Dark Side of the Ring Season 5 Episode 4
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 - Listen to the ovation for Brutus the Barber.
00:09 - Fan favorite Brutus the Barber Beefcake
00:11 helped define the golden age of the WWF
00:14 with his larger than life persona.
00:16 - The blades are part of me.
00:19 - Brutus is known for cutting and strutting.
00:21 - He was very popular, very charismatic.
00:25 - But backstage, Brutus had to fight for respect
00:28 due to a lifelong friendship with the industry's
00:30 biggest star.
00:31 - Whoever Hulk Hogan goes, Brutus the Barber Beefcake goes.
00:35 - The number one Hulk-o-maniac ever.
00:37 - Hulk took him under his wing like a little brother.
00:39 - They were best friends.
00:41 So why would you not wanna help somebody
00:42 that helped you so much?
00:44 - Everything I was getting is because I worked my ass off.
00:48 - While at the top of his career,
00:50 a devastating accident leaves Brutus shattered.
00:54 - This was one of the most traumatizing moments
00:56 that I'd have ever witnessed.
00:57 - His face is totally smashed.
01:00 - And I'm telling everybody, my face is falling off.
01:03 - I never thought he'd recover.
01:05 - He almost died.
01:06 - Hulk just says, "You're gonna live, you son of a bitch.
01:09 You're gonna get better."
01:11 - Leading to a reversal in fortunes.
01:14 - He had everything and then nothing.
01:17 - And a falling out with the friend
01:20 who had carried him to the top.
01:22 - Hogan is a class act.
01:24 And if you are loyal to Terry, Terry is loyal to you.
01:28 But don't ever betray him.
01:30 - In 1984, Vince McMahon's WWF was transforming
01:47 the wrestling business into pure spectacle.
01:50 And Ed Leslie, a young wrestler from Florida,
01:54 soon became one of the era's most memorable characters.
01:58 - I love Brutus.
01:59 Sort of a whole lot of others.
02:01 - The fans like to be entertained.
02:04 And let me tell you something,
02:06 this Brutus character was entertaining the hell out of them.
02:11 I'm Brutus, the Barber of Beefcake, WWE Hall of Famer.
02:15 The crazier I got, the wilder the things I did,
02:18 the people loved it.
02:20 'Cause it's about connecting with the people.
02:23 - His wrestling wasn't even that great, please.
02:26 (laughs)
02:28 Hello, I'm Nasty Boy Brian Knob,
02:32 one half of the Nasty Boys,
02:34 and I know Brutus Barber of Beefcake back in the 80s.
02:37 Like in our era, it was like rockstar,
02:40 like the Rolling Stones or something.
02:42 That's one of the reasons I got in the business.
02:44 (laughs)
02:46 - Beefcake was a rockstar right along with everybody
02:49 on the WWF roster.
02:51 People would recognize you no matter where you went.
02:55 I'm B. Brian Blair, and many of you know me
02:57 as one half of the Killer Bs,
02:59 and I had so many matches with Brutus the Barber of Beefcake
03:03 that I can't count them all.
03:05 Beefcake is a muscular guy, basically.
03:07 With a nice butt.
03:11 - Beefcake, Beefcake, Beefcake, everybody, Beefcake.
03:15 - That's why they call me the Beefcake,
03:17 'cause I had the Beefcakes.
03:20 - He's flaunting his Beefcakes.
03:22 Definitely sizable, Brutimus Maximus.
03:25 - God gave me one hell of a body.
03:27 I'm gonna show it off.
03:29 I gotta say it, brother,
03:31 I was the best looking thing
03:33 they'd ever walk through their doors,
03:35 that I had on TV.
03:37 - Look at you, sex pistol over there, shut up.
03:41 - That's what my wife says.
03:42 She goes, "You're the best looking wrestler?"
03:44 I don't care what anybody says.
03:46 - You know, watching all this stuff,
03:47 like I full on bought all this stuff.
03:51 Like I'm such a wrestling fan.
03:53 Like this is, this is not fake.
03:55 - I started watching wrestling on Sunday mornings.
04:01 One morning out comes this guy,
04:04 and I just,
04:06 my eyes spun, like hubba hubba.
04:11 My name is Missy, I'm the wife of Brutus the Barber Beefcake.
04:16 It was like tunnel vision.
04:18 Like I am in love with this frigging guy.
04:22 Who is he?
04:23 - The first time I met Missy in 1986,
04:27 Boston Gardens, she snuck in the backstage area
04:31 and she come running over and yelling,
04:34 "I love you, I love you."
04:36 I was like a little taken back at that point going,
04:40 "Oh my God, (beep) this girl is beautiful."
04:43 - So how did you reconnect with Brutus
04:45 after all these years?
04:46 - Huge wrestling fan, internet dating,
04:51 you know, you meet guys online and,
04:53 "Oh, what do you like?
04:54 Oh, I like wrestling."
04:55 So I was talking to this one guy,
04:57 I'm telling him, you know, my Brutus Beefcake story.
05:00 And he says, "Oh, Beefcake lives in Winchester."
05:03 What?
05:04 I'm in Quincy, hello.
05:06 So I texted him and I said,
05:08 "I want you to know that I'm a huge Brutus Beefcake fan
05:13 and it's been a fantasy of mine to sleep with you.
05:18 And I just wanted to know if you thought that was possible."
05:21 The phone, ring, ring, ring, ring.
05:23 - Hello, hello, yeah.
05:26 Yeah, 'cause you know, can we meet?
05:29 - It was pretty (beep) exciting,
05:31 but I wanted it just to be like a one and done.
05:33 I didn't think, you know,
05:35 anything was gonna happen from that.
05:37 He kept calling.
05:40 When we started dating, he'd say, "I'm your friend.
05:43 I'm your best friend."
05:45 And I used to say, "I don't want a best friend.
05:47 I just want somebody to love me."
05:49 And then fast forward, I realized
05:52 a friend is the best thing that you can have.
05:57 If Brutus calls you a friend, it's huge, huge.
06:01 The base of all of his goodness comes from there.
06:05 - It's a friendship from his childhood in Tampa, Florida
06:08 that leads Ed Leslie into wrestling.
06:11 While Ed will become Brutus Beefcake,
06:14 his childhood friend, Terry Bollea,
06:16 will transform into the wrestling icon, Hulk Hogan.
06:20 - Me and Hulkster grew up eight blocks apart.
06:24 We were all in the same circle, same high schools.
06:27 He was in a rock and roll band, played a bass guitar.
06:30 I see him and his buddies all at the beach.
06:33 They called it Mad Beach.
06:35 I was just a young punk kid hanging around.
06:37 I'm the kid that would quit.
06:39 I always came back, I always showed up.
06:42 They couldn't get rid of me.
06:44 One day, Hogan says, "Guys, I'm gonna try
06:46 to break into the wrestling business."
06:48 That was his deal.
06:49 He was a rock and roller and wanted to be a wrestler.
06:52 So the phone rings.
06:54 "Hey, kid, wanna be a wrestler?"
06:57 So we started working out twice a day, six days a week
07:02 in our little homemade gym.
07:04 And after like 12, 14 months, we were both monsters.
07:10 - Terry gets the opportunity to train professionally
07:12 with the legendary hero, Matsuda,
07:15 and then shares what he learns with Ed.
07:18 - Terry was getting stretched in the dungeon
07:20 and it was very, very difficult.
07:24 You fight for your life and survive
07:27 or you run out without your clothes.
07:29 Whereas Beefcake was just basically tossed straight
07:34 from the street to the ring.
07:36 He was very fortunate that he had a great friend
07:40 like Hulk Hogan, who nurtured him
07:43 and did everything he could to put him in the ring
07:45 with the right talent to get him to first base.
07:49 - A lot of people don't know me
07:50 'cause I'm relatively new to the business.
07:52 I've just come into the scene recently.
07:54 - Terry helps Ed break into the industry
07:58 by making him his tag team partner.
08:00 Living together out of a van in Pensacola,
08:03 the two are inseparable.
08:05 - Whatever Hulk was doing, Brutus was right there
08:08 and Brutus was always just his ride or die.
08:11 - We were friends, we were bonded, friends to the end.
08:16 People would always say, "You must be brothers."
08:19 And we finally said, "I think it's time just to say,
08:21 "okay, yeah, we're brothers and go with it."
08:25 Our gimmick was we were bigger and stronger
08:28 and better looking than everybody.
08:31 - The Hulk and his brother, Eddie Boulder, will be right--
08:33 - That's what we did, the Boulder brothers.
08:35 - A bunch of different names where we were brothers.
08:38 - Dizzy Hogan, the brother of Hulk Hogan.
08:41 - And Terry Falk.
08:42 He named me Dizzy, he just like, "You're Dizzy."
08:45 - Making a lot of money and everything, you know?
08:48 - Why was he Dizzy?
08:49 - Kind of like a male Valley girl, if you will.
08:56 - Play with it a little bit, you know,
08:58 count it once in a while.
09:00 - Dizzy, Dizzy Hogan.
09:03 - While Terry was going off to stardom,
09:06 he always had Brutus right behind him.
09:08 - Big and incredible!
09:10 - After lighting up the territories,
09:12 Hulk makes the jump to the WWF
09:15 and soon becomes the face of Vince McMahon's empire.
09:18 - Hogan was over in WWF from the minute he got there.
09:23 I mean, the immortal Hulk Hogan.
09:25 I mean, it goes down in history,
09:28 probably having the biggest career in wrestling ever.
09:32 - Struggling to gain traction as Dizzy Hogan,
09:35 Ed gets the opportunity of a lifetime
09:37 to step into a new gimmick
09:39 conceived by Vince's wife, Linda.
09:41 - Linda has this beefcake name in her head.
09:44 He says, "What about Brutus?"
09:48 Like Brutus and Popeye.
09:49 "What about Brutus Beefcake?"
09:50 And I'm sitting there thinking to myself,
09:52 "Oh my God, here's my chance
09:56 to wrestle in Madison Square Gardens
09:58 and my name is gonna be Brutus Beefcake."
10:02 I couldn't even say it without giggling and laughing.
10:06 I was gonna be Brutus Beefcake with Chippendale.
10:08 So I came out with spandex.
10:11 I had a bow tie with Brian Stones.
10:14 I dropped about 25 pounds, dyed my hair black,
10:19 and cut it real short
10:20 and walked in to Vince's office in this outfit
10:24 and Vince nearly fell out of his chair
10:27 and said, "Oh my God, how can this not make money?"
10:30 - Brutus Beefcake.
10:33 - Beefcake was a very colorful guy,
10:36 but he was an average worker.
10:38 - What's he gonna do, off the rope.
10:40 - When they put Brutus with Greg Valentine,
10:43 who's one of the premier technical wrestlers
10:45 ever in this business,
10:47 solid, believable, hardcore,
10:50 it just really helped Beefcake learn how to work.
10:54 - Look at that move by Beefcake.
10:57 - Beefer, to his credit, adapted very, very well.
11:02 He was really finally understanding
11:06 the art of the business.
11:08 - He was green, but he was good.
11:10 I could see the potential.
11:11 I'm Greg "The Hammer" Valentine, WWE Hall of Famer.
11:16 I was Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake's tag team partner.
11:21 Not only did we draw money,
11:23 but we had a lot of fans that cheered the bad guys,
11:28 the heels, and they loved us.
11:31 Brutus was a chick magnet.
11:34 I mean, I could get girls that wanted to,
11:36 but we're talking about Brutus.
11:38 - Boston is our town, Hammer!
11:40 - Talks too much sometimes.
11:42 - The fabulous move.
11:43 - Look at that face, look at that face on her!
11:45 - He gets on a whim and I go, "Shut up, man."
11:51 - No, but we were a perfect combination back then,
11:54 the match-maiden, dream team heaven.
11:58 - Our matches were incredible.
12:01 The people went nuts over them.
12:04 That was the point where we knew, like,
12:06 we made it, brother.
12:07 - After almost three years of success as the dream team,
12:13 the decision is made to split the pair
12:15 and for Brutus to become a colorful new character.
12:18 - And they hand me this white cosmetology jacket
12:22 and give me a pair of scissors and say,
12:24 "Now you're the barber."
12:26 What do you mean, I'm the barber?
12:29 Don't you think you maybe shoulda give me a little warning?
12:34 First thing I do is go into the dressing room
12:37 and just start breaking everything I could find.
12:40 Finally, somebody went and found Hulk.
12:43 Said, "You better go find Beefcake."
12:45 He lost us.
12:46 He's tearing the place up.
12:48 So he comes in, "What's going on?"
12:51 I said, "What's going on?
12:52 This is what's going on."
12:53 I quit.
12:55 This is bullshit.
12:56 What does a barber do in wrestling?
12:59 He says to me, "What if you use the sleeper hold
13:03 and put your opponents asleep?
13:06 You get the scissors and you cut off some of their hair."
13:11 - Look it, he's got a pair of scissors.
13:13 The guy thinks he's a barber now.
13:14 Brutus the barber beats Gekky once to be known as.
13:18 - I was strutting all over the ring.
13:21 - We're gonna talk about strutting and cutting here.
13:23 - And then cut.
13:24 - Remember, it's not whether you win or lose,
13:26 but how you cut the hair.
13:28 - You could see that Eddie had matured
13:31 and he was taking strides that made Brutus Beefcake
13:34 into one of the premier WWF characters.
13:38 - What are you gonna do when the barber
13:41 and Hulkamania run wild on you?
13:44 - Definitely didn't hurt to be Hulk's friend.
13:46 And definitely Hulkster helped Brutus out big time.
13:49 - Anytime they mentioned Brutus Beefcake,
13:51 they always mentioned,
13:52 "Oh, well, he's Hulk Hogan's best friend."
13:54 It can help and it can hurt you
13:56 because jealousy of the friendship, that's all.
13:58 That's all it is, jealousy.
14:01 I'm Missy Hyatt, the first lady of wrestling,
14:04 or I like to be called the walking riot.
14:07 And I'm really good friends with Brutus the barber Beefcake.
14:11 Whether he was Hogan's best friend,
14:13 he wouldn't have been in WWE for as long as he was.
14:17 Unless you draw money for Vince,
14:19 you're not gonna be there.
14:20 - People could think whatever they wanted,
14:21 it didn't matter, I didn't care.
14:23 - And a slingshot hook.
14:25 - I was good at what I did.
14:26 I was at the top of my game.
14:28 - He's on the way.
14:29 - We had WrestleMania in March,
14:31 beat Mr. Perfect,
14:32 and then the next step was SummerSlam,
14:35 take the belt, boom.
14:37 And get to where I was supposed to be.
14:39 But then Brutus was in a catastrophic accident.
14:44 - I can picture this like it was yesterday.
14:50 It was living a nightmare.
14:52 Nobody knew whether Brutus was gonna live,
14:55 or whether Brutus was gonna die.
14:57 - Here we are.
15:08 Holy cow, we're in Moots, Florida,
15:11 at the Lake House scene of the crime,
15:14 where Brutus nearly lost his life, man.
15:19 This was a heck of a party house, guys.
15:21 There was no other docks,
15:24 there was not as many houses and stuff as there is.
15:27 - By 1990, Brutus the Barber Beefcake
15:31 is one of the most popular stars of the WWF.
15:35 - July 4th, and I had one day off.
15:38 So I'm gonna party like it's the end of the world.
15:43 We're in the boat,
15:44 we're gonna have a band set up later
15:46 on the outside in the back,
15:48 and we're gonna party all night.
15:50 Mike Hannes, who's a friend of Beefcakes,
15:53 he had a really fast ski boat,
15:55 and he liked to take people parasailing around the lake.
16:00 Everybody was having a great time.
16:02 We'd just been parasailing for hours.
16:05 Several people had had near catastrophes,
16:09 so we're actually thanking our lucky stars
16:11 that nobody's hurt doing the parasailing today,
16:14 and we're done.
16:15 And then Brian Blair, the Killer Bee,
16:19 and his friends, a couple people,
16:21 came roaring in, and they wanted to parasail.
16:25 - I wasn't about to go up there,
16:28 because it didn't look like the safest thing
16:29 in the world to me.
16:31 But a friend of mine, Tracy,
16:32 wanted to go up in the parasail.
16:35 - Mike, he's like, "No, no, we're done."
16:38 And he wouldn't relent.
16:40 - Mike finally just, he's pissed.
16:43 He's like, "All right, all right."
16:46 - But at that time, there's no wind
16:48 to fluff the parachute up.
16:51 - Beefcake stood in the water above his waist.
16:55 Myself and another guy named Paul
16:57 was holding up the parasail.
17:00 Eddie's responsibility as a rope man
17:01 is to communicate with the person
17:04 about to take off of the parasail,
17:06 and he also has to communicate with the boat driver.
17:09 - So I'm out in the shallows here,
17:12 trying to get the people set up,
17:15 up there on the grass.
17:17 Got everybody ready to go.
17:18 Mike just said, "(beep) it, I'm going."
17:22 And just took off.
17:24 - Eddie drops his hand,
17:28 and as he does, he turns in.
17:31 And so he's right in Tracy's line of fire,
17:36 right in her flight path.
17:39 - She's coming right to the back of my head.
17:41 It's happening so fast, nobody can even yell.
17:44 Look out!
17:45 Move!
17:47 Anything!
17:48 - As she sees that she's not getting lift,
17:53 she buckles her knees up to try to clear Eddie's face.
17:57 And I turn around just in time to get her knees
18:01 right in the face.
18:04 Boom.
18:04 It hits me so hard that it pulls me out of the water,
18:08 and I do what's called a gainer,
18:10 where your feet go over your head first
18:12 and then come back down.
18:13 And by the grace of God, I wasn't knocked out.
18:16 And I'm down, like, trying to get my shit together.
18:22 Can't see a thing, can't breathe.
18:26 And nobody has any clue that I've been mortally injured.
18:31 - I ran as quick as I could, grabbed him from the water.
18:36 Everything was shattered from the nose, the cheekbones.
18:40 His whole upper jaw was sitting on top of his bottom jaw.
18:45 - I forced my hand in my mouth.
18:49 I lift my palate, saying, "My face is falling off.
18:52 "Is anybody?"
18:53 - He couldn't speak.
18:54 He would try to speak, but it was only gurgles
18:56 coming up from his throat.
18:58 While we were waiting for the ambulance to drive,
19:01 I just kept Eddie up and conscious,
19:04 trying to keep him from falling asleep.
19:08 - I didn't know anybody could be hurt that bad
19:11 and still be alive.
19:13 They rolled me into the emergency room
19:16 and they take my blood pressure and realize
19:18 it's like 200 over 100 or something.
19:22 Next thing you know, they're yelling,
19:23 "Code blue, code red, code purple."
19:26 Finally, x-ray my head and realize that my face is gone
19:31 and they have no idea what to do.
19:33 - It's the 4th of July and the phone rang.
19:37 So the guy on the phone said, "It's Brutus Beefcake.
19:41 "He is severely injured and they need your help immediately."
19:45 I said, "Brutus Beefcake?
19:47 "Never heard this name."
19:48 And then my son yelled, "Dad, this is Hulk Hogan's partner."
19:53 (somber music)
19:55 - My name is Moutaz Habal and I am a plastic surgeon.
20:00 By the time I arrived, I remember I asked,
20:03 because he was so big,
20:04 how could somebody smash him like this?
20:06 - I said, "Well, doc, please just (beep) kill me
20:10 "'cause I'm done.
20:12 "I can't take it another minute.
20:15 "The pain is unbearable."
20:18 - He was totally fractured.
20:21 Of course, the first thing we wanna determine
20:23 is that he had a good airway
20:24 because if a person cannot breathe well
20:28 or there is something obstructing the airway,
20:31 of course it can pass.
20:32 But I was more worried about that he may lose vision.
20:36 - Working over the course of 16 hours,
20:41 Dr. Habal and his team of specialists
20:44 reconstruct Brutus' entire face.
20:47 - It's like building a house.
20:49 And I really always like to build the house
20:52 from the stable area to the unstable.
20:55 A lot of his skull was stable,
20:57 so I started from the top.
20:59 - They cut me from ear to ear,
21:01 across the top of my head,
21:04 peeled my face down and my scalp back,
21:10 and then using strips of titanium,
21:13 he's gonna rebuild my skull.
21:15 - The most important thing in the face
21:18 is where the eyes go, how far they are.
21:21 Put the eyes in more position,
21:23 put the nose where he is,
21:24 and put the upper teeth, the lower teeth,
21:26 and then we sew the eyelid together
21:28 so the person will not be able to see
21:30 for 24 hours at least.
21:32 - After the surgery, they took me to ICU
21:35 to a drug-induced coma, basically,
21:39 for me to wait for a couple days
21:42 to see what happened if I kept on living.
21:45 (laughs)
21:47 But I can't see, I can't speak.
21:49 Everything I had worked 20 years for was gone
21:54 and wasn't coming back.
21:57 - Following surgery to repair
22:08 Brutus Beefcake's shattered face,
22:10 he is put into a medically-induced coma.
22:13 With no guarantees for his survival,
22:16 doctors contact the one person Brutus can depend on.
22:20 - They said, "We need somebody there to talk to him
22:24 'cause if he wakes up and he panics,
22:27 we need to have a familiar voice."
22:30 - Both of my parents had died within two years.
22:33 I was going through a horrible divorce.
22:35 I had brothers and sisters and family,
22:37 but I'd been gone for 15, 20 years on the road,
22:41 so the only person that I was really close to was Hulk.
22:46 - Concerned about his best friend,
22:52 Hulk Hogan leaves his pregnant wife in California
22:55 to be at Brutus' bedside when he wakes up.
22:59 - They said, "Look, we can bring him out of this
23:01 drug-induced coma.
23:02 We have no idea what's gonna happen.
23:03 Is he gonna freak out?"
23:06 Hulk, he says, "Don't worry about it, Brutus.
23:10 We're gonna take you home to California.
23:14 We're gonna get you better.
23:16 I don't care what the doctors say.
23:18 You're gonna live."
23:20 - The only luck thing about for him is the impact
23:25 was right in the middle of his face between the eyes.
23:29 If it was on the right or on the left,
23:31 he would have lost vision in one of those eyes.
23:34 Surviving is a miracle.
23:36 To regain his vision is also a miracle.
23:40 - Terry was there, you know, talking to him.
23:42 They're walking down the hallway
23:43 and Brutus' eyeball fell out.
23:46 Like, poof, popped out of the socket.
23:49 - And Hulk's looking at my eyeball popped out,
23:51 just, "Oh my God, doc, we gotta get him back."
23:55 - Eddie's recovery had to be extremely difficult
23:58 because he had to learn to speak again.
24:01 He ate liquid for so long because think about it,
24:04 you can't chew food.
24:06 This is a grueling, grueling comeback.
24:09 I know he had a lot of prayer warriors out there.
24:11 He had a lot of people pulling for him.
24:14 - Look at the way she's dressed.
24:16 - Sherry Martell.
24:17 Sherry Martell and I were friends.
24:19 So Sherry comes to see me and the guys are like,
24:25 "You can't react."
24:27 They're trying to prepare her.
24:29 When you see him, you can't react.
24:31 'Cause if you do, you might totally freak him out.
24:35 Door opens, Sherry has like this big stuffed animal
24:38 and cards and stuff.
24:40 Takes one look at me and goes, "Ah!"
24:42 Scared the fuck out of me.
24:45 She's just some (beep) ghost or something, like screams.
24:50 First thing they do is like grab her
24:52 and throw her back out of the room.
24:53 Like, "What the fuck, you tried to kill the poor guy."
24:57 And she's out in the hallway screaming and crying.
25:00 "Oh my God, oh my God."
25:04 I was almost laughing, I was like,
25:06 "That was the (beep) shit ever.
25:07 That's real (beep) funny shit."
25:10 It set the tempo, kind of for me.
25:14 Then, you know, it's like, I can't feel sorry for myself.
25:17 Sometimes you don't get the cards you want,
25:19 but you gotta play them anyway.
25:22 The only thing I hoped for was to at least be recovered
25:26 so I could do something.
25:27 Nobody expected me to ever really come back to wrestling.
25:31 I remember he pulled up at my house and I looked at him
25:35 and I go, "Oh my God, I just felt so bad for him."
25:39 As soon as I was able to get back in the gym
25:42 and start working out, my body responded instantly.
25:46 It was like magic.
25:48 I'm with Hulk.
25:49 We're in California, training and getting better
25:52 and getting better.
25:53 The doc says, "You just, you can't wrestle."
25:55 And I had no intention of wanting to get
25:58 into the ring and die.
26:00 (upbeat music)
26:01 - With recovery costs mounting,
26:03 Hulk ensures that Brutus doesn't go broke.
26:06 - Doing the movies.
26:08 You know, I was looking for a new career,
26:12 hoping for something to come out of this.
26:14 I wouldn't look behind me for a million bucks.
26:19 - I hate to say he was carrying Hogan's bags.
26:22 That's not right.
26:23 You know, first of all, you have a lot of jealousy.
26:26 You're probably a lot of people glad
26:28 he got his head knocked off.
26:30 And that's bullshit.
26:32 - People look at him like, "Oh, beefcake.
26:35 All he does is carry Hogan's bag."
26:36 Or, "He carries Hogan's drugs.
26:39 So if he gets caught, it'll go on to Brutus."
26:42 - He had his gimmicks in his bag and, you know, money.
26:47 He trusted me with his money and everything else.
26:52 - Ladies and gentlemen.
26:53 - Eager to get back into wrestling,
26:55 Vince gives Brutus his own regular interview segment
26:59 called "The Barbershop."
27:00 - It's barbershop time, Frank.
27:01 This is what you've been waiting for.
27:04 He doesn't look different.
27:06 - You are the one who's responsible
27:08 for bringing Brutus the Barber back to the WWF.
27:12 - "The Barbershop" was fantastic.
27:15 - Welcome to the barbershop, ladies and gentlemen.
27:18 The thing you can't buy is heart.
27:21 - But the snake is still standing.
27:23 - Oh, my God.
27:25 - It could have went on and on and on,
27:27 but "The Barbershop" was destroyed by Sid
27:31 for WrestleMania VIII.
27:32 That's the way they do things.
27:34 Had WWE, they created it, they destroy it.
27:38 - With "The Barbershop" having run its course,
27:45 Brutus has taken off WWF television
27:48 as Hulk takes a hiatus from wrestling
27:50 due to the steroid scandal that engulfs the business.
27:54 - They were counting on me to deliver Hulk to them
27:59 to be prosecuted, and Vince too.
28:02 They thought I was gonna be their golden goose.
28:05 Didn't happen.
28:06 I said, "No, no, no, none of this shit ever happened.
28:09 "I don't know what anybody's talking about.
28:12 "I helped save his ass and Vince McMahon's ass too."
28:16 - Returning to the WWF in 1993,
28:21 Hulk Hogan is reunited with Brutus Beefcake
28:24 as his new tag team partner.
28:26 - Beefcake had a match for WrestleMania,
28:30 tagging with Hogan against Ted DiBiase
28:33 and IRS Mike Rotundo.
28:35 That was another gift from Hogan.
28:37 - The idea was, "Let me see how I feel in the ring.
28:46 "Do I feel like I can do this every day?"
28:48 It felt good.
28:51 - Brutus' comeback is short-lived
28:53 as he's soon dropped by the WWF
28:56 and returns to the independent circuit.
28:58 It's not until Hulk signs a massive contract to join WCW
29:03 that Brutus gets another opportunity
29:05 to revive his struggling career.
29:07 - He came with Hulk Hogan.
29:09 He was what I refer to as the Hulk Hogan tax.
29:11 Hulk didn't demand anything,
29:14 but we had an understanding (laughs)
29:19 that if he wanted something bad enough,
29:20 I had to pay for it.
29:21 (laughs)
29:23 I'm Eric Bischoff, and even though I'm here
29:25 to talk about Brutus the (beep) Barber Beefcake,
29:29 I'm happy to be here.
29:31 Everybody in that locker room knew
29:32 that the only reason Ed Leslie was in that locker room
29:36 was because of Hulk Hogan.
29:37 - In 1994, Ed Leslie once again follows his friend,
29:49 Hulk Hogan, this time to WCW.
29:52 With the Brutus Beefcake name owned by the WWF,
29:56 Ed cycles through a number of different characters in WCW.
30:00 - Butcher, the man with no name, Zoodiac!
30:05 The booty man coming out here.
30:09 - I was able to become a character.
30:12 I was able to do it with four or five different gimmicks.
30:16 In my mind, that's an amazing feat.
30:19 It's like being a good actor, like Mel Gibson.
30:23 - Brutus thinks he's as good as Mel Gibson as an actor?
30:27 (laughs)
30:29 That made me laugh there.
30:32 That's a good one. (laughs)
30:34 - The booty man is here!
30:35 - Last night, Ed took it all!
30:37 - I mean, all him other gimmicks didn't get over at all.
30:40 - Brutus pretty much conducted himself professionally
30:43 while he was in WCW.
30:45 - For the most part, I think Brutus was there for the party.
30:49 I'll be honest with you.
30:51 - Yeah, he was a partier, he was a drinker,
30:53 and I've been on the back of his motorcycle
30:55 when we've had one, a couple too many,
30:57 but I trust him with my life.
30:59 The day I got fired from WCW, I called him.
31:02 He actually saved my life
31:05 because I was getting ready to jump out the window,
31:09 and he talked me off the ledge.
31:10 Brutus was the savior.
31:12 Brutus was the savior.
31:14 - Why do you have to humiliate somebody
31:16 and give 'em all these stupid gimmicks?
31:18 Brutus was treated like shit at WCW.
31:20 - After the booty man and the butcher
31:23 and the man with no name,
31:24 Eric Bischoff was basically saying,
31:26 "We can't repackage beefcake anymore."
31:29 Oh, okay, here's what I'm gonna do.
31:34 I went home, I went to Florida.
31:35 I spent two, three months growing my hair really long,
31:40 dropping my body fat content to 5%.
31:44 45 years old and shredded to the bone.
31:49 - He looked like a god.
31:54 He looked like something from Grecian times.
31:59 He was just sexy, sexy, sexy, sexy.
32:04 I'm schvitzing over here.
32:08 - Flew to Atlanta, went to CNN Towers,
32:12 home of WCW.
32:14 Hulk says, "I gotta introduce you to my new disciple."
32:19 And oohs and ahs.
32:23 - Who is this in the ring?
32:25 - And then he says, "Oh, did I mention
32:27 "that that's Brutus Beefcake?"
32:30 So I stuck it right up all their asses.
32:32 Boom, big, hard, bam, right up the ass with that one.
32:37 - How 'bout that?
32:39 - Despite his radical transformation,
32:41 Brutus fizzles out at WCW, but bigger problems await.
32:46 - He had a money manager that stole all the money
32:49 and went to like Barbados or something.
32:51 Stole a lot of hulks too.
32:53 You're a millionaire one day,
32:54 and the next day you're selling your house.
32:57 - I poured everything I had into this home
33:02 where I planned on living my life out,
33:03 and now had to sell it.
33:07 So now my now ex-wife takes my daughter,
33:11 moves back to Boston where her parents live.
33:14 - To provide for his family,
33:16 Brutus makes the difficult choice to move to Boston,
33:20 taking a job as a toll collector
33:22 for the Metro Boston Transit Authority.
33:25 - And it was brutal to have to live in Boston
33:28 for 12 years in that cold, miserable place.
33:33 - He was in a bad marriage, living in an attic,
33:36 worked nights with rats running across his feet.
33:40 - That was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life,
33:42 but I was doing it for my daughter.
33:45 This particular time, instead of aspirin,
33:47 I used to have these called BC powder.
33:50 I don't know if you've even heard of it.
33:51 You just dump the powder in your mouth
33:53 and you absorb it real fast.
33:55 One of my BC powder little packets fell out on the floor.
34:00 I did my shift, packed up, left.
34:04 Lady came in, saw this little tiny thing
34:07 down on my floor, picked it up.
34:09 When she tried to open it, the powder just went poof.
34:12 - And she started screaming, "Anthrax, anthrax."
34:15 And it was that big anthrax thing.
34:17 It was like COVID, you know?
34:20 And they shut the train station down.
34:23 - You want the truth, you want the lie.
34:27 - No, I want the truth.
34:29 - It wasn't anthrax.
34:32 It was cocaine.
34:33 If anybody falls on hard times,
34:37 anybody's got a problem with drugs and addiction,
34:38 they make those kinds of stupid mistakes.
34:41 Unfortunately, this one scared the hell out
34:43 of a lot of people.
34:44 - It's aspirin in a little, like a little packet.
34:47 - You can understand why people
34:49 would not believe that, right?
34:51 - Yeah, oh, 100%.
34:52 But why wasn't he arrested?
34:55 He wasn't arrested.
34:56 It was a big embarrassment.
34:58 They made him go to rehab.
35:00 - Eventually, when I went back for my review,
35:04 they fired me, they let me go,
35:06 which I was extremely happy about.
35:10 - Out of a job and with his marriage ending,
35:14 Brutus is forced to reckon with the toll
35:16 wrestling has taken on his body and his life.
35:20 - He's a hero!
35:21 - When you're a wrestler on the road,
35:22 350 days out of the year,
35:26 your body is beat to shit.
35:30 Just to get in the ring,
35:32 nine out of 10 guys had to take something for the pain.
35:37 - You take the pill, you have a little drink.
35:40 Very habit forming.
35:43 - I can't do these pills,
35:46 I can't do this anymore 'cause it's gonna take my life.
35:50 And Missy took me in and gave me a home
35:54 and a place to live, and she was there
35:57 at a time that could've went either way.
36:00 - His friends, or friends, would give him pills
36:04 and drag him around to bars and say,
36:06 "We got Brutus Beefcake!"
36:09 Brutus is not a loser like that,
36:11 but he had a habit, he had a (beep) up life,
36:16 and he was numbing himself.
36:22 We have weeded out all of the assholes.
36:29 All of that is gone.
36:30 - Here's the force.
36:38 - I never play with it though,
36:39 'cause I'm too afraid I'm gonna break it.
36:41 - What?
36:43 - Missy Beefcake.
36:45 - Okay.
36:45 - I don't even know how he posed to me.
36:47 He would always say, "I wanna marry you,
36:49 you're the love of my life,
36:50 nobody's ever done the things for me that you've done."
36:54 - Wow.
36:55 - How excited?
36:56 What would you like?
36:59 - 33 years ago, tonight, you were in the hospital,
37:04 almost dead, and now I'm mad at you.
37:08 (laughing)
37:09 Go ahead, daddy.
37:10 Florent.
37:12 Florent, daddy!
37:13 (screaming)
37:15 - Happy Fourth of July.
37:19 Cutie pie, I'm so happy.
37:23 (screaming)
37:27 - She's an amazing woman.
37:29 She's beautiful, she's smart, she's intelligent,
37:32 she knows what she wants, and I love that about her.
37:35 I'm so happy that he found someone
37:37 that just tickles me to death.
37:40 - Brutus returns to the wrestling business in 2008,
37:43 this time with Missy by his side.
37:46 - We did the Hogan and Friends thing,
37:48 that was the first time that I met Hogan,
37:51 but Brian Knobbs was right there to tell me,
37:55 "You're not in the fold until Hogan says
37:57 "you're in the fold."
37:58 - I was working hard and wanting to get back to Florida,
38:03 all those years I was there, I wanted to go back to Florida.
38:06 - We visited with Terry, and everything was great.
38:11 We had a good time, we went out one night.
38:14 Terry was singing my praises,
38:15 telling Brutus how wonderful I was,
38:17 and how we were so happy for Brutus,
38:20 and then we said goodnight,
38:22 and then the next day we went over to Terry's house,
38:24 and it was like someone flipped a switch,
38:27 and he was really cold.
38:30 And I remember thinking, "Something happened,
38:34 "something's changed."
38:36 I don't know what set him off, what happened.
38:39 - Brutus Beefcake, him and I have fallen out.
38:42 It's got a lot to do with the lady he's married to.
38:45 - We've heard that the incident between Hulk and Brutus
38:49 stems from Brutus' new wife, Missy,
38:53 and Hulk not liking her.
38:54 - No comment.
38:58 Hulk is a very great guy, and a very good friend,
39:02 and I can't see him being mad at you unless you did something.
39:07 - I don't pry into people's business too much,
39:10 but Terry said that I had to write him off,
39:13 his exact words, I had to write Beefer off, man.
39:15 He's just too much.
39:17 I think Beefcake took advantage of Terry,
39:21 and you can only have that happen so many times.
39:24 You can forgive so much, and then you've gotta move on.
39:27 - Were people trying to protect Brutus from you?
39:30 - No, no, not in the beginning.
39:32 Not until they realized that I was a take no shit,
39:37 Brutus isn't going out working for $300, not happening.
39:42 Then I became the threat.
39:45 - Oh, she's difficult.
39:47 I feel bad for Missy 'cause she's been so misunderstood
39:51 by so many people.
39:53 I have witnessed the monster, that jealousy is so horrible
39:58 because she's so beautiful, she's so loving,
40:00 she's so nice that people hate her guts.
40:05 - It's hard to have a relationship with someone
40:09 year after year, 365, you're partying, you're hanging.
40:14 Every day the phone rang two, three, four times.
40:17 They were close, and I know that he misses him.
40:22 - So where is that now?
40:23 - They are not talking.
40:30 - All right, so we're doing a poster,
40:40 you gotta put a fist up and make a mean look on your face
40:43 'cause we're taking a couple pictures, all right?
40:45 Okay, come on.
40:45 (camera clicks)
40:48 - Awesome.
40:49 - All right, cool.
40:50 - Thanks so much. - You're welcome.
40:52 - Appreciate it.
40:53 - He is doing wonderful.
40:57 People are always happy to see him, the fans,
41:01 they come out, they love Brutus so much,
41:03 and Brutus makes everybody feel like he's known them
41:08 for so long, when he's telling a story,
41:10 like he's known you forever.
41:13 - They want to shoot us together.
41:15 (laughs)
41:20 - He went through a horrible accident,
41:22 and today he's back 100%.
41:25 That's just a lesson to you in how strong Brutus is,
41:29 so God bless him.
41:31 - Valentine, beefcake.
41:32 - He was elevated because of the company that he kept,
41:36 but wrestling's all politics.
41:38 You gotta have talent to stay there,
41:40 and there's a lot of jealous people
41:42 in the wrestling industry.
41:43 I'm happy for every dime, every match,
41:47 that Brutus ever had.
41:50 - Despite years of strained relations,
41:53 Hulk Hogan comes through for his friend one more time,
41:56 when he inducts Brutus into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2019.
42:01 - Please welcome the immortal Hulk Hogan.
42:05 (crowd cheers)
42:08 - Brutus went through some really tough times.
42:11 I was there when he had a terrible parasailing accident,
42:14 but he came back,
42:16 and he made Brutus Beefcake larger than life.
42:19 - What you gonna do?
42:21 - What you gonna do when Brutus the Barber Beefcake
42:24 has a haircut just for you?
42:26 So please welcome Brutus the Barber Beefcake
42:29 to the 2019 Hall of Fame, brother.
42:32 - They did you cool.
42:35 They did you really good.
42:37 That's the last time you ever saw Hulk Hogan.
42:40 That's it.
42:41 That's the last time you guys saw each other.
42:45 - Hulk and I were best friends
42:52 and have been friends for years.
42:56 We could be friends again
42:58 at the snap of a finger.
43:02 How would I know that the guy in the front row
43:06 heckling all the wrestlers at the Armory in Tampa
43:11 would become my best friend?
43:14 You all know him as Hulk Hogan.
43:16 I love you, brother.
43:19 Thanks for all the good times
43:22 and the good times to come.
43:25 So let's also say thanks to the-
43:28 That's what my ambition is,
43:29 to hopefully be able to shake hands
43:32 and look them in the eye and say,
43:35 thanks, buddy, for being my friend
43:37 and all that we've gone through in our lives.
43:40 And I love you.
43:43 And boom.
43:45 But like I said before,
43:47 you get dealt your cards, you gotta play them.
43:49 And I'm perfectly, super, duper happy
43:55 the way it turned out
43:59 that I got my missy, my soulmate
44:04 to be able to spend my life with.
44:08 (bell chimes)
44:10 (bell chimes)