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http://kayfabememories.com/Stories/mickkarch/mk13.htm

This year's visit to Cauliflower Alley Club was exceptional. Besides
meeting several new people with whom I had corresponded over the last
year, the rekindled memories were wonderful. Perhaps what was most
enjoyable to me was the chance to see the threesome of Larry Hennig,
Harley Race and Chris Markoff all together again in the same room.

I didn't ask, but I can only imagine how many years it has been since
these gentlemen were all together at one location. In the mid-1960's,
my teenage years were spent enthralled with the AWA's storyline of The
Crusher, with various partners, taking on the dreaded trio that
Crusher referred to as "The Dolly Sisters." Larry "Pretty
Boy" Hennig
was "Gertrude;" "Handsome" Harley Race was
"Sylvia;" and Chris Markoff
was "Sweet Lips Christine." Aside from Verne Gagne's pursuit of Mad
Dog Vachon, the feud between Crusher and "The Dolly Sisters" was the
main thrust of mid-60's AWA wrestling.

Harley had been advertised to appear this year in Vegas, but because
you never know for sure who's going to be at CAC, it was a great
surprise to see Hennig and Markoff there as well. I have had the
pleasure of interviewing Larry for my Twin Cities TV shows every now
and then. I also worked extensively with Markoff in the mid-to-late
80's both in the Twin Cities and up into Canada. But it was Race with
whom I had the opportunity to sit down and share a unique and rather
scary memory.

Back in 1965, there was a restaurant/bar called "The Chestnut Tree,"
located a couple blocks from the Minneapolis Auditorium, where the AWA
ran their house shows. It was a hangout for the boys after the
matches.

The place has long since been torn down and the area itself bears no
resemblance to what it did back then. But Harley knew very well what I
was going to talk about when I brought up the subject of that infamous
establishment.

As the story goes, Harley was a patron at the restaurant one evening
when he heard a commotion between two men and a woman. Apparently, the
men were becoming verbally, if not physically, abusive. Harley
interjected himself into the dispute and knocked out one of the men
with one punch. The other man, unfortunately, was armed. He stabbed
Harley in the back with a knife, near the shoulder blade. While the
AWA suggested that the knife came within a couple inches of Harley's
heart, I'm not certain the full story ever came out.

I do remember just two days later I was hanging out at the Dyckman
Hotel in downtown Minneapolis where the AWA offices were housed. As I
was sitting in the lobby, waiting for the wrestlers to come in so I
could get their autographs, in walked Harley Race. I was stunned that
a man who had been stabbed in the back was up and around less than 48
hours later. Harley Race, to me, was super human.

It's interesting to note that when you hear all that Harley has been
through over the years, everything from car accidents to boating
mishaps, to that horrible bump through the table he took in the WWF
several years ago which necessitated putting metal screening in his
abdomen, one thing is very clear:  He may be older and he may have put
on some pounds around the middle. But in the annals of professional
wrestling, "Handsome Harley Race" just may be the REAL "toughest
S.O.B." of 'em all.


--- Internet Rex 2.29