Dory Funk, Jr.
Dory and Marti Funk are out in Ocala, Florida. They were the first people to respond to my email about the project. My fellow filmmaker and friend, Tim Roper flew out to Florida to interview Dory and drive up to Atlanta and interview Abdullah the Butcher.

Dory brought us to his BANG! Wrestling facility where he trains and puts on wrestling shows. It was a great little space with a ring in the middle. His wife, Marti, let us tape Dory's interview in the ring. She also insisted that Adam Windsor, the Royal Stud, sit with Dory for the interview. Windsor, it appeared, was Dory's protege and BANG! Wrestling's biggest star.  Adam Windsor has since left the Funks.

Dory was reticent to talk about anything to do with Puerto Rico. Marti told me that he had been pulled into a shower stall by Jose Gonzales as well, but he was not willing to talk about anything like that on the record.

Dory seems very laid back and easy going, but you can see in his eyes that the wheels are always turning. He is a very deliberate person. His wrestling has always been that way as well.

Since the time of the interview Dory has had Carlos Colon come in for a BANG! taping.

I really enjoyed my time with Dory and Marti and they had a lot of great things to say about Brody.
 

I found an Abdullah the Butcher's House of Ribs and Chinese Food business card on Masanori Horie's website. I called the number and the phone was handed to Abby. I was very intimidated but I tried to sound cool and asked him if I could fly out to Atlanta, Georgia to interview him. He acted like a real asshole at first but agreed after we talked a couple of times on the phone.

Roper and I flew into Florida to interview Dory Funk and drove a day later up to Atlanta. I wanted to scope out Abby's restaurant so we swung by. Sure enough Abby was there and didn't remember me. He said his mother was flying in the next day and we could only do an interview right now, right here. Roper set up and I interviewed him in a dark, noisy corner of his restaurant.

Abby was really cool to me. He tried to intimidate me at first and stared at me, "You keep looking away from me. You're nervous." He said. "Yes, you're Abdullah the Butcher of course I'm nervous. You're intimidating me." After I said that Abby was really cool. He showed me his credit cards and driver's license and talked about shooting a self-defense training video for women to market in Japan.

He had nothing but good things to say about everyone and he repeated over and over that he and Brody were businessmen and the more they beat each other up the more money they made.

I told him I was preterbed that he returned to Puerto Rico after Brody's murder. It was all business to him.

While Roper and I were there an African-American guy went up to Abby right in front of us and gave us a real nasty look. Without compunction he said to Abdullah, "You running a haunted house now?" Referring to the two white guys in his resaurant. Abdullah just laughed. It was intimidating but in hindsight a little funny.

 Mike is famous for being the wrestler’s dentist. He is also a wrestling photographer from back in the Shire days of California wrestling.

I had seen Mike Lano at wrestling events my whole life. He was this pushy older photographer with a moustache.  I finally talked with Mike in mid-2001 at a Bret Hart autograph event.  Mike was pretty cool and agreed to talk.

Mike’s house is insane, there are wrestling photos and videos on every surface of his home and it’s a big two story house.  I’m not exaggerating in any way.  He LOVES wrestling.

Mike was a lot of help getting a hold of people and making first contact on my behalf.

I have talked with Tony twice on the phone. The first time he said he didn't want to talk and we hung up an hour later. The second time I called, he said he didn't want to talk and we talked for an hour and a half.

The first time I talked with Tony he was very adamant that I stop working on this project at once. I was twenty seven at the time and he said I wasn't going to reach thirty. The Puerto Rican mafia was going to pay a local Puerto Rican with a rock of crack and I was going to be shot in the head one day when I went out to check my mail. I was shaken up. I thought Tony was joking at first but he was very serious. I own a gun now. Tony told me the story as he remembers it of Brody's murder. He even sang to me over the phone the song he sang to Brody on the way to the hospital. Pretty emotional stuff.

The second time I called Tony was eating dinner and didn't want to talk. I could hardly understand him, but he told me about his early days and meeting Brody in Texas.

Red was there at the King of the Indies tournament too. He was one of the men who brought Brody into Leroy McGuirk's territory when Bill Watts was taking a break from booking there in the early seventies.

Red didn't remember Brody too well.

Red was the President of the Caulflower Alley Club at the time and when I went to get interviews at their annual convention in Las Vegas in 2001, Red was really very supportive of my project and allowed me to videotape there.

 I met Dick Beyer at APW's King of the Indies tournament, 2001. He was there with a group from the Cauliflower Alley Club doing some fundraising. He really didn't want to talk about Brody and has only one, albeit a great one, quote in my book.

Funny thing, he did not take off his mask the entire event.

Moondog was wrestling at the King of the Indies, 2001 and was introduced to me by Mike Lano, DDS. Moondog wrestled with Brody in Japan and had some good insider stories about traveling with Brody and being with him.

Moondog has got to be one of the nicest guys in wrestling; he was so friendly and funny that my film crew and I were a little taken aback.

 Nick is the man! I interviewed him at the King of the Indies tournament. He was really smart and funny. He was pretty honest about his feelings about Brody. Even before the interview started he said to me, "I'm going to say some things that you may not like and you can use them or not." I used them.

Brody's personality usually provoked the people around him to either love him or hate him. Bockwinkle was almost above this. He really respected Brody's ability and athleticism and had no problem saying so, but he really disrespected what he saw as Brody's handling and mistreatment of the business.

It was a great interview from a great guy.

 J Michael runs the WAWLI papers, which have been an incredible resource for my book. I met him at the King of the Indies tournament. J. Michael was like Dave Meltzer in that his memory was incredible.

J Michael helped Scott Teal and I edit the book. He did some fact checking for us and general proofreading. I consider J. Michael one of the few true historians of professional wrestling.

 I met Killer Kowalski at the Cauliflower Alley Club’s 2001 reunion in Las Vegas.  Mr. Kowalski was very kind to me. At first, he completely ribbed me and said he had never heard of Bruiser Brody or Frank Goodish, after torturing me for a couple of minutes he agreed to sit down for an interview.  

Kowalski was the man who really brought Goodish/Brody up to the WWWF.

 The great Lou Thesz was pretty swamped at the 2001 Cauliflower Alley Club reunion. I managed to get one comment on Brody out of him and get my picture taken with him. A lot of old-timers are really critical of the younger generation’s reliance on gimmicks instead of real solid wrestling. Mr. Thesz was really mature about this and knew it was really about getting butts into seats. He knew Brody was bumper and thumper but he didn’t talk down or sound condescending in the least bit about Brody.

 Oliver Humperdink was also at the 2001 Cauliflower Alley Club reunion. It was his first one and he was having a blast seeing all the old friends when I talked with him. He has a very warm, very loving attitude towards Brody and told me he still has a photo of them together in his living room.

Mr. Humperdink talked a bit about the famous Brody-Luger shoot fight. He said it was really a rib and that there was nothing against Lex Luger, everyone got ribbed. He told me a funny/sick story about him getting ribbed when he was new to the business. Mr. Humperdink was in the locker room with some of the veterans. They pointed at another old-timer and said, “Hey, go ask him if you can go dancing with his sister tonight. He’s a local guy and he said earlier he was looking for one of us guys to take his sister dancing and we can’t do it.”

So, after some convincing Humperdink walks up to the old-timer and asks if he can take his sister dancing that night. The guy looked up at Humperdink with horror and began crying. When Humperdink asked the other guys what was up they all laughed and told him that the old-timers sister had just been in a car crash and had lost her legs. Pretty sick.

 Mr. Lewis was at Cauliflower Alley Convention 2001 when I interviewed him. He wrestled as Cousin Luke and The Mongol. He was very well spoken and just one of the nicest guys.

 Every time I talk with George he is shooting an event in a different part of the country. George Napolitano is the premiere wrestling photographer and he gave me some of the best Brody shots in the book.

There are three photos in particular which I love.  One is a shot of Brody just covered in gore walking towards the camera, it is from a match with The Sheik in Florida, the second is a shot I first saw in George’s book with Bert Sugar, ‘Wrestling’s Greatest Grudge Matches.’ It shows a bloodied Ric Flair whipping Bruiser Brody towards the ropes, Flair is looking right above the lens. It is a great shot.
The last is in my opinion a great iconic shot of Bruiser Brody.  Brody sits and points at his face with both hands, his face is covered in gore. I used close ups of this shot to open my book with.

George didn’t know Brody super well but he did travel with him a bit during Brody’s time in the WWWF. He shot the publicity shots of Brody in front of the King Kong poster and with the gorilla head.

 Bill Lehman played football with Frank Goodish for the Continental Football League. Bill was a player/coach and put me in touch with several of Goodish’s other teammates, such as Leo Sykes, Marc Allen, Fred Ekmark, and Jerry Jones. They all tell great stories of being on the road and what a madman Frank Goodish was in his youth.

Bill wrestled under the name Siegfried Stanke and actually started before Frank Goodish did.

 Chris Benoit

 You always hear the legend of how Frank Goodish was working out at a gym when he met Ivan Putski and Ivan broke him into the world of professional wrestling. Well, Dan Nixon is the owner of that gym. Several football players and wrestlers worked out in Dirty Dan’s gym and many of the football players became wrestlers.

Dan is a great guy, a World War II hero, a former police officer, and just a tough old guy that still works out three days a week to this day. Dan really helped me a lot and has a mind like a steel trap. He forgets nothing.

 Marie Neece and Frank Goodish met at West Texas State and after a couple of years of dating were married and lived in Texas. She taught while Frank played professional football for the Continental Football League. I searched and searched for Marie for a couple of years before I found an accurate address.

We corresponded through email and Marie really opened up a different side of the man who would become Bruiser Brody. It was nice to have her input to break up the wild stories and antics from Frank Goodish’s football teammates and male friends.

Marie was going through a tough time when I wrote to her but she was kind enough to send several stories about her life with Frank and also several wonderful pictures.

 “Dirty” Dutch was interviewed by Mike Lano the day after a show at an airport in December, 1991, where he talked at length about Bruiser Brody’s murder. Dutch was one of the few people in the locker room that night.

A couple of years later Dutch wrote another remembrance of that night and he said that he had left the locker room at the time of the murder.

I tried to contact Dutch through the Kayfabe Memories message board and he pretty much told me to leave him alone. Dr. Mike Lano gave me a transcript of the tape he had played for me of his interview and that is the interview that I printed. I didn’t want to print Dutch’s later interview because I didn’t want any trouble about copyright infringement.

 I was put in touch with Scott Romer through a woman called Skinny Linda in St. Louis. I was put in touch with Skinny Linda through Larry Matysik. I interviewed Skinny Linda and she was basically a mistress/lover/girlfriend of Brody’s in St. Louis that used to hang around with Brody and Larry Matysik. Linda later asked me not to talk about her in my book, so I did not. Anyway, Linda put me in touch with photographer Scott Romer.

Scott ended up being a good friend. He sent me many, many Brody shots to use and they are all incredible. He even went out one night with Brody after the matches and just took some funny photos of Brody clowning around out in the streets of St. Louis which are in the book.

Scott was the photographer that took the photos of Atsushi Onita in Puerto Rico after a set-up stabbing by Jose Gonzales, meant to be a wrestling angle in Japan; pretty sick stuff. Scott tells the whole story in my book.

The cover photograph for my book is by Scott Romer. It’s a shot of Brody after a match with Kamala. I love the photo because it says so much about Brody. Here is the madman, super-violent, chain swinging, Brody covered in blood after a massacre of a match, but he’s in the dressing room, alone, serious, calm, a loner, a Steppenwolf. It’s really the only photo that I think covers both sides of Bruiser Brody. The photo is also in black and white which lessens the impact of so much blood. I think in color, the photo would be a little too crass to use for the cover.

 Brian Blair is humble (just a little Iron Sheik humor.)
Brian worked with Brody in Florida and is now a politician in that state.

 I have to apologize to Harley Race. I wanted to interview him so bad that I called him and left a message on his machine every Monday for four years.

When I was at WrestleReunion in Tampa in January, 2005, I sat down with Harley Race on a bench while he was smoking. I asked him for an interview, he agreed, I started the tape recorder and Harley just nodded at every question. I think he said, “Yeah, Bob Geigel doesn’t like to talk bad about anyone.” Or something like that. I wanted to scream.

Luckily, Scott Teal, my editor, is friends with Harley Race and got a great interview with him for the book.

 Bob promoted Kansas City with Harley Race and took over St. Louis after Sam Muchnick retired. Bob was a really friendly guy to talk to. I knew he had had some serious problems with Brody no-showing him, or showing up and refusing to wrestle for the money they had agreed on, but Bob wouldn’t bad mouth Brody at all. I had a lot of interviews where people just wanted to sweet talk about Brody, and I was getting sick of it. I called Bob back and told him I knew he didn’t like Brody, I knew Brody had pulled some crap on him and I really didn’t want the book to be just a kiss ass festival on Brody. Bob laughed and told me some great stories about Brody holding him up for more money.

 Bill Watts was the booker for the mid-south territory where Brody worked very early on in his career and where he tagged with Stan Hansen for the first time.

Bill Watts was another person that I knew would not be a Brody butt kisser. Boy, was I right. Bill laid into Brody hard and didn’t stop. He has some of the more memorable quotes in the book when it comes to slamming Brody. Bill told it the way he saw it and didn’t pull any punches. I think it makes for a much more well-rounded book.

 Kamala, the Ugandan Headhunter was a terror in the ring but outside, he has got to be one of the nicest guys. Talking to Kamala was like talking to a southern gentleman. I couldn’t believe it was him on the phone.

When I later ran into him at the WrestleReunion in Tampa in January, 2005, he told me he prefers his name spelled "Kamala" instead of "Kimala."

 I can’t remember how I found Dick Steiborn’s name, I think it was on a message board. Dick worked in Puerto Rico during their glory years in the seventies and eighties. Dick was very close with Carlos Colon and even helped him with booking.
Dick was really open about working down in Puerto Rico, the good as well as the bad.

Dick told me stories of wrestlers wanting to go home and getting seriously beat up with pipes and chains while working down in Puerto Rico. 

 I had a tough time getting a hold of The American Dream, Dusty Rhodes. When I first went and visited Dory Funk and Abdullah I actually drove to Dusty's training facility. He had, unfortunately, left the day before to see his daughter off to college. I was bummed but I would catch up with him years later.

I finally got a working number for Dusty and called. He was really polite, he had just started working on his book with Howard Brody and was pretty excited about that prospect. One of the reasons the print run is so low on my book is that Dusty explained that he didn't know how well a book on Bruiser Brody would sell, like Dusty said, "He didn't wrestle in any Starcades or Wrestlemanias." 

Dusty had an excellent point. The interest around Bruiser Brody is much more of a cultish interest. The general public doesn't know who Brody is, and even most casual wrestling fans don't really know him, they've maybe heard of him.

Dusty went to West Texas with Frank Goodish and played football with him. The two worked at a gas station and as bouncers together. 

 Dan Cook is a San Antonio institution. He was a sports reporter and columnist for the San Antonio Express-News and a sportscaster on KENS since the early fifties. Dan is acknowledged as the originator of the phrase, "It ain't over till the fat lady sings."

 Dan had retired but I wrote a letter to the San Antonio Express-News on a lark. I was surprised to not only get a letter back from Dan but that he remembered Frank Goodish so vividly. Excerpts of Dan's letter appear in the book. 

 Joe Blanchard was the NWA promoter in San Antonio, Austin, Corpus Christi, and Victoria, Texas from the early seventies until 1985. Joe worked with Ivan Putski, who was a former football player in San Antonio. Putski introduced Joe to many other football players and a few of them became wrestlers, trained under Joe Blanchard. Joe trained Frank Goodish but didn't particularly like him, so Goodish's training and first territory are generally considered to be under Fritz Von Erich in Dallas.

 I talked with Joe a couple of times on the phone and he actually commented that if he had it all to do over again, he never would have gotten involved in professional wrestling.

 A year or so later I met Joe in person at WrestleReunion. He was there chatting with the boys and meeting the fans. I got a great photo of Joe and Dory Funk together that is in the book.

 Scandor Akbar

 I first encountered Ox Baker at the Cauliflower Alley Club reunion in 2001. Ox was always the life of the party when he was around; loud and funny. I didn't talk with him then, but my friend Scott Romer told me to call him. Scott told me Ox was working as a greeter at Walmart! What a great visual. 

When I called Ox he was really friendly. Very mellow. He wasn't "on."  Ox talked a lot about what a real tough guy Bruiser Brody was. He tells a great story about Brody and Ric Flair wrestling before the fans came into the building in a legitimate amateur style.

 Fast Eddie Gries is a staple of Puerto Rican wrestling. He put out all of those WWC tapes in the eighties and still goes down there as a photographer. If you watch any Puerto Rican matches from the eighties, look at ringside and you will probably see Eddie there with his camera, snapping away.

At first Eddie came across as a crusty, jaded, old guy, but the more conversations I had with him, the more he lightened up. I would consider Eddie a friend, now.

Eddie sent me some incredible photos of Brody, including the last photos of Bruiser Brody ever taken in a wrestling ring. In the older days of wrestling when everything was kayfabe, Eddie was the one guy who could deliver messages and information between the heel and babyface locker rooms in Puerto Rico. As the photographer, no one suspected. When Eddie talks about the old days of WWC, you can really feel his nostalgia. At heart, Eddie is a fanboy that got to live out his fantasy of being in the middle of the action.

 I only talked once to Gary Hart, but we talked for almost four hours. Gary has a warmth that a wrestling fan that only knew his character would not believe. Gary worked in the WCCW booking office in Dallas and handled Brody's books for many years. I had no idea he was so involved in the World Class operation. 

Gary really breaks down the pay schedule in my book. Before WWE contracts, wrestlers were paid for butts in seats, the higher the take at the gate, the higher the paycheck, and Gary really breaks all that down as well as some numbers for various wrestling territories.

As his booking agent, and friend, Gary was very close to Bruiser Brody for many, many years.  

 It took quite a few years for me to peg down Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka for an interview. When I first contacted him about doing an interview for a documentary his agent (and daughter) wanted $750. Jimmy was living in Hawaii at the time.

Later, Jimmy moved to Las Vegas with his girlfriend (maybe they are married, I'm not sure) and everytime I tried to call Jimmy was gone. I called and called and called. Finally, Jimmy was at WrestleReunio in Tampa in 2005. I caught up with him outside, he was talking to some fans. He agreed to an interview and we had a nice little ten minute interview. Jimmy doesn't have the greatest memory and he talks in sort of an abstract, free flowing, stream of consciousness way, but he had some great memories of working with Brody in Japan.

After the interview Jimmy's girlfriend came up to me and said, "Good things come to those who wait." They were both very kind to me. 

 Terry Funk is one of my favorite guys in wrestling. The first time I called Terry, he wasn't there and I left a message. That night he actually called me back! One thing I learned about the old-timers wrestling community is that NO ONE CALLS YOU, all calls have to be on your dime. It makes it easier to get numbers, but a real pain to get a hold of some people who travel a lot. Terry was leaving the next morning for Japan and he told me to call him back. 

The project was a documentary at that time and I was more than willing to fly to Texas to interview Terry, he was a pretty important piece of the Bruiser Brody puzzle. So, I called him back a couple of times and he was never there. Then 9/11 happened and I stopped working on the project for a while. I called Terry a couple of weeks later duing the whole anthrax in the mail scare. Another thing about old-time wrestlers is that they will not remember your name. If you see a wrestler at a convention they will be swamped with people telling them about stories of when they saw them wrestle or friends that they have in common. So, really, how can any old-timer remember anyone when they meet so many new people in every city they go to. Anyway Terry remembered me and even remembered my name so I was pretty impressed. He said that a project on Bruiser Brody would really mean a lot to him, but at that time he didn't want to participate because of anthrax. I was completely confused. He then said, (remember to think this quote in your best Terry Funk voice) "Well, Emerson, there's planes flying into buildings and anthrax everywhere. I just don't know about either of us travelling. They're sending anthrax in the mail now."

I was confused but decided, yes, maybe it's not a good time for an interview.

I caught up with Terry years later at the Tampa WrestleReunion in January, 2005. Terry told me to walk and talk with him and we walked out to the parking lot and hung out by his car for a good half hour. He talked about playing football with Frank Goodish at West Texas State as well as Frank's breaking into the business. He told me to call him anytime and gave me a big 'ol hug.

I talked to Terry again on the phone about he and Brody working in Japan. Terry is truly a living legend in wrestling. He changed his style as wrestling changed. His mic work is second to none, and he's completely devoted the artform that he loves.  

 I first met The Missing Link at WrestleReunion. I asked him if he would like to tell me any stories or rememberances about Bruiser Brody that he may have. The Link stared at me for a good twenty seconds and said, "No."

He looked like he wanted to beat me up for even saying anything. He was intimidating and looked completely mad.

My editor, Scott Teal, I guess knows The Link well. He conducted an interview with him and The Link has some great stories about tangling with Brody and what it felt like to take a chairshot from Bruiser Brody. 

 I also met Lex Luger at WrestleReunion. He was actually not a guest, but he had a booth with a new wrestling company he was working for (or running, I can't remember) They were called something like UCW. When I approached Lex I was very nervous. Years earlier Abdullah the Butcher told me that Lex would probably be really pissed off if I asked about his famous "shoot" match with Brody. 

The two had tanged in Florida in 1987 and Brody stopped working with Luger. Luger getting the hint after a couple of minutes looked really scared and jumped over the steel cage and basically ran away.

Well, I was at WrestleReunion. I was wearing a Bruiser Brody shirt I had made, I approached the booth. A bunch of fans were around Lex, a group of young, really tough UCW wrestlers were ther, George Napolitano was there talking with him. When it was my turn, I shook his hand and said, "Mr. Luger, I'm writing a book about Bruiser Brody." I pointed at my shirt, "you're here, and I would really hate to miss the opportunity to ask you about the famous cage match you had with him that turned into a shoot."

It went silent. George completely froze and stared at Lex. The UCW wrestlers snapped their attention to me. I gulped. Lex was quiet for a second, and then ....................................  (man, you got to go and buy the book, www.crowbarpress.com)

 So, I knew who The Exotic Adrian Street was, had seen some of his matches, respected his work. But when I was in the audience at a panel with Bill Watts at WrestleReunion and he said something to the effect of, 'besides Adrian Street, I think Dr. Death, Steve Williams is the toughest man in this room.' I was stunned, confused, and obviously missing some information on this man. I found out from some friends (maybe Harry White, Pete Lederberg, I can't remember who) that Adrian Street is an old school shooter, trained to stretch folks, trained in Britain. I thought that was really cool, and I think it makes him even more badass that he adopted (or adapted) the "Adorable" persona.

Adrian worked with Brody just before Brody's death and had a pretty cool story about the two of them working a program with the original Sheik and the Iron Sheik.

 I was outside sitting on a bench at WrestleReunion when Cowboy Bob Orton came and sat next to me. I asked him for an interview and he agreed. He didn't have much to say but did help Brody before his first match against Bob Roop. 

Harley Race sat down on the other side of Cowboy Bob and our interview was over.

Cowboy Bob was always one of my favorites and he had a match against Ricky Steamboat that I just loved as a kid. 

"He crammed him!" 

 Lance Russell rules! I know it's sort of sacreligious to say but I've always thought Lance Russell was a notch above Gordon Solie (who I also really admire) in the announcing department, just a little notch.

I met Lance Russell at WrestleReunion and got a great photo of he and Joey Styles together. I got his phone number and called him a week or so after WrestleReunion.  Lance didn't have a lot to say about Brody as Brody only worked in Memphis for a very short time in 1985. Lance talked about how tough and feared Brody was. I asked him if he was telling me the truth or just hyping up the Bruiser Brody character. He said it was the truth; a lot of wrestlers feared Brody.

Like, Terry Funk, Lance actually remembered my name. He is a real gentleman, and a pleasure to talk with. Someone should do an in-depth look at Memphis wrestling.  

 Kevin Von Erich was on a pane with Terry Funk, Dusty Rhodes, and Mick Foley at WrestleReunion. I wish someone would have taped the panel, but I don't think anyone had their cameras rolling. I taped part of the panel on audio, but the entire thing was really epic. 

I was giving away Bruiserbrody.com buttons and needed a fresh supply when I ran into Kevin in one of the elevators. I told him I really enjoyed the panel and told him about my project. He said Brody was like family to him and gave me his phone number.

I will always remember the day I called Kevin. The interview was great, he was really into it, and while most of the information he gave me, I already had from differents sources, some of it was great. Kevin was pretty emotional talking about his brother David and talking about Brody. I got the sense that Brody was almost like an older brother to Kevin, or an uncle. Kevin said that his dad, Fritz, liked Brody because Brody reminded Fritz of himself.

When I hung up with Kevin I was feeling pretty emotional, Kevin was emotional and I was so happy to have gotten that interview after many people over the years told me that I would not get it. That Kevin would want money or not want to help on someone elses project. So, I was rubbing my eyes and my wife came up to me and handed me this plastic stick thing that said - + = not pregnant and - - = pregnant, okay, well it read - -. I couldn't wrap my head around it and was completely confused. Nine months later Hana Belia Murray was born.

 Some one had given me the WWC business office in San Juan, Puerto Rico many years ago, and for five years I called the number every Monday (that was my day off) and the phone just rang and rang, no one ever picked up for five years. I was researching how to contact Jose Gonzales for an interview and I got an email from Manuel Gonzalez with WWC's phone number in it. The number was one digit off from the number I had been calling. I was calling the wrong number for five years. I have no idea who I was calling, it must have been a payphone or something.

So, I called the number and immediately got an interview with Carlos Colon. WWC was just about to have a Bruiser Brody memorial, with a tournament and a two-ring battle royal. I think Colon talked with me because he wanted publicity for the event. Colon was tight-lipped but friendly. He had nothing but good things to say about Brody and kept the conversation steered away from the murder. 

I have heard many stories about Carlos Colon but he was okay by me. What he knew about the murder beforehand, I really don't know. A lot of people in the business have opinions and information that they are certain are correct, but there is so much contradictory information that it creates this sludge that can be very hard to wade through to find the truth.

 Larry Salci was a childhood friend of Frank Goodish's. I found his name from another of their classmates who remembered Goodish hung out a lot with a fellow by the name of Larry Salci. I researched and couldn't find him, so I just decided why not Google him. I got back information that the president and CEO of St. Louis's Metro was named Larry Salci. I also saw that Mr. Salsi was from the Detroit area. It's not a common name so I emailed him, asking if he knew Frank Goodish as a kid. A secretary emailed me back saying that he was very busy but she would pass along the question. A couple of days later another secretary emailed back and said that yes this was THE Larry Salci I was looking for, she gave me his direct email address, I emailed and he emailed back:

Mr. Murray, Please call me at my office. My telephone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx.

I called and while Mr. Salci is a very serious man, a lot of warmth came out in our talk. He grew up a couple of streets down from the Goodish family and knew them quite well. He was a straight shooter and told me exactly how he saw it, warts and all. The early chapters of the book owe a lot to Larry Salci's candidness.

Another of Frank Goodish's friends that I interviewed but didn't make it into the book was a man named Don Nagy. Mr. Nagy gave me a short, but great interview. Unfortunately due to technical issues, relating to my stupidity, Mr. Nagy's interview was lost to time and space. 

 Scott Teal knew Bob Roop. So, right near the end of my research and writing of the book, I interviewed the man who broke Frank Goodish into wrestling (Ivan Putski) and the man who Frank Goodish faced in his first real match, Bob Roop.

Bob actually remembered the day before the match better than the match itself. He was a legitimate tough guy back in the day. I really remember him as part of Kevin Sullivan's Army of Darkness in Florida, in the eighties.

 Larry Brazon, Larry Brazon, Larry Brazon. It was a name that I kept hearing from Frank Goodish's college teammates and even some of his semi-pro football teammates. Larry was Frank's best friend and partner-in-crime. I would hear how crazy and wild these guys would be, so I would call them and they would say things like, 'You want wild and crazy, man, Larry Brazon and Frank Goodish were out there.'  All these tough, crazy football players were just set aback by Larry and Frank. I couldn't wait to find him.

After a couple of years I finally got a phone number and talked with Larry. Larry is a completely normal, gentleman. I don't know if he was hiding something, but he seemed really reserved and like a really nice guy. He told me that he had put away all of his mementos, photos, and info from those old days. But Larry still had his memories, and he told me some great stories of he and Frank and some of their wild times.

 Ivan Putski is another guy that I had to apologise to. I called him over a hundred times, leaving a message each time. I really wanted to interview him as he was another one of those key pieces to the puzzle. I finally caught up with him in 2006.

Ivan was the man who broke Bruiser Brody into professional wrestling. They worked out at the same gym and Ivan had played football for the team Goodish was playing for at the time they met. Ivan had broken into professional wrestling a few years earlier and saw a potential in Frank at the time, but Frank was strictly about football at the time.

The two of them later worked WWWF together and in Texas together.

Ivan was really funny on the phone and he talks in a sort of jingle-slang-catchphrase lingo, that just cracked me up. He would talk about Frank being an okay football player and then say something like, 'birds of a feather.' Which was completely out of the blue and unrelated. He was cracking me up.

Ivan had really good memories of travelling with Frank but was a realist when Frank began touring Japan and became more independent and hardcore with promoters. Ivan didn't candy-coat anything. He is a great guy.

Frank Goodish's first wife, Marie Neece, also told me that Ivan had been a schoolteacher but he had a couple of daughters and he couldn't afford to take care of his little girls, so he became a professional wrestler. It sounds like a sitcom. I have two little girls and the image of, 'It's not working out, bills are piling up, rent is due, I better get some tights and go kick some ass.' Just cracks me up and is very endearing to me.

 I searched for Stan "The Lariet" Hansen for six long years. I wrote, I tried to finagle promoters into giving me his phone number, I tried everything I could think of and used all my resources and I never got in touch with Stan Hansen, really, I still haven't. After I agreed to work with Scott Teal and Crowbar Press, I explained who I really wanted to talk with and hadn't, and Stan Hansen was at the top of my list. Scott Teal said, "Oh, Stan, yeah, I know him pretty well. I'll call him." 

So, Scott conducted that interview and arranged for Stan to do the Foreward to the book.

Stan has been one of my favorite wrestlers, along with Brody, the Funks, Abdullah, Kobashi, and Kamala. He was always the bull, charging forward and I just loved to watch his matches.

I can't really say how happy I am that he wrote the foreward to the book. It's really a dream come true. I worked on this book for seven years of my life and have met my wife in the interim, had two kids, switched jobs a couple of times, but I never stopped working on the project. I was a fan of Bruiser Brody's when I started, but now he has a little section of my heart that is his. I feel an incredible honor to have my name linked with his through this endeavor.

Sorry to get all mushy and wimpy at the end of this.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me over the past years, it has kept me going and means the world to me.

Emerson