Georgia Wrestling History - the Home of Peach State Pandemonium: Features - Conversations

With so many wrestlers putting out books lately, most of them are simply just their way of getting themselves over and boosting their own self importance to the business, I found yours refreshing in that it was more of an in depth look into how the business was run.

Well, mine’s no different. I know you’ve read it and maybe you’ll agree that mine is a truthful depiction of what took place in professional wrestling. I put myself over – of course, who else am I going to put over? (Laughs) Unlike Arn, whose book I read, you’re not going to find a whole lot of bullshit in my book. It’s just the straight skinny on whatever happened.

I appreciated the look inside the life of a booker and how the business was done at the time.

That’s why we chose the title Inside Out.

What made you go with that theme or format?

Well, it wasn’t any planned design. I was just talking about my beginning in the business until the time I got out of it, so whatever took place is what went into it. There was no intention – it was just a matter of recanting my story and my personal experiences in wrestling. When it started I was just rambling and talking, and Scott showed me stuff after about three or four months of getting started – he realized before I did that it sounded badly because I swear quite often.

I said some things about some people that he was concerned about and he made me concerned as well. We cleaned a lot of stuff up and eliminated some things to try and make it a book that a mother and father could let their children look at without being exposed to something that could send them to hell. (Laughs)

Trying to be truthful was the most important thing and trying to be as accurate as I could possibly be was important to me. I just wanted to tell what my experiences were in wrestling. A lot of that had to do with the promotional end because I was so involved in promoting and booking since 1976 when I came here to Georgia.

I checked the stuff you talk about with Georgia, and it all matches up accurately to the stuff I know as fact, so I feel there’s no reason to doubt anything else you say in your book. I believe any fan of old school wrestling will arguably find this to be the most insightful wrestling related book that has been published. I appreciated the brutal honest truth that I got from reading it, and therefore I enjoyed it much more than any other I have read where the person is selling themselves or spending the majority of it bashing other people.

I think that the book I have written is unique in the sense that I started from a position of being on top almost from the beginning – four months after I started in 1967. I was on top all of my career. I was a stockholder, an owner, and I was a booker. There are not many other guys who can say that other than Eddie Graham, Bill Watts and Verne Gagne. Ric Flair can’t say it. Hulk Hogan can’t say it. That’s kind of a unique position to be in and I believe for the most part that I was successful in my booking ventures. When I left as a booker, Jim Barnett could have had anyone else, but he’d always call me and say, “oh, Ole, can you come back?”

I wanted to ask you about him, too. It appears in the book that he really had very little to do with the operations in Georgia from the time you picked the promotion back up when you and Gene returned in 1976. How involved was he and was he given more credit than he actually deserved?

As I stated in the book, Jim’s words to me in October 1976 were, “my boy, I expect a sellout on Thanksgiving.” Well, that’s what we had – a sellout on Thanksgiving. As a matter of fact, we sold out Columbus that afternoon and the Omni that night. We sold out every week, whether it was in the City Auditorium or the Omni until April 1977.

We ran two Omni shows back to back, which meant all we had to promote that second one was the TV show on the Saturday after the first one. Selling out the Omni two weeks straight had never been done.

Barnett would come up with an idea on occasion. His strong suit was being able to recognize what he considered good talent. He saw Tommy Rich and brought him down, and after the first night he wanted to get rid of him because he thought we’d killed him. He recognized Roddy Piper had talent. I’d already been booking Piper for a year up in the Carolinas so that wasn’t any great revelation. He did, though, have a knack to a certain degree for being able to recognize talent.

I don’t know whether that’s unique to him or anybody, but there are some people who couldn’t recognize anything. I’ve been accused of that because I was one of the first guys to have Hulk Hogan and I let him go.

Georgia wasn’t your first booking job. Tell me about your experiences before taking the book over in Atlanta.

In about 1973 or 1974 I started getting involved in the booking end of it. We ran Greenville with Jim Crockett, Jr.’s permission without anyone even knowing we were really doing it except Crockett. I was always instrumental since my first year. I started thinking I had ideas about how to run the match and book the match. So I just started making suggestions, so when I got to the Carolinas in 1968 it continued.

I don’t think anyone was taking me seriously at that time, but that’s neither here nor there. It was me talking about how we could make our matches better – mine in particular. So I just became more and more enthused about being able to book because obviously my money was dependent upon how well the house did. If I had an idea that I thought was better than someone else’s idea, I would tell them. How could I shut up? A lot of guys would say, “that’s not my job, so I’m not going to do it.” Well, it wasn’t my job, but I wanted to do it so I could make as much money as I possibly could. If they want me to do something that’s not going to make me money, I’m going to speak up then, too.

Let’s talk about Ric Flair. Some of your comments about him from the book have surfaced publicly, and there seems to be a bit of an outcry among his fans about that.

Hey, I love Ric Flair. I really liked him. Ric got his break when we made him our cousin and put him in the ring with Gene and I. George Scott, in fact, was the one who put him in the ring with us. He was a unique kid who really did have flair. As a result I liked him – and he had a gift of gab that was different. I really liked him, but as the years went on and I got the book, I wanted him out of there.

I also knew as World Heavyweight Champion, he’d be good because he’d spend money to look good and carry himself well. He could do well enough to have the same damn match all over the world and no one would be the wiser. But in a territory running the same town week after week how long does it take to realize you just saw the same match last week?

It’s more likely that the wrestler becomes stale that way.

Yeah.

I read recently that someone is putting out a compilation DVD containing nothing but Ric Flair promos. As good as he was with a promo, it was pretty much the same as his matches, almost to the point where you could have probably used the same promo for the show every week, just editing in different towns and names of his opponents.

Yeah. Another thing about his promos – and you can ask anyone this – I never redid any of my promos. Flair used to constantly screw up and say he’d pay for it. He’d have a two-minute promo to do and he’d be one minute and fifty-five seconds into it and he’d mess up and say he needed to do it again. I’d say, “Flair, if you fuck up, just fix it on the spot. Don’t destroy the almost two minutes you’ve already done because it costs us money and time.”

He never could get out of that habit. He just got to a point that he was so important to himself and other people that he thought it made it okay to put the knife in some people’s backs. My son was the first one he got rid of and then I was right behind him

What’s the story there?

My oldest son, Bryant, was an exceptional amateur wrestler. He came into the business and Flair was at the top of WCW at the time. I can’t remember if he was working with Ric or someone else, but Ric’s idea was to kick the shit out of him for a minute and a half and then beat him. I said, “nobody gets in and kicks the shit out of anybody for a minute and a half. If it takes somebody a minute and a half to kick the shit out of somebody else, they must not be very good.” (Laughs) I said, “if you’re going to beat him, just beat him and be done with it. Don’t kick him 55,000 times and then beat him – just kick him once or twice and beat him.”

Well, Flair got all upset, so I reminded him about the time I was booking the Road Warriors. They beat people and they beat them quick. They didn’t go out and beat the hell out of somebody ad nauseum. It was booked to look like a shoot and that the guys in the ring just weren’t big or powerful enough to be able to stand the onslaught of the Road Warriors. By the same token, the Road Warriors were so bad, you couldn’t let them go longer than a few minutes.

I also reminded Ric that when I was booking and we had somebody new getting into the business we wanted to try and teach them something. We would want them to get six or seven minutes in the match so they could get a feel for what was going on in the business. If you kick the shit out of a guy in a short period of time, what is he going to learn? Nothing – and that’s what they did to my son, and I was pissed off. Well, it didn’t take anytime at all before my son was fired. A month later – I was fired.

The thing was that Ric and guys like Lex Luger thought they were stars. As a result, they thought they should be the ones calling all the shots. Just because you’re a big star doesn’t mean you know how to run the wrestling business.

What about Hulk Hogan? You mentioned letting him go earlier, but I don’t think a lot of people understand that the size of the territory tended to dictate the success of failure of different wrestlers. You talk about that in your book, but can you elaborate here?

Hulk Hogan couldn’t draw flies with his ass covered in honey. (Laughs) He could not draw on his own. He needed somebody to tell him what to do.

And he needed a decent opponent in the ring with him otherwise it would totally flop.

I agree with that. You know, I’ve been ridden because I didn’t keep him here in Georgia, but there was just no way that anybody would believe this guy as clumsy as he was could beat somebody. By the same token, because he was so big, no one was going to buy it that he could be beaten. Putting him in Augusta, Macon, and Columbus week after week – it wouldn’t take more than a few weeks for people to catch on. So I let him go and he went to New York.

They were glad to have him and I told them they were lucky enough to have a territory that didn’t run the same towns weekly but instead ran almost monthly. In a lot of cases it would be longer than that. I told Terry they would be able to hide your inability until you learn how to wrestle.

The guy that found him and finally taught him something was Verne Gagne. Verne’s territory was the same way. So he had the opportunity to train with him and hide him enough – well, just like we did with Flair when he was still very new to the business, by having him team with me and Gene. If Flair had been working single matches at that time day in and day out, the people wouldn’t have bought it. So that’s what I did with Hogan. Was I wrong? Well, Barnett thought I was. He went crazy.

Did you after talk to Hogan after you let him go?

I haven’t talked to him since.

I want to ask you about Paul Jones. He had promoted here from 1944 until 1962, and came back two years later when Don McIntyre retired and sold his share to Buddy Fuller. I know Ray Gunkel and Fuller pretty much ran the promotion until Ray’s death, and eventually Jim Barnett was brought into the promotion in 1974. He was essentially a figurehead promoter since his return in 1964, but I was wondering if he even had anything to do with business decisions or anything when you were here?

He used to come down to the office every day for awhile and Barnett hated it. He would come down to the television taping, but it got to a point where he didn’t even do that either. We had the office over on...

Chester Avenue?

Yeah, Chester Avenue – thank you, that’s it. Barnett hated Paul and didn’t want him around. I used to use Paul because Paul had the credibility having been a promoter here for so many years. I’d have him go on the TV every now and then and make something sound official. I liked Paul. He was a nice guy.

I think that sold his rare appearances because he made something seem like it was serious.

I thought so, too.

He still owned a piece of the territory, but he just simply showed up when you needed him.

Yeah. He would sit in the back and not do a damn thing. His biggest thrill was just to come down to the office and shoot the shit and talk about days gone by. He’d come down for a couple hours and have some coffee, and then he’d go home.

As he got older it became more and more difficult to use him because he started losing touch. Around 1983, he was really just sort of out of it. His wife, who was significantly younger, was susceptible to the bribes that were made to her by the Brisco boys and that’s how Vince McMahon wound up with the company.

In August 1983, both McMahons came to the NWA meeting correct?

Correct, but only Senior came to the meeting. Junior was somewhere else in the hotel.

You touched on that meeting in your book, but can you provide a little more detail in regard to how that particular meeting played out?

Even before that meeting, we all knew that either Senior or Junior, or both, were already making deals with TV stations and going into towns we were running. I don’t know this for a fact, but what I tell you is what we believed. We suspected them of calling up the venue and telling them that we just lost our time slot on the local TV station. The venue didn’t like that, so they would take up the lease on the building and run a show.

The next call, within minutes, would be to the TV station telling them that we had lost our lease on the venue, which would mean we would no longer promote shows in their town, so they would put the WWF on their TV.

I was talking to Verne on the phone one day when this was going on, and he was laughing at me because he didn’t think it was really happening. He got a phone call and put me on hold. It was the booker who ran his shows in San Francisco, and the same damn thing had happened to him – while we were on the phone. Verne was out of his mind about it.

Over the years at one time or another, most of the promoters found themselves in dire straits and needed the help of the other members of the NWA. In the case of Senior, when Johnny Valentine and Bearcat Wright ran opposition to him up in Washington, D. C., Eddie Graham, Jim Crockett and a few other people helped McMahon out so he could save his territory. Well, Junior didn’t give a shit about the past. It was all pretty well known prior to that meeting that Junior was going to try to shoot us out of the saddle. So when he started taking towns from us, the other promoters were looking at us and saying it was payback for going up to Ohio.

Pretty soon, Junior was moving into everybody’s territories. Anyway, I believe it was the second day of the meeting, but Senior got up and let everybody know they were going to withdraw from the NWA. I stood up and told everybody what a sorry bunch of sorry asses the McMahon’s were because they were fucking us around and taking our territories.

Senior came to me later and told me I reminded him of his son, and that he wanted his son and I to sit down and talk. I told him, “I don’t know how to take that. Are you telling me I’m a no good son of a bitch?” (Laughs)

I want to ask you about the spin-off group called GCW Superstars that ran in the summer of 1983. What led to that group, which was mostly made up of up and coming stars, including the first big break on a national level for Jim Cornette?

Well, Jerry (Jarrett) and I got together with the intention of trying to bolster the talent pool I had because Vince was taking everybody. Vince would call people up and say, “look, you can work for him and starve or you can come and work for me.” They were leaving in twos and threes.

You go into great detail in the book about the legal issues that led to the purchase of Georgia Championship Wrestling by Vince McMahon. That started in March 1984 and by July of that year the battle had been won by McMahon. Tell me what happened around that time.

Well, Vince came down and met me and told me it was just business. I told him, “go fuck yourself.” He came down again and said, “come to work with me Ole. I’ll make you more money than you’ve ever imagined.” Again, I told him, “go fuck yourself.” The next time he came down he introduced me to his wife. I said, “fuck your wife, and fuck you.”

I remember being in the airport and running into Nikolai Volkoff, Les Thornton and two other guys – I can’t remember who exactly – but I said, “if you’re going to leave, just tell me.” It was a Saturday.

Was Don Jardine part of that group?

I had confronted Jardine the Saturday before and I asked him if he was leaving and he told me no. The same goes for Ted DiBiase.

So anyway, those four guys and I all met in the airport from a little trip to Ohio, and we were on our way to Macon. I said, “listen, if you’re going to leave, let me know so I can get some bodies for the show.” They told me they were on their way down there. I never saw them again.

I guess the obvious downturn in available talent and attendance in 1983 and 1984 were largely a result of the behind the scenes dealings with McMahon’s takeovers and potential takeovers, as well as his talent raids. Would that be a true statement?

Yeah. I was so completely screwed up by the time of the takeover. The takeover by McMahon started when my mother died, which was in March of 1984. Our secretary called me on the phone while I was up there with family, and she was telling me they had taken our company.

We got an injunction to slow down the takeover, but it was just a matter of time. Our attorneys didn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. I think they were just getting paid to not know their asses from a hole in the ground. Anyway, I was going crazy. From about 1981 to the end, I had so many damn dopeheads around me I didn’t know who was right. As I said in the book, I couldn’t fire them because if I did, I wouldn’t have had anybody.

I was really struggling. I was fighting the guys on drugs, McMahon, stupid lawyers – and I was literally eating myself alive trying to keep this doggone thing going. I’d tell the guys, “if it comes down to one promoter – McMahon – how long do you think you’re going to last? He can’t take everybody. There’s no way he can run every damn town in this country by himself. There’s no way.”

I remember saying to McMahon, “if you’re going to take over these territories, keep them as they are. Let Georgia be Georgia, let Florida still be Florida – you can own it, but don’t tell the whole world you own it. You let other people run each one of them.

I think that would have been great. You’d still have territories, so you’d still have local shows on a weekly, or bi-weekly basis as they once were, which in the end creates more jobs for the talent, and produces more money than running one or two shows a day around the country with a national promotion. You could still do something with the TV and Pay Per View set ups, but it seems to me you’d have even more money than is available to them today.

Exactly. There were a hell of a lot more fans percentage wise back then compared to today. When it comes to numbers, even with the growth of the population, I’m sure there were more fans attending shows in the territories than there are today. If a buyrate for a Pay Per View is a million people, there’s only a million people watching what they now consider to be the most important part of their product. There were more than a million fans watching TV and attending house shows when there were territories. It doesn’t even come close.

Speaking of Pay Per View capabilities and trying to save the territorial system, was there ever any serious discussion between you and other promoters to make an effort to fight off the takeovers?

I had suggested an idea for the World Title to guys like Gagne, Watts, Crockett, Graham, Owen, and a few others. Instead of having our title defended in Podunk, let’s televise this thing nationally and make it a four out of seven battle. We could run in Minneapolis, Atlanta, St. Petersburg and New York. If it went to a fifth town, it could have been Houston. If it went to six matches, the sixth town is San Francisco. And instead of doing it night after night, make it a weekly deal.

The point would be to make a big damn deal about the World Title. You could get really greedy and make it go seven, but maybe you just have it go five and throw people off a little bit. In the meantime, the territories are percolating right along. All the hype is on the World Title, and everybody’s talking about it and paying to watch it, but you keep running your own territory. But nobody thought that was worth a shit.

Whatever came of that idea?

We just all agreed that we’d never agree on how to do anything together. McMahon even said somewhere that he wasn’t concerned about the NWA fighting him and beating him because he knew we couldn’t all agree on anything, and he was right.

So basically, everybody figured they’d be better off staying in their own backyard and trying to fend him off by themselves?

That’s right.

Well, that goes against the whole concept of it altogether.

Yeah. Something else about McMahon is that he’s from the greatest place in the world – New York. (Laughs) I remember having a meeting with Bob Wessler who worked for Turner. I told him that Atlanta could be a wrestling Mecca and that we had already been beaming out TV everywhere and putting on shows all over. He said, “yeah, but Atlanta’s a provincial town and there’s nothing much of significance ever going to happen out of Atlanta. This is a backwoods southern town.”

Yet if you read a Forbes 500 or something like it, probably thirty to forty per cent of the companies listed have some sort of corporate or management office in Atlanta.

There you go. We had the Olympics, the World Series, the Super Bowl – Wessler was from New York. I asked him how after all these years with success of wrestling on TV out of Atlanta, and the growth of Atlanta, how he could justify that, and he said, “Vince is more qualified.”

A lot of people believe that Georgia Championship Wrestling overstepped its boundaries due to its reach via Ted Turner’s television capabilities. However, the promotion was already a staple of that station before it became so vastly accessible.

Yeah, I could have taken us anywhere. Anywhere the TV went meant that we could have gone there and probably been successful. The first place we did go was to Ohio because it wasn’t being run anymore by the Sheik.

Before it was done, we talked to Ed and made a deal. He was told he could stay home and we would pay him, but we would run the territory. He wanted to work in the box office, but we didn’t want him counting any money. (Laughs) So we ended up removing him of any involvement.

Before we ran Cleveland, we talked to Vince and asked his permission to run that town. He said, “sure you can do whatever you want to, but I wouldn’t advise it. That town is dead. Johnny Powers killed it.” I told him we were going to try it and see how we could do. Well, we sold out Cleveland the first time we ran there.

What about the other areas you ran in that area, and later when you started crossing over into the WWF territory to try and compete?

When we went up to the Meadowlands against McMahon, we put something like 23,000 people into that building with very little TV except what we did in Atlanta. The card was thrown together with the help of Crockett, Carlos Colon and Victor Jovica. The card wasn’t exceptional, but it was a dark, stormy night and we almost sold it out. When we went to Baltimore we were doing sellout business, and sometimes just shy of a sellout. We ran Altoona and sold it out – Vince had run that same place the night before and sold it out.

As I said earlier, we sold out Cleveland and they couldn’t even run the damn town. Wheeling was a bad town they told us was no good, but we did big business there. That whole part of Ohio Vince could have gone to, but thought would be bad for business, we went into and did big business – Dayton, Cincinnati, and Cleveland. The only part that was bad for us, for whatever reason, was Toledo. Grand Rapids and Saginaw, Michigan, were selling out or damn near it every time. The people got to see Georgia Championship Wrestling, and apparently they liked it.

They had been seeing it on TV for years and now it was live.

That’s right.

You mention in the book that due to the cost of booking the NWA Champion and the fact it took money out of the other boys’ pockets, you often hesitated to do so if you were already doing sellout business. Was there any link to that and the fact that Harley Race’s reign during 1983 went ignored in Georgia, including the fact that he had won it never being mentioned on TV until he had lost it back to Ric Flair?

Well, as I said earlier, everything was in turmoil because of the threats that were being made by McMahon and the contractual issues I talk about it the book. I had so many lawyers around they were coming out my ears. The thing with the Brisco boys was starting up. It was just all complete chaos there for awhile. We were trying to get a better handle on our expenses and paying off debts. It was such a screwed up year.

I really like Harley, but I told him I’d rather us make a deal on how we could make everyone happy as opposed to using the standard ten per cent and three per cent. Well, he didn’t want to do it. So now Harley’s going to Podunk and making $200, but at least he made his ten per cent, rather than taking a smaller per cent and working with us making $3,000 or so. Why would you want the champion here to help draw and take ten per cent for himself and three per cent for the NWA when you’re already doing good business? I tried to explain that to Harley, but he didn’t want to do that. I don’t know if he was pissed off as a result of it – I just don’t know.

I hadn’t gotten to the point where I didn’t like Flair, but I just didn’t want to use him. There was another reason I didn’t want to use Flair at that time – because it was always the same damn match. I couldn’t stand it. I hated the idea that he would be in the ring with Tommy Young in the Carolinas and push Tommy because that always meant Tommy would then push Flair and he would take a bump. I would say, “how in the hell can you go down when a referee pushes you and you’re the World Champion?” He did the same sequence in every match at just about the same points of the match.

If you saw one of his matches by that time, you saw them all. I said this to Dallas Page one time, and said it to Ric, too – “I try to paint a picture with a blank canvas while you’re painting by numbers and you don’t even know how to get the damn colors in the lines.” (Laughs) First of all, we were doing good business without him and so I didn’t want the other guys having to make less to make sure we paid Flair his ten per cent.

I said it in the book, but when I told the boys we wouldn’t be using the champion here to make sure we paid them well, Frank Morrell stood up and said, “from the way my paycheck has been looking, it appears the champion has been here all year long.” (Laughs) Barnett was there and he said, “oh, that’s funny – fire him.” (Laughs) I went to Frank and said, “shut the fuck up, you dumbass.”

You make a brief reference about the types of tape that was used for TV, and the fact that they would be used three times and eventually be discarded. Was there ever any footage that was kept and stored away that might still exist?

Well, isn’t that funny? Who did Turner sell the tapes to?

It must have been Vince.

Yeah. A lot of tapes they gave back to us, but at some point they said we could get rid of them. None of these tapes according to them were air quality. That’s why we taped over them three times and that was the end of it. I’ve got a bunch of tapes up in my attic, but I imagine by now they’re completely destroyed from weather and such. Ralph Freed has thousands of hours of TV because he used to tape stuff, but he’d never let it go because he doesn’t want to get sued. I don’t even think he believes they’re air quality.

So when Vince bought Georgia Championship Wrestling, he essentially bought all of that because it was property of GCW.

Yeah, but the Turner people took the tapes from us, and took them for the purpose of destroying them. They were just going to dump them in the trash to save me the time.

So McMahon owns the rights to pretty much everything at this point.

Not pretty much – everything.

The general consensus is that you were hard to work for, but I’ve also heard from many people that despite that, you knew how to run a wrestling promotion better than most. How do you respond to that?

I thought my word was good, and I thought that was the most important thing I could be to the business was to be able to tell people what I wanted and exactly what I was thinking. I never minced words and never bullshitted anybody. All during my career, if I thought somebody was a no good piece of shit, I’d tell him. He could be a piece of shit, but if he had talent, I didn’t care. If he could draw people, listen and take directions, and be the worst son of a bitch, I wouldn’t give a shit. (Laughs)

When you’re trying to book and run a company, and your number one concern is making your employees money, how many people do you think are going to always be happy with you? How many people are going to be enamored with you? None – you’re a horse’s ass. You can’t tell one guy he’s got to lose two straight and have him think you’re a wonderful guy.

A guy comes into the territory and if the place is sold out, he says, “damn, they all came for me on my first show here.” (Laughs) If it turns out it’s not sold out, “damn, who’s on top? They must not be worth a shit.” (Laughs)

I want to ask you about something that was not in the book, and in my opinion it was a glaring omission. Why were the Four Horsemen never mentioned?

The Four Horsemen was an afterthought by Dusty. He was a great guy from the standpoint that he would go see a movie, and could create an angle out of the story he had just seen. Dusty came up with that angle – it could have been J. J. Dillon, but I believe it was Dusty.

Anyway, Dusty was booking for Crockett and had been for a couple of years. I had been out of the business at that time essentially. So the proposal was made to me to do the Four Horsemen gimmick and we would sell all kind of merchandise from it, and I would get a piece of the action. And, of course, we would be working in main events, so we would get main event money. And I like money, so I agreed to do it.

The first royalty check I got was something like $35. I was sitting next to Arn in the dressing room at the TV studio when we were given our royalty checks. I died laughing when I saw it. The concept of the Horsemen was, of course, to go up against Dusty in most of the matches, so we had to go in the ring and do Dusty’s stuff – which was we all lineup and receive an elbow and take a bump.

I was never happy about the Horsemen because this was the time frame because my sons were involved more in sports at school and stuff, so I was kind of preoccupied. Plus, I was disgusted because it didn’t turn out the way I expected it would. The extra money from the merchandise never materialized. Nothing I was told would be happening was happening.

And here I was pounding the road again. I’d have to make the long trips, which I didn’t want to be doing again. I hated it. I didn’t mention it in the book because I didn’t feel it was worth mentioning. It’s a part of my life I’d just rather forget.

Fair enough. You want to do some word association?

Sure. This sounds like fun. Go ahead.

Jim Barnett.

(Laughs) There are many things I could say, but I’m afraid it’ll get us sued. (Laughs) Conniving.

Jim Crockett, Sr.

He was smart enough to control people by knowing everything going on in the territory through the use of all kind of stooges.

Stan Hansen.

Big, dumb, stupid, loyal son of a bitch. Hard working. When I first saw Stan, I told Gene he was going to make us money.

Jim Herd.

The Peter Principle – you rise to the level of your incompetence. (Laughs)

Vince McMahon – Junior version.

He killed the business as we knew it.

Gordon Solie.

(Laughs) You don’t want to know my first thought.

Okay.

(Laughs) I guess you liked Gordon?

He was a great announcer, yes.

Let me tell you something about Gordon. We paid him to come up from Florida each week to do that two hour show. We paid for his hotel and plane ticket, too. He was coming out of Tampa and wasn’t making that kind of money there.

In the 1980’s, I got a phone call from some people from Chicago, and they told me they wanted to speak to Gordon. I told them he only comes in on Friday nights and works on Saturday. Well, they had the impression he was an owner of the company. He told them he owned Georgia Championship Wrestling.

So it turns out we were paying Gordon, and they were paying Gordon because they thought he was the big honcho for Georgia Championship Wrestling. And they were flying him up there and paying him and doing something. They were negotiating something with Gordon to take old film or something.

I don’t remember the whole story – either I never found out exactly or I just don’t remember. He was collecting money from us, cashing in a plane ticket, taking their plane ticket, stopping over in Atlanta, then flying on into Chicago, and was telling these guys he was either the sole owner or part owner.

Well, one day he was sitting at lunch with me and Ralph Freed, and he tells us he wants to discuss his contract. He told us we’d be hearing from his agent. I said, “when you talk to your agent next time, tell him he no longer has a client.” Gordon almost choked, and Ralph almost choked. I told Gordon to take his agent and shove him up his ass, and that would be the end of our association. Within a minute, Gordon said, “I’ll just keep working for my usual salary.”

It wasn’t until later that I found out he was doing something with the people in Chicago. If I had known about it at the time we had that lunch I would have just fired him. Several years later he was on TV with Joe Pedicino and they were showing some old films, and on one of them they had me. Joe asked him if he thought I had any friends and Solie said something like, “I don’t think he’s ever had a friend.”

Well, about a year before Gordon died I called him up and asked him if he had any publicity pictures of me. He asked me if I wanted tapes. Evidently Gordon was taking tapes, too. I told him when he gets ready to send it to let me know so I can cover the cost of sending it up from Tampa, and he told me not to worry about it. He died a year later and I never heard from him from the time after I talked to him until the time he died.

Everybody knows Gordon as the salt of the earth and everybody knows me as a horse’s ass. (Laughs)

It’s a combination on this one because I couldn’t decide on which one to use – Ralph Freed and Fred Ward.

They knew the business. They were honest.

Scott Teal.

I think I said in the book that Scott had a lot of great ideas, and I also think I said in there that none of them were worth a shit. (Laughs) He’s a good kid.

Verne Gagne.

I have all the time in the world for him. Outstanding wrestler as both an amateur and a pro. Great friend. If I was going to love a guy it would be Verne. (Laughs)

Gene Anderson.

He was the salt of the earth and the most loyal person I ever knew. He was a true friend who would have done anything for me. And I miss him.

Ole, there’s been a whirlwind of message board activity since your interview with Dave Meltzer. Many people are saying that as a result of that interview, and some of your comments within it, they will not purchase your book. Even if they disagree with your opinions from the book that have been made public or the way they perceive you following that interview, what would you say to each of those people to convince them that this book is essential to their collection?

The point of this book was to tell it from my point of view, but also stating the facts as I know them. If you don’t agree with it, that’s okay. If you don’t want to read the book because I said something derogatory about Dave Meltzer, Ric Flair, Hulk Hogan or Randy Savage – fine, but I was on top during all but four months of my wrestling career and drew money everywhere I wrestled.

I booked territories and owned one. You might hate me, but did you want a book that was honest, or would you rather me have written a book with me telling you about all the people I beat up? The one thing you can’t deny – I’ve been there and I’ve done it all in a twenty-seven year career. No one else who has written a book has done all the things I did – they wrestled, but they didn’t book it and they didn’t own it. Those guys are just stars, and no one in wrestling became a star unless the booker made them a star. If you want the truth – buy my book.

Well, Ole, I really appreciate you taking the time out of your evening to talk to me.

You’re quite welcome.

FEATURES: CONVERSATIONS - OLE ANDERSON

WRITERS

This interview was conducted by Rich Tate in December 2003.

Anyone who was a fan of Georgia wrestling knows the Anderson name. Back in 1962, a young wrestler by the name of Gene Anderson first came to Georgia. A few years later he returned with “brother” Lars, and together they made tag team wrestling become synonymous here with the Anderson Brothers’ name. Eventually, Gene would return with yet another “brother” named Ole. From that point on, the Minnesota Wrecking Crew consistently made their impact known here. Ole wound up becoming the booker, part owner, and eventually the main man running the operations of Georgia Championship Wrestling. Ole took time out recently to speak with us about some of the things from his new book, Inside Out, as well as other items, including some of which were obvious omissions from the Scott teal co-authored publication.