In this ongoing featurette of "Mephisto's Musings", Frank shares his memories of the people he met and knew in the wrestling business.
Jan Madrid
We got in a fight in the dressing room one night. There was a lot of scraps in the dressing room in those days. Ike Eakins had his bag laying open and, when we started fightin', Jan's stompin' all over Ike's robe. (laughs) Ike was trying to get his robe and tights out of the bag. (laughs) That was kind of funny. I hit Madrid in the nose and it started bleeding. I was really just slappin' at him, but I felt bad after I hit him in the nose. Well, they called us to go to work in the ring, so I helped him over the sink, trying to help him wipe the blood off his nose so we could go out and work. It was just one of those things. We were just young kids. It was an argument about who was gonna go over ... kid's stuff. Jan was a good guy. We were in West Virginia together and wound up good friends. It was just one of those things.
Tommy O'Toole
There was a lot of scraps in the dressing room back in them days. We were walkin' around mad half the time, because the promoters were starvin' us. Six guys riding for hours in a car, tempers were short ... guys used to get out of the car and fight. Tommy O'Toole and another guy got out of the car one time. We were stopped next to a corn field. When they cut the corn, it left stobs. It was freezing that night and those stobs had frozen. Those two guys got out in that damn field and rolled around on those stobs, beating the hell out of each other. You should have seen them when they came out of that field. Corn stobs stuck in their legs, their back. They were in terrible shape! Johnny Heideman knows this story. He was there.
Prince Omar
Oh, Lord! Little Prince Omar. Prince would drive a little car to a town, then he'd hide it so he didn't have to drive it anymore, then he'd ride with the other guys. One time, we were stayin' at the Mecklinburg Hotel in Charlotte and it caught on fire. The fire alarm went off. I was runnin' down the steps and someone started pushing me in the back. (laughs) It was Omar. (laughs) He pushed me and I fell down the damn steps. (laughs) He had all of his earthly possessions under his arm ... two bags. (laughs) I look up and there he goes, runnin' down the hall, carryin' them two bags.
Hiro Matsuda
I hated to hear about (Hiro) Matsuda. That's a guy who was a wasted talent. He was a hell of a worker and a handsome guy. He hung around Florida and bought into the office with Duke (Keomuka). He went to Japan once in awhile, but I think he would have been a star worldwide if he'd have got out and really pushed himself.
The Brute
Brute Bernard (pause) ... oh, no! That was Brute Bemis. That was Mr. Kleen. He was a funny guy. He shaved his head and went in Crockett's office one time. He said, "Mr. Crockett. I want to talk to you about a gimmick." Jim says, "What is it?" He says, "I've got four children. I'm gonna shave their heads, my wife is gonna shave her head, and we're gonna walk through the streets downtown. It'll bring a lot of attention. People will say, ‘There goes the Brutes.'" That's the God's honest truth. (laughs) He wore a stocking cap and looked just like a cartoon character ... the way he walked.
At the time, TV wasn't in all the towns, so Brute used to ride with us heels. We come up on the outskirts of a town and we'd say, "Brute, put your hat on, because TV comes in here and we don't want people to recognize you riding with us." He'd put the hat on. The next small town we came to, "Brute, take that hat off." We did that all night long. "Put it on ... take it off ... put it on ... take it off." Later on, he started working as Mr. Kleen. The Mr. Clean commercial was real popular then. He wore the long white pants and an earring.
