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00:00Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Championship Sports.
00:05Now, all of you have heard about the tragic and untimely death of Bruiser Brody.
00:09Very disappointing to all.
00:10A wrestler prior to a bout in Puerto Rico.
00:13His menacing looks gave him the reputation of a madman inside the ring,
00:17but a long-time wrestling promoter and others remember a very different man.
00:21If you could picture a man coming to the ring, 6'6", 6'7", 350-something pounds,
00:27he'd look like danger coming.
00:29It was the kind of danger you were drawn to.
00:32People would actually run from him.
00:34They'd just all run and scatter.
00:36He had a chain.
00:37He'd sometimes hit people with it.
00:39He was just a wild fucking guy.
00:42Bruiser Brody's larger-than-life presence and in-ring brutality
00:46delivered an undeniable authenticity to professional wrestling.
00:50Brody coming down the aisle is like a tornado coming to your house,
00:53but you still want to see it.
00:55He'd beat you up with two-by-fours, chairs, anything that he could get his hands on.
01:00Bruiser Brody was insane.
01:02Come the job! Come the job!
01:07On July 16th, 1988, this insanity bled out of the ring into real life
01:14when Bruiser Brody was violently killed in a locker room,
01:17moments before the opening bell.
01:20In the world of professional wrestling,
01:22it is still the only sport where its characters live in two worlds,
01:26where fantasy bleeds out into reality.
01:29Hi, I'm Mick Foley.
01:35In my career, there was one man more than any other
01:38I wish I could have had the opportunity to step into the ring with.
01:41That person was Bruiser Brody.
01:44The day that I got my hands on an old VHS tape with vintage Brody matches
01:48was the day that everything changed for me.
01:50I wanted to be the next Bruiser Brody.
01:53The stories I've heard surrounding Brody's death have always troubled me.
01:57After 30 years, we tracked down three wrestlers
02:00willing to tell their version of what happened that night
02:03and to chronicle the life and death
02:05of one of wrestling's greatest outlaws.
02:08Just in case you don't know who I am,
02:10I'm Tony, Mr. USA Atlas,
02:13brawled at the shoulder, narrowed at the hip,
02:15tower of power, too sweet to be sour.
02:18One of the last people to see Bruiser Brody alive
02:20was Mr. USA Tony Atlas,
02:23a former bodybuilder turned wrestler
02:25and a current WWE Hall of Famer.
02:28Okay, LT, stand up.
02:30Take the clothesline over the top.
02:32Cameraman, watch out.
02:36That was the shittiest finish I've ever seen.
02:38Dirty Dutch Mantell is one of the business's most infamous villains
02:42in front of the camera.
02:43Has the taste returned to your mouth after I slapped it out
02:46just a few seconds ago?
02:48And one of wrestling's greatest minds behind the scenes.
02:51In your experience, did you ever work with Brody?
02:53I never did.
02:54I never, I never had a match with Brody.
02:56Why's that?
02:57Well, he beat the shit, I love you.
02:58And then there's the madman from the Sudan,
03:01Abdullah the Butcher.
03:03Abdullah was also Bruiser Brody's greatest in-ring nemesis.
03:08And, you know, this is a very graphic display
03:12of exactly what the world of professional wrestling is all about,
03:15the dark side, so to speak.
03:17I've been in the business for 53 years.
03:21What else can I say?
03:24My name is Abdullah the Butcher, right?
03:28I'm not a wrestler.
03:29I don't grab holds.
03:30I use karate.
03:32I use jiu-jitsu, okay?
03:35I'm not a wrestler.
03:38I can beat you up any time that I want to beat you up.
03:42You understand?
03:44And the guy behind the camera,
03:47give me the fork so I can stab it all in his head.
03:50Then you'll know.
03:52Let me tell you something.
03:54Don't you ever say that me and Brody was fake?
04:00We are not fakes.
04:02We kept bringing them back and back,
04:05and the people would say,
04:07when I seen that match, that was no bullshit.
04:14What would a match resemble between Abdullah and Bruiser Brody?
04:18A bloodbath. Every night.
04:21We were like killers.
04:23He kept pounding.
04:25When you get Abdullah Butcher and Bruiser Brody in the ring,
04:28there's gonna be a lot of blood.
04:30Because Abdullah had his fork,
04:32and they did it every night.
04:34It was just a formula.
04:36Boy, I loved the fork.
04:38I could stab him in the head,
04:39stick it into the mouth.
04:41Do everything.
04:42Probably 85% of the match was outside the ring.
04:46He struck fear in the hearts of fans.
04:49When he went down to the ring,
04:51people moved out of the way.
04:52That's an art.
04:54Brody's reputation in the business was,
04:56he was a main eventer.
04:58He could make you a lot of money.
04:59So that's why he was so popular,
05:01that's why so many promoters wanted him,
05:02because he could put asses in the seat.
05:04He was a superstar, and at that time,
05:18he was one of the biggest stars in the late 70s,
05:21early 80s.
05:22One of the biggest stars in the world.
05:24Bruiser Brody, he was a legend.
05:26He was a legend back before he died.
05:35Oh, my gosh.
05:38Oh, my God.
05:39Every time I come out here,
05:41I find something new.
05:42Look at this, another one.
05:44Some sentimental stuff associated with it.
05:46There's a lot of it, though.
05:48Here's a whole pile of photographs in here.
05:51I mean, take a look at that.
05:53Oh, boy.
05:56I first met Frank in Australia
05:58in the hotel that I was working in.
06:01I had no idea of his character,
06:04because I only saw Frank Goodish.
06:06I never saw Bruiser Brody.
06:08Frank was very quiet, very intelligent,
06:12even back in those days,
06:14just like a regular person.
06:17So he never lost sight of who he was.
06:19He didn't become the character he created.
06:22That's Dad's football, huh?
06:23In my own case,
06:25I spent three years with the Washington Redskins
06:28in 1969, 70, and 71.
06:31I was an all-American high school football player.
06:34I went to school on an athletic scholarship.
06:37I'm doing all of that.
06:38We're rolling for this, huh?
06:39Yeah, we've been rolling.
06:40Okay, good.
06:41Oh, okay, I'm sorry.
06:42No, I won't.
06:44I don't think you said anything there.
06:47Frank was kind of a little bit of a renegade.
06:50We were together for a long time,
06:51and he just came up with this idea,
06:53why don't we stop off in Vegas and get married?
06:56He said, I'm going to tell you now,
06:57it is not going to be an easy life.
06:59Out of a year,
07:00he maybe would only be home three months of that year.
07:02It was a challenge, but you do it.
07:05When Jeff was born, he changed so much
07:09because then he wanted to do for his family,
07:12and he wanted to provide for his son.
07:15So it changed him, even made him softer than who he really was.
07:32When he was around his son, they had a really good relationship.
07:36I do believe I've subconsciously possibly blocked a lot of things out, unfortunately.
07:40So a lot of stories I hear are stories that other people have tell me about my dad.
07:45At the same time, it's hard to hear these stories
07:46because they're stories that people are telling me,
07:49and I don't have a lot of stories around them to tell.
07:51It was like this character that he created that was separate from the person I knew.
07:57I would take him to the airport, and he would just be dad, husband,
08:03get out of the car, had his hair pulled back,
08:06walk through those doors, take his hair down.
08:09He became Bruiser Brody on the other side,
08:12and I could actually see the whole transformation take place.
08:20In July 1988, Frank departed for a booking in Puerto Rico,
08:24an isolated wrestling territory notorious for its wild blood feuds
08:29and the zealousness of its fans.
08:31Hey! Hey!
08:33It was a blood city.
08:35There was blood all the time.
08:37Big shows, you'd have three or four matches with blood in it.
08:40Because remember, I told you, the people believed,
08:42and they believed when you saw blood that it was serious.
08:45Ricky Rodriguez wants to stop him!
08:46Look! The blood is just coming up!
08:49The people are violent people.
08:52They wanted violence.
08:56People throw rocks at you.
08:58They throw piss on you.
08:59They throw urine on you.
09:00They throw feces on you.
09:02They stoned me.
09:04They used to take cups, put glass or stones,
09:08and throw them at me.
09:09They want to see somebody get hurt.
09:11They want to see somebody get carried out on a stretcher.
09:15Every place you go, they love violence.
09:27Some weekly planners.
09:291987, 1988.
09:31Just his daily activities, it appears.
09:33His workout schedule and regimen,
09:35and where he's traveling to.
09:37San Juan, Puerto Rico, of all places.
09:41Yeah, I believe it was the 16th or the 17th
09:45that that happened, unfortunately.
09:48In July 1988, Frank Goodish left his family in Texas
09:52and entered one of the most violent wrestling territories in the world.
09:56His family could not have imagined that this would be the last time
10:00that they would see him alive.
10:08In the summer of 1988, Bruiser Brody left his family in Texas
10:12and entered one of the most violent wrestling territories in the world.
10:16It wasn't only his Puerto Rican fans who were waiting for his return,
10:20but some unresolved business and a bitter, long-standing grudge.
10:24The World Wrestling Council is Puerto Rico's main wrestling promotion,
10:28which was established by wrestlers Gorilla Monsoon, Victor Jovica,
10:32and Carlos Colon.
10:34Carlos Colon!
10:36Carlos Colon!
10:42Carlos Colon was the boss.
10:44He's also a WWE Hall of Famer now.
10:48He was probably as big a star as Roberto Clemente.
10:50Carlos Colon's right-hand man was Jose Juertes Gonzalez,
10:55a local wrestler celebrated in the ring as invader number one.
10:59Gonzalez also acted as the company's booker,
11:03the person in charge of the creative direction and outcomes of wrestling shows.
11:08Frank understood the value of his character consistently appearing
11:12as an unbeatable monster to fans as a way to keep them coming back for more.
11:17He took this aggression to a new level when he wrestled a young Jose Gonzalez,
11:22when Gonzalez was hoping to make a big impression in the WWF.
11:29Brody and Invader, they didn't really care for each other.
11:32Their personalities did not mesh.
11:35Even their matches, you could tell there was something not quite right with them.
11:39He was a pretty decent guy, if he liked you.
11:42If he didn't like you, he would beat the living crap out of you.
11:47But I just seen Brody take people in the ring many a time and just beat them unmercifully.
11:52He would just beat them to death.
11:54Well, I've tried to piece it together over the years.
11:56What brought this on?
11:58Let's go back in the past.
12:00In the mid-70s, they were grooming, I heard, Jose Gonzalez to be like the next Puerto Rican star.
12:07Bruiser Brody came in and had a match with Jose Gonzalez and just beat the shit out of him.
12:12He ate him up.
12:13I mean, the whole face was swollen.
12:15His head was swollen up.
12:16Looked just like a pumpkin.
12:17Brody beat him so bad that S.D. had to take him to the hospital.
12:21S.D. Special Deliver Jones, he was a wrestler.
12:23We put him in the car and S.D. took him to the hospital.
12:26And he turned to S.D. Jones and said,
12:29One day I'm gonna kill that man.
12:32He was angry.
12:34I mean, his head looked like a pumpkin, brother.
12:36Bruiser Brody was worried about one image, and that was Bruiser Brody.
12:40Once the people see you get beat once or twice, that brand, and he knows this, the brand becomes kind of violated.
12:50And he didn't want that to happen, and that's why he acted the way he did.
12:54I don't know about the other professional wrestlers.
12:57I only know about Bruiser Brody.
12:59And when I go in the ring, it doesn't matter whether I'm in Texas or New York.
13:05It doesn't matter whether people like me or dislike me.
13:08I'm gonna be just as aggressive every night.
13:10But I also heard that Brody was making huge money in Japan.
13:15And he had wanted to invest in a wrestling promotion somewhere.
13:21And he had Puerto Rico in mind.
13:24And there was an owner, a part owner, a minority owner, named Victor Quinones, who had 10% or something.
13:30But a lot of it was owned by Gorilla Monsoon.
13:34And I think Victor Quinones was brokering a deal between Monsoon to sell his shares to Brody, which would have made Brody probably a minority owner.
13:46I think he bought part of that company.
13:48They wanted his money, but they didn't want his ideas.
13:51And Brody ain't that type of guy.
13:54Brody had his opinions.
13:56If you didn't like them, too bad.
13:58Can you tell us your name?
13:59David Manning.
14:00I was the booker for World Class Championship Wrestling.
14:03I was a little worried because Frank was going to Puerto Rico to wrestle.
14:07Frank said they owed him around $20,000, $25,000.
14:10And he had asked for the money politely.
14:12He had been waiting for the money.
14:15He told me before he left, remember I said this, I'm coming back with my money.
14:19And he said, if I have to beat every one of them up, I'm getting my money.
14:22Brody had mentioned to people that, and if he took over, he was going to get rid of Jose.
14:28And also, Jose Gonzalez had just lost his three-year-old daughter.
14:32She died in a swimming pool accident.
14:34She drowned about three months earlier.
14:37Now his job is being threatened.
14:40He doesn't like Brody in the first place.
14:43So you add all those ingredients.
14:46It's like fire and gasoline.
14:48An explosion was going to happen, and it did.
14:55Can I please tell the story?
14:57I'm back here.
14:58Because I want to tell it.
14:59Okay.
15:00I want to tell the story.
15:01See?
15:02Okay, okay, okay.
15:03Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
15:04Because I've been out for two days, I've been talking about everything but Brody.
15:08And I want to tell this story so bad, I'm ready to explode.
15:11I've been carrying this story around in my chest for how many years now?
15:17This is how me and Brody started our day.
15:20Yeah?
15:21Yeah, yeah.
15:22We were working out in the gym that morning.
15:24The same routine we did, you know, this last day here on Earth.
15:30I go to gym every morning anyway.
15:32And so me and him, we worked out together.
15:34And he said, hey, Tony, you want to go get something to eat?
15:36So I said, oh, sure, I got to go get something to eat.
15:38And then he turned to me at breakfast and he said, I waited a long time to get in down here.
15:45So I just got the impression that maybe, just maybe, that he bought in the company.
15:51And he said, you are going to see a lot of changes.
15:56I was at the hotel and Bruiser Brody and Dutch Mantel was sitting on the steps outside in the front of the building.
16:05And I said, Brody, I figured you'd be gone by now.
16:08He said, I'm waiting on Jose Gonzalez.
16:11He's supposed to pick me up.
16:13And I, right then, I said, that's unusual.
16:16Why would Jose, the booker, leave his main eventer?
16:21And I said, you could ride with us if you like.
16:24So we went to the show and traffic was horrible leading into the stadium.
16:29Because cars were lined up, so you know it was going to be a sellout.
16:32And we hopped out and we took our bags to where the dressing rooms were.
16:37Now, looking back on it, it was kind of strange.
16:41Because when I walked in, I remember I got a strange feeling.
16:43But Jose was sitting there.
16:45I said, he's here.
16:46As soon as I come to the door, I saw the three of them sitting there, talking.
16:51Jose, Carlos Colon, and Victor, they were sitting there in the football hut.
16:57Yeah, it kind of seemed a little strange.
17:00Because I've never really seen them together like that.
17:03And it didn't look like they were in conversation.
17:06They were just sitting there, which was even more strange.
17:10Gonzalez gets up from his seat, looked me straight in the face, and left.
17:18Never looked at Brody, never looked at Dutch.
17:21And he walked out of the dressing room.
17:23And Brody sat down right beside me.
17:25And I sat there maybe five minutes.
17:27And that feeling of tension, it just got stronger.
17:33So I said, I got to get out of here.
17:35I got to move.
17:36I got to something.
17:37Maybe if I move around, it'll go away.
17:39So I get up and walk out.
17:41I go and I sit in the dugout.
17:43And I'm watching the crowd come in.
17:45So I had my art pad.
17:47I set my bag down.
17:48I set my chair.
17:49And I started sketching.
17:50Brody came over, and he looked at it.
17:53He said, that is frickin' fantastic.
17:55He got all excited, big smiles on his face and everything.
17:58And he said, I wonder if you could do one for me.
18:01So he opened up his little pouch, reached in,
18:05and pulled out a picture of his son.
18:07Jose came back into the dressing room.
18:10I looked up, and Jose was standing there.
18:13And he had a towel over his hand.
18:16Brody, can I talk to you for a minute, please?
18:20Just like that.
18:21Can I talk to you for a minute, please?
18:23And Brody said, yeah.
18:25And he walked in there.
18:27And that's where it happened.
18:29It's not unusual to discuss match plans privately.
18:33But on this evening, the conversation between Brody and Gonzalez
18:37would descend into an unthinkable nightmare.
18:41In Puerto Rico, before his match, Bruiser Brody is summoned to a private meeting with talent booker Jose Gonzalez.
18:53There was a history of bad blood between Brody and Gonzalez.
18:56And wrestler Tony Atlas was witness to the growing tension.
19:00He had a bag in his hand.
19:02The picture of his son in this hand.
19:05And when he turned away with the picture, that's when I noticed Carlos stirring at me.
19:09As I'm looking at Carlos, I hear this sound.
19:13Oh!
19:15Oh!
19:17So I looked up.
19:18Brody was halfway hunched over.
19:21I thought Jose punched him in the stomach.
19:24That's what I thought.
19:25That the first thought came of me.
19:27Damn, he hit Brody.
19:28I said, oh, this is going to be a fight.
19:31So then he holla again.
19:33Oh!
19:34I looked at Jose's face and his eyes was bloodshot red.
19:41Then I saw the knife.
19:43The knife went in the air like this, with blood dripping off of it.
19:47I sprung up out of my chair, wrapped my arm around Brody's waist just like this.
19:51I yanked him back just in the nick of time to keep from his throat getting cut.
19:56And because I pulled him back, the knife kid hadn't cut his ponytail off.
20:01That's how sharp that knife was.
20:03Carlo shoot right by me.
20:05And he grabbed Jose and pushed him up against the wall and said, no Jose, no Jose.
20:10And Carlo was keeping people away from Jose.
20:13Telling the wrestlers, y'all stay back, stay back.
20:16So I take Brody and I take him and I lay him down on the ground.
20:21I felt his intestines and blood all over this arm here.
20:25This whole arm was drenched in blood.
20:27And he looked up at me.
20:28He said, brother, don't let him hurt me no more.
20:31Please, brother, don't let him hurt me no more.
20:33He said, don't let them.
20:35Not him.
20:36Them.
20:37That's why I didn't know who the hell he was talking about.
20:40Who else is involved in this, I'm thinking.
20:42I said, ain't no fucking body gonna do anything to you.
20:45Carlo tried to approach Brody after I laid him down.
20:50I told Carlo, I said, don't bring your ass over here.
20:53I will knock your motherfucking head right off the shoulder.
20:56He said, Tony, calm down.
20:57I said, fuck, calm it down.
20:59I said, y'all just stabbed me.
21:00I had nothing to do with it.
21:01I said, you're a goddamn liar.
21:03I said, y'all work together.
21:05So then Brody turned at my leg.
21:08And he said, let him over.
21:10So as I make my way back through the tunnel, I could hear the noise.
21:14And it was kind of dark in there, but I could see the lights in the dressing room.
21:18Something was going on.
21:20And that's when I asked Mark Youngblood what happened.
21:22He said, invader, invader stabbed Brody.
21:26The dressing room is in a panic.
21:28And I see Brody laying, laying in front of me.
21:32And Carlos is leaning over him, talking to him.
21:35He said, Brody, is there anything I could do for you?
21:37That's what Carlo asked Brody.
21:39Brody said, just take care of my family.
21:42And I don't know what Carlos was saying, but I'm sure he was saying, hang on there, man.
21:45We're gonna get you help.
21:46We're gonna get you help.
21:47But I do remember Brody looking up at Carlos and telling Carlos, tell my wife I love her.
21:53That's the only thing I heard him say.
21:55So that right there tells me that he doesn't have a lot of faith in his own survival.
22:01The shower had a door on it that wasn't clear.
22:04It was translucent.
22:06That you could see light behind it and figures.
22:09Vader never came out of that shower.
22:11He never came out.
22:12And he was in there with Jovica, who was part owner of the company.
22:16And they were screaming at each other.
22:18There was nothing I could really do, just watch.
22:22He walked out of the shower, walked around Brody's feet, went to his bag, got his keys, and he left.
22:31And his shirt, they said, was torn.
22:34Which tells me that whatever happened in that shower, that it was a physical confrontation with Brody ripping the shirt.
22:41It took at least 35 to 45 minutes for the ambulance to get there.
22:47They tried to put Brody on the girdle.
22:50They couldn't lift him.
22:51Brody was about 300-something pounds.
22:52He was too heavy.
22:53So I got down in the squat position, squatted all the way down, and slid my arm underneath him.
22:58And he looked up at me and said, don't you drop me.
23:01And I said, don't worry, brother.
23:02I curl more than what you weigh.
23:04So I pulled him gently and laid him on the girdle.
23:08The old man walked back to the back of the ambulance to shut and lock the door.
23:13He said, before I shut the door, is there anybody here that want to go with him to keep his company?
23:20So I said, I go.
23:22And I jumped and got on the ambulance.
23:24And I remember guys looking at me like, what in the fuck is wrong with Tony?
23:28He should stay out of this.
23:29He should stay out of this.
23:30You could almost feel they thinking this.
23:32Nobody was saying nothing.
23:33But you could almost feel that they were thinking what is wrong with him.
23:36Like I've said before, I'm not a religious person.
23:38Never have been.
23:39Probably never will be.
23:41But I did go and say a little prayer for Brody.
23:44Whatever worth it could be.
23:46People could help him find.
23:48Couldn't hurt.
23:50If we were sitting there in the ambulance, Brody was laying there.
23:53And I started crying again.
23:55I mean, I couldn't hold back the tears.
23:57And I sung this song.
23:59If heaven ain't a lot like Dixie, I don't wanna go.
24:04My voice got choked up.
24:06Everything got choked up.
24:07I just told him.
24:08I said, you're gonna be alright, Brody.
24:09I said, I'm gonna stay with you, man.
24:11I said, I'm with you, man.
24:12I'm with you.
24:13There's an old saying in professional wrestling.
24:16Consider yourself lucky if you make it out with one true friend.
24:20On this night, Brody had that true friend in Tony Atlas.
24:25But he would need more than that to make it out alive.
24:35Tony Atlas finally made it to the hospital with Bruiser Brody in critical condition.
24:39Although Atlas's struggle to save Brody's life was far from over.
24:43We get to the hospital and he lay there for probably about 15 or 20 minutes.
24:48I got freaking tired of waiting on the doctor.
24:50So I finally got one doctor that spoke a little bit of English.
24:54And I said, I've been telling people my friend been stabbed.
24:58How come nobody going to see him?
25:00He told me, he said, a stab in here is like a cold in the U.S.
25:05There's no big deal.
25:07He said, well, I would get to him when I can and turn to walk away from him.
25:11I grabbed him around the waist, yanked him up all the way up on my shoulder just like this.
25:17And I carried him in to Brody.
25:21So finally he looked at Brody.
25:23He lifted Brody's hand up and was like this the whole time.
25:27Just like this.
25:28At the same time he lifted his hand up, I remember I was taking his shoes off.
25:32When I saw his feet, and it was blue.
25:36Oh no, no, no, no, no.
25:39Because I knew this is real bad.
25:41So I said, doctor, please get him in now, now.
25:43You got to go now.
25:44He started calling on people.
25:46Come on, come on.
25:47We need some help here.
25:48We need some help here.
25:49I got so freaking mad when I saw that I punched the wall.
25:53I burned my fist probably about up to my elbow in that wall.
25:55That's how hard I hit that wall.
25:57While chaos and confusion erupted at the scene of Bruiser Brody's stabbing,
26:01rumors began to fly and word reached across the stadium to Abdullah the Butcher
26:06in a second dressing room.
26:08The doctor came and says, Brody was cut or stabbed or whatever.
26:16I said, come on.
26:17You know, I thought it was a joke.
26:19In my opinion, I thought it was working an angle.
26:23But when the doctor told me, then I says, holy shit.
26:30Because the doctor wouldn't be lying.
26:32And that was it.
26:33Brody was, he'd already been taken out.
26:36But the police walked in and thinking, well, it's just another crazy wild wrestling brawl.
26:44They didn't think it was real.
26:45I was banging on the operating room door talking about what the fuck is going on in there?
26:50What's going on in there?
26:51And the doctor came out.
26:53And he said, Tony, he had two eight-inch cuts.
26:57He said, we got his intestines back together.
27:01He said, the only problem we're having that is that his liver was sliced.
27:06He told me he was going to be okay.
27:08He said, he's stable.
27:09He said, but what you need to do, you need to go home because everybody in here is more
27:15afraid of you.
27:16I wanted to be as far away from that fucking dressing room as I could be.
27:21Then I saw Invader walk in and he had on a different shirt.
27:26He continued business like nothing had happened.
27:29I don't know why he came back.
27:31I really don't.
27:32I'm thinking, man, what fucking balls this guy's got?
27:35The thing that was so horrible was when I got back to the dressing room.
27:45It was more horrible than the stabbing.
27:48It was more horrible than him laying on that table.
27:52The most horrible thing that happened on that night was going back to that dressing room
27:58and hear laughter.
28:02First, I couldn't believe they didn't cancel the show.
28:04That was the first thing.
28:05And opening up the door and the blood on the floor ain't even dry yet.
28:13And they in the dressing room laughing and joking.
28:16And Pat Lee turned on the back talking about how great the matches were and what a wonderful show it is.
28:21I took the freaking chair and I threw it across the damn hallway.
28:27There was a policeman that said, hey, hey, hey, hey, come down, calm down.
28:31He said, did you see what happened?
28:33I said, hell yeah, I saw what happened.
28:35He said, did you get a look?
28:36Did you get a look at the fan that stabbed him?
28:40I said, what were you told?
28:42He said, everybody in here said that Brody was stabbed before he got in the dressing room,
28:48that a wrestling fan stabbed him in the hallway and he stumbled into the dressing room.
28:52I said, that's a damn lie.
28:54I said, that's some of the bitch sitting right there is the one that stabbed him.
28:58He said, you mean Vader?
28:59I said, yes, I mean Vader.
29:00That sucker right there, that's who stabbed Brody.
29:03I said, ask everybody in dressing room.
29:04He said, they're all telling the difference.
29:05I said, they're all fucking liar.
29:07I said, he's the son of the bitch that stabbed him.
29:10He was telling the cops, hey, hey, that's the guy you need to fucking arrest right there.
29:14He pointed to Jose Gonzalez.
29:16A woman sitting right in his chair right there was putting his wrestling gear in his bag.
29:21Like nothing happened.
29:22That's the part that messed with my head.
29:24It was like nothing happened.
29:26If you're a policeman and you come into a situation that you think could be staged,
29:32they didn't think it was real.
29:34Tony knew it was real, so they were actually engaging each other from different perspectives.
29:39That's why the disconnect.
29:41In professional wrestling, the line between fiction and reality is intentionally blurred.
29:49As the night's events continued to unfold,
29:52it would be nearly impossible for anyone to tell the difference or to know the truth.
30:04While Bruiser Brody was fighting for his life at the hospital,
30:08Tony Atlas' eyewitness account of the stabbing was making the rounds.
30:12So then that night you wrestled?
30:14Carlos Colon, your timing is over.
30:16That night I wrestled Aaron Sheik, the night of the murder.
30:19I just went and did it.
30:20I just went in the match.
30:22He locked up with me.
30:23He said, how's Brody?
30:24The doctor said he's gonna be okay.
30:26And he said, you fucking wrestling fan.
30:29They told me that they dangerous.
30:31And I said, Jose Gonzalez did it right there.
30:35The sheet just straightened right up, just like this.
30:38That fucking motherfucker, Jose Gonzalez, Vader motherfucker killed the King Kong of the Brody.
30:47He rolled right out of the ring and went straight back to his locker room.
30:51We only wrestled for maybe one or two minutes.
30:54I go to my room and a guy named Fabio Vega, we call him TNT.
30:59He said, Tony, I got you a bag.
31:02I went to your room and got your bag for you.
31:05I said, for what?
31:06He said, don't go to your room.
31:08They are looking for you because you talking.
31:11So I took my bag and I went down to the beach.
31:16And I walked the beach the whole night.
31:19I tried to lay down and get some sleep.
31:21I kept waking up every time I hear something.
31:23I kept looking, I'm paranoid as hell now.
31:27I go back to that hotel, walked to the front desk.
31:31And I told the girl, and I said, listen, if Brody gets any calls to his room,
31:36please put them through to my room.
31:39They said, okay.
31:41The phone started ringing about midnight.
31:44Kept ringing, ringing, ringing.
31:46By this time it's one o'clock in the morning.
31:48I said, I'm going to answer and give them a piece of my mind.
31:53So I picked up the phone and there was this woman.
31:57And she said, this is Nancy Cologne.
32:00Well, Nancy Cologne is Carlos Cologne's wife.
32:04I'm calling to let you know there's been an accident.
32:08And I think you better come to Puerto Rico.
32:10So I called the hotel and they put me through to Dutch.
32:14She said, who is this?
32:15And I said, well, this is Dutch.
32:17And she said, well, what happened Dutch?
32:19And I knew it was pretty serious.
32:21But I was saying, well, Brody had an accident and it's pretty serious.
32:28And that maybe you should come to Puerto Rico.
32:32He didn't have any details.
32:33After I got the call, I tried to go to sleep.
32:36I couldn't sleep.
32:37Like I said, the adrenaline was flowing.
32:39About eight o'clock, I get up.
32:41I go downstairs to the front desk.
32:44I said, can you do me a favor?
32:45And she said, yeah, what do you need?
32:46I said, can you call the hospital that my friend Brody is in?
32:51She said, yeah.
32:52So she calls out there and she's speaking in Spanish.
32:55And I hear luchador.
32:58I hear wrestler.
33:00And then she starts crying.
33:02And I look at her and she said, I'm sorry, your friend didn't make it.
33:09I said, what?
33:10She said, no, he died last night.
33:13How did you first learn that Brody had passed?
33:23Abdullah told me at the meeting when I slept on the beach the whole night.
33:27So now I'm going back to the hotel.
33:29I saw Abdullah and some of the wrestlers in the lobby.
33:33And they said, Tony, we're having a meeting.
33:36And they're waiting on you to tell them what happened.
33:39Did you ever have any hotel room meetings?
33:43Hotel? Hell no.
33:46No.
33:47No, sir.
33:48No, no.
33:49Abdullah told us that he didn't have a meeting.
33:51He lied.
33:52Maybe they did, but not me.
33:55You understand?
33:57He lied to you.
33:58If that's what he told you, I'm telling you what happened.
34:02I had 5% of the business.
34:05You see what I mean?
34:06In a way that people did not want to talk to me.
34:09What do you mean?
34:10Well, if you own some of the territory, right,
34:13who's going to come and say, oh, this happened,
34:16or this guy done this, this guy done that?
34:19They were in their own little bunch.
34:22So why would they come and talk to me?
34:25Brody was a friend, and I didn't want to be in all the gossip,
34:29what they were talking about.
34:31Nobody heard me say shit.
34:33That's a shame.
34:34That's a damn shame that he done that.
34:36Dutch Mantell asked him.
34:38He was there in the meeting?
34:40I think we all met in somebody's room.
34:47And somebody said, man, are they investigating this or what?
34:50I mean, a man died. What's going on here?
34:54I just started thinking, in this territory, this happened?
35:01That's why I left.
35:03I said, well, I saw it.
35:06So I go down, I make my report to the police department.
35:09He said, your story is different than everybody else's.
35:13He said, we will be contacting you for a court date.
35:18He said, now that we got a witness to it, we're going to arrest him.
35:23Then they took me, and I gave my statement, and then all through the night,
35:26they took statements from the wrestlers.
35:29He did say, he says, you tell Carlos Colon we'd run this island, not him.
35:34I think they asked, did I see a weapon?
35:37I did not see a weapon.
35:39As a matter of fact, no weapon was ever recovered.
35:41That weapon, whatever was used, what knife was used, has never been recovered.
35:46I got my bag, I went to the airport, and I left.
35:52Then I made arrangements.
35:55I said, I got to go to the airport.
35:57Got on the plane with Jeff, get off the plane, waiting to see if anybody was going to pick me up.
36:03So I looked around, and here's Abby.
36:06I was going, and this lady and this little boy walked up, and she says,
36:10Oh, Abdullah, you don't know me, but I'm Frank's wife.
36:14She says, how's he doing?
36:18I said, what?
36:21She said, well, how's he doing?
36:23I said, they didn't tell you?
36:24Tell me what?
36:25I says, he's gone.
36:28And she grabbed me.
36:32She said, oh, no.
36:34All you think about is surviving.
36:36All I thought about was I saw a man get stabbed in his mouth,
36:40holding on and dying with a picture of his son in his hand.
36:43He never put that picture down, brother.
36:46When I put him on the ambulance, he had the picture in his hand.
36:49He's laying on the floor.
36:50He's still holding that picture.
36:52He's going to the operating room.
36:54He's still, he never put that picture down, brother.
36:57Never.
36:59The irony of Brody's greatest nemesis delivering this news
37:03was only the beginning of the unthinkable events that would follow.
37:13Alone with her son in a foreign land and dealing with the shocking circumstances of her husband's death,
37:18Barbara Goodish found the strength to make the necessary arrangements.
37:22Nancy was Carlos Colon's wife.
37:26She took me to the morgue and, of course, everybody is speaking Spanish.
37:30They took me to the window and you could just see all these bodies in there.
37:34And then, of course, the reality, boom, just really started to sink in.
37:43Not sure how long it took before it set in.
37:45We were in the hotel room and I remember crying just incessantly for hours,
37:50hours and hours, and I was yelling, screaming.
37:53I still didn't realize the magnitude of what had happened.
37:55And it probably took, I don't know how long, 10, 15, 20 years maybe.
38:00When everything happened, it was like, what do I do?
38:02How do I bring him back to the States?
38:06And it was like I heard his voice.
38:09And it was like he was saying, Barbara, you know what to do.
38:13And at that moment it was, I need to cremate him down here and take him home with me.
38:20There was a very simple ceremony in Puerto Rico.
38:25I mean, nobody was there except me and Jeff and some of the wrestlers
38:28and some of the Puerto Ricans.
38:30And Jeff picked out his dad's casket.
38:35It was blue.
38:40When did you hear Jose was arrested?
38:42About three, four days later.
38:44From what I hear, he was taken down to a local precinct.
38:48Never was put into sale.
38:50Bail was made for him immediately by some big businessmen there.
38:54And he walked back home the same day.
38:56And so did you come to learn anything about Jose Gonzalez or any of this stuff?
39:00I know that the, I'm not even going to say his name.
39:05I know that the attacker did it.
39:08From what I can hear from everybody, the whole court case was a sham.
39:11I mean, do you think there was a cover-up?
39:13No, it was not cover-up.
39:15The only guy that could have covered was Javik and I.
39:17And we didn't do that.
39:18Right.
39:19You know, we told the judge in the courtroom, we said what really, what we saw, we didn't really.
39:25Because I didn't see any stabbing.
39:26I didn't see any weapon.
39:28I didn't see anything.
39:29A guy named Tony Rumba, the Boston bad boy, banging on the door.
39:32He said, Tony, Tony, put your channel, put the TV on a certain channel.
39:35They're talking about the Puerto Rico thing.
39:37I flipped the TV on.
39:38I see Jose on TV coming out of the courthouse.
39:44I said, what, they had a hearing?
39:46He said, no, they have a trial.
39:47They let him go for self-defense.
39:53I said, you got to be kidding me.
39:54They never contacted me.
39:57So you never got contacted?
39:59Never.
40:00Never did.
40:02Never did.
40:03Finally, my subpoena came in the mail for my appearance.
40:07And I already knew the verdict by the time my subpoena arrived at my door.
40:12It was 10 days late.
40:15That's why the verdict came back, not innocent, but not guilty.
40:18And Jose never testified.
40:20But they believed what his attorney put out, that he was just merely acting in self-defense.
40:25The fans in Puerto Rico believed wrestling was real.
40:29That was the major reason that Jose was acquitted.
40:32Because they believed Brody was this character, this wild-looking psychopath, hulking figure.
40:40And his defense was self-defense.
40:43Do you believe it was really self-defense?
40:45I don't know, really.
40:46I don't know.
40:47You know, I respect the law.
40:49So sad.
40:50I really, you know, I wouldn't want to talk about this anymore because it makes you sad.
40:57One month after Bruiser Brody's passing, All Japan Pro Wrestling hosted a massive tribute show, inviting both Barbara and her son Jeff to be honored in front of the 17,000 fans in attendance.
41:14The honor that they respected and being in that ring and hearing that 10 bell count and hearing everybody chanting, this whole building chanting his name, Brody, Brody, Brody.
41:29And I'm just standing there in the ring with Jeff.
41:32And it was the most, I mean, just to know how much he was respected.
41:37May peace be with you, Bruiser Brody.
41:40Bruiser Brody was a brawler of mythic proportions and will always live on as such in the world of professional wrestling.
41:46I didn't ever guess that I was going to be a professional wrestler.
41:50Once I started in professional wrestling, learned the ropes.
41:55If I had it to do over again, I think that I would probably even pass up my three years in the NFL and devote them to wrestling because it's been that good to me.
42:04He was one of its biggest stars in the 1970s and 80s and is considered one of the all time greatest wrestlers in Japanese wrestling history,
42:12where he's still celebrated today as an icon.
42:19Yeah, justice would be great.
42:21Some personal justice would be more, more, more gratifying than some legal justice, honestly.
42:27Um, Mr. Brody, every dog has his name.
42:34Cannot kill a legend.
42:37See, legends never die.
42:39So if that was Jose's theme and to kill a legend, he failed miserably.
42:52Nobody knows the exact circumstances, including the words, if any, exchanged between Frank Goodish and Jose Gonzalez on the night of Brody's death.
43:01It remains one of wrestling's darkest, most intriguing mysteries.
43:06Join us next time as we continue to explore the untold stories of professional wrestling.
43:24I wish he was here.
43:26Yeah.
43:27I wish he was here.
43:28I wish he was here.
43:30He dished it out.
43:32I dished it out.
43:33And we kept going and going and going and going.
43:36After the little butcher knows that bruiser Brody is the king of what he's doing.
43:45Ah, shit.
43:46Huh?
43:47Huh?
43:48Huh?
43:49Huh?
43:50Huh?
43:51Brody.
43:52Ah, shit.
43:53Amen.