Sunday, April 13, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Scripted Scarring

Retired pro wrestlers bristle at suggestions their feats were faked

Former professional wrestler Dick Beyer checks the spelling of the name of a fan as he autographs pictures at the Cauliflower Alley Club convention at the Plaza Hotel earlier this month. Photo by Jeff Scheid. Retired wrestler Nick Bockwinkel holds a championship belt earned during a career that spanned three decades. The profession has left the 68-year-old Las Vegan with bad knees, a bad back and a grossly inflamed ankle. But, like his peers, Bockwinkel wouldn't hesitate to do it all over again. Photo by Gary Thompson. About 700 former wrestlers attended the Cauliflower Alley Club's convention in Las Vegas earlier this month. The club's roots date to the 1960s. Photo by Jeff Scheid. Photos of professional wrestlers are displayed at the Cauliflower Alley Club's annual convention in Las Vegas. The top photo shows Harley Race, top left, and Nick Bockwinkel of Las Vegas posing with a female wrestler. Photo by Jeff Scheid. Former professional wrestlers Bobby "The Brain" Heenan and Leon "Vader" White greet at the Cauliflower Alley Club's wrestling convention on April 4 in Las Vegas. Photo by Jeff Scheid.

Whenever Nick Bockwinkel meets someone who calls pro wrestling fake, the stocky 68-year-old Las Vegan has a favorite retort.

"I'd love to give you a phony body slam," the retired wrestler says. "Would you like to come forward for a free body slam?"

People usually decline.

Bockwinkel, whose career spanned three decades, knows all too well what it feels like. His 235-pound frame crashed to the mat thousands of times courtesy of an opponent's slam. The bouts were scripted, but the punishment was real.

"If the space between my shoulder blades could talk to me," he said recently, "it would slap me and say, `You dumb ass, why did you do that to me?' It would read me the riot act."

Meeting pro wrestling legends like Bockwinkel, and watching how they the move now -- or rather, how much effort it takes for them to move at all -- will enlighten anyone who ever doubted the risks the showmen took while entertaining their legions of fans.

Far removed from the bright lights, television cameras and adoring crowds, many grapplers walked with a limp as they gathered earlier this month at the annual Cauliflower Alley Club convention in Las Vegas. The club began in Los Angeles in the 1960s and one of the regulars actually trademarked his cauliflower ear.

As they reminisced at the Plaza Hotel, some of the old-timers were hobbled and hunch-backed. Others used canes or a walker to get around. A few relied on wheelchairs. Besides pointing the finger at Father Time, there are plenty of other culprits for the ailments. Piledrivers. Suplexes. Flying knee drops. Tackles. Clothelines to the neck. Or a slam of the head into a steel turnpost or table.

Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, a retired pro wrestler and promoter who was best known for his witty insults, recalled one of his matches in 1983.

"I got hurt," said Heenan of Beverly Hills, Calif. "I broke my neck. No one meant to do it. It's just that accidents happen."

Tiger Conway Sr., a former pro champ popular in the Houston area, once hurt his knee while wrestling in the 1960s. He tried to hide the injury from his muscle-bound opponent. His adversary continued to pummel and kick the leg.

Conway said he left the ring that night with a broken kneecap and torn cartilage. The revolutionary knee surgeries that exist today were not around then. Conway never had knee surgery and wrestled on the bum joint for seven more years.

An affable man who smiles easily, Conway now requires a cane to walk. His right leg is crooked. He shows no ill feelings as he looks across the room at a husky man in a wheelchair, pointing momentarily at Maurice "Mad Dog" Vachon, who lost part of his right leg after being struck by a hit-and-run driver.

"He's the one who did it: Mad Dog," Conway says. "He's the one who broke my leg."

Rest might have helped Conway's recovery. But it is a luxury few professional wrestlers had decades ago. Many big-name wrestlers were expected to compete up to six bouts per week, and were on the road most of the year.

When he started wrestling in 1947, Walter "Killer" Kowalski made about $50 entertaining crowds two nights a week, good money back then.

Then a 20-year-old college student, Kowalski anticipated the money would help pay for his education. Not long afterward, he quit his job in the electrical department at Ford Motor Co. in Detroit. It had paid him $55 for five days work.

Then, the 6-foot-7 specimen, who would grow to 275 pounds, quit college, too.

"I said, `I don't need an education for this (wrestling),' " said Kowalski, who earned his nickname after one of his kneedrops ripped off part of an opponent's ear. Horrified fans gave the moniker to him.

Kowalski, who now operates a wrestling school near Boston, went on to stardom and traveled the world, wrestling in Africa, Australia and Japan.

He remembers one match against 300-plus pounder Don Leo Jonathan, aka "The Mormon Giant," in which he suffered a dislocated hip. A chiropractor popped it back into shape.

Kowalski sucked it up and carried on. He would do the same on another occasion after dislocating his knee, as Conway had.

Such acts of toughness help explain why pro wrestlers are so offended when people attack the credibility of their craft.

Most retired stars agree that today's version of pro wrestling -- with more high-flying antics, more agile 350-pounders in the ring and more chairs being smashed upside heads -- has evolved into a virtual extreme sport. The moves have been ratcheted up in response to fan demand for spectacle.

Which means today's pro wrestling stars, in a few decades, may be a lot worse off than a lot of yesterday's legends are, despite considerable medical breakthroughs.

For Bockwinkel, the profession has left him with bad knees, a bad back and a grossly inflamed ankle that grinds bone on bone. But, like his peers, Bockwinkel wouldn't hesitate to do it all over again.

"I'd rush to go press that button," he said.