We touched down in the Ivory Coast, and I was immediately stunned by the poverty. On the outskirts of the city of Abidjan, most people didn’t even live in houses-they lived in huts made of earth and twigs. As we walked along the streets, foul smelling human waste ran through the streets in a sewage system that was more primitive than I could have imagined. The next day, we flew to the swinging city of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, where conditions were even worse. President Sankora had attempted to cut down on the amount of panhandling in the country by teaching the locals various crafts. As a result, Burkina crafts were everywhere as we made our way by bus to the hotel that we were told was the best the country had to offer, but that looked suspiciously like a Days Inn in Cleveland. Actually, it wasn’t too bad, and it even had a nice pool where we spent several hours a day swimming during the three days leading up to our first big show at the national soccer stadium.
It was at this pool that we spied Dave Klebanski, slathering on baby oil while sitting in his chair in the oppressive 110-degree weather. “Dave, what are you doing,” I tried to warn him, “don’t you know that baby oil will make you burn?”
I was backed up by several other members of the tour, but Dave would have none of it. “You guys treat me like a baby,” he whined in a 320-pound high-pitched Three Stooges voice. “Leave me alone, I know what I’m doing.” We left him alone.
By nightfall, we were all still at poolside, as there was only French television in the former French colony. As the sky turned darker, we could see flying objects darting into the huge tree to the side of the pool, until the tree literally chattered with the sound of thousands of bats. We were, as midget wrestler Butch Cassidy decided, “in a suburb of hell.” For the record, Butch Cassidy was the first pro wrestler I ever met back when Tommy Dee had brought wrestling to Ward Melville.
Later that night, we went out to a restaurant to eat. The restaurant became our source for all meals over the next three days. The restaurant will go down in my personal history as being the first place I regularly drank beer, and the place with the worst chicken I had ever tasted and the meanest owner I had ever seen in my life. The guy was so nasty that I heard he was thrown in jail after we left for his mistreatment of the wrestlers.
The beer issue was a tough one for me to resolve in my mind, having been a nondrinker for so long. I prided myself on being an easy drunk, and I didn’t need Burkina Faso screwing up my tolerance level. Sadly, it was the only logical choice I could make. I had been strictly warned against any water that was not bottled, so tap water was out. We were only allowed one drink with dinner, and our choice was between a ten-ounce bottle of soda, or a twenty-four-ounce bottle of beer. I went with quantity over quality.
The chicken was the sorriest thing I have ever seen, not including the Al Snow-Tiger Ali match from England. My mouth was literally watering when I ordered the chicken, as did everyone else on the tour. We forgot, however, that these weren’t the farm-raised, grain-fed chickens that Frank Perdue turns out; these were West African chickens, which were a bit more anorexic than what I’d been used to. Needless to say, the chicken didn’t exactly hit the spot-I don’t think it even grazed it. I went to bed my first night in Africa with a rumbling in my stomach, and a “What the hell am I doing here?” right on the tip of my tongue. The next day would do little to satiate my hunger or answer my question.
Only a very small percentage of all Burkina citizens had access to television, so to advertise the matches, it was decided that we would provide the city access to us. All the wrestlers were loaded onto the back of a flatbed truck, where we were put on display for the next eight hours, while a recorded message blared over the loudspeakers. On that truck, for damn near all the city to see, stood one of the worst collections of pro wrestlers ever assembled. Besides DeNucci and five of his trainees, including me, stood Power Uti, the Nigerian champ, who was as rude and untalented as he was muscular; Mr. Haiti, a co-promoter of the trip; Butch Cassidy and his midget opponent, the Haiti Kid; George Espada, a grizzled Puerto Rican, whose claims to being a great wrestler turned out to be a figment of his imagination; and a few other lost souls who, odds are, will never have their own action figures.
There we were, like gypsies on parade, as we rolled along past tiny huts filled with families and peddlers offering everything from eggs to water. Among our group, Dave Klebanski was still oiling up in his tank top, despite signs of blistering on his shoulders. At about the four-hour mark, a craving for water overcame our better judgment, and several plastic bags filled with questionable H20 were ingested readily by our ragtag little group of thirsty future dysentery sufferers.
By the time we got to the national soccer stadium at the end of the third day, stomachs were rumbling and spirits were low. There were almost no cars in the parking lot, but a few thousand bikes were lined up as we made our way to the dressing rooms. I wrestled Dominic that night in front of 10,000 Burkina fans, which is an impressive number for a regular show, but not for a stadium that held 60,000. “Not to worry,” we were assured by Belozzi Harvey, our chief promoter, a man so close to Sankora that he’d named his son after the president. “This is a political trip, and President Sankora is personally guaranteeing that all of you will be paid.”
I felt a hell of a lot better with that knowledge as I took to the ring after a fifty-yard walk filled with the deafening silence of 10,000 people who had no idea what professional wrestling was supposed to be. I tried everything I could, including a backdrop on the grass, but got no reaction. Then Dominic snapmared me, and with a clap of his hands applied a rear chinlock, which caused the 10,000 to cheer in unison. “You see, my boy,” Dominic said, laughing, “sometimes punch kick is no good, then you gotta do the wrestling.” So for the rest of the match, we went through all the holds and reversals that I could remember, while the crowd clapped along.
The tour went downhill fast after that. Every day brought about an eight-hour bus ride over roads that Lewis and Clark probably would have had second thoughts about crossing. Our first stop was at a small soccer stadium with about 300 spectators. I remember it specifically for the classic contest between Crusher Klebanski, whose chest and shoulders were now blistering, and the masked veteran George Espada, whose tights were so tight that the seam pressed mightily against the middle of his testicles, and gave the impression that he had a awfully big vagina. Besides a low dropkick, George’s offense consisted mostly of chops to the chest, which is probably not a good idea when your opponent is blistering. Within minutes, Dave’s chest was no longer blistering but bleeding, and he was sent home as a very sunburned malaria victim a few days later when a mosquito apparently dined on his chest wound and infected him.
The next day drew approximately sixty fans to a small courtyard-like annex inside a large building. I remember the scene vividly: as a small family of bats congregated in a corner of the dressing room, we changed and pondered the possibility of our payoff. Again, Belozzi Harvey was there to reassure us that all of this was no problem-the tour was guaranteed by the president, and we would all be paid after the tour.
The sky looked threatening as the first match went into the ring, and literally opened up pouring rain a few minutes after the bell rang. Both wrestlers hightailed it to the dressing room, followed by the fans-yes, the fans. There we stood-the wrestlers, the sixty fans, and the family of bats, for the next forty-five minutes. When the sky cleared, the fans took their seats, and the show went on.
By this time, most of the crew was sick as hell, and on a few occasions, the wrestlers didn’t even make it back from the ring before vomiting. Maybe it all looked like part of the show to the fans. For my part, I wrestled well every night, even though smells were starting to drift out of my butthole that I didn’t think were legal. I even dragged a good match out of Power Uti, whose “Bring me butter, bring me bread” breakfast commands had shocked me with their crassness. I later found out that he bossed everyone in Nigeria around in the same way and, because he was somethin
g of a national hero in his homeland, he could.
By the time my two weeks were up, I couldn’t wait to get home. When I got home, I wasn’t the same for a long time. I suffered stabbing pains in my stomach and diarrhea for well over a month, but at least I had three grand to show for it, right? Well, not so fast.
About a week after I got home, I was watching television on the same couch where Dude Love had stolen John Imbriani’s fiancee. Since I had been home, I had been checking every day for my government check from Belozzi. My dad was, as usual, reading the paper, and I’m sure there was some kind of game on television. “Hey Mick,” I heard my dad say in a voice that sounded like it bore bad news. “What was the name of that country you just wrestled in?”
“Burkina Faso, why?” was my quick answer to the quiz.
“Well, I think you better look at this,” my dad answered back, and then actually made a special trip over to deliver the bad news. He handed me the paper and pointed to a heading in the Sunday “World” section. There in black and white was the end of my $3,000 dream. “Government Overthrown, President Assassinated.” I never did call Belozzi about the status of my payoff, but I went under the assumption that the new government wasn’t going to pick up the old administration’s sports-entertainment debts. I guess in retrospect, I had picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue. (Airplane joke.)
My brother was married in July 1987. He had asked me to be his best man, but I had declined, thinking that I had another African trip lined up. As it was, the tour was postponed a few weeks, but by the time I found out, my position of honor had already been filled. I did opt, however, to work an independent date 500 miles from home, in West Virginia, the night before the nuptials. My payoff for the 1,000-mile round trip was an impressive $40. Taking into consideration gas money, tolls, and one night’s lodging, I stood to lose about $100 on this show. Sure, I could have been eating a nice wedding rehearsal dinner and catching up on old times with relatives, but there was an independent wrestling show, dammit, and I didn’t miss shows. Period.
I look back now and think of how ridiculous the whole thing seems, but at the time, there was no shaking me from my beliefs. I can fully understand when the Jamestown people in Guyana all drank the deadly Kool-Aid back in the late seventies. Sure it seemed stupid to anyone with any sense, but these people were believers in their cause, just like I was a believer in mine. My parents had looked at me like I was crazy when I told them my plan. “What do you mean, you’re going to wrestle the night before?” my dad had asked me in an attempt to talk some sense into his son. “You’ll miss your brother’s wedding, for crying out loud.”
“No, I won’t,” I reasoned with conviction in my words. “The show’s only 500 miles away. That’s an eight-hour drive if I make good time and don’t stop. I’ll make it home by six-with four hours to spare.” My dad pleaded with me, but to no avail. My final words sent him away probably wondering where he went wrong as a parent. “Dad, I can’t miss a show.”
“Was it the doctorate in the summer?”
“Dad, I can’t miss a show.”
“Was it the nonstop Christmas music?”
“Dad, I can’t miss a show.”
Actually, it wasn’t bad parenting, it was simply a firm belief that no show was complete unless I was in it, and the thought that maybe my big break would elude me if I slowed down for any reason. Then again, I’m not sure all those “S” words were that healthy, either.
As it turned out, the show would have been just fine, and the 200 people at the ramshackle race track probably would have understood if a wrestler they never heard of had stayed home for his brother’s wedding, instead of driving 1,000 miles to get beat up and lose a Ben Franklin. To my credit, I tore up the pavement, and with the accompaniment of Steve Earle’s “Guitar Town” and Lone Justice’s “Shelter,” won world titles numerous times in my mind, and dove off steel cages more times than I can remember by the time I turned into our driveway at 6 A.M. on the nose.
My brother woke me up three hours later. Was it to tell me what a good younger brother I’d been, and how he knew I’d make an even better uncle one day? Hell no! Instead, it was an attempt to appeal to my better fashion senses. “Mick, you can’t wear jeans to my wedding,” he said in disbelief as I pulled the blankets over my head and lovingly yelled, “Leave me alone,” on the biggest day of his life.
Again, he insisted, “Mick, you need another pair of pants.” In response, I muttered something so unintelligible that it didn’t even have a vowel in it and went back to sleep.
I woke up with a start half an hour later, like Alistair Sim in A Christmas Carol, when he believes he’s missed Christmas Day. I looked at my poor unloved jeans folded neatly over the chair. I knew this was my brother’s big day, but wasn’t he being a little stuffy about this thing? I had a jacket, after all, and the jeans were brand-new. Besides, I never did look good in any clothes, even before I approached the three bills (hundred pounds) mark. I didn’t want to start a family feud, though, and time was running short, so I jumped into my battleworn Fairmont, which now in the summer was down to one sleeping bag in the back, and headed off to Swezey’s department store, which was on the way to the church. I grabbed a pair of chinos off the rack, changed in the dressing room, and took off the tag after paying cash for my purchase.
I was now racing against the clock. I knew I was late when I pulled into the church parking lot, but I thought that with entrances and Bible readings, I could make the meat and potatoes of the ceremony. Hey, I’d had to kill time in the ring while waiting for a main event performer to show up-surely they could hold up the proceedings for the master of the backyard match! I heard voices as I got out of my car. I was all set to rush in when I looked at my tie. It wasn’t tied. Uh-oh, this posed a problem. These days, I can tie a tie as Mankind no problem. But back then, I was drawing on very limited experience that hadn’t been exercised in several years. Still, I couldn’t just rush in. If my brother had nixed the jeans, then he certainly wasn’t going to go for the untied look. I thought for a moment about undoing a couple of buttons and going in with the leisure suit look that Lee Majors had used so well on the Six Million Dollar Man. “No,” I thought, “that looked tacky even when it was in style.” Instead I fumbled for what seemed like minutes while the voices mumbled inside the church. There-done. I walked inside to hear the clergyman say, “Let them see you now as Mr. and Mrs. John Foley.”
I had officially missed the wedding. My plan was to play it off as if I’d been there the whole time, even though I knew that I hadn’t. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my dad giving me “the look.” He knew that I had missed my brother’s wedding, and “the look” showed me that he knew I knew he knew I had missed it. I saw the disappointment in my mom’s face and I knew that she knew my dad knew that I knew he knew I had missed the wedding. Fortunately, my brother was too busy being happily married to worry about his little brother’s blue jean blues. At least until this book comes out, and then he too will know that my mom knows that my dad knows that I know he knows I missed my brothers wedding. If he asks me about it, I guess I could sum it up by using a Hulk Hogan-like promo. “Well, brother, let me tell you something, brother. The reason I missed my brother’s wedding, brother, is because my brother didn’t like his brother’s clothes, brother. Brother, maybe he wished he’d had another brother, brother. Oh, brother.”
A few weeks later, I went on another African trip-this time to Nigeria. As a matter of fact, I went on two fourteen-day trips over the course of the next several months. These trips would mark my first two experiences with bloodletting of any consequence. I had experienced bloody lips and noses, abrasions and contusions, but Nigeria was the first place that I was ever “busted wide open.” At least it was the first time I pulled off the trick without the aid of a Jif peanut butter jar. I arrived in Nigeria without the benefit of a tour group-indeed, I was the only American on the cards, which were to be held in the capital city of Lagos, and Power U
ti’s hometown of Benin. Lagos, as many travelers may recall, is the only city that is regularly listed at all airports as failing to meet international security codes. After my arrival, I could see why. I was whisked through the airport with the aid of a policeman, without going through customs or immigration. I also made the rather naive mistake of letting the promoter hold my return ticket.
I went through my match in Lagos with promoter Mr. Haiti, and then began promoting my big Nigerian championship match with Power Uti. On the trip from Lagos to Benin, I learned just how unlawful the Nigerian police were and also just how much influence Uti wielded in his homeland. I was scared half to death as our driver sped along at what felt like 100 mph on two-lane streets whose terrain was dotted with accident victims. It was not uncommon to see a tractor trailer truck full of poor manual laborers tipped over, with injured bodies strewn across the side of the road. With no exaggeration, I saw at least three such incidents during my time there. Oddly enough, the accidents didn’t cause rubbernecking delays, as no one slowed down to view the accident. They just didn’t care.