrist, several broken fingers, four fused thoracic vertebratae, and fading eye vision in one eye -- this last, he claims, due to iodine alledgedly thrown into his eye during a match by the weasel, manager of the hated sheik. (a similar trick recently forced mr. blassie into a hospital and cost him, so the stroy goes, the use of the eye.)
it is the injuries that wrestlers cite when closely questioned about the legitimacy of the sport. "i've broken nearly every bone in my body," wrestler-cum-actor mike mazurki maintains. "if that was all faked, i took a lot of punishment for nothing." mr. mazurki will admit some "exaggeration", but that's all. there is, in fact, a conspiracy of monsterous proportions to covince doubters of the essential honesty of the game. "i've been approached, but i just want to do my best and be the best," mr. blassie swears angelically.
it is a typical remark. promotoers swear they never put on a prearranged match. mevertheless, there are these mysterious meetings of the wrestlers before every olympic show. earl (mr. universe) maynard arrived late one evening and was told the meeting was in progress. he asked which meeting. the doorman glanced at the stranger hovering nearby and whispered, THE meeting."
fake, says official
the california state athletic commission is unimpressed by claims of legitimacy. the commission's los angels an, joey olmos, maintains that the matches are prearranged, and state rules governing wrestling refer to it as "an exhibition...in which the participating wrestlers are not required to use their best efforts in order to win and for which the winner may have been selected before the preformace commences."
newspapers are likewise unconvinced, generally limiting coverage to a listing of results, and that just to avoid thousands of phone calls from wrestling zealots. most newspapers don't even send a reporter to the matches, although the new york times sends a news clerk "in case of a riot."
the promoters couldn't care less. "newspapermen wear big halos, and wrstling's a perfect whipping boy," mr. muchnick snaps. the promoter's tears lead a path all the way to the bank. for instance, in st. louis, where the national wrestling alliance champ, dory funk jr., does most of his wrestling, mr. muchnick, the promoter, averages a $25,000 gross 16 times a year.
in nw york's madison square garden, where such as bulldog brower reign, promoter vince mc mahon often attracts 20,000 fans and pullsin an average gross of about $80,000 per monthly show. in detroit, home of the sheik, mighty igor, and the stomper, an average of 9,500 fans produce a gross of about $30,000 every other week. eddie graham, a wrestler-turned-promoter who now is reportedly a millionaire, draws 5,000 every time he opens the doors in florida, north or south carolina, puerto rico, and the bahamas, and occasionally he gets 15,000 inside florida's gator bowl in jacksonville.
will the fans die off?
this boom is generally attributed to television and such performers as gorgeous george, the human orchid, who died in 1963 after a colorful career as wrestling's most famous dandy. it was in the 50s, during the reign of george and his fabulous platinum blond coiffure, that wrestling's television ratings zoomed as high as 40% of the viewing audience. they still rate high enough to please used car dealers everywhere, a prime sopurce of sponsorship.
the only dark cloud, according to olympic promoter mike labell, is the consistency of it all. even though mr. muchnick reports steadily increasing attendance throughout the country, mr lebell bemoans the samenes of the olympic's figures--$1.2 million gross and $400,000 to $700,000 net, year-in, year-out. "it means the same people are coming all the time," he explains , "and pretty soon, they're going to die out."
on a recent friday night, however, there are no signs of impending doom, and by the time mr. blassie appears, the near-capacity crowd (9,559 fans for a $31,085 gross) has bathed the arena in near hysteria. mr. blassie is adorned in baby blue, from his brief, spangled bolero jacket to his trunks to his kee pads to his shoes. around his waist is the america's belt, a championship, like most in the wrestling game, concocted by a promoter.
he glares and growls at his opponent, the massive massa saito, who is accompanied by his cusin, the villianous kenji shibuya. (mr. blassie had greeted both men warmly in the dressing room earlier.) the crowd responds with appropriate cheers and boos, and a few well-hurled objects. the ring announcer gently chides them, much as one would a kindergarten class. "that one person who is trowing things is going to ruin the fun for everyone, " he scolds.
i love it baby
the crowd responds again, hooting and waving. the fans are half the show. some, like alberta ledesma, come, cushion-in-hand, seeking relaxation in the midst of chaos. "i usulaly sleep through a couple matches," she says. most, however, like josephine tyler, are true believers. "i love it, baby," she chants. "sock it to 'em. it's all for real, and i holler till i get hoarse. the wrestlers all know me i won a $25 bet when rocky (soul man)johnson kissed me, right on this spot."
some, like stella aguilera, believe, but not totally. stella follows the wrestlers all over southern california. "i'll see a guy one night and he's bleeding like mad, and the enxt night, i won't see any scars," she says. others come because the olympic is a way of life. manny garcia is there five nights a week, for boxing, wrestling, and the roller derby. he knows he shouldn't believe, but once the action begins he is swept away and leaps to his feet, exhorting.
wrestlers are keenly aware of the fact that these crowds can turn ugly quickly. "these are different people, different people," says a police officer on duty, shaking his head. "jeez, they're emotional," wrestlers are likely to find anything from hatpins to butcher knives stuck in them by irate fans. mr blassie, who says he has been stabbed 10 times, recalls finding a knife in his calf during a match in one tank town. he calmly returned to the dressing room, found no doctor, pulled out the knife, poured iodine on the wound and left. "guys like to get rid of their pent-up emotions," he says, shrugging it off. "some guy who's 5'4" like to scream at the big guys,"
doctors disagree on whether this scene is healthy. pyschologist dr. edward j stainbrook, for one, thinks not. "doctors used to have the catharsis idea, that is, you'd watch this violence, and you would be washed out, satiated," he expalins.. "nowadays, it's generally believed that the more aggression you see, the more violent you are likely to be."
of these dangers, however, the crowd knows nothing. all they care about is that freddie blassie is in trouble, tripped by the devious kenji shibuya and pinned by the gleeful massa siato. this evens the match at one fall apiece. mr. blassie is on the brink of defeat for the umpteenth time.
but wait. he furiously musses his hair, a signal the fans all know: he is ready for the kill. they scream. he races into the ropes and springs off at the terrified mr. saito. they shriek. freddie knocks his foe to the floor and flops on him for the decisive pin. the fans are estatic. as mr. blassie leaved the ring in a triumphant, chest-swlled strut, he sneers and spits at mr. shibuya's feet. bedlam.
freddie showers quickly and and slips away from the mob of young kids who, he chuckles, used to stone him. that has all changed, but ironically, mr. blassie now chooses to shun crowds anyway. his wife, he says, wants him to quit entirely. "her fondest wish is to see me hang up my trunks," he notes. that seems unlikely, for the blond vampire obviously relishes his vocation.
the crowd, with some gentle prodding from the ushers and the realization that freddie is gone, now begins to disperse. and as the dank, dimly lit arena begins to empty, an usher snorts in disgust: "those people will believe anything."
New York City, New York
28 May 1971
The Rasslers
classy freddie blassie, a villian turned hero, bites, growls, prospers
he, others insist the 'sport' is real, but many say no; either way, it's popular
kiss for the fan from the soul man
by hal lancaster, staff reporter for the wall street journal
los angeles -- the mob has been building outside for more than an hour, and when the creaking double doors open the building seems to explode. nearly 10,000 faithful sprint for their seats, engulfing rickety old olympic auditorium for a night of professional wrestling. it is a spectacle part carny, part acrobatics, part abnormal psychology.
on a given night, aficionados may see a match held in a cage (to foil escape by a terrifed villian), a 22 man, survival-of-the-fittest battle royal, or midgets and women grapplers. they are certain to see pulled punches, feigned falls, and masked heavies. and they are certain to cheer their lungs out at the appearance of 240 pound classy freddie blassie. he is at least 43, he is thickening around his glossy bronzed middle, those silky strands of blond hair are bleached, and the voice is ground glass. but he is the hero.
it is this way every friday night here, and on other nights at other arenas around the country where the freddie balssies turn on the faithful. they come in swarms. professional wrestling, long since excommunicated from the realm of popular sport and ignored by the press, survives and flourishes desoite this lack of recognition.
from villian to hero
it grosses at least $25 million at the gate for more than 400 promoters nationwide, and the take is growing yearly, according to sam muchnick, president of the national wrestling alliance. it generates an unknown but sizable amount of tv revenue from weekly telecasts that clog the airwaves in most major cities. it's a safe bet that few southampton swells are tuned in, and no one has ever spotted a rockefeller crowding ringside, but in the nether realm of sport that is wrestling, the freddie balssies don't need the four hundred.
mr. blassie, who has been wrestling for a living for at least 25 years, has the skill and the moves of long practice. slamming iinto the ring post, tumbling out of the ring, whirling savagely to hurl his man into the ropes, he makes the fans believe it's all real even when they know it's not.
until recently, he played the villian with convincing malice. no trick was too dirty -- biting, eye gouging, all the traditional nasties. (his specialty has long been forehead gnawing; with white teeth supposedly filed razor sharp, he grasps his fear-stricken foe in a headlock and gorily chews his way across the victim's hairline.) the fans hooted and hissed when he derided his opponent -- "pencil neck geek! ya got a neck like a stack of dimes!" -- and cheered when he took his lumps.
but in the past year he has become a darling of the crowd. he was even named 'los angeles wrestler of the year'. "it all started when i jumped in and helped out a couple of latin wrestlers who were getting beat pretty bad in a tag team match," recalls mr. blassie. there is no surer road to favor in los angeles. mexican-american wrestlers are idolized by the largely latin crowd at the olympic, and villians constantly malign them in order to hype emotion -- and the gate. "i'm tired of the chili-pickers coming up here all the time and taking opur money back to mexico to buy more chili and tacos!" stormed the evil bull ramos (the apache renegade) on ocal tv one night.
bad investment
villian or hero, it's all right with mr. blassie either way. he still takes a six-figure annual salary home to his modern five-bedroom beach house in santa monica, where he lives with his third wife, miyako, whom he met and married while on tour in japan. sound investments in stocks and real estate have left him well off.
"my worst investment," he declares, "was my second wife. i'd make $1,000, and she'd spend $2,000." but mr. blassie confesses he isn't a frugal man himself. "i used to buy two pink cadillacs every year," he says.
all in all, it has been a lot of neckbreakers (mr. blassie's favorite hold) since he made his wrestling debut before a hometown crowd in st. louis in 1943. he got 50 cents. like many young, impressionable athletes, he blew the whole wad (on bus fare) and promptly ran up heavy debts with the promoter ($5). "i had to wrestle 10 times for that guy to pay it back," he sighs.
now he wrestles 100 to 200 times a year all over the world, though the olympic is home. he often has wrestled every night of the week and several times a day. it isn't unusual for a wrestler here to perform on a televised show in los angeles, hop into a car with his hated opponent, and do it all over again the same day in san bernidino, 60 miles away.
an honest match
(it was on such a drive, one former wrestler confides, that he had his only legitimate match. he and his opponent, driving north from des moines, got into a squabble over who would emerge victorious in waterloo that night. the only to settle it, they decided, was to stop the car and go at each other for real right there in a farmer's field. they did, but it was indecisive, so they decided to wrestle for real that night in waterloo. but alas, says this ex-pro, the match was rained out so he never did fight an honest match in public.)
a typical two-week tour for mr. blassie would include, on consecutive nights, ventura, calif., baltimore, los angels, washington, atlanta, new york, a rest on sunday, then san jose, columbus, ga., honolulu, portland, ore., edminton, cincinnati, and toronto.
besides the rugged travel schedule that makes a normal family life impossible, the wrestlers compplain about injuries. they are mostly unintentional, but hwne a 250 pound monster lifts you over his head and hurls you to the mat, you are apt to get hurt at times.
mr. blassie's momentos, he says, include a dozen broken ribs, a fractured skull and brain concussion, two broken elbows, a broken wrist, several broken fingers, four fused thoracic vertebratae, and fading eye vision in one eye -- this last, he claims, due to iodine alledgedly thrown into his eye during a match by the weasel, manager of the hated sheik. (a similar trick recently forced mr. blassie into a hospital and cost him, so the stroy goes, the use of the eye.)
it is the injuries that wrestlers cite when closely questioned about the legitimacy of the sport. "i've broken nearly every bone in my body," wrestler-cum-actor mike mazurki maintains. "if that was all faked, i took a lot of punishment for nothing." mr. mazurki will admit some "exaggeration", but that's all. there is, in fact, a conspiracy of monsterous proportions to covince doubters of the essential honesty of the game. "i've been approached, but i just want to do my best and be the best," mr. blassie swears angelically.
it is a typical remark. promotoers swear they never put on a prearranged match. mevertheless, there are these mysterious meetings of the wrestlers before every olympic show. earl (mr. universe) maynard arrived late one evening and was told the meeting was in progress. he asked which meeting. the doorman glanced at the stranger hovering nearby and whispered, THE meeting."
fake, says official
the california state athletic commission is unimpressed by claims of legitimacy. the commission's los angels an, joey olmos, maintains that the matches are prearranged, and state rules governing wrestling refer to it as "an exhibition...in which the participating wrestlers are not required to use their best efforts in order to win and for which the winner may have been selected before the preformace commences."
newspapers are likewise unconvinced, generally limiting coverage to a listing of results, and that just to avoid thousands of phone calls from wrestling zealots. most newspapers don't even send a reporter to the matches, although the new york times sends a news clerk "in case of a riot."
the promoters couldn't care less. "newspapermen wear big halos, and wrstling's a perfect whipping boy," mr. muchnick snaps. the promoter's tears lead a path all the way to the bank. for instance, in st. louis, where the national wrestling alliance champ, dory funk jr., does most of his wrestling, mr. muchnick, the promoter, averages a $25,000 gross 16 times a year.
in nw york's madison square garden, where such as bulldog brower reign, promoter vince mc mahon often attracts 20,000 fans and pullsin an average gross of about $80,000 per monthly show. in detroit, home of the sheik, mighty igor, and the stomper, an average of 9,500 fans produce a gross of about $30,000 every other week. eddie graham, a wrestler-turned-promoter who now is reportedly a millionaire, draws 5,000 every time he opens the doors in florida, north or south carolina, puerto rico, and the bahamas, and occasionally he gets 15,000 inside florida's gator bowl in jacksonville.
will the fans die off?
this boom is generally attributed to television and such performers as gorgeous george, the human orchid, who died in 1963 after a colorful career as wrestling's most famous dandy. it was in the 50s, during the reign of george and his fabulous platinum blond coiffure, that wrestling's television ratings zoomed as high as 40% of the viewing audience. they still rate high enough to please used car dealers everywhere, a prime sopurce of sponsorship.
the only dark cloud, according to olympic promoter mike labell, is the consistency of it all. even though mr. muchnick reports steadily increasing attendance throughout the country, mr lebell bemoans the samenes of the olympic's figures--$1.2 million gross and $400,000 to $700,000 net, year-in, year-out. "it means the same people are coming all the time," he explains , "and pretty soon, they're going to die out."
on a recent friday night, however, there are no signs of impending doom, and by the time mr. blassie appears, the near-capacity crowd (9,559 fans for a $31,085 gross) has bathed the arena in near hysteria. mr. blassie is adorned in baby blue, from his brief, spangled bolero jacket to his trunks to his kee pads to his shoes. around his waist is the america's belt, a championship, like most in the wrestling game, concocted by a promoter.
he glares and growls at his opponent, the massive massa saito, who is accompanied by his cusin, the villianous kenji shibuya. (mr. blassie had greeted both men warmly in the dressing room earlier.) the crowd responds with appropriate cheers and boos, and a few well-hurled objects. the ring announcer gently chides them, much as one would a kindergarten class. "that one person who is trowing things is going to ruin the fun for everyone, " he scolds.
i love it baby
the crowd responds again, hooting and waving. the fans are half the show. some, like alberta ledesma, come, cushion-in-hand, seeking relaxation in the midst of chaos. "i usulaly sleep through a couple matches," she says. most, however, like josephine tyler, are true believers. "i love it, baby," she chants. "sock it to 'em. it's all for real, and i holler till i get hoarse. the wrestlers all know me i won a $25 bet when rocky (soul man)johnson kissed me, right on this spot."
some, like stella aguilera, believe, but not totally. stella follows the wrestlers all over southern california. "i'll see a guy one night and he's bleeding like mad, and the enxt night, i won't see any scars," she says. others come because the olympic is a way of life. manny garcia is there five nights a week, for boxing, wrestling, and the roller derby. he knows he shouldn't believe, but once the action begins he is swept away and leaps to his feet, exhorting.
wrestlers are keenly aware of the fact that these crowds can turn ugly quickly. "these are different people, different people," says a police officer on duty, shaking his head. "jeez, they're emotional," wrestlers are likely to find anything from hatpins to butcher knives stuck in them by irate fans. mr blassie, who says he has been stabbed 10 times, recalls finding a knife in his calf during a match in one tank town. he calmly returned to the dressing room, found no doctor, pulled out the knife, poured iodine on the wound and left. "guys like to get rid of their pent-up emotions," he says, shrugging it off. "some guy who's 5'4" like to scream at the big guys,"
doctors disagree on whether this scene is healthy. pyschologist dr. edward j stainbrook, for one, thinks not. "doctors used to have the catharsis idea, that is, you'd watch this violence, and you would be washed out, satiated," he expalins.. "nowadays, it's generally believed that the more aggression you see, the more violent you are likely to be."
of these dangers, however, the crowd knows nothing. all they care about is that freddie blassie is in trouble, tripped by the devious kenji shibuya and pinned by the gleeful massa siato. this evens the match at one fall apiece. mr. blassie is on the brink of defeat for the umpteenth time.
but wait. he furiously musses his hair, a signal the fans all know: he is ready for the kill. they scream. he races into the ropes and springs off at the terrified mr. saito. they shriek. freddie knocks his foe to the floor and flops on him for the decisive pin. the fans are estatic. as mr. blassie leaved the ring in a triumphant, chest-swlled strut, he sneers and spits at mr. shibuya's feet. bedlam.
freddie showers quickly and and slips away from the mob of young kids who, he chuckles, used to stone him. that has all changed, but ironically, mr. blassie now chooses to shun crowds anyway. his wife, he says, wants him to quit entirely. "her fondest wish is to see me hang up my trunks," he notes. that seems unlikely, for the blond vampire obviously relishes his vocation.
the crowd, with some gentle prodding from the ushers and the realization that freddie is gone, now begins to disperse. and as the dank, dimly lit arena begins to empty, an usher snorts in disgust: "those people will believe anything."