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The World According To Dutch: Wrestling At 105 Degrees Fahrenheit

Posted: Nov 10th 2009 By: CMBurnham

This is but one of the craziest places I've ever wrestled. In retrospect, it was pretty calm compared to some but it was different. Most all wrestlers have a crazy story or two about where they've wrestled and what they've done. It's the nature of the business we chose. I've wrestled a lot of adverse conditions but the one you'll read below, is one that I'll never forget. This story takes place in Atlanta, Georgia in the early 70's in one of the hottest summers on record or that's what the weathermen were saying at the time. This is my story and it's 100% true.

When I was first starting out in the wrestling biz, I was working for the NWA office in Atlanta, Georgia which at the time was considered one of the more prestigious companies to work for. Or so I thought until they informed me one day that I was to wrestle at 2PM the next Saturday afternoon at a local car dealership. Wait a minute I thought. Did I just hear, a CAR DEALERSHIP? Obviously, there must be some mistake. I thought I was a big time wrestler. Hell, I should be wrestling in big arenas with screaming fans surrounding me and asking me for my autograph. Certainly, I was above wrestling in a lowly car dealership. Wasn't I?

To test my theory, I brought my concerns up to to the booker at the time in Atlanta, Tom Renesto, who formerly had been a member of the world famous tag team, the Assassins. I told him of my concern over working a such a low rent event. Except, I didn't use the term low rent and was it possible that I be taken off the card? Tom wore glasses because he was as blind as a bat without them and without looking me in the face, he began to speak. In a low voice, Tom said very calmly that it would be in my best interests to make the show because he said I had two choices. One, he said, was that I could go find another place to work or secondly, I could buy the territory. Neither option appealed to me. Since Tom the Booker spelled it out so succintly, I began to see the benefit of making the show.

It was mid-July in Georgia and the summer temperatures in Atlanta that year were hitting 100+ during the day. In other words, folks, it was friggin hot. The 6PM news every day had reports of local hospitals being overran with heat stroke cases. The humidity was so high and the air was so heavy, it was hard to breathe. It was the type of summer that at 12 midnight, it was still 90 degrees. It made Hell seem like a vacation spot. If you've ever lived through a scorching summer down south, you would certainly remember it. I sure have.

Being the good soldier I was, I showed up at the dealership the next Saturday around 1PM ready to wrestle along with the other lucky choices that had been chosen. On that day's card, there was to be 3 single matches. That's all. That would be 6 wrestlers and one referee. We all felt so lucky to be there. I drove to the dealership from my apartment with all my wrestling gear already on because most car dealerships didn't have dressing rooms for wrestlers or they didn't the last time I inquired.

In my early years, I lived in a furnished apartment south of Atlanta close to the airport. Wrestlers, in those days, all lived in the same general area. Don't ask me why. They just did. I was never one for fashion but the apartment complex I lived in had a theme to their furnished units. It was called Early American Ghetto. My apartment consisted of some beat up furniture and a bed. The refrigerator didn't work half the time and the stove was...well it just took up space. The rent was $150 per month and even with that, I thought I was being overcharged. But it was HOME.

The temperature the day of the car dealership show peaked at 105 degrees. It was friggin hot. I waited for my match in the comfort of an air conditioned office. Damn, it felt good in there. Nice and cool. I could see fans lining up around the ring in the middle of the car lot to watch the matches. There were probably 200 ordinary looking people who apparently didn't have anything better to do on a Saturday afternoon than to stand around and pass out from heat exhaustion. Clearly, some of those fans possessed a death wish. There was clearly a difference between them and I. I had been forced to come here by that evil booker person, Tom. The fans, however, had voluntarily shown up. I used to think that just the wrestlers themselves were half nuts. Now I know that description now spilled over into the fans column.

At the time, I had never heard of a car dealership presenting a wrestling match as a sales gimmick. I remember seeing ferris wheels or FREE hot dogs to attract people but never a wrestling match. Of course, the car dealership presented the matches as a marketing tool to get potential car buyers on the lot in order to sell cars. Just looking at the bunch of fans that showed up, they didn't look like they could buy a coke.

But as I watched them through the showroom window, I couldn't determine who were the bigger idiots. The wrestlers who had agreed to wrestle in this friggin heat, such as me, or the fans who were actually standing out in the middle of a asphalt parking lot in the middle of the day sweating their asses off in 105 degree weather. This was crazy. Surely, the state legislature in Georgia had state laws prohibiting this type of sports activity. If they didn't, they should have. I kept waiting for the governor to issue a stay of execution but alas, the governor sat his fat ass in the air conditioned Governor's Mansion all day. Bastard.

The referee came and told me I was on first and that the match needed to go 10 minutes. 10 minutes? In this heat, I asked? But looking on the bright side of things, I only had to go out there once. The ref had to go out three times.

I was on first that day, as I usually was on almost every card I appeared on. The referee came and got me and told me it was time. Time for what I thought? Time to die from heat stroke? As I stepped outside, the heat hit me like a brick. WOW! It felt like 20 miles south of hell it was so HOT. It was like I'd just entered a sauna. Seriously, the heat was coming from two directions. The sun above and the heat rising from the asphalt parking lot below. But it was nothing like I would feel in a few moments.

I walked to the ring without music. Yes, fans, it was hard to do. I damn near couldn't do it. It's really hard to believe a wrestler can't make it 100 feet without music but in the early years, we had it tough. I actually had to suffer the indignity of approaching a ring without musical accompaniment. The bastards!!! It was humiliating.

It was eerily quiet as I made my way to the ring. Or it could have been that most of the crowd was overcome with f'n heat stroke and by this time, had been rendered incoherent at the time.

For the ones who could still talk, I could hear their individual comments as I made my way to ringside. I heard some redneck guy saying to his wife, "God damn, Helen, it's f'n hotter than hell out here. F this. Git the kids and let's f'n go."

For a split second, I actually wanted to leave with Helen but that was right before I saw Helen. She hit the scales at about a good 250 and the kids looked like they hadn't missed a meal in awhile. No thanks. I would suffer the heat. At least the heat would kill me quickly.

I stepped into the ring and I was already sweating. As they introduced me, there wasn't a lot of booing or anything. Hell, it was too hot to boo. I sweat a lot anyway but this was embarrassing. But sweating is nature's way of keeping you alive especially on days like this one and staying alive had kind of taken a priority with me since I had left the glorious vacation spot of Southeast Asia, Vietnam just a year earlier when I was employed by the US Army. I remember thinking that I made it through Nam just to die of heat stroke in a car lot in Atlanta.

I can't remember who I was wrestling that day. All I can remember is that he was an old timer who was much older than I was. I was about 22, in shape and could go all day. I wondered about this old timer having a heart attack in this heat. So I thought that I would just take it easy on him so that nothing would happen. As we locked up, the old time taught me firsthand why old age and treachery will defeat youth and ability any day. The first thing the geriatric bastard did was back heel me and take me down into a step over toe hold which, yes, you guessed it, put me flat on my back on the mat.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

If I had thought it was hot just walking to the ring in the 100 degree heat, I learned firsthand what HOT was. I hadn't even thought about the ring mat. Keep in mind that the ring had been sitting in the sun for probably close to 3 hours by this time with the hot Georgia sun heating it up. It was more than hot. It was scorching. If the air temperature was 105 degrees, the friggin mat had to be 130. I now know what bacon feels like being cooked for breakfast. All that we needed was a few eggs and some salsa and we could have us a Spanish omelet. I don't think I've ever experienced anything like that in my life.

The old timer was just playing around but he wanted me to know that our match would be completely a walk and talk. He didn't have to tell me twice. For the rest of the match, we both didn't even touch the mat.

I wish in those days, OSHA, the Occupational and Safety Hazard Agency had been in existence. The 100 degree heat and the mat temperature created a hazardous working condition that shouldn't have been allowed to happen. Seriously. But where is a government agency when you really need them?

My priority then was to not even come close to the mat. I had long forgotten about the old timer having a heart attack. Hell, he was on his own now. My concern now centered around me having a heart attack.

Since I never won a match in those days, you know, the old paying your dues thing, I knew that I would have to lay there, on that monstrously HOT ring mat, for a full three seconds, maybe more, while the wily old veteran pinned me. Think of the hottest beach sand that you've ever walked on and then add a little more heat to it. It was brutal.

Before the finish came, I told the ref to count fast. He counted faster but not as fast as I would have liked him to count. When my back hit that mat, I was in pain. When I heard the thud of the referee's three count slap the mat, I was gone. I bailed out of the ring as I ran literally, and I mean literally, back through the dealership showroom in search of any sink that dispensed water. I found a sink and doused water all over myself making a huge mess in the process. I didn't give a rats ass. I was on FIRE. When I looked in the mirror, I could actually see steam rising off my body.

I made a vow to myself right then and there that I would never work under conditions like that again. Screw that. I'm a professional. Never again I said to myself. They could fire me. I would quit. I would stand up to them. I'm not a dog. They wouldn't even be able to melt me and pour me into another situation like this. I didn't need this crap I thought.

Two weeks later, we wrestled in Savannah, Georgia and my good friend, Tom the Booker, came up to me. Tom had heard the story of my car dealership episode. Bookers back in those days knew more about you than you knew about yourself. Nonchalantly, he told me that he had booked me on another car dealership show for the following Saturday again. He waited for my response and then asked would I have a problem making the show? I looked back at him and remembering his earlier words to me like finding another place to work, I replied, no problem boss. Just tell me when, where and what time to be there. He was a very persuasive person. But to tell the truth, the weather had cooled off quite a bit by then. It had only been 98 that day.

True story.

Tags: Dutch Mantel, Tom Renesto, The Assassins