| You were born in Winnipeg in 1937, right?
Yeah, I was actually born in Teulon, which is about 45 minutes northeast of Winnipeg. What was your childhood like? I don’t know – just like anywhere else I guess. At the tail end of the second World War, I remember my uncles coming on the troop train and I was at my aunts – I was nine years old. Before that I had chicken pox. When he snuck out of the troop train everybody was waiting for him and he was with us for a couple hours before everyone realized what had happened. The town I was born in wasn’t a big place. It was a farming community – grain and everything. We had good times and we had bad times. They always made sure there was enough to eat. It was tough growing up. So you grew up on a farm? I grew up on a farm, but I moved into the city when I was nine years old. We were living in downtown Winnipeg. As a matter of fact, where we lived is now one of the largest post offices in Canada. It takes up about two blocks now, we lived at 221 Smith Street – it’s all a post office now. The school I went to – Alexandra – it was one of the older schools and they’ve finally torn it down, too. Progress – I don’t know why they tore it down, but progress couldn’t stand still I guess. It was downtown Winnipeg, too. I used to go on a trip from school – I was about seven or eight – I went to the clinic for shots for flu, measles, mumps, diphtheria and all that stuff there. They would give us our shots, then we would shoot on home after school. We had a lot of farm people on both sides of my family. We always had lots to eat – everybody raised grain. Things were just different then – you know the threshing machines – we used to go up there and I used to shovel the grain into the wheels and the wagons. We would take them to the granaries with the horses and the threshing machine and you would have the big old straw pile near the house. And my kids think I’m mean for asking them to wash dishes and clean their room... Oh, God, they have no idea. My grandmother was a big woman, I found this out later on – she had my uncle at the house, got up with my aunts and made supper and dinner for the guys who were working out in the fields after she had my uncle. He passed away and I never did meet him. He passed away when he was a baby, but she got up that day from then on and she used to go hoe in the garden and that garden was over an acre. She walked with a hoe – she did everything with the hoe, but she could outwork fifteen or twenty women here. I used go into the orchard – crabapples and plums. My grandmother would say, “do not go into the orchards.” Well, there’s a side road around the back and it went right into the orchards and I used to sneak in there and get my crabapples and plums and then run back out the same way. (Laughs) You know there are different things you remember like that. She caught me one day and tore my ass up. (Laughs) Yeah, grandma got her wish and I got my tush tore up. (Laughs) Hell, I went back the next week and I would sneak in again. I remember when I was a kid in the spring time grandpa used to raise 500 to 1,000 chicks and they had a chick house at the end of the barn. Next to the barn there was the chicken house and I used to go in there and sneak them out or catch them. I had a little box and I put them in the box and I would bury them. I would wait a couple hours and come back and they would be dead and I never could figure out why they died. Well, I finally figured out that when I was burying them they weren’t getting any oxygen so there was that, but then I found out how to hypnotize a chicken. Do you know how to hypnotize a chicken? No tell me. Okay. I’d get about four or five and I would hypnotize them and they would be laying all over the yard. I went and got my grandpa and said, “there is something wrong with the chickens in the yard.” He never spoke a word of English in his life. And he’s looking at them – he kept looking them and he would walk up to them and look at them. And the chicken is just laying there. So finally he said something and then he kicked it, and that sucker came up like it was thrown in air. To this day I never told him I was the one that hypnotized them. You catch them and you take their heads and point it towards you and you take your index finger and you bring it across their head and straight back toward them in a straight line and their eyes cross. They will lay there for a little while. (Laughs) He never did know. I never did tell him because I figured he’d kick me like he kicked them and I would be up at the barn. (Laughs) We were like that. Mom and dad worked at home. I was in school. Well, my brother comes along – he was seven years younger than I was. So as I was getting older when I came home from school mom would take him to work with her. When he got school age we would come home from school and I would have to get supper and the kindling ready, and the stove warmed up, and at that time we didn’t have water. I had to go down to the corner and get buckets of cold water – that was my job. His job was to do nothing but get in my road so a couple of times I got onto him and he would wait for mom at the bus. He would tell her that I hit him or made him do this or made him to that she would come and tear my ass up. (Laughs) Because I was the oldest and I was supposed to know better, but if you told kids like that today – my grandson is 12 or 13 is out cutting the lawn for me. He is doing a good a job, but if you told him that he would have to come home from school everyday at lunch and cook his dads and his brothers dinner, then go back to school and come back at 4:30 and get dinner rolling – and this was an everyday thing. Kids couldn’t do it today. They would say, “oh, gee, what do I have to do this for?” But if they missed a meal then you sure as heck know about it. Believe me I know. I’ve got three so I know all the stories. You’re just starting. I have already had my blessings. My wife, while I was on the road, she raised them all. Was anyone in your family in the business? My dad used to box. He was on his own when he was twelve. He was in an orphanage there, and it was not too far from where we lived believe it or not. I started in the community club and one of the guys came in, and he was an amateur wrestler – Greco-Roman style in Canada. He approached me and asked me if I wanted to start wrestling. I said I would try it. So was this the Dave Piper I have read about? That’s right. A girlfriend of ours that I knew when I was in school – she is the one that he married. His brother was a football player. He played for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and his brother Pete was a boxer in the Olympics, and I trained with at the club. I was about fourteen or fifteen years old. How old were you when you started wrestling as an amateur? Eighteen. I had twenty-three matches and I lost two. I got a silver medal at the British Empire games in Manitoba. I understand you came across Gordon Nelson as an amateur. Yeah, he was the only one I lost to. He left back in the 1950’s and went to England. He stayed there for awhile, but then I met him again when he came to Florida while I was down there. It was just like old times. He was the only one who ever beat me as an amateur. So did he remember you when he saw you again? Oh, yeah. He told me I had made an impression on him. (Laughs) I went to wrestle in British Columbia and became a logger, too. It was out on Vancouver Island. Logging? Farming wasn’t challenging enough? (Laughs) I was just a kid then, so I didn’t mind it. We used to have a dog that we used to take to dig gophers in the grain fields. We’d have a good time there – I never did like the city. I saw where you stated you started in the pro ranks when you were twenty, but I saw a card with your name on it from 1953 that would put you at sixteen. This was in a prelim for J.G. MacAlpine in Winnipeg. Was that an amateur match on a pro card? The main event was Verne Gagne & Whipper Watson against Mitsu Arakawa & Kinji Shibuya. Yes, that was an amateur match. Frenchy Lamont was the referee. My second pro match wound up being with Mitsu. And how did that go? He beat the dog shit out of me. (Laughs) I did everything the hard way, but that’s how you learn – trial and error. Didn’t you live with Tex McKenzie when both of you were still new to the business? Yeah, in Minneapolis right after I got started. That was back in 1957. He’s a guy I know very little about, but he wrestled here in Georgia. What was Tex like? He was a big, tall, lanky fucker. He was a very quiet kid. He was sort of awkward. I believe he was a weightlifter before he started wrestling. I think he had played football, too. So he was more of an attraction than a pure wrestler? Yeah, that’s about it. He had a red 1953 convertible Chevy when he was in Minneapolis. He hit a deer one night coming back from a show and killed it. I guess he totaled the car, right? Knocked the hell out of the grill, but he was alright. He left the deer there. He had no idea – he was a city boy. I was hunting and fishing all my life. I’d have it hanging before the other guy could even get out of his car. (Laughs) After leaving the upper Midwest area you went to work with Jim Barnett in Indianapolis for a short while, right? Tell me about working with Jim Barnett at that point in your career. Well, I actually went to Detroit first. Barnett called Bert Ruby and asked if he had any talent to send him, and Ruby told him about me. The first trip to Indianapolis I took on a Greyhound bus. I got in the bus and there was a woman sitting next to me who weighed about three hundred pounds. I was sitting with my ass hanging out in the aisle all the way to Indianapolis. (Laughs) When I got off that bus I swore to myself I’d never do that again, and to this day I haven’t been back on a bus. I worked there for Jim for a few months. He respected you, and treated you good. He sent me down here to Atlanta. I also went to Australia for him. He wanted me down there for six weeks and I stayed for about three months. I almost stayed in Australia because of the homesteading factor. You could get three or four thousand acres, and if you kept it in good working order for a year, it was yours. So I almost did it. Sounds like a great deal. It was. Then I came back and got married and went to Minneapolis. Well, when you first came to Atlanta, Paul Jones was the promoter, but Ray Gunkel and Don McIntyre ran the promotion. What were they like to work for and how was Georgia different than the places you had worked elsewhere? Don McIntyre – there’s an old saying about him – he had the first buffalo nickel he ever earned. (Laughs) He squeezed the shit out of that buffalo. I guess that’s where Gunkel learned how to do it. That’s right. (Laughs) Gunkel was a hell of a poker player. He’d go through the payout and ask you sit down and play with him. (Laughs) That’s exactly how he did it. Ken Ramey used to come over and Gunkel would get him to play. One Friday evening he kept him there until 9:00 because Ramey had made so much off of him he couldn’t get it back. (Laughs) Eventually, he got some of it back and then he’d come to the wrestling matches. (Laughs) You also had the opportunity to work with Fred Ward. He’s a guy that doesn’t get talked about as much as I would like. Tell me about Fred. Fred always treated me right. He always treated me the way he wanted to be treated. A lot of the guys wouldn’t go along with him, but for some strange reason he took a liking to me. I was the guy he booked the longest. Gunkel was charging him a booking fee to use me. Did you know that? No, but I am interested in knowing more about the relationship between him and the Atlanta office. He had to pay so much percentage, and he paid extra on me. Gunkel and Garibaldi didn’t like it because he brought in the Torres brothers. Louie Tillet would keep them n the undercard. Fred ran his own angles although he used the same talent. Where did you feel you got the bigger push? Columbus – no doubt. Did you get to hold any titles in Columbus? I had the Columbus Heavyweight Title. Another town I had sewn up was Augusta. I had the Augusta Heavyweight Title for a while. They even had a Bill Dromo Day down there. It was a total surprise. That would have been for Steve Manderson, right? Oh, yeah. Steve started promoting there in the 1950’s. He was still the promoter into the 1970’s there, too. Yeah. One reason I asked you about titles was because although you spent most of your time working in Georgia, you never wore a belt out of the Atlanta office. Were there any efforts to do that as you can recall? Not to my knowledge. I never really tried or kissed anybody’s ass enough. I’m not trying to throw punches, I’m just telling you how it was. I refused to kiss people’s ass. They knew it, too – Fred knew, but he didn’t care. A lot of those guys did kiss ass and it made me sick. Everybody had their pets. I wanted to make you aware that through our research, we discovered that out of all the people who wrestled in Georgia, you hold the third longest streak of consecutive years with at least one match in the state, which comes out to twenty-two years. That’s behind only Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair. It’s quite impressive and a statement of your loyalty to the promotions and your work ethic as well. Really? Wow. I didn’t realize that. Technically, there should be an asterisk associated with Flair and Dusty because you did it during an era when there were so many more options of places to work, whereas those guys toward the end of their careers have only had a couple of options. Oh, yeah. What made you make Georgia your second home? I settled here. I met my wife in the dentist’s chair having my teeth fixed. Dick Steinborn – one afternoon we were getting paid. He knew my teeth were giving me some problems so he took me with him down Peachtree Street and into a dentist office. She was standing at the door – my wife. I asked Dick who she was, and he said she was the assistant. That was the first time I ever met her. I know she wrestled, too. Was she already wrestling or did you get her into it? No. She was already doing it. I had no idea she was – I found out later. She only wrestled a few times after that. Why did she stop? She had a good job so she didn’t really need it. I would have been worried about her being out on the road – and you know how some of these characters are. Of course, we just decided one of us needed to get out, and it came down to her. In the early 1960’s here, you teamed a lot with Ray Gunkel, Leo Garibaldi, and Chief Little Eagle – throughout your career, did you prefer to wrestle in singles or tag matches? It didn’t matter. I liked the variety. I took Bob Armstrong under my wing in 1963. He called the other day, and he’s still working. He’s talking about retiring though. I think he’s going to be at the Gulf Coast Reunion in March. You had a program here with “Pretty Boy” Roy Nelson in 1960. Do you recall that? I remember Roy. He was a good wrestler – he was all business. A lot of people don’t realize, you can be a bastard in the ring, but when you leave the ring, you leave it in there. You can still go out and have a beer with the guy. I had quite a few beers with him. Roy went to Hawaii and Los Angeles from here. He got married to Barbara Baker – another wrestler. She called me a couple months ago. Roy had died a couple years ago. They had adopted two daughters. Karen and I adopted a daughter after spending some time with them in Hawaii. I believe one of your closest friends is Danny Miller. Tell me about your relationship. Well, Karen introduced Danny’s wife to him. Danny stayed a lot in Charlotte, Texas and Florida. We first met when he was here in Georgia. They got married a year before us, and I was his best man and Karen was the maid of honor. They got married at that big church down on Ponce de Leon. You know the one I’m talking about? The big one? Yes, I used to pass it all the time. It’s a beautiful place. Yes, it is. That’s where they got married. They called here the other day as a matter of fact, and they’re doing well. He’s a little under the weather, but they finally found out what the problem was and he’s feeling much better. They live down around the bay area of Florida, right? Yeah. Tampa. That’s a great area. We have family down there and we love it. I almost stayed there myself. Karen has a sister down there, too. When you were Bill Zbyszko, what was the story behind using the name? I don’t know really – they just wanted me to change my name. They suggested Zbyszko so we tried it. I was using that up in New York. Stanislaus Zbyszko called up from St. Louis and told them he didn’t want me using that name. Vince McMahon told hi there’s more than one Zbyszko in the world. Then he told me to not worry about it. You did a little work in the 1960’s around Missouri and then you went up to work with Stu Hart. Did you ever find yourself in the dungeon? I went down there. I’ll tell you what – everybody that went down there, he challenged them to a wrestling match. I went down there with Art Nelson. Art was surprised and told me, “he usually challenges everybody that comes into this room.” But he never challenged me. That may have been a good thing. I don’t know. I’ve heard some horror stories. Hell, I’ve heard them about his kids. (Laughs) He had a huge family – one of them died here a couple years back... Owen... Yeah, that’s it. What the hell was that about? Would you ever let someone take you to the rafters like that? I don’t think so. (Laughs) There’s no doubt in mind that you couldn’t pay me enough to do that shit. You were in and out of Georgia over the years, but it was the early 1970’s when you returned for the longest run. You teamed with Bob Armstrong throughout a good piece of that stay. You guys got involved in programs with the Monroes and the Assassins. Did you enjoy working against Tom and Jody? They were good wrestlers. When I saw Jody a couple years ago he was about 300 pounds. I told him he needed to lose some weight. It was unreal. I was fortunate to see Tom at the reunion the year he died. I didn’t recognize him. His last time here he had the book. I looked at him and he kept following me around. I asked some of the guys who this guy was. He had on glasses and his skin had changed. He finally caught up to me and said, “you don’t know me do you?” And I told him, “no, I don’t. Who are you?” He says, “Tom Renesto.” Well, I’ll be damned. We sat down together to eat and we talked. That was in March, and he died in April at his daughter’s home in Grandview, Texas. His son comes to the reunions every year. That was the only reunion he ever made, right? Yeah, I guess he knew it was coming. You came back to Georgia again after Ann Gunkel had started All-South. Was it your own decision to come back, or were you sent in by another promoter to help out? Also, was there ever any consideration on your part, or an invitation extended to have you go to work with Ann? No. When Gunkel died I was in Nashville, and Ken Ramey was there and told us he had died the night before in Savannah. No, I would never have gone and worked opposition to Atlanta. I never thought about it either. I just came in to stay awhile because I’d been away from home awhile. I had been in Nashville for about three or four months. During that run you had a program with Bob Orton, Sr., who was working as the Zodiac, and you and Bob teamed again to feud again with the Monroes. You also had a series of matches with Bobby Duncum. What do you recall about Duncum? Bobby loved himself. He thought he was God’s gift to somebody, but it wasn’t me. He was a good wrestler. He thought he was better than he really was. There were times he really screwed up in the ring, but we were there to help him. You had to give him a good ass kicking once in awhile. (Laughs) I never associated too much with him out of the ring. You spent most of the mid to late 1970’s splitting your time between Georgia and Florida. Your last real run here was at the end of 1976 when you had a short program with the Mongolian Stomper. You made a lot of matches in Griffin under the mask as Mr. Griffin. Do you remember why you were wearing a mask at that time? I don’t remember. I remember getting my eye busted in Griffin by Buddy Colt one time. He busted an artery. I drove myself to Cobb General Hospital that night with a towel over my eye. It was soaked in blood. I got to the emergency room, and a nurse asked me if there was a problem, and I told her, “no, I just came here so you could watch it bleed.” (Laughs) There was a cop there, too, and he looked just as dumbfounded when she asked that. When she said that I took the towel away and flashed her my eye, and blood went all over her. (Laughs) You had a brief run here again in 1979, but after that you were more or less used here to fill out cards and do some occasional work on television. Did you feel like you still had something to contribute, or were you settling down by that time on your own? I felt I still had a lot to offer. Some people didn’t see it that way. Who was booking at that time, Ole and Gene? That was your main reason I wasn’t getting work anymore. He was a son of a bitch. Actually, I used the wrong word. He was a bastard. (Laughs) I don’t guess you’ve patched up with Ole, huh? He walked up to me at Mobile last year, and said, “you don’t recognize me do you?” I turned around and said, “yeah, I fucking know you.” (Laughs) He made so many enemies. He didn’t give a shit either, but paybacks are hell. Well, he’s mellowed from what some of the other guys tell me. You don’t see yourself getting along with him? He’s still an asshole. Your last match in Georgia happened in April of 1981, and you went up to Tennessee and did a program under a hood as the Super Destroyer. Did you like working under a mask? I couldn’t stand it. Everybody knew it was me. It was like Charlie Harbin. You have certain features that people catch onto, so some people should not wear masks. What have you been doing since you left the business? I worked in security. I had a ruptured aorta. The doctor that worked on me told my wife my chances of survival were 2 out of 10,000, and I’m still here. I was on the table for fifteen hours. That happened in December 1996. I felt like someone had hit me with a knife. I was sitting in the same chair I’m sitting in right now. I went to sit down, and I jumped right back up. I went to lay down, and I did the same thing. My wife asked me if I needed to go to the emergency room, but I told her I was alright. She told me to get in the car. We got to the hospital and she helped me in. As I went to sit down in the waiting room, I looked at the clock and it was 2:35. That’s all I remember until January 1997. God was with me then, and sent me a hell of a doctor. I was out of my body twice. The doctor told me, and I had known it to because I remember talking to my mother and my brother, and they were telling me to go back – “he’s not ready for you.” They told me that my father was supposed to come before me. Well, in January 1998, I got a call that my father had passed away. There was no light. They just appeared to me. It was amazing, and it really made me think a lot. That could have been my time, but it wasn’t. You want to know something else? When I was fifteen years old, there was a neighbor who could read palms. She read mine, but at that time I never really thought anything of it. She told me in my lifetime I would do a lot of travelling, I would meet a woman who was a foreigner, and I would have three children. (Laughs) And you were a journeyman wrestler, married a German woman, and had three kids. Yep. I became a wrestler and started travelling. Then we got married. Six years later we adopted our first child. About eighteen months later we had another child. Right after that, she has another one. Then it dawned on me, and I remembered that conversation. And she had also told me there would be an operation and I would be on death’s door, but I would be alright. She told me I had a long life to live. Then it all started sinking in – this woman predicted my future. It’s phenomenal. It’s almost scary, isn’t it? It sure is. I can’t even predict a football game. (Laughs) It’s a gift. Let’s play a word association game. Okay. Rocket Monroe. A character. Jim Barnett. Gentleman. Ray Gunkel. Peculiar. Charlie Smith. Charlie Smith. (Laughs) Eddie Graham. Knowledgeable. Don McIntyre. Tight. Fred Ward. Knowledgeable. Bobby Simmons. Gentleman. Bob Armstrong. Gentleman. Danny Miller. A friend and a gentleman. Okay. Rich Tate. Who the hell is Rich Tate? (Laughs) Are you taping this part? Yes. Then I can’t say. (Laughs) You can’t talk about me while I’m taping you? (Laughs) Bill, it has definitely been a pleasure. You’re definitely one of wrestling’s true characters. Well, thank you. Thank you for taking time to talk to me. My pleasure, brother. |
| Copyright © Georgia Wrestling History, Inc. All rights reserved. |
 |
| FEATURES: CONVERSATIONS - BILL DROMO |
| This interview was conducted by Rich Tate in December 2003.
Anyone that has ever met or talked to Bill Dromo knows he is not one to mince words – although he is very careful with them. He is the kind of person who only speaks his mind when he feels something really needs to be said. I have enjoyed knowing Bill for quite awhile now, and because I also have a calm demeanor and dry wit, I always know exactly where he is coming from. Bill was one of the most consistent individuals in regard to wrestling in Georgia. In our interview, I made him aware of a fact that very few else have probably caught onto, and even Bill wasn’t aware of until it was told to him. |