Dark Side of the Ring Season 5 Episode 5
Dark Side of the Ring Season 5 Episode 5
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 (electronic music)
00:02 - I don't have to prove anything to any living human being.
00:10 Harley Race is wrestling personified.
00:14 The man that when you mentioned the word
00:17 has rewritten every book that's been wrote on it.
00:21 - When you look at Harley and then you look at the man
00:24 and then the two start coming together,
00:26 then it's a perfect picture of a badass heel
00:29 and Harley Race was that badass heel.
00:31 He was no gimmick.
00:32 He was Harley Race, the toughest man on God's green earth.
00:36 - I've been shot at, I've been stabbed.
00:39 I just looked at it,
00:40 I must've been doing my job fairly well, right?
00:42 - If there's one man who connects wrestling's modern era
00:45 to its earliest days,
00:47 whose legacy in the squared circle stands as a monument
00:51 to the evolution of the sport
00:53 and who epitomizes the ideal of a fighting champion,
00:56 that man is Harley Race.
00:59 - All mortal men are gonna bow to the king.
01:03 - I knew all about Harley Race
01:05 before I'd even seen a Harley Race match.
01:07 His legend preceded him.
01:10 - Harley Race has literally been wrestling all his life.
01:13 Earned his first paycheck in wrestling
01:14 before he got his driver's license.
01:17 - As Harley's violence spilled out of the ring,
01:20 the line between person and persona became blurred.
01:23 - The police came, that's when things went downhill.
01:28 And I just wanted away from him.
01:30 - As a lifetime of tragedies and injuries
01:33 took their toll on the man.
01:34 - And he was passed out on the floor in a fetal position.
01:38 It was a pretty traumatic event.
01:40 - The boating accidents, the car wrecks,
01:42 the in-ring accidents,
01:44 the human body's not built to undergo punishment like that.
01:48 In a land of tough guys,
01:50 he was considered the king tough guy.
01:52 - He's given his body and his life to this business.
01:56 And he did what he had to do to survive.
01:59 (dramatic music)
02:03 - I've got two rods and eight screws in my back.
02:14 I've got an artificial hip.
02:17 I got four metal screws in my right knee.
02:21 And two braces, I have 12 pins in this arm.
02:24 - How do you quantify toughness?
02:26 Is a guy tough because he can beat you in a wrestling match?
02:29 Or is a guy tough because he's just a badass street fighter
02:33 and he can pull your eyeball out?
02:35 Because when you think about Harley Race,
02:37 the cumulative effect of the thousands
02:40 and tens of thousands of slams and falls and bumps
02:44 on hard rings, concrete floors,
02:47 and sawdust floors in a barn or at a carnival.
02:50 Harley Race did all of that.
02:52 He was legendarily tough,
02:53 not only for his ability to beat people up,
02:56 but also because he gained a mystique
02:58 as somebody that couldn't physically be hurt.
03:02 No matter what you did to Harley Race
03:04 or what he did to himself, you couldn't stop him.
03:07 - I'm gonna hurt you somehow.
03:09 If I gotta do it that way,
03:11 hey, you have insulted the world heavyweight champion.
03:16 - You better believe I was inspired by Harley Race.
03:22 He was the first guy I saw to take a backdrop
03:25 outside the ring and a suplex outside the ring.
03:28 And he was doing this as the traveling world champion.
03:31 Harley was among the very first to do table spots.
03:35 I mean, he was before his time.
03:37 Heading in full speed,
03:38 going face first over the top turnbuckle,
03:41 that's Harley Race.
03:43 Getting your arms caught up in the ropes,
03:46 that's Harley Race.
03:47 - Bombs away, oh, right to the side of the head.
03:51 - One of Harley's major wrestling moves
03:53 was a diving headbutt where he'd come off the top rope
03:56 and land head first on his opponent's head.
03:59 - Now you have to imagine a man, 280 pounds,
04:04 jumping off of a five foot top rope
04:08 and coming down completely on his chest and his belly
04:12 while he's taking his forehead
04:14 and driving it into another individual.
04:16 The skill and the amazement of it was
04:19 that it looked like every time Harley did it,
04:20 he was killing guys.
04:22 But in all reality, he was barely touching them.
04:25 As a performer, as a wrestler, it just blows your mind
04:28 because that's what you want.
04:30 That's the it factor of pro wrestling,
04:33 is make it look like we're killing them, but not.
04:36 - He has left an indelible footprint
04:39 because he passed on his style to people like me
04:42 who passed it on to others.
04:44 Stars of today are borrowing liberally
04:47 from the Harley Race catalog,
04:49 whether they realize it or not.
04:51 (dramatic music)
04:52 - One of the fiercest men to ever lace a pair of boots,
04:56 Harley Race was a wrestler's wrestler
04:58 who began his journey to the ring as a teenager.
05:02 - Harley Race grew up poor on a farm in Missouri.
05:05 My name is Jim Cornette, and I've been a fan,
05:08 an admirer, and a colleague of Harley Race's.
05:11 He had to work from the time he was a young boy,
05:14 and that instilled in him the work ethic
05:18 that he carried with him for the rest of his life.
05:20 - Harley was a good kid.
05:22 We liked each other right off.
05:24 Third grade on, we hunted, fished together,
05:27 wrestled together.
05:29 My name is Daniel Keever.
05:31 I went to school with Harley Race, met him in the third grade.
05:35 He would let people hit him as hard as he could in the stomach.
05:39 I mean, these were big guys.
05:40 He'd get up and wouldn't say nothing.
05:45 If they wanted to do it again, he'd let 'em.
05:47 I suppose in his mind,
05:51 he was building himself to be a wrestler.
05:54 We used to watch all the old wrestlers,
05:56 Bob Brown, Sonny Myers, Yukon Eric.
06:01 We played hooky one Friday afternoon.
06:03 Every time Harley and I'd go somewhere,
06:05 he'd wanna, "Come on, let's wrestle a little while.
06:07 Let's wrestle a little while."
06:09 Well, on Monday, principal called us in the office.
06:12 He said, "I wanna know why you left here."
06:15 Harley said, "Well, he says a good day to wrestle."
06:18 Harley was a part of the original
06:20 (beep) around and find out era.
06:22 - Let's get out of here.
06:24 (crowd exclaiming)
06:27 - My name's Trevor Murdoch.
06:28 I'm a two-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion,
06:31 three-time WWE World Tag Team Champion,
06:34 and I was trained by Harley Race.
06:36 Reason I know these stories
06:38 is because I've heard 'em from Harley himself.
06:41 So the principal gave him a big slap in the face.
06:44 Harley knocked him out.
06:45 He hit the floor and Harley hit the door.
06:50 - He was a fighter as a kid,
06:52 and then that's when he wanted to start wrestling.
06:56 My name is Ilana Hedvabeni Race.
06:58 I was married to Handsome Harley Race,
07:01 the eight-times World Champion Wrestler for 24 years.
07:05 When he was 14 years old, he left home
07:07 because his family couldn't afford to keep him up.
07:10 - He got a job on a farm
07:12 out in the middle of nowhere Missouri,
07:15 and it just so happened
07:16 that that farm was owned by the Zabisco Brothers.
07:19 Stannis lost Zabisco and his brother Wlodek.
07:22 The two of them were iconic names.
07:25 Stannis was a former World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion.
07:28 Harley found out they were wrestlers
07:31 and they offered to train him in exchange for his farm work.
07:35 It amounted to legalized torture.
07:38 They would stretch him.
07:39 They would beat him up.
07:42 They would put him in holes he couldn't escape from
07:44 to see if he was tough enough to come back and ask for more
07:47 because in their generation of professional wrestler,
07:50 they knew the other guy had the ability
07:52 to grab one of their appendages and break it instantly.
07:56 It was the most primitive form
07:58 of hand-to-hand, man-to-man combat.
08:01 And that's what Harley learned,
08:02 and that served him well when he went to the carnivals.
08:05 - That was the thing back then.
08:09 That's how you got started in the business
08:11 was on the carnival.
08:13 - Yes, that's true, Marty.
08:14 I'll wrestle anybody in the business,
08:15 any size or weight or at any time.
08:18 - I'm Eddie Sharkey.
08:19 I've been in the business a million years
08:21 and Harley Race was one of my best friends.
08:24 - And the flying head scissors by Sharkey.
08:27 - We make three, $4 a match, which wasn't much money,
08:31 but at the end of the night, it come out okay.
08:34 - At the carnivals in the '50s,
08:39 one of the big tents had a champion wrestler,
08:42 and the carnival barker, he would do the spiel.
08:45 We'll give X amount of dollars
08:46 if you can stay five minutes with our champion wrestler.
08:49 You had truck drivers, you had farmers, you had butchers,
08:53 you had a variety of guys with a couple of drinks in 'em
08:57 who would get up and challenge the carnival wrestler.
09:00 And there were shoot matches, which are real matches,
09:04 and then there were works.
09:05 When they couldn't get a challenger from the crowd
09:07 to challenge the carnival wrestler,
09:09 there was a plant in the audience,
09:11 but he would look like one of the locals,
09:13 and Harley played this part a number of times too.
09:16 And then people would get behind one of their own,
09:18 as he said, "I can take that guy."
09:21 And then Harley would get in the ring
09:22 and he would work with the carnival wrestler.
09:25 But if Harley was the carnival wrestler taking challenges,
09:29 it was a shoot.
09:30 - And Harley'd have to go in there
09:31 and do whatever he had to to win.
09:33 And he's the 16-year-old kid.
09:35 - When you're there, you're taking on all comers,
09:38 so you better know a little bit
09:40 about what you're talking about,
09:41 'cause you darn sure don't get paid when you get beat.
09:45 - That's why he needed to come up with shortcuts,
09:47 like the headbutt to the bridge of the nose.
09:50 Or the double wrist lock,
09:53 where you could take a guy's shoulder out of joint
09:55 if he didn't give up immediately.
09:57 It was always dangerous, but that's how Harley survived.
10:01 He just had to fight five or six strange guys every day.
10:06 - On the carnival circuit, Harley goes to work
10:08 for legendary promoter, Gus Karras,
10:11 who puts Harley on the road with one of the biggest men
10:14 in the history of the wrestling business.
10:17 - Happy Humphrey was a pro wrestler
10:18 in the late '50s and '60s.
10:20 His real name was William J. Cobb.
10:22 In Happy Humphrey's pro wrestling career,
10:25 he was somewhere in the range of 700 pounds,
10:27 and Harley Race was chosen to be Happy Humphrey's driver
10:32 and valet and attendant.
10:34 He had to drive Happy Humphrey to the shows
10:36 in a specially built Cadillac,
10:39 and he had to make sure that Humphrey's needs were met
10:43 after the matches, which one of those things
10:45 entailed bathing Happy Humphrey.
10:48 Happy Humphrey would lay down on the ground naked,
10:53 and Harley Race would take a bottle of liquid soap,
10:56 a mop, and a garden hose,
10:58 and basically clean Happy Humphrey off
11:02 so they could get back in the car and go to the next town
11:05 without enduring the unending disaster of B.O.
11:09 That's paying your dues.
11:13 - In 1960, at just 17 years of age,
11:17 Harley marries a single mother named Vivian Jones,
11:20 who is soon pregnant with Harley's first child.
11:23 Then, tragedy quickly strikes.
11:26 - It was around Christmas time.
11:27 He had his wife in the car with him.
11:30 She was pregnant with his first child.
11:32 - Three o'clock in the morning,
11:34 they're driving down this lonely road, snow on the ground.
11:38 There's a tractor-trailer truck in front of them.
11:40 Jackknifes gets into the snow bank.
11:44 Harley's car rams into the truck.
11:47 She's killed instantly from a head injury,
11:51 and he's severely injured,
11:55 to the point where when the people picked him up
11:59 in the ambulance, they declared him dead as well,
12:02 and then saw him move,
12:04 and that's how they knew he was still alive.
12:06 And when he was hospitalized,
12:10 they were gonna amputate Harley's right leg.
12:12 Wasn't even 20 years old yet,
12:16 and the doctors told Harley he'd never walk again.
12:19 - A car accident on Christmas Eve
12:28 has killed Harley Race's pregnant wife.
12:31 Somehow, Harley is holding on,
12:33 but concerned doctors want to amputate his leg.
12:36 - Kansas promoter, Gus Karras,
12:38 when he heard about the accident,
12:40 he checked on Harley and said, "No, let's not do this."
12:44 - He's gonna walk out of this hospital, which he did.
12:48 - They did a surgery, saved the leg.
12:51 In effect, saved Harley's career,
12:53 and from there for the rest of his life,
12:55 Harley hated Christmas.
12:58 - Several years after the crash,
13:00 as Harley continues his wrestling career,
13:03 a chance encounter introduces a new woman into his life.
13:07 - I was a flight attendant.
13:08 Harley kept calling me all day.
13:10 "How about if I take you out for a piece of blueberry pie?"
13:14 I thought, "Wow, that's a neat way."
13:17 And I said, "Okay."
13:19 And we went out, had the pie, had the coffee.
13:22 He had his blonde hair, and I wasn't used to that.
13:26 I came from a little town, and I wanted a family,
13:29 and I wanted a home life.
13:32 And my mother and my father, they were very upset.
13:35 My dad said, "I don't want you seeing him anymore."
13:39 But I kept on.
13:41 It was like a magnet.
13:43 We were on our way from Minneapolis to Duluth, Minnesota,
13:47 and he said, "There's a bag in the back seat.
13:50 "Will you pick it up and look at it?"
13:52 And it was a diamond ring.
13:54 So I always knew I'd marry an athlete,
13:56 but I didn't know I was gonna be marrying into wrestling.
13:59 - Marrying Ivana despite her parents' wishes,
14:02 Harley gets back to the ring.
14:04 - When Harley first teamed up with Larry Henning,
14:08 he had bleach blonde hair.
14:09 So they adopted the nom de plumes of handsome Harley Race
14:14 and pretty boy Larry Henning.
14:15 In the mid '60s, guys as big and rough as them,
14:18 they didn't have bleach blonde hair.
14:20 So it was a way to get heat with the fans, and it worked.
14:24 - He chose to be a villain.
14:26 I didn't like it because everybody booed him
14:29 and didn't like him, but he was good at what he did.
14:32 - Between the size and the strength of Henning
14:36 and the speed and the athleticism of Harley Race,
14:39 they had a tremendous run in several of the major territories
14:43 as the top heel team in wrestling.
14:46 - When we had our son and we traveled a lot together,
14:51 when we'd go to matches, I would ask Harley
14:54 if it was going to be a bloodbath at the wrestling match
14:57 or is it gonna be clean?
15:00 - If it was gonna be a bloodbath,
15:02 my mom and I were probably going to a movie
15:04 or to miniature golf that night.
15:05 My name is Justin Race,
15:08 and my father is the king, handsome Harley Race.
15:12 I got to see him wrestle a lot,
15:14 and the chairs start flying,
15:15 and the world title belt starts hitting people in the heads
15:18 and this and that, and dad's gushing blood out,
15:20 stumbling around.
15:22 It was scary.
15:23 But it was happy then.
15:26 And he was a kind person.
15:27 He was kind to everybody.
15:28 He was well-mannered.
15:30 It was fun being with him.
15:32 - Touring arenas, sports halls, and bars across America,
15:36 Harley's status as a legitimate tough guy
15:38 is frequently put to the test.
15:40 - Harley, he sees this man being very aggressive
15:43 with this woman,
15:44 just berating her, getting handsy with her.
15:47 Harley goes over there to confront the guy about it,
15:49 to tell him to back off or leave her alone.
15:51 What Harley doesn't know is the guy's friend
15:54 is behind Harley and has a knife.
15:55 It goes up behind Harley
15:57 and stabs him three times in the back.
15:59 The guy takes off, and the other guy takes off.
16:02 Harley has to go to the hospital.
16:04 Harley knew quite a few people,
16:06 was able to find out where the guy lived at,
16:08 and got a pistol, and went by the guy's house.
16:12 (gunshots)
16:14 Now, I had heard this story from somebody else
16:17 and asked Harley about it.
16:19 He looks at me and he goes, "It wasn't a pistol.
16:22 It was a machine gun."
16:24 (dramatic music)
16:27 And that was enough for me to know that it wasn't a lie.
16:35 - As Harley's legend grows, so does his busy schedule,
16:41 keeping him on the road for days and even weeks at a time.
16:45 - It was always wrestling, wrestling, wrestling.
16:48 And he didn't have time for family.
16:51 He was a good father,
16:53 but he was only home three times a month.
16:55 What I hated was when he'd stop after the wrestling match,
17:00 got a six pack of beers,
17:01 and he started right then and there drinking.
17:05 - When his first wife was killed,
17:07 he was only going 30 miles an hour.
17:09 He never drove slow since.
17:11 He didn't care.
17:12 - If the speed limit said 70, he thought it meant 90,
17:16 and he'd be flying down the highway.
17:18 And sure enough, we'd see a cop,
17:19 and you would watch them power walk to Harley's vehicle,
17:23 angry, "Who's this person driving 90 miles an hour?"
17:28 And they'd get to the window and go,
17:29 "I need your license and regi-"
17:31 "Harley? Harley race?"
17:33 - Okay, Harley, take it easy.
17:37 Slow down.
17:38 That got me mad too.
17:40 - He believed 100% he was the man,
17:45 inside the ring and outside the ring.
17:48 Sometimes they realized who he was and didn't bother him.
17:51 Sometimes they didn't know who he was and tested him.
17:54 And it was a mistake every single time.
17:56 He knew exactly what he wanted to do,
18:00 when he wanted to do it, and how he wanted to do it.
18:02 I just don't know if Harley knew how to be anything else.
18:05 - A rising star across the territories
18:15 with his tag team partner, Larry Hennig.
18:17 Harley Race emerges as a singles competitor
18:20 after Hennig breaks his leg,
18:22 setting the stage for a legendary run.
18:25 - When the Hennig Race tag team split up,
18:27 Harley got a reputation as a top guy.
18:31 And that's where he first got into contention
18:34 in the NWA promoter's eyes
18:36 for being a world heavyweight champion someday.
18:39 - Though the NWA title changed hands in the ring,
18:42 the champion was actually chosen by committee.
18:45 Selected for their popularity, trustworthiness,
18:48 and ability to protect themselves
18:50 if a match goes off script.
18:52 - A stunning turnabout here at Comiskey Park.
18:55 - In 1973, the reigning NWA world heavyweight champion
18:59 was Dory Funk Jr.
19:00 And his father, Dory Funk Sr.,
19:02 was one of the most prominent promoters
19:04 in the National Wrestling Alliance.
19:05 - For a long time, there's been quite a feud
19:08 between the Briscoes and the Funks.
19:11 - Jack had gone for years, you know,
19:13 as the number one contender,
19:14 and it was time for Dory Jr. to step down.
19:17 - Hello, everybody, I'm Gerald Briscoe,
19:19 Jerry Briscoe to a lot of you.
19:21 I'm a WWE Hall of Famer.
19:22 I'm a 50-year veteran of pro wrestling.
19:25 - Jerry Briscoe clearly out-thinking his opponent thus far.
19:29 - The rumor was that the old man, Dory Sr.,
19:32 did not want Dory losing it to another babyface.
19:36 And of course, Jack was a babyface.
19:38 - But if he lost to a bad guy who was a cheater,
19:41 well, that's something different.
19:43 So they put him in the ring with Harley Race.
19:46 This served two purposes.
19:47 Number one, he was going to lose to a guy
19:51 that was a noted heel, a rule breaker, a cheater.
19:54 But he was also gonna be wrestling a guy
19:56 who, if it came to it, if there was not cooperation,
20:00 would be able to legitimately take
20:03 the World Heavyweight Championship in the ring.
20:05 (crowd cheering)
20:09 - One, two, three!
20:10 - Harley's first title win in 1973
20:22 really is what brought his name to national prominence
20:25 from coast to coast.
20:26 And there were champions that held the NWA title
20:29 longer than Harley did.
20:30 But Harley, at the time, was the most constant champion
20:34 from the early '70s through the mid '80s.
20:38 It was more often than not,
20:39 you would see Harley holding the belt
20:41 and he became kind of synonymous with it.
20:44 - That's exactly why Harley was there,
20:46 would just personify that image of the NWA belt
20:50 that you gotta be a tough son of a bitch.
20:52 - He was wrestling an hour a night, one hour matches,
20:57 night after night after night.
20:59 - As an eight-time NWA champion,
21:03 Harley Race took on all comers,
21:05 establishing his reputation
21:07 as the most fearsome man in the business.
21:10 - And what a lot of people don't know,
21:11 those hour-long matches, it isn't like wrestling today,
21:15 where a lot of guys plan out their matches in the back.
21:19 - How could anybody go through the various injuries
21:23 and accidents and things that he had done
21:25 and still be able to do that?
21:27 That's why all the guys looked at him like,
21:29 this guy can't be human.
21:31 Harley was so important to the Central States territory
21:34 and Kansas City that he was allowed to buy
21:37 into the territory and actually own part of the promotion.
21:41 - I encouraged him.
21:42 I knew he was good at what he did.
21:45 - The NWA World Champion's road schedule
21:48 was probably the most grueling
21:50 in all of professional wrestling.
21:52 Nobody traveled as many different places,
21:55 worked in as many different territories
21:56 for as many different promoters
21:58 in as many different countries as the NWA World Champion.
22:02 And there were literally almost no days off.
22:05 - I wrestled for one hour in Tokyo, Japan on Friday night.
22:10 I flew out the following morning
22:12 and wrestled for one hour in St. Louis, Missouri.
22:17 I flew out Sunday morning to San Juan, Puerto Rico
22:22 and went one hour with Carlos Polo.
22:25 - He'd just fly from city to city
22:27 and when he could have 24 hours,
22:29 he'd fly home and then back out on the road again.
22:32 And it was a horrible, horrible life to live in the limelight
22:36 well, especially because he was who he was and how he was.
22:41 You know, he treated everybody like gold except with me.
22:45 I mean, he bought me Porsches and mink coats
22:47 and things like that.
22:48 Well, that doesn't buy love.
22:49 - This is Barbara Clary
22:58 on special assignment reporting from Tampa, Florida.
23:01 Across the street is the Hyatt Regency Hotel
23:03 where at this moment, a special meeting
23:05 of the National Wrestling Alliance Board of Directors
23:07 is in progress.
23:09 - In 1983, the NWA decides Harley Race
23:12 will lose his championship to Ric Flair
23:15 at a massive event branded Starcade.
23:18 - I think that I'm gonna call my quest
23:19 for the World Heavyweight Championship
23:21 a flair for the gold.
23:24 - Ric was as hot as babyface as babyface can get.
23:28 Harley and Ric were perfect foals at that time.
23:31 Ric, the young, upcoming, cocky, flamboyant type deal
23:35 were the raw, bone, badass Harley Race.
23:39 - A lot of people have thought they put Harley Race
23:42 exactly where they wanted him.
23:43 Well, seven times around,
23:47 I proved every (beep) one of you wrong.
23:49 And I'll guarantee you this, in Greensboro, Flair,
23:54 I'm gonna prove you wrong.
23:57 - The match is meant to mark a generational changing
23:59 of the guard, but rival promoter Vince McMahon
24:02 has other ideas.
24:04 - Hello, everyone, this is Vince McMahon
24:05 in the studios of the USA Cable Network.
24:08 We wholeheartedly welcome you
24:09 to the premiere of All-American Wrestling.
24:13 - In 1983, Vince McMahon Jr. had just moved
24:17 from becoming the announcer for the WWF,
24:20 his father's company, to the owner
24:23 of the World Wrestling Federation.
24:25 And most of the promoters didn't know yet,
24:29 but in the next couple of months,
24:30 he was going to start a national expansion of the WWF
24:34 that would see him moving into all of their territories
24:37 and trying to sign away all their top talent.
24:40 - Ric Flair was over, and Vince knew
24:44 that when Harley dropped the world title to him,
24:47 Ric was gonna be the next big thing.
24:49 And Vince was trying to do whatever he could
24:52 to shut it down.
24:54 - Just hours before the NWA's massive Starrcade event,
24:58 Vince McMahon meets in secret with champion Harley Race
25:01 in an attempt to sabotage the show.
25:04 - Vince laid out an opportunity for my father
25:06 to come over to the WWF if dad would not go to Starrcade.
25:10 And for an extraordinary amount of money back then,
25:12 $250,000.
25:14 - I think there's an element of truth to all of that.
25:18 But if Harley had never lost the title,
25:20 then how are they gonna explain that to anybody?
25:23 And whoever they made champion after that,
25:26 the fans would not have looked at them as legitimate.
25:29 That could have put you out of business.
25:31 - And of course, Harley said,
25:32 "Hell no, I'm not gonna do that.
25:34 I gave my word."
25:35 - I was with Harley for 10 years.
25:37 You know, when you spend that much time with Harley,
25:39 you get comfortable, you start asking him questions
25:41 of stories that other people have told or rumors.
25:46 And so of course, that was one of the questions
25:48 I had to ask was, you know,
25:49 have you and Vince ever gotten to a fight?
25:51 - There's times when you gotta make a decision
25:54 where it has to come from what you truthfully believe.
25:59 - Apparently, Vince wasn't very happy.
26:01 - Vince suddenly gets that look on his face
26:03 and turns around and tries to leg dive Harley
26:06 and take him down.
26:07 - According to Harley, he just puts him
26:10 in a front face lock, hooks his arms,
26:12 and stands up with him.
26:14 Basically puts Vince to sleep, drops him on the floor.
26:18 - Harley got him into a choke hold.
26:20 He said, "I wish I would've wrung his neck,"
26:22 because he was driving us out of business.
26:24 - He could've broke his neck and even told me,
26:27 he's like, "I could've ended all this right then."
26:29 Just (snaps fingers)
26:30 - I had too much respect for not only Rick
26:34 and the wrestling business,
26:37 but for me personally, to pull that wasn't an option.
26:42 - Fans, I'm Bob Cornell along with Gordon Solin.
26:44 We're delighted to be bringing you,
26:46 wherever you are, live from Greensboro, North Carolina,
26:50 Starrcade 83.
26:51 This is the wrestling event of all time.
26:54 - Fortunately, the main event of Starrcade 83 did come off.
26:57 It did turn out to be the biggest gate
27:00 of any NWA show previously in history.
27:03 - Here's Flair.
27:04 - Flair did win the title from Harley.
27:06 - He's got him down.
27:07 One, two, three.
27:08 He did it, he did it.
27:11 Rick Flair has just defeated seven times
27:15 world heavyweight champion, Harley Race.
27:18 - Vince's failure to persuade Harley to leave the NWA
27:22 and join the WWF is a McMahon's only attempt
27:25 to take over Harley's Kansas City territory.
27:28 - When Vince McMahon started taking his live WWF events
27:31 all across the country in other promoters' backyards,
27:34 running their buildings, running their towns,
27:37 none of them appreciated it.
27:38 But most of them didn't confront him personally.
27:41 Harley Race did.
27:42 When the WWF went to Kansas City,
27:44 Harley showed up, that was his town,
27:47 he had owned it, pioneered it,
27:49 and he wanted to know why these son of a bitches
27:51 were coming trying to take his fans and ticket money away.
27:54 Now Hogan, Hulk Hogan has told some stories.
27:58 - You shall feel the wrath of Hulkamania.
28:01 This is where the power lies.
28:03 - All right, get ready.
28:04 - They were promoting big
28:06 that Hulk Hogan is the world champion, he is the man.
28:11 - And he was in Kansas City, working in my city.
28:14 The longer I thought about this,
28:16 the more it ticked me off, so I drove over there.
28:21 - What I heard was that Harley had a pistol in his belt
28:25 and he was looking for Hogan.
28:27 He wanted to find out,
28:27 "You're the world champion, let's find out."
28:30 - And it's second, third, and fourth hand
28:32 on stuff that I heard, but Harley come in
28:34 and everybody held their breath for like a half hour
28:37 to see what was gonna happen.
28:40 - Harley went around looking for Hogan, couldn't find him.
28:46 So he proceeded to light the ring on fire.
28:48 - They called me, said, "Harley Race showed up
28:52 "two in the afternoon, blind, drunk,
28:54 "and lit the ring on fire."
28:55 Said, "If you come to the building tonight,
28:57 "he's gonna kill you."
28:59 - That was him protecting his business.
29:01 That was him protecting the business of Kansas City.
29:04 - You had to assert to certain individuals
29:08 you wouldn't tolerate that bullshit.
29:09 (explosion)
29:15 - I don't doubt it for a second.
29:17 Even if it didn't happen, does it really matter?
29:19 It's something that could have happened.
29:21 - Despite Harley's best efforts
29:24 to ward off Vince's invasion,
29:27 the WWF's nationwide expansion cannot be stopped.
29:31 - Harley bought into Kansas City
29:32 and the territories were dying.
29:34 Vince come along and offered him a pocket full of change
29:37 and he grabbed it.
29:38 - But he knew that that's what he had to do
29:41 in his next phase of his career.
29:43 He knew Vince was taking over.
29:46 - Vince liked tough guys.
29:47 And Vince liked veterans who had accomplished things
29:50 in the wrestling business.
29:51 So I think he respected Harley,
29:53 but he thought he was too rasslin'.
29:56 He was just too plain.
29:57 Nobody wants to see a tough guy wrestle.
29:59 They wanna see color and character and ice cream bars.
30:02 That was what Vince was going for.
30:04 And Harley was the antithesis of that.
30:07 - So when Harley got there,
30:08 they wanted to make him the original king of the ring.
30:12 That character, that attitude.
30:14 - I crown you and you only
30:17 the king, handsome Harley Race.
30:21 - Did he like it?
30:23 I doubt it.
30:24 He never bitched about it
30:26 'cause that wasn't Harley's style.
30:28 Whatever Harley was handed,
30:29 Harley would make it work for Harley.
30:32 - The WWF at that time was appealing to kids
30:35 who they had no idea who Harley Race was.
30:37 They're kids.
30:38 And they see an older guy
30:40 that's not particularly impressive,
30:42 dressed up in this king outfit.
30:44 Eh.
30:46 And the older fans who knew Harley,
30:49 they were like, "Wow, this is what it's come down to."
30:52 - Now we realized, you know,
30:53 Harley at that point was very methodical.
30:57 And I enjoyed seeing a guy of that age
31:00 taking off from the top rope,
31:02 dropping headbutts from the top.
31:04 - Here he comes down from his throne, headbutt.
31:07 Big roundhouse right.
31:09 (crowd cheering)
31:11 - Taking the big bumps still,
31:13 like he made it work.
31:14 - He was there to make a paycheck.
31:15 He was there to take care of his family.
31:18 - But Harley's time in the WWF is cut short by an injury.
31:22 Ironically, while in the ring with champion Hulk Hogan.
31:25 - Oh, he's going out of the ring, all right.
31:28 Oh, Harley.
31:29 - Eight foot long table.
31:31 So they had that out there
31:32 and Hogan got on the table.
31:34 - A chop to the throat.
31:35 The Hulk got down on the table.
31:37 Set the table up for something.
31:39 - And dad leaped off the ring
31:42 to land on Hogan on the table
31:43 and Hogan moved and he went through the table.
31:46 - Coming down.
31:47 (crowd cheering)
31:49 That steel table bent in two.
31:51 - And the metal bar that goes underneath it
31:53 like supports the table
31:55 had been bent down, not broken.
31:57 The metal bar came up and hit him in his lower abdomen
32:00 just below the belly button
32:01 and blew out his lower intestines.
32:03 Created a big hole, a rupture.
32:05 He was at my apartment
32:06 and I left and I came back
32:08 and he was passed out on the floor
32:10 in a fetal position.
32:12 I thought he was dead.
32:14 - A one key coming down.
32:22 - After suffering an internal injury
32:25 during a move gone wrong,
32:27 the future of Harley Race's career is in doubt
32:30 when he's found on the floor of his son's apartment.
32:33 - My gut blew apart
32:35 and they rushed me to the hospital
32:37 and said if we can't get this shut down, that's it.
32:40 - Harley had an abdominal hernia
32:42 that required multiple surgeries to fix the damage
32:46 and it significantly hampered
32:48 the rest of his wrestling career.
32:50 - And that was a long recovery.
32:52 He's a 300 pound guy.
32:53 He went down to 200 pounds,
32:55 needed care constantly,
32:56 needed a lot of my help constantly.
32:58 He had ended up having two colostomy bags
33:00 on the front of his stomach.
33:02 Some 300 to 400 stitches on the inside of him.
33:06 - Weighing in at 260 pounds,
33:10 Harley Race!
33:12 - He eventually got back to his wrestling weight.
33:15 He was a bit old to be told that said
33:17 to have to recover from something like that.
33:19 Not to recover and go back to his job
33:20 as an insurance salesman, sure.
33:22 But to go back to wrestling,
33:24 that was pretty tough.
33:25 - Harley wrestles sporadically over the next few years
33:29 as his career winds down
33:31 and he spends more time pursuing his other interests.
33:34 But once again, tragedy strikes.
33:36 - We had a lake home.
33:40 We went boating.
33:41 We had good times at the lake.
33:44 Some of the best.
33:45 Until that boat accident.
33:47 It was in the morning
33:50 and he got up and started drinking scotch.
33:53 So I went on the dock and I sat there
33:56 and I kept coming in
33:58 and he'd just call me names.
34:00 So I'd go out again.
34:01 And that night, he stormed out the house
34:06 and he zoomed out of there, out of the cove.
34:10 - The story that we were told was that he was drinking.
34:13 There was a boat in the middle of the lake
34:15 that turned off all their lights.
34:17 Well, as he was coming around the cove,
34:19 by the time he'd seen him, it was too late.
34:21 And he ran into him.
34:24 - He was in the water.
34:28 The other people was in the water.
34:29 He pulled him over to shore.
34:31 It was a pretty traumatic event.
34:34 - As a result of this accident,
34:36 several other people in the other boat were injured
34:39 and Harley was as well.
34:41 Harley was intoxicated and also had resisted arrest
34:44 at the time the police came to investigate.
34:47 - And after he left, I called Harley's psychiatrist
34:52 and she said, "Back the car up.
34:54 "Put your clothes in the car.
34:56 "Get out of there."
34:58 I called my attorney and I said,
35:00 "I want to file for divorce tomorrow
35:03 "and have a restraining order in place."
35:06 - The divorce, it was a very nasty divorce.
35:09 - Very nasty.
35:10 - What led to the breakup of your parents' marriage?
35:14 - Wrestling.
35:15 I mean, the arduous relationship
35:21 of having someone gone all the time.
35:25 Mom raising me pretty much.
35:26 And then once his career starts to wind down
35:29 and they're together a lot more, it didn't get long.
35:32 - He was a kind-hearted person.
35:36 He just wasn't a family man.
35:38 One time, when I was putting Christmas decorations up,
35:41 I got a phone call and said,
35:43 "Your husband has got me knocked up."
35:45 I got a letter one time to answer
35:49 to a woman from Wichita, Kansas,
35:52 said that they want alimony for a 16-year-old girl.
35:56 That was real.
35:58 But he got out of that too.
36:00 - How'd he get out of that?
36:02 - 'Cause he's a hardly race.
36:03 But I could never leave him
36:07 because he told me he'd get rid of me if I left him.
36:10 - What do you think he meant?
36:11 - What do you think he meant?
36:13 It was terrible.
36:14 I was stuck.
36:16 I was afraid.
36:17 And even though he was rough with me at times,
36:23 I should've done what they do today,
36:26 they take you in, but I didn't.
36:28 - I would find out more sometimes
36:33 about my parents' divorce through reading the newspaper.
36:37 In fact, I remember the movie with Michael Douglas
36:40 and Kathleen Turner called "War of the Roses"
36:43 here in Kansas City,
36:44 and they wrote articles about my parents' divorce.
36:46 It was called "War of the Races."
36:48 My dad did his best, and he did a great job as a father,
36:52 but different stories that are told
36:55 that are true, not true, who knows?
36:57 It was just too much.
36:58 - But there were a lot of arguments.
37:01 When Harley and I would fight,
37:03 I would take Justin in his little red wagon
37:05 and take him out of there so he wouldn't see it.
37:08 And there were so many of those times.
37:12 I just hope that my son can understand
37:18 my side of the story.
37:20 It's true, it's not a lie.
37:22 And I don't know that he will.
37:26 I wish it wouldn't have happened the way it did.
37:28 I'm glad I got out of the marriage.
37:30 - Divorced from his wife,
37:32 Harley faces another challenge
37:34 when a lawsuit from his boating accident
37:36 threatens to wipe out everything he has left.
37:40 - The woman that was injured had two broken legs,
37:42 but a couple of years later, when it went to court,
37:44 she was still in a wheelchair.
37:46 And as a result, she was asking
37:48 for $10 million in damages.
37:51 She ended up being awarded $250,000
37:54 because Harley was intoxicated.
37:56 This was a time where not only had his wrestling slowed down,
38:00 but also $250,000 as a judgment.
38:03 It was a financial burden on Harley
38:06 that he would possibly not ever really recover from.
38:10 - Everything he'd earned traveling the world for 20 years
38:14 is basically gone, right?
38:16 Man, man.
38:17 Man.
38:18 - Facing financial hardship
38:26 for the first time in his long career,
38:29 Harley returns to the wrestling world.
38:31 - After the abdominal surgery
38:33 from the accident with the table in the Hulk Hogan match,
38:36 then Harley had torn his shoulder out.
38:38 He knew his wrestling days were behind him,
38:41 but Harley Race was still a major name
38:44 in professional wrestling,
38:45 and WCW had incredible respect for Harley.
38:48 And they said, "If he can't wrestle
38:50 "on a regular basis anymore,
38:52 "he's still a personality,
38:54 "and he still has that knowledge.
38:55 "We can use him as a manager."
38:57 - Former heavyweight champion, Harley Race.
39:00 And the leader!
39:01 - For a guy like Vader, especially,
39:06 Harley Race was a brilliant teacher
39:08 because Vader was a ex-pro football player.
39:12 He was used to coaches.
39:14 And Harley was a no-nonsense guy
39:16 that would not take any shit,
39:17 and he'd tell him what he was doing wrong.
39:19 - What are you doing to my face?
39:21 I was a little trepidatious, right?
39:23 Because I didn't know if I was a Harley guy.
39:26 I didn't drive fast.
39:27 I didn't drink much.
39:29 But he really embraced me.
39:31 - Again, Harley Race now,
39:32 grabbing Cactus and shoving him back in there.
39:35 - Harley had respect for Mick,
39:36 but he thought Mick was crazy.
39:37 - No!
39:38 Oh, my goodness!
39:39 - The bumps that Mick would take,
39:40 it's Jesus Christ, he's gonna kill himself.
39:44 - I know when I did my feud with Vader,
39:46 the Harley stuff was just priceless.
39:49 To have him there and have him be part of it
39:52 was some of my greatest moments.
39:54 - Harley leaves WCW,
39:56 but his next public appearance
39:57 shocks even his closest friends.
40:00 - 1998, an expose.
40:04 Wrestling Secrets revealed that it was a work,
40:07 that it was predetermined,
40:10 that everybody was in on it together.
40:12 And that's the antithesis of what Harley Race
40:15 would have done publicly in his entire wrestling career.
40:19 - As a booker,
40:20 your main job is putting two people together
40:24 that'll draw money.
40:25 The production was able to gravel out his voice,
40:29 but not so much to the point
40:31 where you couldn't tell who it was.
40:32 And obviously the silhouette,
40:33 if you knew who Harley was,
40:34 you knew exactly who it was.
40:36 - But it was surprising to see Harley on there,
40:38 a guy who respected and protected the business
40:42 on a show called Secrets of Pro Wrestling.
40:45 - I was so disappointed,
40:46 and I even told Harley,
40:47 "Harley, why'd you do it?"
40:48 And he said, "Money, brother.
40:49 It's just like anything else.
40:51 Money's evil to everything."
40:53 - In a previous era,
40:54 the consequences for that would have been dire,
40:57 but the guy that would have been
40:58 dealing out the consequences
41:00 would have been Harley Race.
41:02 Who are you gonna get to beat up Harley Race?
41:04 - Retired from the ring,
41:06 Harley starts his own wrestling school,
41:08 where he imparts his knowledge
41:09 to a new generation of talent.
41:12 And in 2004, his long history in the business is honored
41:15 with an induction into the WWE Hall of Fame.
41:18 - God gave me the talent
41:21 to work in this wrestling business,
41:23 and there's not a better spot on earth
41:25 than under those bright lights.
41:28 - In 2019, after years of battling various ailments,
41:35 including lung cancer,
41:36 the wrestling world awakes to the news
41:38 that Harley Race has died.
41:41 - Harley was in terrible pain,
41:42 but he sure had kept it inside.
41:44 The depression was kept inside.
41:46 The tears were kept inside.
41:48 - The human body,
41:49 no matter how much of a superhuman he might be,
41:51 has its limits.
41:53 He was 76 when he passed away.
41:56 When I came into the hospital room,
41:58 I whispered, "Dad, it's me."
42:01 I had a hold of his hand,
42:02 and he like squeezed my hand,
42:03 and I put my hand down, and I was crying.
42:06 I put my head down on his chest,
42:07 and he reached over, and he patted me on the back,
42:11 and left his hand laying there,
42:12 and it was just as warm as ever.
42:14 - Dinky Diska, Mina Asad.
42:18 I'm Harley Race, seven times World's Heavyweight Champion.
42:22 I would like to introduce to you
42:24 the star of this film,
42:26 and also the star of my life,
42:29 my wife, Yvonne.
42:31 - Deep in my heart, I have to say he was a good guy.
42:35 Harley was a god in wrestling.
42:37 He just wasn't meant to be a husband.
42:40 - One of the greatest men that ever stepped in the ring.
42:43 It takes a certain talent to get over.
42:45 Harley had that talent to get over.
42:48 - You could not be not in awe of Harley.
42:52 - After all these years,
42:55 we're still referring to the Harley Race way
42:58 of doing things as being the best.
43:01 - He was real, a legitimate tough guy.
43:04 Some people are just born that way.
43:06 He was one of them,
43:07 and he was very good at what he did.
43:09 - I don't see how anybody could possibly be tougher
43:14 than Harley Race was.
43:15 Maybe there's somebody as tough,
43:17 mental toughness, physical toughness.
43:19 Harley Race had it.
43:21 - I don't know if his toughness was to cover up emotions.
43:26 When he had the wrestling school,
43:28 he was married to his wife, BJ,
43:30 and when BJ passed away, we were talking,
43:33 and he said, "I haven't cried."
43:35 And he goes, "I should be crying, Trevor.
43:37 "I don't know why I haven't cried."
43:38 And he goes, "I miss her.
43:39 "I love her, and I'm hurting, but I haven't cried."
43:43 I told him, I said, "I just don't think that's you.
43:44 "It's not who you are.
43:45 "It's not in your DNA, brother."
43:48 - There's probably nobody in the history of wrestling
43:54 that gave more of themselves physically,
43:57 and their effort, and their determination,
44:01 and their credibility than Harley Race did.
44:04 (somber music)
44:06 (gentle music)
44:09 [Music]
44:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]