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http://www.charleston.net/stories/011104/moo_11wrestle.shtml

10:20 a.m. Sunday, January 11, 2004 
 
Anderson one tough grappler who wore many hats in career 

BY MIKE MOONEYHAM 
Of The Post and Courier Staff 

First of a two-part series

Ole Anderson's not out to win any popularity contests. He's
opinionated, abrasive and contentious.

And those are his good qualities.

But they're ideal for someone who's writing a book about professional
wrestling.

His new page-turner, "Inside Out: How Corporate America Destroyed
Professional Wrestling," shows what a cutthroat business the industry
can be. It also shows that you have to possess a mighty strong
constitution to survive in it.

Not only did Anderson survive, he was a major power broker who
successfully wore many hats during a 30-year career in the business.

There aren't many who would dispute the fact that the burly Minnesotan
was one of the toughest grapplers to ever come down the pike. As part
of the famed Minnesota Wrecking Crew with "brothers" Lars and Gene, he
helped re-write the book on tag-team wrestling. Just as importantly,
he helped shape the business as booker during key periods in wrestling
history, overseeing the offices in Charlotte (Jim Crockett
Promotions), Atlanta (Georgia Championship Wrestling) and later for
the Ted Turner-owned World Championship Wrestling.

By the early '90s, however, it was clear to Anderson that the business
-- or at least the business as he had known it -- had passed him by.
Like Verne Gagne, Bill Watts and other "old-school" traditionalists,
Anderson could not accept the fact that professional wrestling had
gone the way of modern-day sports entertainment.

Years after his retirement, Anderson remains an intriguing, almost
mythical, figure in the wrestling business.

Some see him as a stubborn, embittered old-timer who has a myopic,
outdated view of the profession.

Others see him as a throwback and symbol of what tough guys were like
"back in the day."

Ole Anderson was, however, an unorthodox but savvy booker and
businessman who stood up to the establishment and waged his biggest
battles not inside the ring, but rather in the halls and offices of
corporate giants such as TBS, and with the likes of Vince McMahon, Jim
Barnett, Eric Bischoff, Jim Herd and Bill Shaw.

"The wrestling matches may have been staged and scripted, but there
was nothing 'fake' about the corporate and legal battles," says
Anderson.

Anderson admittedly was one of the last defenders of the legitimacy of
the business. During his ring career, he approached every match as if
it were a shoot (a real contest), worked tight with his opponents and
went to great lengths to make everything look believable.

That facade, however, officially came down when WWF owner Vince
McMahon made the once unthinkable admission that wrestling was fake so
he could get his company exempted from a 10 percent tax on tickets
sold to legitimate sporting events. Fifteen years later, Anderson
still has a hard time "breaking kayfabe," divulging inside information
about the business.

"It took me a long time to come to grips with that," says Anderson. "I
told the Turner people back in '90 or '91 that I was of the opinion
that the suspension of disbelief was so important that it was
necessary to maintain that. I would be more than willing to bet you
that I could get in the ring with somebody and convince you after 10
minutes that what you had just seen was a shoot."

Anderson, who began his career in 1967 under his real name, Al "Rock"
Rogowski, makes no apologies for his obstinate disposition. In fact,
there's little difference between the Ole Anderson fans despised in
the ring for so many years, and the Ole Anderson outside the business.
Like so many others from his era, he lived his gimmick. And, love him
or hate him, he still has that intangible quality that separates the
men from the boys in the wrestling business: He can evoke emotion at
the drop of a hat.

The 381-page autobiography steps on a lot of toes, but Anderson spent
an entire career doing just that.

"Seems to me 2,000 years ago there was a pretty nice guy who was
crucified, and he tried to get along with everybody, so you just can't
please everyone," Anderson notes wryly. He'll also be the first to
tell you that he wasn't in the business to make friends or cultivate
legions of fans. He was in the business to draw money, pure and
simple, and everything else took a back seat.

Including winning the world heavyweight title.

Working for the owner of the territory, Anderson wielded considerable
power as booker, hiring and firing wrestlers, planning the matches and
television programs, and deciding who was going to win or lose.

"If I had realized that you people would be so damned stupid as to
give the world champion $750,000, I would have made myself the
champion," Anderson once told executives at WCW and TBS.

"Ric Flair talked to me before they (WCW) offered him all that money
back in 1989 or '90, and asked me what I thought about it," says
Anderson, an original member of the legendary Four Horsemen along with
Flair, Arn Anderson (Marty Lunde) and Tully Blanchard. "I told him
that they had to be crazy. The people running the company didn't have
a clue about what to do. I got Vader (Leon White) a (three-year)
contract for $2.2 million. He had been wrestling for me for 600 bucks,
and was happy with it. How stupid was that?

"I got Marc Mero a contract for $50,000 that he was overjoyed to get
because the most he had ever made in his life was $17,000 a year, and
the office calls me later that afternoon, and offers him $275,000 plus
a $75,000 clothing allowance, with all his travel expenses taken care
of. These guys would have worked for far less, and did work for far
less at one point, and it was only our (WCW) own stupidity that we
drove these salaries out of sight. I didn't have anybody making a
million dollars like Vince did, but they were all making reasonable
amounts of money."

What you see is what you get with Ole Anderson. Never one to mince
words, his argumentative, confrontational personality has left a sour
taste in the mouths of some who have taken a different approach to the
business. Case in point: a recent radio appearance by Anderson to plug
his book created a furor when the grappler engaged in a heated
discussion with host Dave Meltzer on the Wrestling Observer Live show.

"Inside Out" contains some great stories in which Anderson "tells it
like it is," but could have benefited from more of his personal
dealings outside the business. He doesn't discuss his 23-year marriage
that produced seven children (four sons, three daughters, ranging in
age from 21 to 33) but ended in divorce, nor more recent
relationships, including one with former WCW executive Sharon Sidello.
He's reluctant to show the reader anything but his gruff exterior, but
he jokes that there's a reason for that. He doesn't have a kinder and
gentler side, and isn't fond of warm and fuzzy stories.

Anderson says he intentionally left out any highly personal tales that
might adversely affect other wrestlers. "We had to leave some of that
stuff out. If it in any way infringed upon a person's family life,
then I took it out. If I called someone a jerk, that's OK, because
they were."

"I guess anybody on the outside can look at me and say, you tired,
61-year-old, miserable (so-and-so)," he says. "You're mad because
you're not taking bumps. You're mad because you weren't world
champion. You're mad because Ric is a star. No. I'm happy because, at
the age of 40, I could tell everyone to go to hell, and have enough
money to live on. That's what makes me happy."

Life, says Anderson, is what you make it. And right now he has no
complaints. As he looks out from the second-floor keeping room of his
nearly 9,000-square-foot home in Toccoa, Ga., directly across the
South Carolina border, he sees 2,000 feet of shoreline, a portion of
the 14 acres that he owns on Lake Hartwell, with a couple of mountains
completing a beautiful picture in the distance.

"I love where I'm at right now. I love it. I really love it."

One of the highest-paid personalities in the business during the '70s,
he first retired from the game in 1979, and hasn't had a job where he
had to make money since 1994. Only a few months away from Social
Security eligibility, he insists he has more money than he needs. You
won't find any signs of past glory in his spacious home -- there are
no pictures, no belts, no posters, no clippings. "There's nothing in
my room, here or anywhere else. I could care less if anybody remembers
me," he rattles in typical Ole fashion. "I mean, it's true. All I
wanted to do is make money. I had the side benefit of being in a job
where I made a lot of money and I loved it."

A typical day now consists of working out every morning at the gym,
reading and sometimes a little shopping or having an occasional lunch
with his girlfriend, 17 years his junior, or one of his sons who live
nearby. He once owned a sawmill in Wisconsin, and still likes working
with his hands. He has a workshop in his 3,000-square-foot basement
where he makes tables, bookcases and does refinishing. He watches
little television, with the exception of the Fox network in the
morning and an occasional episode of "Seinfeld." He says he never gets
bored.

Anderson, who's down to 225 pounds from his peak weight of 280 and
stands a shade under six feet tall, feels the effects of his former
career every day. He needs shoulder replacements, knee replacements
and neck surgery, but he's living with the pain for now. He fell off
his roof last June, broke his hip and had to have it replaced. His
knees and shoulders have affected his ability to move around, but it
could always be worse, he says.

"The person with no shoes thinks he has it bad until he meets the guy
with no feet. That makes me a lucky guy."

Ole Anderson wrote the self-published "Inside Out" along with Whatever
Happened To ...? magazine editor Scott Teal. The book can be ordered
for $19.95 (plus $3.85 postage) through Teal at P.O. Box 2781,
Hendersonville, Tenn. 37075, or go to the Web site at
www.1wrestlinglegends.com.

NEXT WEEK: Ole Anderson describes what it was like to be part of one
of pro wrestling's greatest tag teams.


--- Internet Rex 2.29