I‘m gonna bring this up because Maury said it in his interview and it‘s already been in the magazine. He said you were juicing
heavy at the time, and it was like there were two Sputniks, depending on whether you were sober or not.
(laughs) ‘Two Sputniks‘.
This is exactly what he said: first, he said Rocky McGuire was the one who gave him the Rocket gimmick. He said you called Rocky
from Florida and told him that you wanted Maury to come down and start working with you. I’m gonna read the rest of this
exactly as he said it:
So I went and we became the World Tag Team Champions down there. We were managed by Saul Weingeroff down there.
Did you like having a manager?
Not him. He thought he was better than everybody.
What was Sputnik like as a partner?
He was a great worker, and a good guy when he was sober. When he was drinking it was a different story. I got tired of being around him
because he got to where he was always drinking, so I left and went out on my own. It also made me mad that Saul would sit around and
do nothing and draw the same money I was getting for working my butt off. I had made enough of a name for myself by then that I knew I
could do it without them. It wasn’t too long before I was working with Gene Dundee -- he was Flash Monroe.
Yeah, I was doin’ a little drinkin’. I carried a case of Scotch in the trunk of my Cadillac, and after thirteen wonderful years I got
divorced. Divorced through an ultimatum: “Either quit wrestling, and come home, or I’m divorcing you.�
“Don’t give me any God-damn alternatives. I’m due for the Junior Heavyweight championship of the world and probably by â
€™70 or ’72 I’ll have it,â€� and that’s what I shot for. My son says she still loves me. Married to a jackoff for thirty years, and
she still loves me.
Were you married at one point to a promoter in Louisiana?
Yeah! My second wife. I’ve been married six times.
Les Thatcher told me a couple of stories about working with you. One was, he said that you scared him to death one time. I’m
not sure where this was, but I think it might have been the first time you worked with him, and he told me that before the match, you
told him---and Les does a great imitation of you--- that you were gonna do a backdrop spot in the match, and you told him to ‘get
down, and push off with your legs, and push off and give me all the air that you can’, and Les said that he did it and did it the way
you said, and backdropped you, and lost his balance a little bit, and recovered it, and turned around and looked up…
… and you were still in the air.
(laughs) Boy, I was proud of them bumps. I’m not too proud of ’em now. I’ve got four herniated discs in my lower back and
two in my neck. I’m havin’ a reaction in my lower back right now, I got goose bumps all over my legs. I was the bump-takin’
champion.
Les also told me about when he brought (Roger) Kirby down to Florida, and they were teaming as babyfaces, and you and Rocket
were working a program for the titles with (the babyface team who had them at the time), and you did a match on TV with him and
Kirby and before the match, and again he does this great imitation, you told him ’just relax, baby, we’re gonna get you over,
the people are gonna wet theirselves lookin’ at you two as babyfaces’. And Les said you did exactly what you said you were
gonna do, and (one of the guys from the champion team) went to Eddie bitchin‘ about ‘Eddie, goddamnit, these Monroes work
better with Thatcher and Kirby than they do with us, like they were the fuckin’ champions instead of us’ and before Les
knew what was goin’ on he and Kirby were workin’ the main in Ft. Myers instead of being on the card in Tampa.
(The guy who complained to Graham) is a strange man. He’s my son’s godfather, lives not too far away from here, remarried,
divorced the love of his life, and… he’s a prick.
Les used the word ‘politician’. How did he come to stand godfather to your son?
I was over in Memphis, and put him over a couple of times, and… he got the big head.
Okay, now the next couple, three years, I mostly show you going back and forth from Georgia to Florida. Now I want to ask you about
the night Eddie Graham got hurt by the window falling on him, in Tampa, because I know you were on the card that night and I
understand you were there.
Yeah.
It was supposed to be Eddie and Brisco against Malenko and Valentine. It was originally supposed to be you and Brisco, then there
was an angle that got Eddie into it, and you were gonna ref, but then it ended up being you and Jack because of what happened to
Eddie with the window. Let me explain something about this, why I’m asking. First I’m just going to mention a name to you,
see what your reaction is: Jim Wilson.
Who?
Jim Wilson.
I don’t recognize the name.
All right, he was an undercard guy in Georgia and Florida, and he just wrote this big exposè book on professional wrestling called
Choke Hold. He’s the one who said Barnett promised him the title and came on to him and a bunch of other shit. The book has
created something of a disturbance in the wrestling community. He has a partner who wrote the book with him who researched all
the lawsuits against the NWA, and there’s a lot of facts in it, but there’s a lot of bullshit. This is one of the guys who went on
TV, him and Eddie Mansfield, and exposed the business, on 20/20, back in the ’80s, is this ringin’ any kind of a bell?
No. I retired in ‘80.
Okay. Let me tell you one thing this guy claims. This guy claims that the whole thing with the window falling on Eddie was a hoax.
BULL SHIT.
All right. Go ahead. Tell me what happened that night.
The windows were those iron-framed panes put together, know what I‘m talkin‘ about? And Eddie walked under the son of a bitch
and it closed, whether he bumped it, or whatever, but it knocked the shit out of him.
So there was no bullshit about it…
No.
… he was hurt.
Right. Who wrote down the exposè?
Jim Wilson.
Where’s he from?
He was an All-American college football player at Georgia, he played a little bit of pro, got hurt, he started working for Gunkel, he
claims that Gunkel like almost as soon as he started put his name up to Muchnick to be NWA champion. Then he claims he was in
Australia for (Jim) Barnett, which that part is true, but he claims that while he was there, Barnett promised him the NWA title if heâ
€™d let Barnett, uh, perform a sexual act.
(laughs EXTREMELY long and hard) He shoulda went for it.
Then he claims when he refused, he started being blackballed… then like I said back in like ‘84, ‘85, when 20/20---you
remember when David Shults slapped the reporter on national TV?
Yeah.
Okay, this was the same show. Part of that was, they interviewed McMahon, they did this, they did that, then there were these two
guys that came on and exposed the business, talked about blading, the other guy bladed ON TV, blah blah blah, that was Eddy
Mansfield and Jim Wilson.
O-kay.
So now, he says he gets blackballed further after that, blah blah blah, and he appointed himself some kind of crusader now to clean
up pro wrestling, or whatever the fuck. And he just came out with this book, that like I said that his writing partner who I already
knew of who had already tried to publish a book that never got a publisher, but this guy had done tremendous research into the
government files about anti-trust suits against the NWA, and the promoters, and all that kind of stuff, but then also there’s
Wilson’s two cents about how he was this that and the other thing, and among the things he claims in the book is that the
window was gimmicked, and the whole thing was a fraud on the insurance company and the venue because Eddie needed eye
surgery anyway from blading too much. So this is who this guy is.
The window was a shoot. It wasn’t a work. I’m 75 years old and I’d challenge that jackoff.
Lou Thesz, after they went on the TV show, went on a TV show, or went on a TV show with them, and Lou, who was already 68, 69 at
the time, said ‘I will take you two guys on at the same time right now’, and needless to say they did not take him up on it.
(laughs) Boy, I had some great matches with Lou Thesz. I was probably the only guy that got by with goin’ an hour with him about
fifteen times. Lou’s wife told him that she thought the only wrestler in the world was Sputnik Monroe---she’s from Memphis.
Back around ‘67, ‘68, ‘69, you were spending some time back in Amarillo. That was a heavy driving territory, wasn’t it?
Yeah. Amarillo to Albuquerque, Albuquerque to Odessa, Odessa to El Paso, and back.
And then in ‘70, this was back for McGuirk, that you went over Hodge for the Junior title.
Yeah. And they kept it a secret that I was the Junior Heavyweight champion of the world, and they had several calls askin’ for me, and
they fluffed it off and told them I was busy, or some bull shit.
They just wanted to keep you in the territory? Wouldn’t they have gotten the booking fee?
Sure.
LeRoy figured he was making more money off you just in the territory, or… ?
Well, my end, if he went for the booking fee, that’d be I think ten percent of whatever the payoff was, I forget exactly what it was now,
but it was pretty serious.
Which is maybe why I understand Danny was not too happy to not have the belt.
No. He wanted it back, and he stayed in the office, and I don’t remember how long I had the son of a bitch, 6 months or maybe nine
months or a year, I don’t remember. I wasn’t very pleased with it, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. You talk to Bill
Watts? He was doin’ the bookin’ when I got the belt.
We’re gonna ask him about it. Bill said you sent him in to Amarillo, some time before that, as a plant out of the audience, and he
says he didn’t get treated right over there.
He didn’t get treated right. I was in Oklahoma and I sent him over there, and I‘ve got a lotta respect for Bill Watts, he’s a hell of
a guy, and he got treated like a piece of shit. And then he came back, and I don’t know how he got in the office, what the deal was,
but he got in the office. And he asked me to come in and I said, “The only way I’ll come in is if you give me the strap,� and they
give me the strap and it was a joke. They kept it a secret. Hodge only had a couple of defeats in his lifetime career. But they wouldnâ
€™t book me with anybody, they were scared I’d lose the belt.
Was that the thing of it? They were scared of a shoot on the road?
Yeah. They didn’t know that I was a 5-minute winner in an Athletic Show for three years, and if you lose on that son of a bitch you lose
your job, you pack your bag and leave. I beat a guy in Arkansas, and I told him to give up, and he said, “I can’t.�
“Give up, you son of a bitch, I’ll break your arm!� and I heard the pistol click and heard the sheriff say, “If you break his arm,
I’ll shoot you, you son of a bitch.� That’s gettin’ the right kinda heat, ain’t it? I turned the guy loose, I wasn’t
gonna get shot over it.
Let me quote you something Danny said in an interview. He said:
“When you got in the ring with me, you were going to wrestle, whether you wanted to or not,� laughed Hodge. "When (fans)
wash clothes all week and washing and ironing to buy a wrestling ticket, you come to see wrestling. I can guarantee you you're
going to wrestle.�
"Sputnik Monroe... sometimes I'd take him over in a headlock and he'd just lie there. Well, if you don't try to get out, I'm not going to
lay there, I'm going to turn you loose and get up and if you don't move I'm going to stomp you.�
That’s about right. If you’re in the ring with somebody, you depend on them to take care of you, and Hodge didn’t do that. He
would jerk ya, or do little moves to let you know that he was… that he was King Of His Domain.
That was something else that Jack Brisco mentioned too, that that was a way he always tried to not be like Danny, that we would
always be careful not to stretch anybody too much, because he thought it actually hurt Danny in his career. Okay, now I found this
thing, I think this is somewhere around ‘70 there in Tulsa, that you went on a local TV show, that was a local guy hosting horror
movies, and his name was Gaylord Sartain and his gimmick was… Dr. Mazeppa? This ringin’ any bells?
No...
Okay this is what he said:
“In a bit I was trying to construct with him, he was supposed to 'fake slap' me ... apparently at that point in Professional
Wrestling 'fake' was not in the vocabulary! So when it came time for the pay off...KERBOPPO!%*&^)$#. My magician's hat turned
into a rocket!!! And the side of my face throbbed for weeks! Sputnik was very apologetic and said 'that's the way we do it'. I've
avoided watching or participating in professional wrestling since then.�
Huh. Who slapped him?
You did.
God, it seems as though I’d remember that. I bought a house in Tulsa… I don’t remember any of that.
Now also in ‘70, I guess this is before you went back to Tulsa, you were working for Frank Tunney up in Toronto some again.
Yeah. He was a good payoff man, and a real gentleman. Let’s see… the Sheik, we were in Detroit, and a Mexican and I sold the
thing out… he passed away and I can’t think of his goddamn name---
Luis Martinez.
Luis Martinez, that’s it. I was in Toronto for, I don’t know---my little sexy wife knocked Tunney and the whole office out, very
beautiful young lady, committed suicide. I don’t think we stayed in Toronto very long.
Looks like… like January through maybe March, beginning of April.
Yeah, that‘s about right, sixty, ninety days, and that was it. Martinez and I went in for the Shiek, I got a call from…Jack somebody, who
was a booker for Dory, you know who I’m talkin’ about?
Okay so this was when the Funks were booking for Farhat… Jack Cain?
Jack Cain, yeah, he called me in Toronto and asked me to come into Detroit. The Sheik and Man Mountain Mike took the main event
money, which was a big work, but Luis and I sold the son of a bitch out about five weeks in a row. And the Sheik always had somebody
there, you know, like the fat man and various and sundry supposed-to-be stars? He knocked ‘em off.
Dickie Steinborn said that Jack Cain is actually the legit biological father of Billy Bob Thornton, the actor.
Is that right? I’ll be damned.
Okay, then we’re back to Tulsa… and then back to Memphis, and somewhere in here Norvel Austin comes on the scene. You
said Saul Weingeroff already had an eye on him and put you together when he was when he was seventeen, and you were waiting
for him to turn eighteen. Was he working yet or was he an amateur?
Amateur. I had him ridin’ with me so he could get the feel of Evansville and Louisville and the Kentucky and Tennessee towns that
we worked, and he thought I knew everybody in the world. And I got him---we must have been sixty, ninety days away from his 18th
birthday and I called Japan and booked us in Japan, and we were on the plane goin‘ to Honolulu and he says, “Jesus Christ, what
a lake!�
(laughter)
In Japan for (Shohei ‘Giant’) Baba?
Yeah. There were two factions, Baba was one and I don’t remember the other one---
(Antonio) Inoki.
Inoki, yeah. Baba was the one to work for. Good guy.
And then Watts lost a black guy in Louisiana. I don’t know if he had a car wreck or some goddamn thing but anyway he called for
Norvel and I was splittin’ the team up and comin’ home, and Norvel went home too. And I seen him and I asked him, “Why
didn’t you take Watts’s deal? You were gonna be the star black guy in Louisiana.� and he said, “I don’t want to do it
without you.� Drives a taxi in Pensacola, Florida, now.
So you hooked the team back up at that point?
Yeah.
And ended up getting over all over the South. ‘’72, won the Florida tag titles from---now we got Rob Fuller, him and cousin
Jimmy Golden. Next generation, moving in. See you against the Ortons, father and son, Eddie and Mike Graham…
We were on Memphis TV and I told Norvel, “Black is beautiful,� and he said, “White is beautiful,� and we doused Robert
Fuller with the black paint.
Those kind of angles always seemed to get over in Tennessee. Other places they didn’t. Now… what is this? In ‘72, I got
you and Rocket teaming again in Georgia some, is that correct?
I’ll be damned if I know. I’ve been lookin’ like crazy for a couple of old books, for income tax purposes, and I don’t know
where I put the son of a bitches, I mighta thrown ‘em away, but they’d have some of these answers.
This would have been around the time, late ‘72 early ‘73, of the Georgia title tournament, you and Wrestling II in the finals.
What’d you think of Johnny Walker?
Well, he was a star-grabber. Nobody can follow me, I wouldn’t think of anybody except a tag team partner havin’ a streak in their
hair, and I don’t have very much respect for a guy that would ride a man‘s gimmick, from somebody else on his own.
What about Tim Woods, Wrestling I?
He was an outstanding guy, nice guy. He was an outstanding worker. I don’t know if Walker got permission or what he did…
Well, he had to have, they worked as a team. Talking about the second generation of guys, what about Bob Orton, Jr.? You worked
with him quite a bit around the time he first broke in.
Yeah. He’s an outstanding athlete, and a hell of a businessman. He knew that, or had a feeling, or sensed the fact that McMahon
was gonna rock and roll, whether he bought the territories out or pushed them out. I talk to Bob Orton (Sr.) every Saturday morning, and
his grandson (Randy) just bought a quarter-of-a-million-dollar, I don’t know what, if it’s an apartment or whatever it is, but he paid
cash for a place to live, and then furnished it, and then bought a Chevy pickup truck, paid cash for all of it, and he’s been workin’
two years. (Pause.) Makes me pissed.
It’s a new fuckin’ world.
Yeah, it is. Guys go to Ireland, and then come home and they get paid 45, 60 days later, and get a 20- or 30- or 50-thousand dollar payoff,
that gets your attention, don’t it?
Sure does. You pay any attention to the current product at all?
No. I seen them guys one time flyin’ off the turnbuckles and leapin’ and jumpin’ and all that shit, they look like Mexican
wrestlers.
Yeah. You know, the Lucha became part of the style like about 10 years back. Part of the new world. Okay, let’s see, May 18th,
1973, you and Tiger Conway, Jr., first card ever at the Omni. Anything special about being on the card where they opened the arena?
No.
All right, here, we’re talkin’ about this Jim Wilson guy, you actually teamed with him, August ‘73 in Columbus, against a
couple of Japanese boys.
Well… okay. I don’t remember him, but okay.
Kind of a big guy, maybe about 6’ 4� and 260. Truth is I don’t remember him either from then---another real colorful guy---
but what some people remember most about him as a worker is he was always pushing his goddamn hair out of his eyes.
(laughs)
I see Jerry Lawler came in and worked with you a few times in Georgia in ‘73.
He was tryin‘ to learn. And he certainly did. Sonny King, Tarzan Tyler, all those guys were teamed with me, I didn’t have brains
enough to know that they were usin’ me to teach those guys how to work.
Tarzan Tyler, I remember you and him teaming back in Florida, back in ‘64 or whenever.
Yeah.
Now here’s something interesting, I see a little later, around the end of ‘74, you were back in Florida, I see you and Danny
Hodge were in an opening match at Miami Beach!
Lotta talent. (laughs)
Yeah, in Florida, you know---when I was preparing for this, Rich Tate has a Georgia website and he’s got just years of match
results and stuff, and there’s also a Florida website which has the scans of the match programs and newspaper ads and
everything, and I was going through your stuff, and there was this one card I found, lemme see---okay. Yeah, this was November
14th, 1972 in Tampa. You and Norvel wrestled Bearcat Wright and Frankie Hester, in the second match, because all on this same
card, there was Jack Brisco and Paul Jones in a Lights Out Match; Buddy Colt and Eddie Graham in a Southern Title Match; Malenko
and Bobby Shane… and… fourth from the top… Verne Gagne against Ronnie Garvin.
(laughs) God, I wish I had that to look back on.
Well, we’ve got all these programs and newspaper clips scanned on the Florida wrestling site---anybody around you got access
to a computer? Ain’t tapes, but there’s a LOT of material on you on the internet.
Well, I’ll just have to get my wife on the computer and see what we come up with.
Okay, I can email her how to find all this stuff. Okay, now, ‘74, was when Ray Gunkel died and when the split of the promotions
happened in Georgia. You continued working for the NWA office, and Ann (Gunkel, Ray’s widow) split off and started the All-
South office. What do you remember about what was going on?
She tried like hell. Augusta was a good spot, and she picked her spots to have opposition in but they weren’t any serious problem,
There was a serious problem with Savannah because a black guy snapped that I had the insight on the blacks and I had competition. I
promoted Savannah for a year. If I get the black crowd, I got the town. I had half the black crowd. I didn’t have it all. I don’t
remember what his name was, but he lived in Savannah and he had an all-black crowd to the matches. He ran a different time than I
did. I went down there and the police escorted me out. Ann Gunkel was pushing to get something done and handled, and he was gettinâ
€˜ his talent from her. Fuller and Barnett were bookin’ against ‘em. Barnett come to Savannah to see how I was doin’, wanted
to check the bank account and the banker told him ‘that’s private business with Mr. Monroe‘, he had no business here. (laughs)
Well, way I understand, Barnett had four sets of books at any given time, one for him, one for the boys, one for his partners, and one
for the tax guy.
He never… I can’t believe that guy said somethin’ about sex, because he never… never went that route, never played those
games, was straight-up-and-down, when you were doin‘ business with him.
You know, the other big rumor involving that was Tommy Rich, that he got his title run for doing a sexual favor for Barnett.
I think that’s bull shit.
Yeah, so do all the guys who were working in the Georgia office at the time. Do you remember it as being a tense situation, when
Ann was running opposition?
They had some good talent, but it wasn’t utilized and... they went down the tubes.
Yeah, most of the guys who were there went with her when the split happened…
Yeah.
… and the other NWA offices sent a lot of talent in to the NWA office. Were you in Georgia all the way though the thing, till Ann
folded?
I think so, yeah.
Tom Renesto was Ann’s booker, and it kinda looks like at a certain point he doublecrossed her and was getting paid off by
Barnett and he intentionally booked All-South into the toilet. Does that ring any kinda bell?
That could be. I don’t know.
Okay, I think this might have been from this period---somebody told me about a story they remembered Bill Watts telling, about a
match he had with you once where there was some kinda mixup about the finish and you were both told you were going over, and
the match turned into a semi-shoot and you ended up with a detached retina?
Yeah, in Savannah when I was promoting there. Bobby Shane and Watts held up on me, and I didn’t know what the deal was, that I
was supposed to get a hardway, and Watts hit me and my head went back and hardwayed the little man holdin’ me. It may have
been a mixup, I’m not real good on remembering this stuff. Sometimes the finishes came from Atlanta that I wasn’t in on
because they were pushing guys, or something.
Yeah, we’re gonna run this by Watts as well. Okay. After ‘74 I’ve got a gap of years here, and then the last match I have
listed for you in Georgia was in 1980, in Griffin, you going over Chavo Guerrero.
Yeah, that’s the year I retired. I came and worked local. I didn’t wanna give my charisma or whatever it is to Memphis or, I
couldn’t figure a town, and then I have an aunt that passed away that lived here and because of it, I just picked it out and come on
down here and been here twenty years, twenty-five years. I worked the outlaws---Tug Taylor, Serrano, guys that were promotin’ local
shows, I worked with ‘em, recently a couple-three times a week and that was it. I was workin’ a night or two up till I was 68, I donâ
€™t think I did anything when I was 69, then when I was 70 Serrano called me and told he had somebody, could I handle it, and I said, â
€œYeah,â€� and I wrestled a jumping jack Mexican two days before my 70th birthday.
You were working Florida in ‘74, I think Watts was booking at that time, around the time Dusty Rhodes turned babyface.
Yeah. America’s biggest prick. It was like a resentment thing with me. You know, he just told me I wouldn’t have my way
anymore, and he was doin’ the bookin’, and all that bull shit. Dusty Rhodes.
Last match I see in Florida is June, you and Tom Jones, that about when you took off?
That’s about when I took off.
Where’d you work over the next few years, coming up to ‘80?
I worked some here in Texas, and Bill Golden had Louisiana and I worked there, and I think that about covers it.
Okay, don’t think anybody has ever brought this up to you. You ever read the book or see the movie The Silence of the Lambs?
Jodie Foster played an FBI agent tracking a serial killer, who was Anthony Hopkins. Won all the Oscars the year it came out.
Yeah, I remember it.
Did you know that you’re in the book?
Had no idea.
Yeah. It was ‘Satellite Monroe’, but I think it was wrong on purpose, lemme read it to you. The character talking is a small-
town coroner telling the FBI agents about a couple witnesses who are local bullshit artists:
“I expect they did tell him that,� Lamar said. “They’ll also tell you they wrestled Duke Keomuka in Honolulu one time,
tag team with Satellite Monroe. You can believe that too, if you feel like it. Grab a croaker sack and they’ll take you on a snipe
hunt, too, if you favor snipe. Give you a glass of billiards with it.�
(laughs) I’ll be damned.
Did you know also there’s a rock band in Los Angeles called Sputnik Monroe?
Had no idea. Do I get any money outta that?
Ya know… I don’t know if they’re making enough to be worth suing, but seems to me you’d have a right to. I’ll email
your wife the link to their web site.
Balk Estes’ son is an attorney. I’ll ask him. (This portion of the interview was conducted just before Balk’s death.)
Okay, let’s do some word association. Just give me your first reaction: Rocket Monroe.
Bill Fletcher.
Did you ever do any work with Gene? Flash? Or was that just Rocket and Flash?
That was just Rocket and Flash.
Buddy Fuller.
What do I associate with him? Money.
Ray Gunkel.
Office stooge. Money again.
Karl Kox.
A great guy.
He said you were his favorite tag team partner ever.
That’s what I’d say about him. If you can set me on your shoulders and roll a fifty-gallon barrel a hundred feet, that’s a
partner. He set me on his shoulders and stepped up on a fifty-gallon drum and rolled it from the dressing room in Lubbock, Texas, to the
ring, and I jumped off.
You’re kiddin’! Really?!!?
I’m serious.
How… what… what led to…
I don’t remember, somethin’ in the dressing room, but he went out of the dressing room, then come back, and then when they
rang the bell for the main event he put me up on his shoulders, and I ducked under the door, and up on the barrel and away we went.
Ciclon Negro.
He was kinda a little bit stiff, but outside of that he was all right.
Your favorite tag partners.
Well… I’d have to put it with Kox and Norvel.
Your favorite guys to work against.
Oh… probably my favorite of all time was Billy Wicks.
Who did you just fuckin’ hate to have to work against?
(immediate response) Danny Hodge.
Guys who were really tough.
I don’t know of any.
Guys who could really wrestle.
Um… I don’t know of any except me and Hodge.
Buddy Rogers.
In St. Louis, he told me I was an outstanding hand, and we went to, let’s see… we went to Evansville, and I rode back with him, and I
was tryin’ to get into his group, and whatever I done on the way back from Evansville wasn’t right, ‘cause he dropped me like a
hot potato.
Johnny Valentine.
He was a great ribber. He liked to pull ribs on guys. Let’s see… I’ve forgotten who he was ribbin’ at the time, doesn’t
make any difference, he tried the door and it was unlocked, and he went in and pissed on the guy, and somebody pulled the blanket
down off the guy’s head, he never woke up… and it was the wrong guy, and everybody laughed, and that was it. He was a hell of a
ribber… and a hell of a worker.
Freddie Blassie.
Freddie Blassie, he put me over in Georgia and went to New York. He was the big star in Atlanta before McIntyre sold out to Fuller.
Bob Roop.
Well, it’s an amazing thing about those guys, them kids. I had an apartment in Tampa when he first broke in, and kinda counseled
him and run him through the interviews and stuff. I got his book---I thought it was the shits.
Yeah, I read about ninety pages of it. I don’t think fiction writing is his game.
Yeah. (laughs)
But I’ve read stuff he’s written, about what actually happened, and you know what? That stuff is just fuckin’ great. If he
wrote a straight book? It’d be damn good.
Did you get the book I’m in? The AARP? My opinion of ‘My Soul Looks Back in Wonder’, by Juan Williams, page 38 through
40.
I’ll check it out. Any final thoughts?
Yeah. When I first broke in, Orville Brown’s stick man, Pearl Christie, told me things were a lot different in house matches in
comparison to wrestlin’ on a carnival. A lotta guys thought that an old carnival wrestler was a thief, or an asshole, or… whatever. I
operated on my abilities to talk. And that was a barb in my ass for my whole career. I never realized it till I stopped wrestlin’.
Sputnik, it’s been a pleasure.
Thank you very much. We love you, man. Take care.
heavy at the time, and it was like there were two Sputniks, depending on whether you were sober or not.
(laughs) ‘Two Sputniks‘.
This is exactly what he said: first, he said Rocky McGuire was the one who gave him the Rocket gimmick. He said you called Rocky
from Florida and told him that you wanted Maury to come down and start working with you. I’m gonna read the rest of this
exactly as he said it:
So I went and we became the World Tag Team Champions down there. We were managed by Saul Weingeroff down there.
Did you like having a manager?
Not him. He thought he was better than everybody.
What was Sputnik like as a partner?
He was a great worker, and a good guy when he was sober. When he was drinking it was a different story. I got tired of being around him
because he got to where he was always drinking, so I left and went out on my own. It also made me mad that Saul would sit around and
do nothing and draw the same money I was getting for working my butt off. I had made enough of a name for myself by then that I knew I
could do it without them. It wasn’t too long before I was working with Gene Dundee -- he was Flash Monroe.
Yeah, I was doin’ a little drinkin’. I carried a case of Scotch in the trunk of my Cadillac, and after thirteen wonderful years I got
divorced. Divorced through an ultimatum: “Either quit wrestling, and come home, or I’m divorcing you.�
“Don’t give me any God-damn alternatives. I’m due for the Junior Heavyweight championship of the world and probably by â
€™70 or ’72 I’ll have it,â€� and that’s what I shot for. My son says she still loves me. Married to a jackoff for thirty years, and
she still loves me.
Were you married at one point to a promoter in Louisiana?
Yeah! My second wife. I’ve been married six times.
Les Thatcher told me a couple of stories about working with you. One was, he said that you scared him to death one time. I’m
not sure where this was, but I think it might have been the first time you worked with him, and he told me that before the match, you
told him---and Les does a great imitation of you--- that you were gonna do a backdrop spot in the match, and you told him to ‘get
down, and push off with your legs, and push off and give me all the air that you can’, and Les said that he did it and did it the way
you said, and backdropped you, and lost his balance a little bit, and recovered it, and turned around and looked up…
… and you were still in the air.
(laughs) Boy, I was proud of them bumps. I’m not too proud of ’em now. I’ve got four herniated discs in my lower back and
two in my neck. I’m havin’ a reaction in my lower back right now, I got goose bumps all over my legs. I was the bump-takin’
champion.
Les also told me about when he brought (Roger) Kirby down to Florida, and they were teaming as babyfaces, and you and Rocket
were working a program for the titles with (the babyface team who had them at the time), and you did a match on TV with him and
Kirby and before the match, and again he does this great imitation, you told him ’just relax, baby, we’re gonna get you over,
the people are gonna wet theirselves lookin’ at you two as babyfaces’. And Les said you did exactly what you said you were
gonna do, and (one of the guys from the champion team) went to Eddie bitchin‘ about ‘Eddie, goddamnit, these Monroes work
better with Thatcher and Kirby than they do with us, like they were the fuckin’ champions instead of us’ and before Les
knew what was goin’ on he and Kirby were workin’ the main in Ft. Myers instead of being on the card in Tampa.
(The guy who complained to Graham) is a strange man. He’s my son’s godfather, lives not too far away from here, remarried,
divorced the love of his life, and… he’s a prick.
Les used the word ‘politician’. How did he come to stand godfather to your son?
I was over in Memphis, and put him over a couple of times, and… he got the big head.
Okay, now the next couple, three years, I mostly show you going back and forth from Georgia to Florida. Now I want to ask you about
the night Eddie Graham got hurt by the window falling on him, in Tampa, because I know you were on the card that night and I
understand you were there.
Yeah.
It was supposed to be Eddie and Brisco against Malenko and Valentine. It was originally supposed to be you and Brisco, then there
was an angle that got Eddie into it, and you were gonna ref, but then it ended up being you and Jack because of what happened to
Eddie with the window. Let me explain something about this, why I’m asking. First I’m just going to mention a name to you,
see what your reaction is: Jim Wilson.
Who?
Jim Wilson.
I don’t recognize the name.
All right, he was an undercard guy in Georgia and Florida, and he just wrote this big exposè book on professional wrestling called
Choke Hold. He’s the one who said Barnett promised him the title and came on to him and a bunch of other shit. The book has
created something of a disturbance in the wrestling community. He has a partner who wrote the book with him who researched all
the lawsuits against the NWA, and there’s a lot of facts in it, but there’s a lot of bullshit. This is one of the guys who went on
TV, him and Eddie Mansfield, and exposed the business, on 20/20, back in the ’80s, is this ringin’ any kind of a bell?
No. I retired in ‘80.
Okay. Let me tell you one thing this guy claims. This guy claims that the whole thing with the window falling on Eddie was a hoax.
BULL SHIT.
All right. Go ahead. Tell me what happened that night.
The windows were those iron-framed panes put together, know what I‘m talkin‘ about? And Eddie walked under the son of a bitch
and it closed, whether he bumped it, or whatever, but it knocked the shit out of him.
So there was no bullshit about it…
No.
… he was hurt.
Right. Who wrote down the exposè?
Jim Wilson.
Where’s he from?
He was an All-American college football player at Georgia, he played a little bit of pro, got hurt, he started working for Gunkel, he
claims that Gunkel like almost as soon as he started put his name up to Muchnick to be NWA champion. Then he claims he was in
Australia for (Jim) Barnett, which that part is true, but he claims that while he was there, Barnett promised him the NWA title if heâ
€™d let Barnett, uh, perform a sexual act.
(laughs EXTREMELY long and hard) He shoulda went for it.
Then he claims when he refused, he started being blackballed… then like I said back in like ‘84, ‘85, when 20/20---you
remember when David Shults slapped the reporter on national TV?
Yeah.
Okay, this was the same show. Part of that was, they interviewed McMahon, they did this, they did that, then there were these two
guys that came on and exposed the business, talked about blading, the other guy bladed ON TV, blah blah blah, that was Eddy
Mansfield and Jim Wilson.
O-kay.
So now, he says he gets blackballed further after that, blah blah blah, and he appointed himself some kind of crusader now to clean
up pro wrestling, or whatever the fuck. And he just came out with this book, that like I said that his writing partner who I already
knew of who had already tried to publish a book that never got a publisher, but this guy had done tremendous research into the
government files about anti-trust suits against the NWA, and the promoters, and all that kind of stuff, but then also there’s
Wilson’s two cents about how he was this that and the other thing, and among the things he claims in the book is that the
window was gimmicked, and the whole thing was a fraud on the insurance company and the venue because Eddie needed eye
surgery anyway from blading too much. So this is who this guy is.
The window was a shoot. It wasn’t a work. I’m 75 years old and I’d challenge that jackoff.
Lou Thesz, after they went on the TV show, went on a TV show, or went on a TV show with them, and Lou, who was already 68, 69 at
the time, said ‘I will take you two guys on at the same time right now’, and needless to say they did not take him up on it.
(laughs) Boy, I had some great matches with Lou Thesz. I was probably the only guy that got by with goin’ an hour with him about
fifteen times. Lou’s wife told him that she thought the only wrestler in the world was Sputnik Monroe---she’s from Memphis.
Back around ‘67, ‘68, ‘69, you were spending some time back in Amarillo. That was a heavy driving territory, wasn’t it?
Yeah. Amarillo to Albuquerque, Albuquerque to Odessa, Odessa to El Paso, and back.
And then in ‘70, this was back for McGuirk, that you went over Hodge for the Junior title.
Yeah. And they kept it a secret that I was the Junior Heavyweight champion of the world, and they had several calls askin’ for me, and
they fluffed it off and told them I was busy, or some bull shit.
They just wanted to keep you in the territory? Wouldn’t they have gotten the booking fee?
Sure.
LeRoy figured he was making more money off you just in the territory, or… ?
Well, my end, if he went for the booking fee, that’d be I think ten percent of whatever the payoff was, I forget exactly what it was now,
but it was pretty serious.
Which is maybe why I understand Danny was not too happy to not have the belt.
No. He wanted it back, and he stayed in the office, and I don’t remember how long I had the son of a bitch, 6 months or maybe nine
months or a year, I don’t remember. I wasn’t very pleased with it, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. You talk to Bill
Watts? He was doin’ the bookin’ when I got the belt.
We’re gonna ask him about it. Bill said you sent him in to Amarillo, some time before that, as a plant out of the audience, and he
says he didn’t get treated right over there.
He didn’t get treated right. I was in Oklahoma and I sent him over there, and I‘ve got a lotta respect for Bill Watts, he’s a hell of
a guy, and he got treated like a piece of shit. And then he came back, and I don’t know how he got in the office, what the deal was,
but he got in the office. And he asked me to come in and I said, “The only way I’ll come in is if you give me the strap,� and they
give me the strap and it was a joke. They kept it a secret. Hodge only had a couple of defeats in his lifetime career. But they wouldnâ
€™t book me with anybody, they were scared I’d lose the belt.
Was that the thing of it? They were scared of a shoot on the road?
Yeah. They didn’t know that I was a 5-minute winner in an Athletic Show for three years, and if you lose on that son of a bitch you lose
your job, you pack your bag and leave. I beat a guy in Arkansas, and I told him to give up, and he said, “I can’t.�
“Give up, you son of a bitch, I’ll break your arm!� and I heard the pistol click and heard the sheriff say, “If you break his arm,
I’ll shoot you, you son of a bitch.� That’s gettin’ the right kinda heat, ain’t it? I turned the guy loose, I wasn’t
gonna get shot over it.
Let me quote you something Danny said in an interview. He said:
“When you got in the ring with me, you were going to wrestle, whether you wanted to or not,� laughed Hodge. "When (fans)
wash clothes all week and washing and ironing to buy a wrestling ticket, you come to see wrestling. I can guarantee you you're
going to wrestle.�
"Sputnik Monroe... sometimes I'd take him over in a headlock and he'd just lie there. Well, if you don't try to get out, I'm not going to
lay there, I'm going to turn you loose and get up and if you don't move I'm going to stomp you.�
That’s about right. If you’re in the ring with somebody, you depend on them to take care of you, and Hodge didn’t do that. He
would jerk ya, or do little moves to let you know that he was… that he was King Of His Domain.
That was something else that Jack Brisco mentioned too, that that was a way he always tried to not be like Danny, that we would
always be careful not to stretch anybody too much, because he thought it actually hurt Danny in his career. Okay, now I found this
thing, I think this is somewhere around ‘70 there in Tulsa, that you went on a local TV show, that was a local guy hosting horror
movies, and his name was Gaylord Sartain and his gimmick was… Dr. Mazeppa? This ringin’ any bells?
No...
Okay this is what he said:
“In a bit I was trying to construct with him, he was supposed to 'fake slap' me ... apparently at that point in Professional
Wrestling 'fake' was not in the vocabulary! So when it came time for the pay off...KERBOPPO!%*&^)$#. My magician's hat turned
into a rocket!!! And the side of my face throbbed for weeks! Sputnik was very apologetic and said 'that's the way we do it'. I've
avoided watching or participating in professional wrestling since then.�
Huh. Who slapped him?
You did.
God, it seems as though I’d remember that. I bought a house in Tulsa… I don’t remember any of that.
Now also in ‘70, I guess this is before you went back to Tulsa, you were working for Frank Tunney up in Toronto some again.
Yeah. He was a good payoff man, and a real gentleman. Let’s see… the Sheik, we were in Detroit, and a Mexican and I sold the
thing out… he passed away and I can’t think of his goddamn name---
Luis Martinez.
Luis Martinez, that’s it. I was in Toronto for, I don’t know---my little sexy wife knocked Tunney and the whole office out, very
beautiful young lady, committed suicide. I don’t think we stayed in Toronto very long.
Looks like… like January through maybe March, beginning of April.
Yeah, that‘s about right, sixty, ninety days, and that was it. Martinez and I went in for the Shiek, I got a call from…Jack somebody, who
was a booker for Dory, you know who I’m talkin’ about?
Okay so this was when the Funks were booking for Farhat… Jack Cain?
Jack Cain, yeah, he called me in Toronto and asked me to come into Detroit. The Sheik and Man Mountain Mike took the main event
money, which was a big work, but Luis and I sold the son of a bitch out about five weeks in a row. And the Sheik always had somebody
there, you know, like the fat man and various and sundry supposed-to-be stars? He knocked ‘em off.
Dickie Steinborn said that Jack Cain is actually the legit biological father of Billy Bob Thornton, the actor.
Is that right? I’ll be damned.
Okay, then we’re back to Tulsa… and then back to Memphis, and somewhere in here Norvel Austin comes on the scene. You
said Saul Weingeroff already had an eye on him and put you together when he was when he was seventeen, and you were waiting
for him to turn eighteen. Was he working yet or was he an amateur?
Amateur. I had him ridin’ with me so he could get the feel of Evansville and Louisville and the Kentucky and Tennessee towns that
we worked, and he thought I knew everybody in the world. And I got him---we must have been sixty, ninety days away from his 18th
birthday and I called Japan and booked us in Japan, and we were on the plane goin‘ to Honolulu and he says, “Jesus Christ, what
a lake!�
(laughter)
In Japan for (Shohei ‘Giant’) Baba?
Yeah. There were two factions, Baba was one and I don’t remember the other one---
(Antonio) Inoki.
Inoki, yeah. Baba was the one to work for. Good guy.
And then Watts lost a black guy in Louisiana. I don’t know if he had a car wreck or some goddamn thing but anyway he called for
Norvel and I was splittin’ the team up and comin’ home, and Norvel went home too. And I seen him and I asked him, “Why
didn’t you take Watts’s deal? You were gonna be the star black guy in Louisiana.� and he said, “I don’t want to do it
without you.� Drives a taxi in Pensacola, Florida, now.
So you hooked the team back up at that point?
Yeah.
And ended up getting over all over the South. ‘’72, won the Florida tag titles from---now we got Rob Fuller, him and cousin
Jimmy Golden. Next generation, moving in. See you against the Ortons, father and son, Eddie and Mike Graham…
We were on Memphis TV and I told Norvel, “Black is beautiful,� and he said, “White is beautiful,� and we doused Robert
Fuller with the black paint.
Those kind of angles always seemed to get over in Tennessee. Other places they didn’t. Now… what is this? In ‘72, I got
you and Rocket teaming again in Georgia some, is that correct?
I’ll be damned if I know. I’ve been lookin’ like crazy for a couple of old books, for income tax purposes, and I don’t know
where I put the son of a bitches, I mighta thrown ‘em away, but they’d have some of these answers.
This would have been around the time, late ‘72 early ‘73, of the Georgia title tournament, you and Wrestling II in the finals.
What’d you think of Johnny Walker?
Well, he was a star-grabber. Nobody can follow me, I wouldn’t think of anybody except a tag team partner havin’ a streak in their
hair, and I don’t have very much respect for a guy that would ride a man‘s gimmick, from somebody else on his own.
What about Tim Woods, Wrestling I?
He was an outstanding guy, nice guy. He was an outstanding worker. I don’t know if Walker got permission or what he did…
Well, he had to have, they worked as a team. Talking about the second generation of guys, what about Bob Orton, Jr.? You worked
with him quite a bit around the time he first broke in.
Yeah. He’s an outstanding athlete, and a hell of a businessman. He knew that, or had a feeling, or sensed the fact that McMahon
was gonna rock and roll, whether he bought the territories out or pushed them out. I talk to Bob Orton (Sr.) every Saturday morning, and
his grandson (Randy) just bought a quarter-of-a-million-dollar, I don’t know what, if it’s an apartment or whatever it is, but he paid
cash for a place to live, and then furnished it, and then bought a Chevy pickup truck, paid cash for all of it, and he’s been workin’
two years. (Pause.) Makes me pissed.
It’s a new fuckin’ world.
Yeah, it is. Guys go to Ireland, and then come home and they get paid 45, 60 days later, and get a 20- or 30- or 50-thousand dollar payoff,
that gets your attention, don’t it?
Sure does. You pay any attention to the current product at all?
No. I seen them guys one time flyin’ off the turnbuckles and leapin’ and jumpin’ and all that shit, they look like Mexican
wrestlers.
Yeah. You know, the Lucha became part of the style like about 10 years back. Part of the new world. Okay, let’s see, May 18th,
1973, you and Tiger Conway, Jr., first card ever at the Omni. Anything special about being on the card where they opened the arena?
No.
All right, here, we’re talkin’ about this Jim Wilson guy, you actually teamed with him, August ‘73 in Columbus, against a
couple of Japanese boys.
Well… okay. I don’t remember him, but okay.
Kind of a big guy, maybe about 6’ 4� and 260. Truth is I don’t remember him either from then---another real colorful guy---
but what some people remember most about him as a worker is he was always pushing his goddamn hair out of his eyes.
(laughs)
I see Jerry Lawler came in and worked with you a few times in Georgia in ‘73.
He was tryin‘ to learn. And he certainly did. Sonny King, Tarzan Tyler, all those guys were teamed with me, I didn’t have brains
enough to know that they were usin’ me to teach those guys how to work.
Tarzan Tyler, I remember you and him teaming back in Florida, back in ‘64 or whenever.
Yeah.
Now here’s something interesting, I see a little later, around the end of ‘74, you were back in Florida, I see you and Danny
Hodge were in an opening match at Miami Beach!
Lotta talent. (laughs)
Yeah, in Florida, you know---when I was preparing for this, Rich Tate has a Georgia website and he’s got just years of match
results and stuff, and there’s also a Florida website which has the scans of the match programs and newspaper ads and
everything, and I was going through your stuff, and there was this one card I found, lemme see---okay. Yeah, this was November
14th, 1972 in Tampa. You and Norvel wrestled Bearcat Wright and Frankie Hester, in the second match, because all on this same
card, there was Jack Brisco and Paul Jones in a Lights Out Match; Buddy Colt and Eddie Graham in a Southern Title Match; Malenko
and Bobby Shane… and… fourth from the top… Verne Gagne against Ronnie Garvin.
(laughs) God, I wish I had that to look back on.
Well, we’ve got all these programs and newspaper clips scanned on the Florida wrestling site---anybody around you got access
to a computer? Ain’t tapes, but there’s a LOT of material on you on the internet.
Well, I’ll just have to get my wife on the computer and see what we come up with.
Okay, I can email her how to find all this stuff. Okay, now, ‘74, was when Ray Gunkel died and when the split of the promotions
happened in Georgia. You continued working for the NWA office, and Ann (Gunkel, Ray’s widow) split off and started the All-
South office. What do you remember about what was going on?
She tried like hell. Augusta was a good spot, and she picked her spots to have opposition in but they weren’t any serious problem,
There was a serious problem with Savannah because a black guy snapped that I had the insight on the blacks and I had competition. I
promoted Savannah for a year. If I get the black crowd, I got the town. I had half the black crowd. I didn’t have it all. I don’t
remember what his name was, but he lived in Savannah and he had an all-black crowd to the matches. He ran a different time than I
did. I went down there and the police escorted me out. Ann Gunkel was pushing to get something done and handled, and he was gettinâ
€˜ his talent from her. Fuller and Barnett were bookin’ against ‘em. Barnett come to Savannah to see how I was doin’, wanted
to check the bank account and the banker told him ‘that’s private business with Mr. Monroe‘, he had no business here. (laughs)
Well, way I understand, Barnett had four sets of books at any given time, one for him, one for the boys, one for his partners, and one
for the tax guy.
He never… I can’t believe that guy said somethin’ about sex, because he never… never went that route, never played those
games, was straight-up-and-down, when you were doin‘ business with him.
You know, the other big rumor involving that was Tommy Rich, that he got his title run for doing a sexual favor for Barnett.
I think that’s bull shit.
Yeah, so do all the guys who were working in the Georgia office at the time. Do you remember it as being a tense situation, when
Ann was running opposition?
They had some good talent, but it wasn’t utilized and... they went down the tubes.
Yeah, most of the guys who were there went with her when the split happened…
Yeah.
… and the other NWA offices sent a lot of talent in to the NWA office. Were you in Georgia all the way though the thing, till Ann
folded?
I think so, yeah.
Tom Renesto was Ann’s booker, and it kinda looks like at a certain point he doublecrossed her and was getting paid off by
Barnett and he intentionally booked All-South into the toilet. Does that ring any kinda bell?
That could be. I don’t know.
Okay, I think this might have been from this period---somebody told me about a story they remembered Bill Watts telling, about a
match he had with you once where there was some kinda mixup about the finish and you were both told you were going over, and
the match turned into a semi-shoot and you ended up with a detached retina?
Yeah, in Savannah when I was promoting there. Bobby Shane and Watts held up on me, and I didn’t know what the deal was, that I
was supposed to get a hardway, and Watts hit me and my head went back and hardwayed the little man holdin’ me. It may have
been a mixup, I’m not real good on remembering this stuff. Sometimes the finishes came from Atlanta that I wasn’t in on
because they were pushing guys, or something.
Yeah, we’re gonna run this by Watts as well. Okay. After ‘74 I’ve got a gap of years here, and then the last match I have
listed for you in Georgia was in 1980, in Griffin, you going over Chavo Guerrero.
Yeah, that’s the year I retired. I came and worked local. I didn’t wanna give my charisma or whatever it is to Memphis or, I
couldn’t figure a town, and then I have an aunt that passed away that lived here and because of it, I just picked it out and come on
down here and been here twenty years, twenty-five years. I worked the outlaws---Tug Taylor, Serrano, guys that were promotin’ local
shows, I worked with ‘em, recently a couple-three times a week and that was it. I was workin’ a night or two up till I was 68, I donâ
€™t think I did anything when I was 69, then when I was 70 Serrano called me and told he had somebody, could I handle it, and I said, â
€œYeah,â€� and I wrestled a jumping jack Mexican two days before my 70th birthday.
You were working Florida in ‘74, I think Watts was booking at that time, around the time Dusty Rhodes turned babyface.
Yeah. America’s biggest prick. It was like a resentment thing with me. You know, he just told me I wouldn’t have my way
anymore, and he was doin’ the bookin’, and all that bull shit. Dusty Rhodes.
Last match I see in Florida is June, you and Tom Jones, that about when you took off?
That’s about when I took off.
Where’d you work over the next few years, coming up to ‘80?
I worked some here in Texas, and Bill Golden had Louisiana and I worked there, and I think that about covers it.
Okay, don’t think anybody has ever brought this up to you. You ever read the book or see the movie The Silence of the Lambs?
Jodie Foster played an FBI agent tracking a serial killer, who was Anthony Hopkins. Won all the Oscars the year it came out.
Yeah, I remember it.
Did you know that you’re in the book?
Had no idea.
Yeah. It was ‘Satellite Monroe’, but I think it was wrong on purpose, lemme read it to you. The character talking is a small-
town coroner telling the FBI agents about a couple witnesses who are local bullshit artists:
“I expect they did tell him that,� Lamar said. “They’ll also tell you they wrestled Duke Keomuka in Honolulu one time,
tag team with Satellite Monroe. You can believe that too, if you feel like it. Grab a croaker sack and they’ll take you on a snipe
hunt, too, if you favor snipe. Give you a glass of billiards with it.�
(laughs) I’ll be damned.
Did you know also there’s a rock band in Los Angeles called Sputnik Monroe?
Had no idea. Do I get any money outta that?
Ya know… I don’t know if they’re making enough to be worth suing, but seems to me you’d have a right to. I’ll email
your wife the link to their web site.
Balk Estes’ son is an attorney. I’ll ask him. (This portion of the interview was conducted just before Balk’s death.)
Okay, let’s do some word association. Just give me your first reaction: Rocket Monroe.
Bill Fletcher.
Did you ever do any work with Gene? Flash? Or was that just Rocket and Flash?
That was just Rocket and Flash.
Buddy Fuller.
What do I associate with him? Money.
Ray Gunkel.
Office stooge. Money again.
Karl Kox.
A great guy.
He said you were his favorite tag team partner ever.
That’s what I’d say about him. If you can set me on your shoulders and roll a fifty-gallon barrel a hundred feet, that’s a
partner. He set me on his shoulders and stepped up on a fifty-gallon drum and rolled it from the dressing room in Lubbock, Texas, to the
ring, and I jumped off.
You’re kiddin’! Really?!!?
I’m serious.
How… what… what led to…
I don’t remember, somethin’ in the dressing room, but he went out of the dressing room, then come back, and then when they
rang the bell for the main event he put me up on his shoulders, and I ducked under the door, and up on the barrel and away we went.
Ciclon Negro.
He was kinda a little bit stiff, but outside of that he was all right.
Your favorite tag partners.
Well… I’d have to put it with Kox and Norvel.
Your favorite guys to work against.
Oh… probably my favorite of all time was Billy Wicks.
Who did you just fuckin’ hate to have to work against?
(immediate response) Danny Hodge.
Guys who were really tough.
I don’t know of any.
Guys who could really wrestle.
Um… I don’t know of any except me and Hodge.
Buddy Rogers.
In St. Louis, he told me I was an outstanding hand, and we went to, let’s see… we went to Evansville, and I rode back with him, and I
was tryin’ to get into his group, and whatever I done on the way back from Evansville wasn’t right, ‘cause he dropped me like a
hot potato.
Johnny Valentine.
He was a great ribber. He liked to pull ribs on guys. Let’s see… I’ve forgotten who he was ribbin’ at the time, doesn’t
make any difference, he tried the door and it was unlocked, and he went in and pissed on the guy, and somebody pulled the blanket
down off the guy’s head, he never woke up… and it was the wrong guy, and everybody laughed, and that was it. He was a hell of a
ribber… and a hell of a worker.
Freddie Blassie.
Freddie Blassie, he put me over in Georgia and went to New York. He was the big star in Atlanta before McIntyre sold out to Fuller.
Bob Roop.
Well, it’s an amazing thing about those guys, them kids. I had an apartment in Tampa when he first broke in, and kinda counseled
him and run him through the interviews and stuff. I got his book---I thought it was the shits.
Yeah, I read about ninety pages of it. I don’t think fiction writing is his game.
Yeah. (laughs)
But I’ve read stuff he’s written, about what actually happened, and you know what? That stuff is just fuckin’ great. If he
wrote a straight book? It’d be damn good.
Did you get the book I’m in? The AARP? My opinion of ‘My Soul Looks Back in Wonder’, by Juan Williams, page 38 through
40.
I’ll check it out. Any final thoughts?
Yeah. When I first broke in, Orville Brown’s stick man, Pearl Christie, told me things were a lot different in house matches in
comparison to wrestlin’ on a carnival. A lotta guys thought that an old carnival wrestler was a thief, or an asshole, or… whatever. I
operated on my abilities to talk. And that was a barb in my ass for my whole career. I never realized it till I stopped wrestlin’.
Sputnik, it’s been a pleasure.
Thank you very much. We love you, man. Take care.
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