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TBR # 497(a) (9-17-98)
By: Dutch Mantel
Status: TBR Columnist
e-mail address: dmante-@bellsouth.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mantel <> Conroy <> Marsicano <> Slattery <>
Berger
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OK lets get right into the meat of things. In other words...
"let the bullshit begin".
But before we do that let me say
that I've been covered up
with e-mails from readers who are anxiously awaiting my upcoming
book
Dutch's Little Handbook for Wrestling Junkies or if you weeellll.....
Wrestling 101 for Beginners. If you want to be added to the book
list
please send me an email and we'll add you on. I'm still sorting
out
photos and stories from my years on the road. Man I never knew
bullshit could be so popular.I'm going to include in the book
several
things that I haven't talked about here and just to name one..my
view
on Wrestlers and Religion...the untold story about guys who quit
the
wrestling business and go into the religion business. Plus lots
of
never before seen photos and lots of bullshit stories. Hell, I
can't
wait until I write it so I can read it myself.
OK I know I've said that I won't
do any social commentary here...
just bullshit... but I can't resist this. The number 62 holds
a very
special significance for me especially right now. With Mark McGwire
(who by the way now has 63 home runs) and Sammy Sosa both tied
at one
time with 62 home runs..man that's really something.By the way...I've
done a little homework and as I've said before the World According
to
Dutch is also an educational experience... and this is what I've
uncovered.62 is also the number that Hillary Clinton has decided
upon
as the minimum age for all future White House interns.
World of Dutch Draws Ire of Dr.
Tom
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well it didn't take long for the
World of Dutch to ruffle some
feathers as my good friend Dr. Tom Prichard took the time out
of his
busy schedule to email us here at the World According to Dutch
about
his inclusion into the Dirty Dutch Top Five Worst Drivers list.
I
won't take the liberty of reposting his irate dialogue here in
it's
entirety as it's more pornographic than the Starr Report but to
say
he was upset will suffice. But I will include his last sentence....
"and by the way...it was a pothole, not a ditch in the middle
of the
road you bastard. You and Bradshaw can bite me". OK Dr. Tom...
you
don't have to get all mad about it. It was a pothole... on the
sidewalk that you hit OK? Hell for all I know with all the fog
that
night it could have been a g** d**n cow in a pasture. And quit
e-mailing me all the time asking for a retraction.
Dirty Dutch's Top Three
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Top Three Things that Scared Me in the Wrestling Business;
Sometimes you get asked to do certain
things in the wrestling
business that you really don't want to do but for a variety of
reasons
you do them anyway in spite of your personal fears or preferences.
I'm
only going to list a few here but believe me; they were memorable.
(1) A Scaffold Match - 1982 - Memphis
Mid South Coliseum
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dirty Dutch vs Bill "Superstar"
Dundee....Memphis was noted for
being a forerunner in all types of
gimmick matches from Rage in the Cage to barbed wire matches,
double
bullwhip matches and matches on flatbed 18 wheelers. Jerry Jarrett
(the booker and owner) had this brilliant idea about a match on
a
scaffold and booked me into this match and brother I hate anything
that requires me to get higher than 6 feet off the ground. I really
didn't want to do this... but business was going big guns and
Dundee
was all for it.
The fans loved this particular
match but I have a fear of heights.
The object of the match of course was for us to climb up the scaffold
and wrestle on a rickety constructed walkway suspended 20 feet
above
the ring floor. Dammit... where in the hell is OSHA when you need
them? The scaffold was so high that when I got to the top I could
look over right into the top deck of the Mid-South Coliseum. Hell,
I
almost got nosebleed I was so high. Anyway I got through this
match
without breaking any bones but this is the kicker. Wrestling in
those
days wasn't anything like it is today. Today this match would
only be
on a PPV..but in those days it was placed in every major town.
So not
only did I get to do this "wonderful" match in Memphis...
I also HAD
to do it in Louisville, Ky., Evansville, Ind., Lexington, Ky.,
and
Nashville, Tn. And every scaffold was different than the last
one. I
was f**kin glad when that little run with Dundee ended.
(2) Wrestling Bears
Yep...I've done that too. Now there's
something eerie about
wrestling an animal that naturally should be in the wild. But
at one
time there was a bear...a female bear named Ginger that used to
travel
all around and wrestle. I mean she didn't travel by herself....she
had
a trainer guy take her. I don't think Ginger could get a driver's
license.But anyway...I was wrestling in Knoxville and whoever
the boss
was then had booked Ginger to come in. Ginger wasn't that big
of a
bear....but she was a BEAR. She weighed like 600 pounds but who
the
f**ks counting.She was a BEAR. So who got the nod to wrestle the
Bear?
Need I say more?
Anyway I wrestled Ginger about
20 times and I was scared every time I
got into the ring with that bear. Hell bears are strong and don't
take
too kindly to being tugged around on. I finally found the answer
to
having a match with Ginger.Before the match I would go out to
her cage
and give her candy or Coke or something and just let her get used
to
me. So when we got into the ring... she would know me as the "person"
who gave her something to eat. I also made sure that none of the
other
guys could get out there and mess with her to get her all riled
up.
That's all I needed...a riled up mad ass bear that weighed 600
G**D**n
pounds beating the Sh*t outta me. It finally got to the point
where
Ginger kinda liked me though. In the match I could put my foot
down
close to her paw and she would "gingerly" (get it? Ginger
being
gingerly....) just wrap her paw around it and not pull or yank.
Actually the bear would put equal
pressure on you that you put on her.
The bear was a natural worker. But I never could get over the
feeling
that this bear could kill me if she so desired. And she could've
too.
(3) Snakes....I hate snakes.
One time while I was with WWF....
Justin Hawk Bradshaw who I was
managing had a match with Jake the "Snake" Roberts.
Jake, of course,
had Damien.... I think that's what he called that evil serpent
he
carried around with him (I think the new one was "Revelations"
- ed).
Somewhere in the match I was to have that snake laid on top of
me. Now
that's my idea of a good Saturday night!.. Just let me lay around
with
a man killing boa constrictor on my chest. Hell that snake had
to
weigh over 200 pounds. I thought, "why don't they just stick
a hot
poker up my ass at the same time?"But when it came time for
that snake
to lay on me...I felt that cold, clammy snake on my skin.... whooo....
hoooo..... I had to get up and get out of there. Man...it still
makes
my skin crawl to think about it. Anyway...that snake scared me
too.
Joke du Jour
~~~~~~~~~~~~
An ECW wrestler had been hit with
so many chair shots that he
found himself having trouble remembering things. He couldn't remember
anything at all at times. So he went to a highly trained, expensive
neurosurgeon to get checked out. When he walked into the doctor's
office... the doctor asked him what the problem was. The ECW wrestler
said "Doc,I've been hit with so many chair shots that I can't
remember
anything. People tell me things and I just can't remember them.
What
are we going to do? Its really becoming a problem". The doctor
thought
a moment and then said... "how long have you had this problem?".
The
ECW wrestler replied..."what problem"?
Bullshit Story of the week
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One time in the summer in Memphis this new guy came into the
territory. I think his name was "The Beastmaster" Rick
Link. His
gimmick was he would come out on LIVE Memphis TV and eat raw chicken
or raw fish or something like that hence the term "BeastMaster",
I
guess. He would also do this on the house shows too.
So one Saturday night we go to
a show in Parsons, Tennessee at the
high school gym. The BeastMaster did his match complete with the
whole
raw fish eating routine and then finished his match. Finally the
night
was over... everybody was happy and in a good mood. Then we all
took
off for home. The local sponsor locked the building up but BeastMaster
had forgotten something. He had forgotten to dispose of the RAW
fish.
So the fish stayed behind inside the unairconditioned building,
unbeknownst to anyone. The building, I found out later, stayed
locked
for three weeks. It was a real hot summer that year and temperatures
reached 95 and higher for several weeks leading into September
and the
start of school. No one obviously checked the building for anything.
So imagine the surprise that greeted the building's custodian
when he
finally opened the building for the start of school a few weeks
later?
I heard that the custodian actually
threw up the smell was so bad.
The fish had rotted, flies were everywhere and the smell would
gag a
maggot. It was so bad that the school doors, windows and anything
else that could be opened to let air in was opened to allow the
building to fumigate itself. I think the building was uninhabitable
for 10 days. Unless my memory fails me... I think that was the
last
time a pro wrestling match was ever held in that town to this
day.
The World of Dutch is brought to
you by the letter L and the number 6.
That's what you get when you watch Sesame Street too many times.
Undertaker and Dutch on the Lam
from the Cops in Knoxville
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TBR # 497(b) (9-17-98)
(continued....)
Dirty Dutch and
the Undertaker with the cops... again!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I was with
WCW several years ago we wrestled in Knoxville at
the Coliseum on a Saturday night. We had been on the road for
close
to two weeks and we were getting tired. It was the same thing
every
night just a different town. It was Charleston, West Virginia
then
it was Fayetteville, NC then it was Lumberton, then Greenville,
then
Asheville, NC and on and on. We were not only tired as hell of
the
road grind... but irritable as hell too.When guys stay out there
for
too long tend to get on each other nerves.. so you can imagine
what
regular people do to us. So we get to Knoxville..it's a party
town..
and it's time to kick back and have some fun. Or so we thought.
If you've ever
been in Knoxville its really a partying town partially
because of the University of Tennessee is located there and if
you've
been paying attention I also included it in Dirty Dutch's Top
Five
Little Ladies of the Evening list. So while still at the building
UT
declared that we were going out to do some drinking. Well that
kinda
made me happy. So after the matches, off we go. UT (this was actually
pre-UT days) and I go into this huge country western bar and
immediately we order two tequilas straight up. People recognize
us and
word spreads in the bar that Dirty Dutch and Mean Mark are there.
People start coming up and saying hello and doing the regular
routine.
Sometimes though you have to watch yourself in a bar because there's
always some a**hole who has had a little too much alcohol or who's
trying to impress some girl he's just met who wants to be a smartass.
But early on everybody is pretty cool with us.
This bar was called
Desperado's or something like that and it was a
nice place not some dive with all the pickup trucks with gun racks
in
the parking lot and on this night it was jammed packed. So we
order a
couple more drinks...and we slam them. Now here's a funny thing
about
me and tequila. I can drink tequila all night and be fine (in
moderation of course) but in relation to beer I can't. I can drink
10
tequilas and walk out the door without any problem but give me
three
beers and I swear I'm bouncing off the wall.
We hadn't been
there long and I notice that Mark is gone. I can't see
him anywhere in the crowd and he's 6'10".I mean how do you
lose a guy
that 6'10" tall and stands out like a six pack in a dry county?
Then
I heard a commotion way over on the other side of the bar and
from
intuitive experience I knew that something was going down. I felt
it.
So I picked my way through the crowd and sure enough... Mark is
standing there with a couple bouncers talking to him and I look
and
there's this guy just laying up against the wall...knocked completely
out. I mean he wasn't moving...his girlfriend was all upset...she
was
crying.One of the guys there told me that Mark absolutely drilled
the
guy. The bouncers who let us in FREE (exactly my price range)
told us
we needed to be moving on.
So you don't need
a blow by blow description to figure this one out.
It's apparent that Mark, while moving through the crowd, came
up on
some stupid guy who thought he'd try a wrestler out. Well, he
tried
Mark on for size; and lost. I grabbed Mark, who by this time was
pretty well hammered and out the door we flew. On the way to the
car
I bet we missed Knoxville's finest by 30 seconds.I could hear
sirens
in the distance when we went through the door and we barely made
it
to the car when the police cruisers pulled up. Somebody had dialed
911 pretty quick. Mark was actually in a great mood and was laughing
about it when we pulled away. I asked Mark what had happened he
said
that the guy told him he didn't look so tough... got in his face....
kept on and on... pushed him a time or two and *WHAM!*...Mark
bitch-
slapped the guy one time and the guy folded.It never ceased to
amaze
me why anybody who wanted to try a wrestler out picked a beef
with
the biggest guy around. I mean, he could have tried me... (hey,
I
would've killed him!)... but he chose UT. Go figure.
What Goes Around Comes Around
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I remember early in my career I
went to wrestle in Tennessee. I
didn't know diddly and I made no effort to hide that fact. I came
in
strictly to learn but I also learned that green guys sometimes
get
taken advantage of. I found this out the hard way. There was a
wrestler who was a legend in Tennessee who I was booked against
almost every night...Tojo Yamamoto. Tojo was a cold hearted, mean
little bastard who had a history, I found out later, of literally
beating the hell out of unsuspecting green guys. Hey, that was
the
category I was in!... surprise, surprise. Well, it didn't take
Tojo
long to start with me.
Every night he chopped me hard...
so hard in fact that sometimes I
had blood blisters on my chest. I was too low on the totem pole
to
say
anything and if I'd returned his hard shots then I would have
been
fired and getting fired wasn't exactly my idea of moving up. But
like
the good little boy I was, (and still am, I might add) suffice
it to
say that I took all his shots without complaining, and it hurt
like
hell. G** Damn those chops hurt. I distinctly remember one night
when
I came back from a mauling with ToJo... an old veteran who had
watched
the match said to me, "hey kid...what goes around comes around".
I
didn't know what he meant... I was still recovering from the beating
that ToJo had subjected me to. But to make a short story longer
than
it needs to be...
I left the territory and came back
a few years later but this time I
came back with more experience, more self-confidence and much
more
talent. I could take care of myself now not, only physically,
but
politically as well. And who do you think I got booked against?
Yep.
ol' Mr. Sadistic himself.But this time, I had a little companion
that
I'd picked up along the way; A bullwhip that I affectionately
had
named Shoo-Baby. Well, since Tennessee had a history of booking
bizarre matches...it didn't take long for them to see that some
money
could be made with a match that featured a Bullwhip.
Invariably...sometime in a match
I would end up with my bullwhip
in my hands and remembering those blood blisters that ToJo gave
me a
few years earlier...I made sure that ToJo reaped what he had sown.
People....a bullwhip can stop a 1,200 pound bull, so imagine what
it
can do to a human being. Ask ToJo. So now you know the rest of
the
story...what goes around comes around and it came around for ToJo.
I
eased off on him after a couple of matches but I do remember that
I
cut him a few times with the whip and I figured I'd got even enough.
But I let that be a lesson to me. I never took advantage of someone
who didn't know what they were doing just because I could and
just
because they were green.I always tried to be professional and
I tried
to treat people the way I would have liked to be treated. There's
an
old saying in wrestling;"be nice to the people on your way
up because
you're gonna meet the same people on the way down."
I remember ToJo well. He's dead
now due to a self inflicted
gunshot wound to the head, but that's another story for another
day.
<> Dirty Dutch saying of the day: "I'm naked underneath
my clothes".
~Dirty Dutch's Top Five~
The Top Five Basketball Shooters
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Time for another Dirty Dutch Top
Five list. When wrestlers are
on the road and there's a basketball handy you can rest assured
that
somebody will challenge somebody else in a game of horse. Wrestlers
are a competitive bunch whether its shooting hoops or playing
cards.
Here is the Dirty Dutch's Top Five Basketball Shooters. Margin
of
error...100%. Enjoy.
(1) Ron Harris (DOA, Bruise Brother)
Ron could shoot the hell out of
a basketball having played college
ball at Austin Peay University. Ron transferred to some college
in
Florida his junior year and had a chance to play some pro ball.
If
you're a country music fan Ron played with Mark Miller of the
country group "Sawyer Brown" in high school. Actually
Mark Miller
is a huge wrestling fan who got Ron and his twin brother Don into
wrestling in the first place. But Ron could really play some ball.
But he cheated a lot.
(2) Undertaker
One time we were
wrestling at some out of the way high school here in
Kentucky and they had a gym adjacent to the building where the
matches
were being held. I found a basketball and challenged UT to a game.
Well
I along with Action Jackson challenged him; but we said we'd have
to
have some SPECIAL rules to play him, like he'd have to play both
of us
in a handicap match because he was so tall. UT said "Okay".
It was two
versus one and we made up some more rules like UT couldn't dunk
on
us...he couldn't muscle his way to the basket and then lay it
in.. and
he had to shoot from outside the paint. I mean, we stacked the
deck
against him pretty good. I called that "Memphis rules"...you
just make
'em up as you go along. UT still said he'd play us. I knew UT
was a
pretty good player but hell....he couldn't beat two guys... I
thought.
I mean, get real! So the game started (for him it started... I
don't
think we ever did get started) and it ended embarrassingly several
minutes later when the score was UT 21... Action Jackson and I
...2.
An ugly score.He killed us. Of course I blamed the loss on my
partner.
(3) Don Harris
Much like his brother...a great
outside shot. Don cheated more than
his brother Ron.
(4) Hillbilly Jim
Hillbilly played for something
like 6 junior colleges. He kept
getting scholarships to play then got kicked out for various reasons
like GPA, drinking, raising hell and other things. But a good
shot
with the roundball. He also cheated.
(5) Justin Bradshaw...loved to
win..hated to lose. Bradshaw had
a great touch on the ball and could play under pressure. But he
hated
to lose. I played him lots of times and I did manage to win a
couple
times. I loved it when I won...I would talk about it the rest
of the
day. I cheated when I played Bradshaw.
