I read Lou Thesz’ book again and I’m starting to admire it more and more. I can see what he went through. By the time he got ripe, the business had changed so much. It was like he was stuck on a little island by himself, so he said, "I’m king of this island and I’ll drift to every continent." There were times he had to get off the island and let somebody else get on, but they always made him jump back on it ... and he’s still floating on it. There’s more weeds and the trees are bare, but the island is still afloat.
I like the way Thesz says in his book about (Buddy) Rogers being a performer. I think it was like the old hooker passing on the baton to whatever was clicking next, and Rogers was the one clicking as a performer. I used to watch all the matches from the time I was five years old. Nine years later, I was fourteen and had seen hundreds of matches. Along comes Buddy Rogers ... and I’m excited! "Hey, this is something different!" Now the baton gets passed to the acrobats.
Thesz was going to wrestle on TV once in Florida. He had a big tape recorder. He said, "Dick, can you do me a favor?" I said, "What?" He says, "There’s a guy writing a book on my life, so I ask people of your intelligence ..." I guess he told that to everybody, "to tell your favorite story of when we were together." Of course, I told about the time my dad whispered in my ear to "go behind him." I went on to say, "But I’d like to say one thing about Lou Thesz, and it happens in every territory that I go to. All the boys get excited about who’s going to wrestle with him, because they want to have that distinction of saying, ‘So-and-so promoter allowed me to wrestle Thesz’. Every night was like going to a western movie. You know going in that some young punk is going to try the seasoned gunslinger, and the gunslinger is going to wind up with another notch on his gun." I went on to say, "Now Thesz is in Florida and I want to try him, but I know I’ll wind up as just another notch on his gun."
One of the boys who worked for WCW came to the matches in Cordele, Georgia last year. He stood and watched while Mae Young got on the top rope and did a swan dive onto her opponent ... and she’s 72 years old. He ran back in the dressing room and told the boys, "I can’t wait to get back to the WCW and tell them I saw a 72-year-old woman dive off the top rope!"
Tom Renesto told me a funny story one time. He and Jody were in Atlanta and they were gonna be off for six weeks. Tom's father was retired from the Sheriff's Department in Los Angeles. He was going to go out there. The promoter in Arizona was Ernie Mohammed and he was like an outlaw-outlaw-outlaw. He found out the Assassins were gonna take off for six weeks, so he called them up and says, "How about working for me?" Tom says, "Let me get with Jody and we'll talk." Jody and Tom got together and Tom says, "Look, we don't want to work for the guy. We'll ask for an astronomical guarantee and he'll turn us down." He called the guy and the guy says, "I'll pay it." So they had to go to work for him. He said it was luxury. They'd lay out at the pool and work three days a week. He'd go to Los Angeles and brought his family with him.
I have a picture of Tony Martinelli on the wall of my gym wearing a velvet robe. I was in the dressing room in Jamaica Arena when I was fourteen. I can't remember who was running the show, but my dad was there to help. Tony was wearing that robe and it had an ‘M' on it. His wife had stitched it on with her sewing machine. In those days, all the guys went to the ring wearing black trunks. They might have a towel around their neck, or a long, boxing robe. My dad walks up to Tony and says, "Why are you wearing that?" Tony says, "My wife embroidered this." My dad said, "Take it off and don't wear it in the ring." He says, "Why?" Dad says, "We're not selling your wife's embroidery. We're selling your wrestling." Which meant, if he had walked to the ring, everyone would says, "Hey, look at him." It would take away from the wrestling. That was the mentality of the older wrestlers.
