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

Bill, if you will, tell us when you were born and raised.

Well, I was born in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, in 1947.

What’s that near?

It’s outside of Pittsburgh in the valley. It’s about thirty-two miles south of Pittsburgh, and it was called the Big Ten way before the Big Ten was called the Big Ten. It’s one of the larger steel towns which contributed to the steel industry there.

And that’s very close to the West Virginia border, right?

Yeah, it’s about halfway between Pittsburgh and the West Virginia line. We were the last of the ten cities to be considered as a part of that valley.

So it was known mostly as a steel-producing town?

Steel and coke – not the Coke they have now – processed or burned off coal which is used to melt the steel and get the ore out for making steel. It was a big coal industry town and still is. It’s a hard coal area up there. There’s still a lot of mines, but over the years they’ve all curtailed business or reduced efforts.

What is a childhood like in that area?

It was good, for me anyway. I had a close family. Of course, my grandmother and grandfather lived next door to us. My aunts and uncles were there nearby. I had a sister. It was a small town atmosphere with only about ten thousand people at the time.

It’s a lot smaller now, but sports were a big thing up there. The area produces a lot of athletes to big time sports in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia – just like down here in Georgia and Texas, you know. There’s not much work up there, so you have to go to school with a plan of getting out of there.

I enjoyed it. It was safe, but I don’t know how it is now. Even though it’s a small town I’m sure drugs have been moving in that way.

I know you went into teaching when you grew up. Where did you go to college?

I went to West Virginia (University), which was not too far from home. One of my visits was to Georgia Tech. I liked it, but it was a long way. Of course, I wanted to go to Penn State, but I didn’t get an offer there. I had a scholarship to go to West Virginia so I went there.

And was that an athletic or academic scholarship?

It was athletic for football and track. My coach had graduated from West Virginia so he kind of leaned me that way, too. When you’re growing up, no matter where you are, you really want to go to the state school. I enjoyed West Virginia. It was far enough away from home that I was away from home, but not too far away that I couldn’t commute and be there if there was an emergency.

What track events did you participate in with the track team?

Oh, I was in the decathlon, so I did everything.

And football?

In high school I played tight end and safety. In college, I played a little bit of corner and some at linebacker. Track was my favorite.

How did you fare in track?

I was pretty good in all events in high school, and went to the state championships in a few of them. My best events were hurdles. In college you could do as many events as you wanted, but in high school you could only do three. The coach would ask me to do this or that and I would, so I wound up doing a bit of everything. I didn’t like the long distance events, but the most I ever ran would be a quarter mile, except for the decathlon, which was a mile. I was the captain for the team for two years.

That’s impressive. How was the football program at West Virginia during that era?

They were pretty good. I only played my sophomore year because I really liked track better. And I had gone on a combination scholarship and I was pretty good in track. The track coach gave me a full scholarship so I could continue doing that and get out of football. They were pretty good, though. I don’t know if you’d know him, but Jim Braxton played there and graduated the same year I did. He was the blocking fullback for O. J. Simpson. There were some pretty good football players there at the time.

What made you decide to become a teacher?

I guess I was impressed by my coach and the teachers I had. I just thought it was a logical move. My uncle wanted me to be a lawyer, and looking back on it, had I been an attorney I could have retired earlier, but probably not have had an opportunity to get into wrestling. I just sort of fell into it because of my close association with the coaches and the respect I had for them.

You probably wanted to take that same guidance to the next generation as well.

Yeah.

What subjects did you teach and at what level?

Well, when I first got out I went to East Liverpool and I taught physical education and health to junior high students. When I was at another place I was also coaching football and track. Then we changed positions and went to Cambridge, Ohio, and I taught college prep classes doing psychology and U. S. History, and coached football and track there, too. I was there about five years. My last couple of years there is when I started dabbling in wrestling on weekends and summer breaks until I had the opportunity to go into it full time.

I guess some of the psychology knowledge went into the wrestling business with you.

Oh, yeah. It was just an elective course. It was just an introductory course – I guess you would call it Psychology 101. Most of my students were college bound kids, so they had to take that. I enjoyed it because it gave me a good opportunity because I was the one to secure speakers from around the community to talk to them about their different careers, too.

I almost went into teaching myself, but I wound up going down a different path when it came time to make that decision.

Oh, I enjoyed it. It’s a lot different now than it was when I got into it. There are good days and bad days, but that goes along with anything in life.

Some of our readers may have already read the recent interview you did with the Mid-Atlantic Gateway, so rather than ask you to rehash that, I’d like to elaborate on some of the things I got from it if I may. You mentioned in that interview that you and a friend of yours met Geto Mongol when you attended some matches in Pennsylvania...

Yeah, at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

Was that a WWF card?

No, that was...

Pedro Martinez?

Yeah, Pedro Martinez. He originally had it, but when I went, Geto had purchased it from Bruno Sammartino. Pedro had sold out the interest to Bruno, and Pedro was basically up in the Buffalo and Rochester area.

Geto had sunk all his money into wrestling, and at that time they never ran wrestling in Pennsylvania during the summer because they had thought of it there as a winter sport. Well, he told me he couldn’t afford to stop running through the summer, so instead of running repeats of the television program, he ran house shows and ran new programs.

And he did well – so well that they impressed the people at the television station and got a new contract. There was a little bit of skullduggery there between the people who were selling it and trying to get it back.

I never got too involved in it, but I know that for a short period of time Geto was counting every penny that came in, and a couple years later sold it for double what he had in it. He paid himself for managing and another salary for wrestling, so he made out well. I think it ran year round after that.

Had you been a fan before making that trip to see those matches?

No, my grandmother was a fan – a big fan, but I think that was the first event I ever went to. I basically went down because my friend’s father was the wrestling commissioner and because it was the summer time I had nothing to do. My friend asked me if I wanted to go, and when we got there, we were bigger than most of the guys working there.

I guess they thought we were wrestlers, but we didn’t know what they were talking about. (Laughs) I thought I could do it the first time I saw it, but I also knew we’d have to be trained. Geto started talking to us and offered to train us, so it all started right there. He asked me if I had any interest in wrestling and I said, “yeah, but I don’t know how to wrestle.” At that point I was smart enough to know I didn’t know enough to be in the ring with those guys. (Laughs)

You trained with Geto for about nine months. What did that consist of?

It was pretty hard. At that time I was teaching in Cambridge, which was about an hour and a half from Pittsburgh. We’d meet up at his farm – he had about fifty or sixty acres at that time, and he had converted an old barn into a gym that was really nice. Everything inside was insulated and paneled, and he had a full size ring in there. He had weight stations and machines – I mean he was a fitness guru. He had a locker room and showers, too. He actually trained other people there years later.

We’d get there and start around six or seven. The first time – and I can remember it like it was yesterday – you know what a beal is, right?

I’ve heard the term, but don’t know for sure what it is.

Well, that’s when someone throws you into the ropes and they hook your arm and flip you over and you land on your back.

Okay.

Well, that’s a beal and assist because you’re helping by your momentum. My first practice session I had to stand in the center of the ring, hold my arms across my chest, tuck my chin to my chest and flip over. That’s me doing my own beal with no running or jumping, and I did 150 of them. The first four of five you land all kind of ways – and I was so doggone sore that the next day he said that’s all we needed to do. My friend did 150, and I did 150.

I’m telling you they had to scrape me out of the bed the next day. (Laughs) His purpose was if you were dumb enough and strong enough to do that – he was surprised I came back the next day. I told him I just figured that was part of it because I had been used to tough football practices, and running miles and miles of track. I figured it would go downhill from there.

The next day all we did was beals, hit the ropes and take a beal, take bumps out of the ring – and that’s all we did for about three or four days. The first three or four months all we did was take bumps. So we knew how to take these bumps before he even taught us holds and psychology of working them. Then we'd work matches – he did it really well. When I trained some guys at the other end of my career, I took that philosophy, too, because if you’re afraid to take the bump, you’re not going to worry about how to apply a hold properly.

His philosophy – I mean, he actually stated he didn’t think we’d be back after the first four or five sessions because he had worked our butts off. (Laughs) So he figured if we could get through that we might make it. He’d give us a hundred slams each – and if you took slams from guys who didn’t know what they were doing, more often than not you’d land wrong on your back. It was a good approach instead of working the other way where some people teach the holds before the bumps, and it becomes a waste of time when the kids don’t want to take bumps at all.

There’s a lot of guys who get into this business and they don’t mind running the ropes and learning the terminology, but the first day they take bumps you never hear from them again. I’m sure we weren’t the first guys he trained. We ran into many guys over the years who had also started training with him, but they didn’t last, but we weren’t the first guinea pigs. (Laughs)

Well, you made a good career out of it.

Yeah, I was fortunate.

Whatever happened to your friend that was with you during that time?

Well, after training with Geto he stayed home and wrestled in the Pittsburgh area. He was an Italian guy – and of course, with Bruno, Denucci and all those guys it was a big ethnic fan base – but he stayed there and he also kept teaching. At that time I wasn’t married so I was free to travel, but he was and had a small child so he wasn’t about to take trips like I was. He stayed in it about another ten years, but never strayed too far from the area – maybe Cleveland or something like that.

You told the Mid-Atlantic Gateway that you got your first real full time break in the business when Geto asked you to go to Japan with him for a tour that coincided with a summer break in 1974 from your teaching job. However, in 1973, you debuted in Georgia for Ann Gunkel’s All-South promotion with Geto.

Well, the years unfortunately begin to run together. (Laughs) It was really probably the other way around, with Japan being in the summer of 1973, because I do know that the first real break was going to Japan with him. That Japan tour was a great chance because I was able to start working with top guys basically because I was with him. When I talk to fans and guys such as yourself, they remember more than I do and they have to spur my memory. I was reading some of your stuff with guys like Jody and Bobby, and there was stuff mentioned by you and those guys that I couldn’t remember until I read that. It was real interesting.

Well, wrestling was never well documented and it’s the goal of myself and people such as the Gateway and Scott Teal among others who just want to get it all down so it’s not lost. And the reason we come to guys like you is so that we can get it down accurately.

There are a lot of great stories out there, and we’re lucky to have guys like you around.

Well, thank you. Let me ask you about the trip to Japan. Going on a major tour like that as your first full time gig had to be quite an education.

Well, I wrestled about say four or five months back before that. One night I’d be the babyface, and then the next night against the same guy I’d be the heel. They let me work singles with some experienced guys. I remember the first match I ever had by myself was with Larry Zbyszko, and he had trained with us, too. Geto was responsible for training him. Everybody wants to give credit for training him, but it was really Geto.

Oh, I didn’t know that.

Yeah, you should really talk to Larry about that some time. I remember going to the building and Geto told us to always bring our gear with us. He gave us some seats and we’re sitting up in the nosebleed section at the Civic Arena when all of a sudden I hear my name over the P. A. system.

Long story short – Eric the Red was supposed to wrestle Gorilla Monsoon. Well, Gorilla was coming in by plane from New York City, but his plane was delayed by snow so he called and told them he wasn’t going to make it.

They called me down to the locker room, and here I am standing beside Eric the Red and I’m going to be his opponent. He was going over his stuff – (Laughs) – and I remember Geto got on me after it. You know Eric had that accent and I couldn’t understand what he was saying. (Laughs) He’s telling me this spot and that spot, and I’m saying, “yes, sir, yes, sir”. (Laughs) He finally says, “you’re going to get DQ’d,” and walked away.

I must have had a puzzled look on my face because Geto walks over to me and wants to know what’s wrong. I told him, “nothing,” and I walked over to my friend Ron, and I said, “Ron, I know what an armdrag is, and I know what a hiptoss is, but I don’t know what a DQ is.” (Laughs) He didn’t know either so I figured I needed to ask someone else. (Laughs)

So I go back and asked Eric and he just kind of laughed at me and said, “don’t worry, I’ll get DQ’d.” (Laughs) That was my first real match with anybody who was a top star like that.

We were talking about Geto – I was teaching, and it was summer break – and he called me and wanted me to go over to Japan with him. He and Beppo were supposed to go over there for about eight weeks, but Beppo, or Nikolai Volkoff as he may be better known, had gotten hurt in Watts’ territory. So Geto called me, and since I was on a break I figured this may be my chance. So I drove to his house and his wife shaved my hair off except for a ponytail.

A few hours later I’m on a plane and he’s prepping me the whole way over. He’s telling me, “don’t let them do this, don’t let them do that,” and when I came off that plane I thought I was coming out of a tunnel at the Super Bowl. I beat the shit out of everybody for about a week. (Laughs) I remember one of Inoki’s guys came and sat next to me and said, “we like what you do – only one thing – loosen up.” (Laughs)

You were killing his talent.

Oh, I was killing everybody. (Laughs) They didn’t want me to come over and knock the heck out of them, but Geto had primed me about this. I had physically witnessed these guys.

The Japanese at that time, and I’m sure still do, look for the weak link and they just beat the crap out of that guy. And I knew I had the least amount of experience, but I didn’t want to be that guy. Stan Hansen and I laughed about it for years because no matter how many times I went over there I was still the stiffest guy on the tour, and he was stiffer than me usually. (Laughs) But that reputation paid big dividends because they would look for a weak link – some of those poor guys used to cry every night because they didn’t know why.

It was just a different mentality over there. That was my first trip to Japan, and when we came back the opportunity to keep working presented itself so I did. Soon after the IWA started up and we wound up working there. I just knew I didn’t want to be ten or twenty years down the road wondering what if – at least if I tried it and didn’t succeed I would have known for sure.

Let’s talk a bit about the All-South Wrestling Alliance run by Ann Gunkel. You and Geto were here from October 1973 through about July of 1974, and when you came in you were claiming a World Tag Team Title. Do you remember if that was a legitimate title you had won elsewhere and brought it with you or was it just a situation where you were billed as such upon arrival?

We had been working with Pedro before coming in and if I remember correctly we had his title with us at the time.

So that would have been an NWF title.

Yeah because we had been working Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Erie, Rochester and occasionally Toronto. You know I was reading in one of your articles about the split and All-South being an outlaw group. Hell, at the time, I didn’t know anything about that. All I knew was I had been booked to work and so we went. I didn’t have enough experience or maybe I was just naive about the business at the time that if someone was booking me, I was going to wrestle.

So you didn’t know you had entered a battlefield.

(Laughs) It was funny reading that because I forgot we were taping television in back to back hours in the same dressing room, and Bobby said there was no animosity, which there wasn’t because we all saw each other and were pretty cordial. But you’d hear the stories about the promoters and bookers at each other’s throats, and I thought that was pretty silly because it all worked out well for everyone.

Atlanta was probably the hottest town in the world at that time. On a Tuesday night we’d be at the City Auditorium and be sold out, and they’d come in on Friday and sell it out. The only place you could really do that back then was maybe Tokyo.

That’s the aspect of today’s business that amazes me. Everybody talks about the money being so much more today, but when you do the math with about thirty territories around North America running a show every night of the week, and in most cases two or three shows a night, the revenue had to be so much higher back then, as opposed to the one or two shows per night the WWE does. The ticket prices may be the only real difference.

Exactly. In one territory – when I was working in Charlotte, we would run four cards a night with about four or five matches in each town. We did two or three here in Georgia with five matches on the cards. I think you’re absolutely right. I don’t think there’s any difference in how many butts make it into the seats, but it’s how much they’re charging.

You and Geto got into a program when you first came into All-South with Charlie Cook and Ray Candy. What do you recall about those two guys?

I remember that both of them were very good guys. Actually, I don’t even know if Charlie’s still alive.

Yeah, last I heard I believe he is living in Florida. I could be wrong on that, but I know he’s still alive.

The thing I remember most about him was that he was real athletic.

Yeah, he was a football player.

I believe at one time or another he had a tryout with the Steelers, which I liked being from the area. (Laughs) And I always got along with Ray. We ran into each other all the time over the years. He and I even worked together over in Japan. Every time I saw Ray he had a smile on his face. They were both really nice guys.

Ray was pretty much an All-South creation.

Yeah. I remembered that when I was reading some of your stuff, but I believe he was working at the airport and not the sanitation department, but I could have my stories mixed up. I bumped into Ray throughout our careers and from time to time right up until he died.

You talked about the bookers and promoters having the real war due to the split here, and there were a few jabs thrown around because of Ray. Another guy who was more or less a blatant jab was Gorilla Watts.

Oh, yeah, they called him Sweet Daddy, too, didn’t they?

Yes, I believe at some point.

I’m not even sure where he came from. It was obviously just to make fun at Bill’s expense. He was a very nice guy. If you remember where the ring was in the City Auditorium – he’d be blown up before he even got to it. (Laughs) He’d be huffing and puffing and if his tongue were any longer he would have tripped over it. (Laughs) You know the fans liked him, and I think they realized it was a jab at Watts, but they all had fun with it.

If I remember correctly, the program they used him in was with Ox Baker. Ox wasn’t a great worker either, but he was a great promo guy. I think he lost a ton of matches to Gorilla Watts just to keep the program running, but that would keep Ox on the stick.

I don’t know how long it lasted – maybe a dozen matches or so. Where that guy came from or went to I have no idea. I never saw the guy again to be honest with you.

And I have never found his name under that gimmick elsewhere in any research. Where did you guys go from there – the IWA?

Well, we were actually already working with the IWA when All-South closed. We were actually only coming into Georgia on the weekends by that time. I remember we’d come in and make some Friday night shots, do some TV, and usually if we didn’t leave on Sunday night, we’d leave on Monday after Augusta or something like that. Then occasionally we’d come down for a whole week at a time, but mostly it was just the weekends.

Let me ask you a bit about the IWA because I’ve never really studied that promotion, although it intrigues me very much. I know Eddie Einhorn ran it, and he’s the moneyman in Chicago who owns the White Sox and the Bulls, among other things. Where all did the IWA run shows?

I don’t know if you remember an old television network that was called TSV or something like that – well it’s now known as ESPN. Einhorn owned that, and he was a big wrestling fan. He used to attend matches at the Garden and stuff like that. He had envisioned going nationwide, and what he was going to do was take individuals who wanted to take that chance – because of course, afterwards it might be difficult to find work, and people were afraid of being blackballed.

He was going to take those thirty or forty guys who took that first step and set up a pension plan. We had representatives there from Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association and show how it was done in their leagues to set up retirement plans for players. Say for example, for me having grown up in Pittsburgh, they’d make it a point to run there, as well as a few spot shows in that area – and working your hometown would be your extra funds toward your retirement. They were going to have matching dues for all of us. It was a really good idea.

For some reason, even though I was one of the younger guys, I was on the committee. We had a lot of older guys and myself. The main problem was there were a few people – and that’s the way it always seems to be – who had their hands in someone else’s pocket.

Now he had set aside $1,000,000 for this promotion, and they went through about two thirds of that in the first year. I’m not really sure about the numbers, but one that seems to stick in my head is that we only had about half of the receipts for that money. It’s not that he disliked the business, but I think he was smart enough to realize he had lost as much as he was willing to lose. There were a couple of times he came back and tried later.

There were a couple of sharks there – Pedro was one of them, who had his hand in the cookie jar. I’m sure they were trying to pass some of those receipts off like the government and the $600 toilet seats. (Laughs) The concept was good, the treatment of the guys was good – we had signed a contract for a year even though we only worked nine months or so. We worked fifteen days a month and our transportation and food was paid for. Whether we worked three days or fifteen, we got paid for fifteen.

He was basically trying to do what Vince has done, and there was a lot of animosity with people calling the office and making threats. Here again, I hadn’t been in the business long, so I didn’t know what was going on. These guys would be calling in these threats and I was thinking it couldn’t be real. I was never concerned about it, but years later I heard people calling it an outlaw group.

Hell, in my first few years I never worked for a regular group, but I didn’t know it at the time. (Laughs) To me, the NWA was just initials – I had never worked for any of their territories. I just knew whoever was paying me to work and help me feed my family was who I was going to be loyal to.

After your IWA run was when you and Geto went into the Mid-Atlantic territory, which was a great run of about nine months.

Yeah, the Carolinas were really the core area of the IWA. Greensboro and Charlotte were hotbeds for (Jim) Crockett, but they couldn’t draw a penny in Winston-Salem, and ironically that was the best place for the IWA at the time, so that’s where we placed our focus. There again we’re getting these threats that these guys are going to do this and that, I’m thinking, “damn, wrestling is wrestling.” (Laughs)

Well, when it came time to leave the IWA, George Scott contacted Geto and I about coming in, and it was just a natural because we were the champions. So they worked us into a program with Gene and Ole Anderson. Like you say we were there for quite some time.

During that period of time, I really got to know George and we hit it off really well. He had this idea to make me a masked man at the end of the Mongols run. I told him I was loyal to my partner since he had broken me in, but Geto was very gracious, and he had been away from home for well over a year by that time. He didn’t want to stay any longer, and between being away from home for so long and making those long trips in the Charlotte territory, he was ready to go home.

We were putting in three hundred miles a night on most nights. He had gotten used to being at home two weeks every month during the IWA run, and on top of that, he had been running his own promotion up there before we went to the IWA. So he told me if I wanted to try it and stay, I should go ahead, but he was going home. Well, George came up with the Superstar gimmick.

Yeah, I wanted to ask you who came up with the name, and developed the character?

To be honest with you, I think we just bantered back and forth different names and that one just kind of stuck, but I don’t really remember which one of us came up with it.

Who designed your first masks?

Originally my wife’s grandmother made those for me until she died, but I had some made in Japan and Mexico. At one time I had well over a thousand, and in every color you could have. I used to keep ten or fifteen with me at all times in different colors. She made my capes and ring jackets for me. She died when she was 91, so the last ten years or so she didn’t have to do any.

When you and Geto had the conversation about staying in Charlotte, that would really be your first chance to try the business on your own. How confident were you by that time that you would be able to pull it off successfully?

I thought I could do it. This is not bragging, but at no time in my career, and even now – if I’m going to try to do something and I feel I can get myself the knowledge and the information I need, I can be successful. I never hesitated. Even when I do something new now, I don’t ignorantly do it – I’ll research it. If I don’t feel comfortable doing something, I won’t do it. I don’t think that ever entered my mind to be honest with you.

You talked to the Mid-Atlantic Gateway about the differences between Bolo Mongol and the Masked Superstar, and I’d like to see if you could elaborate more on what went into making those changes happen practically overnight.

All they wanted us to do as the Mongols was beat people up. They saw these two big guys with shaved heads and fu manchu’s, looking like monsters, they didn’t expect us to be tacticians. At that time we didn’t even do interviews. George Cannon had been our manager and did all the interviews for us.

You credit Boris Malenko with training you to make that change in style about a month before the Superstar made his debut.

The last month or so we met every Monday in Charlotte or Greenville. They had wrestling there Monday, so the ring was always set up and we’d go down there. Boris worked with me to change my whole approach. You know, as the Mongols, all we were supposed to do was punish people. He said, “we’re going to make you a wrestler.”

We went over moves, and it was basically a refresher course of what Geto had taught me early on, but I hadn’t had to do working the Mongol gimmick. It was a combination of Boris helping me, plus what Geto had instilled in me when I was first training with him. The first few sessions with Boris was going over holds...

More fundamental wrestling tactics...

Yes, bringing back things that were in the memory bank, but things I hadn’t needed.

Since you literally became the Superstar overnight, having worked as Bolo the night before Superstar debuted, do you think, or did you notice, if any fans seemed to have noticed it was the same guy?

Nobody knew. I even had to change vehicles. I had a Ford LTD that I had been driving, so after the change was made, I started leaving it at home. I had gone out and bought a brand new van when the decision was made to start the Superstar character, and I didn’t drive it until the first night as the Superstar.

On Sunday night I drove the LTD to Greensboro and had the hair match. On Monday, I drove to Greenville in the green van. (Laughs) There are people that come up to me now and say they never realized it was the same person.

That’s impressive.

Well, actually it was two different people in a way. I mean, you’ve got a monster who doesn’t talk at all and the other talks and wrestles.

Speaking of interviews, George Cannon had always done the talking for you, and now although Boris Malenko spoke for you some of the time, you were now able to speak up. What was that like for you?

Well, it wasn’t a big deal because I had been a teacher. I used to hear guys talking about freezing up when that red light went on, and I can remember some of the guys doing that. They would change and turn into a different person, as if that light made a big difference. All you’re supposed to do is relay your stories.

I never got nervous because I was used to speaking to a crowd, whether it was teaching a classroom, or coaching, or whatever, it never entered my mind to get nervous. I never had a problem in high school or college doing public speaking either. I knew people who would dread that, but I always figured if you mess up, you correct it and move on. If you’re a heel and mess up you can deny it. If you’re a babyface and you mess up, you can have a little fun with it. All you had to do was focus on what you had to say, and if you slipped up and there was a pause, that’s what the interviewer is there for – to pick up the slack.

Continued

FEATURES: CONVERSATIONS - BILL EADIE

WRITERS

This interview was conducted by Rich Tate in December 2003.

Bill Eadie has been gracious enough to not only grant us this interview, but has also joined our message board to interact with fans who want to know more about his career. That career began in 1973, when he replaced Bepo Mongol as Geto Mongol’s partner on a trip to Japan. Afterwards, he continued the role until a run in the Mid-Atlantic territory came to an end in 1976, and he assumed the Masked Superstar gimmick. He would continue on in that persona until becoming part of the Machines and Demolition in the World Wrestling Federation. Bill had recently participated in an interview for the Mid-Atlantic Gateway prior to this, and this interview elaborates on some of the information provided there.